By: The People’s Paper MS Staff
For years, Quitman County, where Marks, MS is located, remained a food desert … a place where residents had to travel long distances (an hour one way) just to access fresh groceries. That reality persisted quietly, largely unseen by those outside the region.
Simpson County native Katina Rankin, a journalist and documentary filmmaker, brought renewed attention to those conditions through her reporting and documentary work on the legacy of the Poor People’s Campaign and modern food insecurity in Marks.
Reflecting on that work, Rankin shared with The People’s Paper MS:
“I fought for an entire year to do this story and then to get it edited and aired on television. It’s the quiet fight in newsrooms that viewers don’t see. This was the most impactful story that I’ve done in my career. By GOD’s grace, storytelling led to change. And that story led to a change in one of the very places Dr. King left his real-life footsteps in Mississippi. Quitman County is no longer a food desert.”
That change also the opening of a full-service grocery store stands as a modern testament to the power of journalism, persistence, and community advocacy. It also affirms what Dr. King believed deeply: that exposing injustice is often the first step toward dismantling it.
