Mississippi has the largest population of Black Americans of any state in the US, with a civil rights history central to the nation’s story. On 14 March, Republican Governor Tate Reeves signed a bill into law that would ban classroom lessons that he says are used to “humiliate” white students who are “force-fed an unhealthy dose of progressive fundamentalism that runs counter to the principles of America’s founding.” Senate Bill 2113 – which includes “critical race theory” in its title but does not define or describe it – prohibits schools from teaching or affirming that “any sex, race, ethnicity, religion or national origin is inherently superior or inferior.” But Republican state legislators have argued that schools should not teach students about the enduring impacts of enslavement and racism, none of which is in the bill, and have struggled to define the phrase in the bill’s title.

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