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Chokwe Antar Lumumba, Democratic mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, promised to make the capital “the most radical city on the planet” during his 2017 campaign, but so far he’s been unable to even solve even the city’s basic infrastructure problems and the city’s running water is now unsafe to drink.
He campaigned on plans to introduce universal basic income and alternatives to policing, to replace vacant lots with urban farms, and resolve chronic issues with the city’s water and roads in order to break the “cycles of humiliation” he said black residents experienced in Jackson, the most heavily black large city in the U.S. Instead, the city’s water problems have worsened, and Republican Gov. Tate Reeves declared a state of emergency Tuesday because running water is not reliably available nor safe for consumption.