All results / Stories / Donna Ladd
Good Ideas: Girl Power
If we continue to tell girls that it's not acceptable to be bossy, we are setting them up for failure. We are telling them it is not their place to lead. So they step back.
Protect the Innocent: End the Death Penalty
Michelle Byrom is a textbook case of what is wrong with the state executions in Mississippi and the rest of the nation.
Miss. Supreme Court Reverses Michelle Byrom's Conviction, Delays Second Execution
The Mississippi Supreme Court today reversed the capital conviction of Michelle Byrom and ordered a new trial with a different circuit judge.
Big, Bad Chef of the Week
We must believe in our own power—to change hateful laws and to vote out every single person who tries to keep us mired in a Jim Crow-type world. Stand up, Mississippi. We are better than this. Let's prove it.
As Shepard Lay Dying
Local theater man John Maxwell could not have known when he decided to stage "The Laramie Project" in downtown Jackson at Galloway Methodist Church just how impeccable his timing would turn out to be.
Mayoral Campaigns, PACs Spending Big on Ads, Some Secretly
With two young candidates who are relatively unknown to big parts of Jackson, the airwaves were expected to be a major battleground in the capital city's mayor's race.
Following the Money: More Shadowy Mayoral Backers Come to Light
Over the weekend, an unregistered political-action committee, Citizens for Decency, launched an all-out blitz with negative ads against Ward 6 Councilman Tony Yarber.
Discrimination Isn’t ‘Religious Freedom’
You do not have religious freedom if every single American doesn't have it, too, including those you believe are heathens and sinners.
Loving Beyond Fear
The twisting of religion to promote and excuse hate, separation and violence over love, togetherness and safety turned me off from organized faith for a long time, and I still don't quite trust churches enough to attend any particular one regularly.
Setting Up Women for Failure ... or Success
Too many people are still in denial about the way our culture treats even successful and educated women differently. So it makes a lot of sense that poor and less-educated women become the real dumping grounds for societal blame.
Adria Walker
I am writing to enthusiastically support Adria Walker for the honor of MSPA Journalist of the Year. I have never worked with a high-school journalist who deserves such an honor more than Adria.
Find Your Voice, Girl!
Many men don't like it when we speak up and talk back. Some will go to great lengths to silence our voices, and too often that gets sexual or physical quickly online.
Advice to a Young Woman
To thine own self be true. Be honest even when it feels hard. Represent yourself with confidence and dignity and never lose sight of what impact those two things, honesty and dignity, will have on your life.
David Rae Morris
In the time I've known him, David Rae Morris has turned himself into an accomplished filmmaker who makes places and people in our state come alive in a way I know his father would have cherished.
Creating Better People
It's hard to watch a grown man cry. It's even harder to see a distinguished judge break down in front of an audience decades after a white teacher lied about his actions and got him more than 20 hard licks from his principal.
Nothing Personal, Walmart, But Local Is Better
We don't mean to brag, but the Jackson Free Press has long been a proponent of the concept of shopping local first starting nearly 13 years ago when we published the words "Think Global, Shop Local" on the cover of our second issue.
Driving Old Dixie Down
It is long past time to declare independence from a "lost cause" that wasn't worth fighting for and from those who insist on keeping us stuck there. Mississippi now is better than our past, and our people and the world around us deserve to know that.
Of Bill Cosby, Frank Melton and Public Moralizing
You'd think that Bill Cosby's targets would have had more power than Frank Melton's troubled "boys," as he called them, but women of any race have never had credibility when it comes to being raped.
My Advice for Mississippi Politicians
Being inspired is pretty much the same whether you're trying to decide who to elect or to stay excited about your career.
Swift Kicks in the Game of Life
Sometimes we need a swift (verbal) kick to tell us we need to step up our game. Whether it's football or media, we have to work hard, really hard to be good.