One-on-one interview with Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba
With the April 1 primary approaching, Jackson’s mayor lays out his goals for the city’s future—and defends his record.
JYN student reporter Dion Craft interviews Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumuma Feb. 25 at a JXN People’s Assembly event. Photo by JYN
By Dion Craft
With Jackson’s municipal primaries approaching on April 1 and Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba facing a crowded field of challengers as he seeks a third term, the race for City Hall is gaining urgency and attention.
As a student journalist and a lifelong Jackson resident, I have always wanted to interview people in power. At a JXN People’s Assembly event Feb. 25, I got my chance. I spoke with Lumumba about the most pressing issues facing our city. We discussed Jackson’s economic and educational challenges, infrastructure issues, his long-term development goals and the needs of young people. The mayor also talked about school funding, crime reduction and how he plans to support underserved communities if re-elected.
This conversation comes amid serious allegations: late last year, Lumumba was indicted on federal bribery charges tied to a city contract. He has denied the charges and vowed to continue his campaign, emphasizing his record in office and the work still left to do.
I may not be old enough to vote yet, but as residents prepare to head to the polls, this interview offers an important opportunity to hear directly from the mayor about his accomplishments, his vision and how he hopes to earn the public’s trust once again.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity below. The audio version is unedited.
Dion: Mr. Lumumba, my first question for you is what are some of your best accomplishments as mayor?
Mayor Lumumba: One of the first battles that we were victorious and successful in was saving our school district from state takeover — a situation that would have limited opportunities for young people, diminished their school experience, and even affected their education. We not only took the opportunity to engage state leadership, the governor at that time, and make our case, but we were able to do so convincingly and incorporate the community itself. We knocked on 60,000 doors, and I think the fruit of that work is being seen now. We have a school district that is currently at a C and was only mere points away from a B [on the state report card].
We're proud of recouping money — $90 million from bad business contractors that didn't value our city, didn't value the people of Jackson, and, more recently, recovering nearly a billion dollars for our water infrastructure. When we think about water insecurity, it's more than just the inconvenience of not having water. It's also health care. It's parents who have to make alternative decisions over child care because a school may be shuttered for a day. It's people who work in a service industry who may have to cut back on the hours and may have to find alternative means to putting food on the table, and it's the dehumanizing effect of people having to sit in water lines and beg for what they already deserve. And so that was an important fight for us.
We've invested more in infrastructure than any administration in our city's history. But we still see the roads, right? And so there's still more work to do. We've been able to bring crime down in all categories — overall crime over the last three consecutive years, and we're seeing similar trends this year.
Context: (1) Jackson Public Schools did avoid a state takeover in 2017 as part of a deal that included significant support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. (2) While the city’s violent crime numbers have ticked down the past few years in line with national trends, crime remains a serious issue in Jackson, which, in 2024, had among the highest homicide rates in the nation.
Dion: You mentioned schools earlier. When it comes to the funding issues with public schools, is there any way that you can fix that? And if there is, do you already have a plan set in place?
Mayor Lumumba: The direct funding questions that take place are really dealt with on a day-to-day basis by the school board and the superintendent. But what we do know is that we have new threats to our school district. Not only have we had a loss of population, but the creation of charter schools actually takes funding away from Jackson Public Schools. And so they're in a constant state of trying to balance their operations in order to be able to fund the education.
Now, education is primarily funded through federal resources that come through the state. I know that a sore point for residents has been the closing of many of our schools, and while we know that we certainly don't want abandoned buildings, we certainly value what schools bring within our communities, the reality is that these tough decisions have to be made in order to be able to provide quality education and not find ourselves in the same position that we were in previously with our school district.
Now, opportunities that exist is that our school district actually owns land that could be developed. The contracts and the revenue that is produced on that land, such as Lake Hico, could potentially be returned back to our school district. And so, we have to engage in a collective process where not only the school district can imagine opportunities, but the community that lives near and around that former lake can identify what best suits their needs and opportunity.
Fact check: Public education is funded primarily by local and state tax dollars. Federal funding accounts for approximately 15-20% of the Jackson Public Schools’ budget.
Dion: You've been our mayor now for eight years. What are some of your long-term goals when it comes to life in Jackson and helping the people of Jackson?
Mayor Lumumba: One of my things that, I think, really is a disservice to people, is when we merely admire our problems. When people come and say, “Hey, your roads are bad, and you got crime and you need economic development.” And they talk about, you know, “I'm going to get that done,” but they have no programmatic solutions to it. I think we have to talk about the details of how we are going to accomplish these things.
When I talk about roads, I talk about how we leverage the 1% sales tax to pave roads. When I talk about flood mitigation, I talk about how we use our internet sales tax and leverage that to deal with the flooding that takes place in places like the Queens and Presidential Hills and Lynch Creek and areas of South Jackson. So that is critically important, as well as the money that we got from the federal government to deal with our water insecurity.
Another thing that is important to me is, how do we invest in those communities that have been most divested in? We've seen economic development in Belhaven and Fondren and downtown, and the reality is that an administration doesn't have to put much attention to those things because those areas are considered investor-ready. It is the areas that banks are less likely to lend towards that we have to employ creative solutions.
One of the things that we have just launched that I'm excited about is a revolving loan fund through the Jackson Redevelopment Authority, where, when we have developers that come and talk about projects that they want to bring within community, the city can now act as the bank, of sorts, so that we can invest in ourselves. What that does is bring pride and love and convenience back in community, along with creating creative businesses like worker-owned cooperatives, where we not only dictate how we'll work but what the fruit of our labor will be. That puts other private enterprises in a pressure position where they know that it's dangerous not to invest in Jackson. It's dangerous to simply invest outside of Jackson. And so I think we have to have this strategic plan of how we're going to do this.
Dion: If you are re-elected as mayor, what are some things that we can look forward to as far as making sure that Jackson is not only a safe space for youth but a fun environment for us? If you notice, there aren't a lot of places for us to go here. You usually have to go to Madison and Pearl and other places to find entertainment. So, what can we look forward to as far as that?
Mayor Lumumba: I believe that we have a generation of young people that no longer want to be dictated what to do or to be driven in the car. They want the keys themselves, right? And so just as I engage with homeowners and people in neighborhood associations, you can expect my re-engagement with young people and the creation of what at that time we called the “Mayor and the Millennials.” We got to rename it, right? Because our young people are no longer millennials. But it's an opportunity to hear and learn and invest based on what we learn from you. That's important, not only for your experience and your love and passion for the city, but it's important so that we get you to maintain in the city and that we don't have the brain drain that we've seen.
You know, Jackson is actually a college town where we have Jackson State, Belhaven, Millsaps, Tougaloo, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Hinds Community College and Mississippi College School of Law. We are actually training the best and the brightest. But our greatest exports — because of the lack of businesses — are our money and our talent. So, the best way to determine what we invest in is to work with young people and get their understanding.
When we met with the millennials, we learned that young people don't have the same value of owning a car as previous generations. When I was growing up, I couldn't wait to get my license. Now, you have ride-sharing. You have young people who ride in scooters or ride bikes and do all kinds of things, and they like walkable cities. And so we tried to do parklets that made people embrace walking downtown more. We learned that they like public art, and so that's when we had the Welcome to Jackson sign painted. And people come by there each and every day.
By taking that knowledge and making strategic efforts within our planning development for how we build a city for you and turn our city into a classroom, we not only take knowledge and build from that but give you an opportunity to be a part of the work that is going on, not for the future, but today. So, you can get your hands dirty and be a part of what we're building right now.
Context: The term millennials is used to describe people who are 29-44 years old. The Welcome to Jackson mural was unveiled in November 2017. The parklets pilot project took place in 2018 and is not considered to be a wide-scale initiative.
