Over 70 concerned citizens gathered at historically Black Tougaloo College for a community training hosted by Mississippi For A Just World (MSJW) titled "People Over Politics: Stop Data Centers Edition," as residents of Jackson's majority-Black neighborhoods question the costs and their say in fast-tracked AI data center deals. Cassandra Bennett, a Ward 2 resident, said she signed up for the July 16, 2026 training because "there was little to no information out there." Evelyn Rankin of Clinton, Miss., where a data center was placed near her home before community notification, expressed fear that the development "is going to severely impact the community as a whole" and that "our environmental structure will change, seems like drastically." Matt Casteel, founder of Wurmworks, shared concerns about New Jersey-based Saxum Investment Company's proposed 230-acre data center development near his north Jackson neighborhood, just a few miles from Tougaloo in a predominantly Black neighborhood. Residents described being caught between closed-door meetings, non-disclosure agreements, and fast-tracked developments, fearing impacts on future generations and viewing the situation as environmental injustice "repackaged within a different industry." Mississippi has become a target for large-scale AI data center development as technology companies seek available resources.