History
The Mississippi Project was founded in 1994. That year, a group of CUNY Law students led by Jaribu Hill, Desiree Hopkins, Camille Massey, and Bob Rose, rented three identical vans bearing New York plates for a journey to the Mississippi Delta.
They went to Project Voice in coastal Biloxi, MS, where they were hosted by former prison guard and whistleblower Andrea Gibbs. They also visited people's lawyer Chokwe Lumumba's practice in Jackson, Mississippi to investigate the suspicious jailhouse hanging of Andre Jones, one of almost fifty men, 24 of them African American, who in had died in Mississippi jails under similar circumstances. And they went to the Center for Constitutional Rights in Greenville, Mississippi to investigate allegations of the outright denial of voting rights to African American residents that had reportedly continued into the early 1990s. After she graduated from CUNY Law, Jaribu Hill, one of the Project founders, settled in Greenville and established the Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights. Carrying on the spirit and the mission of the Project, each year, CUNY Law students spend their winter break working in Mississippi and Louisiana in a variety of ways. The Project gives law students the opportunity to gain experience and provides legal assistance to underrepresented populations in the South. The Mississippi Project is committed to increasing justice in the Delta. |
Watch Mississippi Project co-founder Jaribu Hill speak about the history of the project: