The mayor of Jackson, Miss. had a 'radical' vision for his city. The water crisis could put his agenda out of reach
of his city’s water system, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba gathers his advisers in a second-floor conference room at city hall. The state’s Republican Governor, Tate Reeves, had given a press conference the day before to announce that running water had been restored, though the city still remained under a boil-water order for the foreseeable future. He also used the opportunity to offer pointed words about the city’s Democratic administration.
The mayor tells his team he wants to stay positive. “I’m not going to take any shots,” he says. “We are going to address this question of us not having plans. I’m just going to demonstrate the various plans that we had.” His staff prepares a set of documents to be presented to the press later that day—among them a letter from Lumumba asking the governor for $47 million dollars for emergency infrastructure improvements in 2021, to which he says the governor never responded.
It had been a devastating week for Jackson. The city had already been under a boil-water notice for weeks due to water quality violations, a frequent occurrence in Mississippi’s capital, forcing restaurants and other businesses to close, and residents to rely on bottled water for bathing and brushing their teeth. On Aug. 29, the city’s water shut off completely after flooding on Mississippi’s Pearl River overwhelmed the critically short-staffed primary water-treatment plant.
Pallets of bottled water sit ready for distribution at an abandoned mall in Jackson, Mississippi on Sep. 5, 2022.Schools moved to remote learning for a week and hours-long lines formed at water-distribution centers organized by the city and the state. Some residents traveled to the suburbs, which have separate water systems, just to shower.
Lumumba was out and about during the water shut off, meeting volunteers and giving frequent press conferences to update citizens on the state of the water supply. He’s haunted by the suffering he’s seen: “The faces of the people who just don’t have water, the people who meet me in a grocery store or any place that I could be going publicly within the city,” he says.As a leader, Lumumba projects authority, calm, and easy confidence. But the 39-year-old mayor might be in trouble.
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