(6 May 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Vicksburg, Mississippi – 2 May 2025
1. AmeriCorps sign
2. AmeriCorps sign from distance
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Mayor George Flaggs, Vicksburg:
"But let’s get this program back to work and let’s get it back to work quick."
4. City of Vicksburg seal
5. Mayor George Flaggs sign
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Mayor George Flaggs, Vicksburg:
"It’s devastating. It’s devastating to know that such an impactful organization or project would be dismantled."
7. American flag
8. AmeriCorps sign
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Mayor George Flaggs, Vicksburg:
"I’m fighting with every breath of my body to bring them back because the fact is necessary. It is needed."
10. Sign reading "Classics in the Courtyard"
11. Man singing blues
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Stacey Mahoney, Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation executive director:
"Part of our mission is to be a cultural center to our community."
13. Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation sign
14. Event posters
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Stacey Mahoney, Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation executive director:
"We love AmeriCorps. They have been — I’ve been in this position 11 years. and they have been involved with the cultural center since before I was here."
16. Man carrying chairs
17. People cleaning up after event
18.SOUNDBITE (English) Stacey Mahoney, Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation executive director:
"And they can get things done and knocked out that we don’t have the manpower to do. So especially for an outside event, you know, getting tables from inside to out setting up."
19. Crowd watches blues band
20. Man plays guitar
21. SOUNDBITE (English) Stacey Mahoney, Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation executive director:
"What will you do with with this event when you don’t have AmeriCorps to help?"
22. Man watches band
23. SOUNDBITE (English) Jack Burns, lives in Vicksburg:
"We love those kids. We miss them. We wish they’d come back. But, you know, wishes are like horses: if every, if we all got what we wished for, we’d all be riding, right?"
24. Woman and kids sit in courtyard
25. Blues singer speaks to crowd
STORYLINE:
A Mississippi mayor is asking the Trump administration to reserve course after cuts gutted the city’s AmeriCorps campus.
"It’s devastating. It’s devastating to know that such an impactful organization or project would be dismantled," Vicksburg, Mississippi Mayor George Flaggs said.
The Vicksburg campus was home 351 AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps members. On April 15, NCCC told volunteers they would exit the program early “due to programmatic circumstances beyond your control,” according to an email obtained by The Associated Press.
The unsigned memo to corps members said NCCC’s “ability to sustain program operations” was impacted by the Trump administration’s priorities and President Donald Trump’s executive order creating the Department of Government Efficiency. Members would be officially dismissed April 30.
"I’m fighting with every breath of my body to bring them back," Flaggs said. "Let’s get this program back to work and let’s get it back to work quick."
Shortly after the cuts were announced, Flaggs sent a letter to Mississippi’s congressional delegation urging for the program’s reinstatement. He said he has received responses from congressional representatives, but has not heard anything from the White House.
Two dozen states are suing the Trump administration over the AmeriCorps cuts; Mississippi is not one of them.
AP video by Sophie Bates
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