Police finally caught Samuel Little, the most prolific serial killer in American history, but the cops didn’t know it. They thought they had a guy who had beaten and raped two women. This was back in the ’80s before crack and during the Reagan administration. Hilda Nelson and Leila McClain, both Black sex workers living in the podunk town of Pascagoula, Mississippi, were lucky to be alive. This was still early in his killing spree. In total, Little is believed to have killed some 93 women, at least 68 of them Black. Nelson and McClain had seen the face of death and made it out.
When it came time to testify against the monster that almost took her life, Nelson, who was eight months pregnant at the time, was so scared that she took the stand and urinated on herself. She was released from her subpoena, and McClain knew then what she had to do. She grabbed Nelson’s hand and they left together without testifying.
“When they told [Hilda] to go, I left with her because I felt like they wasn’t going to do nothing, no way,” McClain said, according to court documents.
When asked why McClain didn’t go to police shortly after Little attacked her — an attack so vicious that she ran across four lanes of traffic just trying to get away — she said: “Ain’t nobody cared until that white girl turned up dead a year later. Didn’t nobody care about a Black prostitute in Mississippi. No, ma’am, they didn’t.”
The capital of the same state is in the midst of a tragedy that doesn’t seem terribly connected. But, oh, it is.
Jackson, Mississippi, didn’t have to be here. It didn’t have to go days without safe drinking water, or even enough water to flush toilets. It didn’t have to go without air conditioning in medical centers. It didn’t have to go days worried that, if a fire broke out in Jackson — both the largest city and the capital of Mississippi — firefighters wouldn’t have water to put it out. The entire city of Jackson didn’t have to be under several boil water advisories. If only someone had done something — but it’s hard to care about a city that many legislators forgot.
Jackson residents that have water have been told to shower with their mouths closed.
“On the surface, the apparent cause of this crisis is damaged infrastructure: Recent flooding strained the city’s largest water treatment plant, O.B. Curtis, which was already dogged with problems,” Vox reported last week. “Plus, there was another issue with water pumps at a secondary treatment facility known as J.H. Fewell. As a result, many of the city’s water towers remain nearly empty, leaving the system without enough water or water pressure to fill pipes in homes, schools, and businesses.”
Though Mississippi’s governor says water pressure has returned in the city, its struggles with water are far from over.
More than 80% of Jackson’s residents are Black. One out every three people in the city lives in poverty. For years, Jackson residents have been struggling, and so has their water system. Everyone knew this. The residents knew this. The state government knew this. But Jackson’s water crisis is what happens when a largely Black city, which also happens to be largely Democratic, needs funding from a Republican-controlled legislature. Jackson is what happens when people ignore those who need their help. Jackson’s failure to fix what has been a problem for years falls squarely on the shoulders of people who don’t care. That’s not hyperbolic. The state government of Mississippi didn’t care about the people of Jackson. For more than 50 years, Jackson’s safe water access has been barely holding on.
