Bridget Smith Pieschel
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bpieschel.bsky.social
Bridget Smith Pieschel
@bpieschel.bsky.social
Professor Emerita of English and Women’s Studies. Graduate of Mississippi University for Women. Mississippi Democrat. Mother of five; grandmother of five. Fan of history based on primary documents.
Reposted by Bridget Smith Pieschel
NEWS: The Institute of Museum & Library Services has restored ALL previously canceled federal grants to libraries, following a ruling by a federal judge in Rhode Island last month.

This is a massive win for libraries & communities in every state & territory!

Learn more: www.ala.org/news/2025/12...
December 3, 2025 at 10:18 PM
Today’s soup made from the turkey stock frozen on Thanksgiving Day. A++
December 3, 2025 at 10:59 PM
Reposted by Bridget Smith Pieschel
Thank you for an amazing #GivingNewsDay with a steady roll of doubled donations all day yesterday! The next $5,000 in donations starting today are TRIPLED! 💜🎄🥂
Our next match is unlocked! Your support goes 3X as far. That means your $100 gift becomes $300. Thanks to B.R. Hawkins, Beverley Coleman and the Philanthropic Access Partner Fund, we have a fresh $5,000 triple match. Will you consider donating to our 501(c)(3) today? givebutter.com/mfpdonate
December 3, 2025 at 1:24 PM
Reposted by Bridget Smith Pieschel
📚 🦸🏻‍♀️RUTHERFORD COUNTY — “Go and thank your librarian. Absolute heroes.”

Library director Luanne James gets thunderous applause for bravely blowing the whistle on library board director Cody York, the latest front in the right-wing war on books in Tennessee.

Full: www.threads.com/@thetnholler...
December 3, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Y’all, this thread melts my retired English teacher heart. 😂😂😂
“Have Yourself A Merriam Little Christmas”

Merriam, a career-oriented lexicographer from the city, returns to her small town for the holidays and meets Webster, a ruggedly handsome librarian, who shows her the true DEFINITION of Christmas.
December 3, 2025 at 8:53 PM
Reposted by Bridget Smith Pieschel
The Greenwood 2 Solutions Circle last night in Mississippi Delta was intense, honest and solutions-driven. Gun violence, in particular, is a very serious issue there, even by Mississippi’s low gun-loving standards, with few real organized solutions. The community wants to organize to change that.
December 3, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Reposted by Bridget Smith Pieschel
Tonight, we did something everyone counted out. We proved to a nation that states like Tennessee are still worth fighting for. The margin was close, and that can only be attributed to the thousands of volunteers who showed out. This is just the beginning.
December 3, 2025 at 3:46 AM
Reposted by Bridget Smith Pieschel
Alabama officials cut off funding for a public library that refused to bar access to the "The Handmaid's Tale" and other books they deemed sexually explicit to anyone under 18.

Thankfully, @everylibrary.bsky.social has stepped up to provide funding to allow the library to remain open for now.
Fairhope Public Library accepts donations to cover withheld state…
The Fairhope Public Library was presented with over $42,000 in donations from EveryLibrary during its regular meeting Monday. The funds were raised after…
1819news.com
December 3, 2025 at 6:04 PM
Reposted by Bridget Smith Pieschel
An incredible takedown of AMERICAN CANTO by @scaachi.bsky.social slate.com/culture/2025...
Olivia Nuzzi’s Much-Hyped Book Was Always Going to Be Self-Serving. It’s So Much Worse Than That.
God, everyone sucks so much in American Canto.
slate.com
December 3, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Reposted by Bridget Smith Pieschel
Kamesha Mumford will be the new senator for Mississippi Senate District 26 after a special election runoff on Tuesday. Though the special election was nonpartisan, she is expected to serve as a Democrat in the Senate.

John Horhn, who is now the mayor of Jackson, had held the seat for 32 years.
Kamesha Mumford Wins Mississippi Senate District 26 Runoff, Filling Seat John Horhn Vacated
Kamesha Mumford, a municipal court judge, won the Mississippi Senate District 26 special runoff election in Hinds and Madison counties.
www.mississippifreepress.org
December 3, 2025 at 3:23 AM
Reposted by Bridget Smith Pieschel
The Guatemalan brothers — both longtime Memphians — are known in national Pentecostal Christian circles as well-traveled worship singers, performing at churches from New York to Florida. Read more here👇
Christian singers caught in deportation net, one branded ‘worst of worst’
Delmar Gomez (left) and Eber Gomez. (Courtesy of Gomez family) This story was originally published by The Institute for Public Service Reporting.  On the night of Oct. 8, a man named Delmar Go…
mlk50.co
December 2, 2025 at 11:01 PM
Reposted by Bridget Smith Pieschel
True. Van Epps has shifted his event tomorrow from Pucketts to a right wing billionaire’s mansion in Franklin to avoid any protests on the eve of the election.

Says it all, really. #TN7
December 1, 2025 at 3:40 AM
Reposted by Bridget Smith Pieschel
VOTE FOR THE CANDIDATE THAT WILL WORK TO EARN YOUR VOTE

Tomorrow is election day, TN-7, and I'm humbly asking for your vote. I promise to be accessible and only beholden to the voters of the district, never donors or special interests. Polls open at 7 AM & close at 7 PM. Let's go out and win this!
December 1, 2025 at 11:49 PM
In Columbus, Mississippi, our group protested at noon on Black Friday. Of course, we protest every Friday at noon.
December 2, 2025 at 2:15 AM
Reposted by Bridget Smith Pieschel
This World AIDS Day, we remember the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers lost to HIV and AIDS, and those living with HIV today. We must remind ourselves and each other that the fight isn’t over until the epidemic is over for everyone.
December 2, 2025 at 12:55 AM
Reposted by Bridget Smith Pieschel
A man has pleaded guilty to the murder of Jay Lee, a gay University of Mississippi student who went missing in 2022.

Timothy Herrington pleaded guilty to second degree murder just as he was sent to go on trial a second time.

Prosecutors alleged he murdered Lee to conceal a sexual relationship.
Herrington Pleads Guilty to Murder of Jay Lee, UM Student Who Went Missing in 2022
Timothy Herrington, Jr., pleaded guilty to the murder of University of Mississippi student Jimmie “Jay” Lee.
www.mississippifreepress.org
December 1, 2025 at 8:33 PM
Reposted by Bridget Smith Pieschel
Reserve your seat for 6 pm Tuesday Dec. 2 at the Mississippi Public Broadcasting auditorium for an early screening of Eyes on Mississippi, tracking the state’s civil rights timeline through the experience of journalist Bill Minor. Broadcast 7:30 Thursday Dec. 4 on MPB
December 1, 2025 at 3:01 AM
December 1, 2025 at 3:09 AM
Reposted by Bridget Smith Pieschel
Measles is often the 1st disease when vaccination rates overall drop.
"When we see measles cases, it signals that gaps are almost likely for other vaccine-preventable diseases like diphtheria or polio, even though they may not be setting off the fire alarm just yet"
www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...
Surging measles cases are 'fire alarm' warning that other diseases could be next
As measles cases continue to rise around the globe, the World Health Organization warns it's a signal that other disease outbreaks could soon follow.
www.nbcnews.com
November 29, 2025 at 4:51 AM
Reposted by Bridget Smith Pieschel
Definitely have to share one of the most iconic Thanksgiving Day reenactments today. Grab those cardigans and highballs and enjoy! 🦃 🍁 🪶🔥🍽️
Addams Family Values: Thanksgiving play (HD CLIP)
YouTube video by Binge Society
youtu.be
November 27, 2025 at 4:47 PM
We have a baby visiting for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. Some young friends loaned us a high chair . Isn’t this the cutest thing you’ve ever seen? It has kitty ears! 😻
November 26, 2025 at 11:53 PM
Reposted by Bridget Smith Pieschel
Despite the horrors Viola Fletcher experienced in her childhood, she never gave up on her belief in our nation, that everyone deserves justice. Our country has lost a hero, my prayers are with her family.
Oldest living survivor of Tulsa Race Massacre dies at 111 years old | CNN
Viola Ford Fletcher, the oldest living survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre, died at 111 years old Monday, her grandson Ike Howard told CNN.
www.cnn.com
November 25, 2025 at 8:26 PM
Reposted by Bridget Smith Pieschel
This story deserves good writing. Here is it from reporter Jaylin Smith, our reporter who grew up nearby in the Delta.
“Seventy years ago, Mamie Till said, ‘Let them see.’ And today, with the preservation of the barn by the Emmett Till Interpretive Center, the world will see,” Shonda Rhimes said in a statement that the Emmett Till Interpretive Center given to the Mississippi Free Press on Nov. 24.

buff.ly/oZzF9on
Barn Where White Men Murdered Emmett Till to Be Preserved as a ‘Reverent, Sacred Site’
The barn in Drew, Miss., where two white men murdered 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955 will be preserved as a “sacred site.”
www.mississippifreepress.org
November 25, 2025 at 8:07 PM
Reposted by Bridget Smith Pieschel
BREAKING: Comey case dismissed without prejudice. Halligan invalidly appointed, judge rules. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
November 24, 2025 at 5:36 PM
Reposted by Bridget Smith Pieschel
“At 7, she bore witness to one of American history’s most violent spasms of racial violence. She was 106 when the nation reckoned with the crime.”
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/24/u...
Viola Fletcher, Oldest Survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre, Dies at 111
www.nytimes.com
November 25, 2025 at 4:33 AM