Culture
The Strange Case of a Black Mayor's 75% Pay Cut in Mississippi
In Pelahatchie, a small Mississippi city, the town’s first black mayor struggles to exert control.
In June of 2017, Ryshonda Harper Beechem, 38, became the first black mayor of Pelahatchie, Mississippi, a small town just over 25 miles east of the state’s capital city, Jackson. She is also the first black mayor in the entire surrounding majority-white county.
In a no-runoff election with a turnout of 442 people in a town of about 1,300, Beechem won with a slim 12-vote margin, beating out the two other white women candidates.