“We’ve seen syphilis used again and again as a tool over the centuries to demonize and stigmatize socially marginalized communities,” Zuckerman says. “That’s the narrative that’s dominated.”

Mississippi State Assistant Professor Candace Lukasik has published her first book “Martyrs and Migrants: Coptic Christians and the Persecution Politics of U.S. Empire” (NYU Press). The book examines how Coptic Christian migrants from Egypt navigate religious identity through the lens of American political and religious frameworks.

Mississippi State University and the Mississippi Department of Public Safety have formally agreed to work together on forensic investigations, including recovery of human remains, exhumations, surface scatter and burial recoveries, as well as identification of human skeletal remains.