In unfairness to them both, while Hermon Johnson, Jr. Museum director, and Darryl Johnson, Sr. CEO, . Mound Bayou Movement, provided us with a captivating history of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, I couldn’t shake a nearby image. You see, never in my lifetime could I imagine sitting less than ten feet from the wooden desk and tattered leather chair where once sat the late civil rights activist Medgar Evers cranking out letters on a black typewriter.
So, what brought me to this indelible moment in my life, one that evoked such an incompatible mix of emotions, among them shock, anger, pride and above all…. Inspiration?
The answer? Mr. Bernard Strong, a great friend, deep thinker, storyteller and, to top it off, a born and bred native of Mound Bayou, Mississippi. (You’ll hear more from Mr. Strong in Part Two, “Notes from a native son.”)
Bernard Strong
But first, I need to say that during the drive through the flat Mississippi Delta on the way to Mound Bayou, the “Welcome to Mississippi” sign was a distressing reminder of the horrible deaths of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, three civil rights activists assassinated because of their work getting African Americans registered to vote. I peered out the window mesmerized by the sight of acers of cotton fields and imagined slaves out there in sweltering heat doing the back breaking work of picking that cotton.
When we arrived at Mound Bayou, we slipped past a school bus picking up kids and rounded a corner to arrive at the Mound Bayou Museum of African American History and Culture. Before I say more about my museum experience, a brief history of Mound Bayou.
Mound Bayou, founded in 1887 by Isaiah T. Montgomery and his cousin Benjamin T. Green, is one of the first all-Black towns in the United States, envisioned as a haven for African Americans where they could live free from racial violence and discrimination. The town was a thriving, self-sustaining community complete with businesses, generally a proud history of credit unions, insurance companies, a hospital, five newspapers, and a variety of businesses owned, operated, and patronized by Black residents.
To be clear, Mound Bayou was a unique community during those turbulent times. While the rest of Mississippi was rigidly segregated, inside Mound Bayou there were no racial codes. At a time when Blacks faced repercussions as severe as death for registering to vote, Mound Bayou residents were casting ballots in every election.
Now the truth is that Mound Bayou’s history is deeply intertwined with the tragic story of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American boy who was brutally murdered in 1955 for allegedly whistling at a white woman in nearby Money, Mississippi. Till’s mother, Mamie Till, insisted on an open-casket funeral to display her son’s mutilated body to the world. This shocking act of violence and Mamie’s bravery in the face of such injustice galvanized the civil rights movement and brought international attention to the horrors of racism in the American South.
In 1952, Medgar Evers moved to Mound Bayou to sell insurance for Dr. T. R. M. Howard’s insurance company. Howard (no relation to yours truly) introduced Medgar to civil rights activism through the Regional Council of Negro Leadership which organized boycotts against service stations that refused to provide restrooms for Black people.
“Medgar loved it there,” recalled his wife Myrlie in Joy-Ann Reid’s best-selling, “Medgar and Myrlie.” “He finally had a mission, mentor and a fellowship of men who were passionate about changing things.”
President Theodore Roosevelt arrived in Mound Bayou in 1907, invited by the town’s mayor, and declared the town to be the “crown jewel of the Delta.” Booker T. Washington hailed Mound Bayou as a symbol of “Negro promise despite segregation,” and praised it as a model of “thrift and self-government.” The town was a haven from the virulent racism of the Jim Crown South.
That was back then.
These days, by contrast, a drive through town reveals a place that has fallen hard. There are just a few businesses left: a convenience store, a gas station and a funeral home. During the early part of the last century, motivated by lack of opportunities locally and weary from discrimination and racism, scores of southern Blacks from Mound Bayou and other southern towns migrated in droves to Chicago, Detroit and other northern cities in search for opportunities.
Men in front of a general store in Mound Bayou, 1939.
So, back now to my experience at the museum.
Once I struggled to get past Medgar’s desk, I was able to resume the tour of the museum and walked through the “Till” room, a colorful collection of photos of mother and son – Mamie and Emmett – and outfits worn by actors and actresses during the movie on the young Emmett Till. My journey continued through an eye-catching labyrinth of memorabilia and doctored up demeaning pictures of watermelon-eating Black people, among them President Barack Obama. I even, eh, “amused” myself with a glowering selfie of me standing between a Confederate flag and a white KKK robe.
But as soon as I figured I’d seen enough, I walked into two small rooms, each containing coffins with replicas of the mutilated body of Emmet Till. Stunned, I took a few steps back, gasped in reaction to the horrible sight – and unforgettable history lesson – staring up at me from that graphic remake of history. Point made. Lessons learned. It was time to go.
An hour later, we left Mound Bayou, but the commitment and visionary work of Hermon and Darryl Johnson in keeping alive the courageous history of Black folks who paid the price and shed their sweat and blood for me – and for America – never left us.
And never will.
© Terry Howard is an award-winning writer and storyteller, a contributing writer with the Chattanooga News Chronicle, The Douglas County Sentinel, The American Diversity Report, The BlackMarket.com and recipient of the Dr. Martin Luther King Leadership Award.