Editor’s note: This essay is part of Mississippi Today Ideas, a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share fact-based ideas about our state’s past, present and future. You can read more about the section here.
With graduation season upon us, I can’t help but be proud of the next generation of leaders. Each cap and gown represents not just an achievement, but a hope for the future and for a better Mississippi.
But graduation season has been overshadowed when I read about the freeze of $137 million in federal funds promised to Mississippi schools. My mind drifts to the death of Harvey Montrell Johnson Jr. It may not be easy to see the connection between the shooting of a 15-year-old and a school budget cut, but for me — as a district attorney for nearly a decade — the consequences are painfully personal.
A cut in school funding isn’t just a line in a report. It means fewer resources, fewer safeguards and more young lives at risk. Lives like Harvey’s.
Harvey was caught in a battle between the streets and the schools—and the streets won. One Sunday afternoon in Columbus in 2022, he found himself with a man nearly 15 years older than him, Tommy Flowers Jr. They were drinking and using drugs together until Tommy decided to settle a score. He took Harvey along, handed him a Taurus 9mm and had him fire round after round at a house where he had a beef with the occupants.
What Tommy failed to prepare Harvey for was that the young men in that house were armed too — “Second Amendment ready,” as people like to say. One of them had an AR-style rifle and returned fire so quickly and heavily that it didn’t take long before Harvey was hit and killed.
During the trial, my focus was on holding Mr. Flowers accountable for leading Harvey to his death. The idea that a nearly 30-year-old man would get a teenager drunk and high, arm him with a gun and take him to attack a home he knew was likely to respond with bullets so enraged me that it was difficult to think about anything else. The jury agreed. I moved on to the next case. In my work, there is no finish line.
But when I read about the freeze in federal education funding, the Harvey case came rushing back–not just the facts, but the warning it carries.
What $137 million can do for Mississippi’s schools is not hypothetical. It’s real support: school counselors who notice when a student starts slipping; after-school programs that keep kids safe until their parents are home; mentors, mental health staff and trained resource officers who de-escalate conflict instead of inflaming it. It’s guidance and structure that can help a 15-year-old imagine a future that doesn’t involve a gun.
According to Mississippi Today, about 70 school districts across the state are set to lose these desperately needed funds. The Jackson Public Schools District alone stands to lose $4.5 million. Of that, $3.62 million was set aside for urgently needed construction, and nearly $1 million was planned for instructional support. Other districts had allocated their money toward literacy programs, math tutoring, mental health services and classroom technology. That money was already budgeted—already spoken for.
The shooting that ended Harvey’s life happened on a Sunday. But the choices that led to it happened every day before that — in classrooms without enough adults to care, in neighborhoods without safe places to gather, in homes stretched too thin to fill the gaps.
If we care about liberty, if we care about life, we must care about what our schools can actually provide.
This funding freeze isn’t just a bureaucratic decision. It’s a threat to the only institutions standing between some of our most vulnerable kids and a world full of people like Tommy Flowers who see them as disposable. We may never know exactly what could have saved Harvey, but we know what didn’t: indifference, underfunding and too many missed chances.
As we celebrate graduation achievements, we must remember that the next generation deserves the opportunity to succeed. The next Harvey is already out there. We still have time to save him — but only if we give our schools what they need to reach him first. We owe that to him. We owe it to our next generation of leaders.
Scott Colom is the district attorney of the 16th Circuit Court of Mississippi, representing Lowndes, Oktibbeha, Clay and Noxubee counties. First elected in 2015, his office has achieved over a 90% conviction rate.
