Throughout the course of history, there have been numerous Black American communities that have been targeted, infiltrated, and undermined by the dominant society. Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma was one of the most famous and prosperous communities that was destroyed and decimated. Join me as we shine a Historical Spotlight on Mound Bayou, Mississippi, one of the largest standing Black American communities in the United States. 

Mound Bayou was founded in 1887 as an independent all-Black community by former slave, Isaiah Montgomery. He learned to read and write while enslaved in the Davis Bend, Mississippi community, which was started by Joseph Davis in the 1820s as a model slave community. Joseph encouraged self-leadership, provided a higher standard of nutrition, health, and dental care, and allowed the slaves to become merchants. 

Despite these better-than-average concessions, many of the slaves desired freedom on their own terms. After the Civil War, Davis Bend became a free community but its economic success was ultimately sabotaged by the prolonged agricultural depression, falling cotton prices, flooding by the Mississippi River, and white hostility in the region. 

Isaiah’s father always dreamed of establishing an independent black colony and Isaiah worked hard to make it a reality. He bought property in the northwest frontier of the Mississippi Delta bottomlands, now known as Bolivar County, to found Mound Bayou. Once farmers cleared the land, they started cultivating cotton to sustain themselves. As the settlement grew, Isaiah worked to get freedmen protection of the law so they could govern themselves without supervision or interference from the dominant society. He served as mayor from 1888 to 1902.

It was incorporated on February 23, 1898 and officially became a city on May 12, 1972. It was heralded by President Theodore Roosevelt as an example of what could be accomplished despite the adversity many of the original settlers faced. 

The town suffered a severe economic decline in the 1920s and 1930s because of state disenfranchisement leading to loss of political power, high debt, and continuing agricultural problems. Most of the farm owners lost their land and were forced into sharecropping. Unfortunately, a fire also destroyed most of the business district in 1941. 

In 1942, Mound Bayou began to recover after opening the Taborian Hospital by the International Order of Twelve Knights and Daughters of Tabor. It provided low-cost health care to thousands of Black people in the Mississippi Delta for more than two decades. The chief surgeon, T.R.M. Howard, eventually became one of the wealthiest Black men in the state. He owned a plantation of more than 1,000 acres, a home-construction firm, a small zoo, and even built the first swimming pool for Black people in Mississippi. 

In 1952, Medgar Evers moved to the area and got heavily involved in the civil rights movement through the Regional Council of Negro Leadership. The organization put together a boycott against service stations that refused to provide restrooms for Black people. The annual rallies held in Mound Bayou between 1952 and 1955 drew crowds of more than ten thousand people.  

The city was seen as an oasis during turbulent times because there weren’t any racial codes or restrictions within the city, while the rest of Mississippi was violently segregated. It boasted   credit unions, insurance companies, a hospital, five newspapers, and a variety of businesses owned and operated by Black residents. It is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

While the city only has a total area of 0.9 square miles, it has had substantial growth over the years. In 1900, the population was only 287, but grew to its highest at 2,917 in 1980. According to the 2020 census, the current population of Mound Bayou is 1,533 and 96.8% Black American. About 45.6% of the population is below the poverty line because the median income for a household is $17,972. 

Unfortunately, due to the inequalities from long-standing separate-but-equal practices, the city has struggled with providing adequate education. The teachers were poorly paid, students far outnumbered the available equipment, and the school year was often limited to only five months. Residents also don’t have easy access to health care since the last hospital in town closed in 1983. 

Mound Bayou is an example of how Black Americans can build sustaining communities when afforded an opportunity to be left alone and not sabotaged. Despite it being in an area of the country known for its high poverty, low life-expectancy, and history of racial oppression, it’s still a town that Black Americans can be proud of. 

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Signed, 

Jessica Marie