Commentary: The Freedom Bench – Has justice been served in the 74% African American Town of Mt. Olive or are we still waiting?

By Christopher Young,
Contributing Writer,

On Main Street – what locals call “The Boulevard” – in Mt Olive, Mississippi, there is a decorative display of chairs in front of a long vacant building. Chairs decorated by a long list of Chair Artists – community members and businesses – working with the Town of Mt. Olive’s City Beautiful initiative. Each chair has a different theme relating to Spring; graduation, cold drinks, Penelope Potts (assembled with flowerpots), beach gear, the Patriotic Uncle Sam, and flowers of all types and colors. Once you spot the display, it draws you in. It’s charming, beautiful, and demonstrates real effort on the part of so many.

Directly across the street, outside The Railroad Grill, things are much different – truth and the sacrifice for justice – are embodied at The Freedom Bench. Displayed behind the bench are photographs of Vernon Dahmer, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers, Rosa Parks, Schwerner-Chaney-Goodman, Robert F. Kennedy’s visit to the Mississippi Delta in 1967, and the Ocoee Massacre – where on election day in Ocoee, Florida, in 1920, when one African American man, Mose Norman, attempted to vote, he was denied then assaulted, then fled, triggering am armed white mob that burned the Black community and murdered at least fifty African Americans.

On the backrest of The Freedom Bench are copies of documents relating to the June 3, 2025, election in Mt. Olive, where the white incumbent Mayor James Kelly lost by two votes (120-118) to African American Alderwoman Marcia Craft Hull on election day, but was declared the winner after the 58 absentee ballots were added to the totals. Suspiciously, 88 percent of absentee votes went to Kelly in the 74 percent African American town.

Hull challenged the election results. How often does that happen? How many times have African Americans challenged election results in Mississippi; with its numbing history of white supremacy? She focused on a lengthy list of irregularities, and the case was heard at the Covington County Circuit Courthouse November 25th and 26th and December 1, 2025, by Senior Status Judge Lamar Pickard. Counsel was given a deadline of December 15, 2025, to provide the court with any additional information. Pickard’s six-page Final Order was dated January 20, 2026, dismissing Hull’s case with prejudice and adjudging that James Kelly is the duly elected Mayor of Mt. Olive.

Hull’s counsel, Scherrie L. Prince, has appealed the decision to the Supreme Court of Mississippi. A Hearing date has not yet been set.

Back to those documents affixed to the backrest of The Freedom Bench – they demonstrate that all of the Black candidates outperformed the White candidates on election day. Yet on the absentee ballots, the White candidates, James Kelly (Mayor) and Perry Murphy (Alderman) outperformed the Black candidates, Marcia Hull (Mayor) and Willie Dampier (Alderman). A portion of the bench trial transcript highlights that Town Clerk, Breyon Magee, admitted photocopying voted absentee ballots on election night. There is also a portion of the transcript with her admission that the absentee voter list disappeared on the last day of absentee voting (May 31, 2025) and so she made it up from memory.

At that trial there was evidence that ballots had been comingled, that ballots were received through U.S. Mail without a postmark, that ballots were photocopied, that some ballots had no signature. There was a reported ransomware attack one hour before absentee voting closed. Just imagine, a town with an estimated 895 residents, getting a ransomware attack on its City Hall computers. Was it a coincidence it happened when it did? Yet, there was no evidence of any ransom demand. There was evidence that the previous election for Mayor had two absentee ballots. What would cause the Clerk to order 75 this time around? What changed so drastically in four years that 58 absentee ballots were cast in 2025, but only 2 in 2021?

When Marcia Hull, the owner of The Railroad Grill and other businesses in Mt. Olive, was approached by the City Beautiful folks and asked if she wanted to participate in the chair displays, she decided that instead of Spring blossoms, she would stick with the truth, with her already existing bench. “All these people (gesturing to the Civil Rights icons) were trying to achieve justice, and especially the right to register, vote, and have their vote counted and recorded legally. Most of them were killed because of their efforts. My purpose in doing this is to remind people that we had our people die so we could have the right to vote. Now we’re going to run around and disrespect them by cheating? That’s unacceptable. Despite Judge Pickard’s ruling, this town has not moved on from that election, and now more and more people are aware of what really happened. They have been exposed now. We know this is Mississippi.”

Driving back to Jackson after visiting The Freedom Bench Saturday, April 25, 2026, there was one simple question lingering. What has to happen for a Judge to order a new election? Despite all the irregularities listed above, questions if all the ballots were legal, questions as to whether the will of the people was held sacrosanct, Judge Pickard ruled that there was no evidence of fraud or intentional wrongdoing in the election. We’ll have to wait to see if the Supreme Court of Mississippi agrees.