Mississippi Delta Civil rights Driving tour
James Meredith addresses the large crowd at 1966 March Against Fear.
Mississippi Delta Civil rights Driving tour
This driving tour travels through historic African American communities across the Mississippi Delta, passing miles of open land where, in times past, cotton rows and shanty plantation shacks dotted the landscape. African American men, women and children once labored here as slaves and, for generations after, under slave-like conditions as sharecroppers for low wages. While significant change has taken place, visible signs of the past when cotton was king remain. All of the sites on this tour witnessed significant civil right actions which contributed to the evolution of this land.
TOUR SITES
MISSISSIPPI STATE MAP
TOUR STOPS
A - DREW
B - CLEVELAND
C - RULEVILLE
D - INDIANOLA
E - BELZONI
F - GREENWOOD
G - MONEY
H - SUMNER
I - DREW
** indicates location of freedom trail markers.
Self-Driving Tour Sites
Take our independent Self-Driving Tour at your lesiure in one or multiple days. Follow along in this guide book for suggested tour stops.
SELF-DRIVING TOUR STOPS
A - DREW
B - PARCHMAN
C - CLARKSDALE
D - MOUND BAYOU
E - CLEVELAND
F - SHAW
G - INDIANOLA
H - MOORHEAD
I - GREENWOOD / MONEY
J- DODDSVILLE
K - RULEVILLE
L - GLENDORA
M - SUMNER
N - TUTWILER
O - DREW
P - GREENVILLE
Q - MAYERSVILLE
R - BELZONI
S- MARKS
LandMark SITES
SUNFLOWER COUNTY COURTHOUSE.................................. 200 Main St, Indianola, MS 38751
FANNIE LOU HAMER MEMORIAL GARDEN........................ 929 Byron St, Ruleville, MS 38771
WILLIAM CHAPEL CHURCH......................................................... 915 Byron St. Ruleville, MS 38771
BARN – SITE OF EMMETT TILL TORTURE............................. Drew
BRYANT STORE................................................................................... Money Rd, Greenwood, MS 38930
AMZIE MOORE’S HOUSE............................................................... 612 S Chrisman Ave, Cleveland, MS 38732
SUMNER COURTHOUSE................................................................ 401 W Court St, Sumner, MS 38957
SUNFLOWER COUNTY FARM..................................................... Moorhead
EMMETT TILL STATUE...................................................................... 209 W Johnson St, Greenwood, MS 38930
BROAD STREET PARK, ................................................................... Broad & Avenue M Greenwood, MS 38930
TABORIAN HOSPITAL ...................................................................... 102 E M.L.K. Jr Dr, Mound Bayou, MS 38762
I.T. MONTGOMERY HOUSE, Mound Bayou .......................... 302 West Main Street, South
GREEN GROVE BAPTIST CHURCH ............................................ Belzoni
SNCC OFFICE......................................................................................... Greewood
RAIL SPIKE PARK ................................................................................ Greenwood
Introduction
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) came to the Mississippi Delta in August of 1962 and opened voter registration projects in Greenwood and Ruleville, Mississippi. Between August 1962 and 1968, movements developed which challenged and changed the status quo in Mississippi and broadened the base of political participation in the state and nation. The following locations in the Mid-Delta are landmarks of the work and struggles that led to the changes.
Martha Prescod, Mike Miller, and Bob Moses do voter registration work, Mississippi, 1963.
Greenwood, Mississippi
Significance: The building that housed the first SNCC office in the Delta; Broad Street Historic Park; The Leflore County Courthouse where the Freedom Vote was conceived; The Elks Lodge (first to open doors SNCC); and the Wesley United Methodist Church (site of SNCC food and clothing distribution center and mass voter registration rallies).
In June 1962, a young black college student, Sam Block of Cleveland, MS, decided he would organize a SNCC voter registration project in Greenwood. Sam was inspired by the leadership of Amzie Moore in his hometown of Cleveland. Sam met Bob Moses during one of Bob’s several visits to Amzie home. According to Sam, Bob dropped him off in Greenwood one afternoon and told him “good luck.” At first, Sam had no problem finding a place to stay due to his
professional dress and business personality. But as Sam started to move about the black community telling people about his reason for being in Greenwood, attitudes toward him started to change.
Eventually, Sam met and made friends with a World War II veteran who owned a photography studio on Avenue I. He had a vacant second floor which he allowed to become the first SNCC office in the Mississippi Delta in 1962. But the calm came to an end when half a dozen white men, reported to be members of the KKK, mounted the stairs leading to the second floor. Pressure was placed on black individuals and businesses in the immediate area of Avenue I and Broad Street. Greenwood would then become a continuing challenge for SNCC and its efforts to stay in Greenwood.
Money, Mississippi
Significance: The old Bryant Store Building and Freedom Trail Marker to a murdered 14-year-old black boy, Emmett Till.
The story of Chicago native Emmett Till’s murder begins in Money, MS. Allegedly, he whistled at a Mississippi white woman while he and others gathered there on the outside of Bryant Grocery Store in 1955. Later, Till was taken from his great-uncle’s house at gunpoint by the woman’s husband and brother-in-law. He was driven to the Sheridan Plantation in
Drew, MS where he was tortured and murdered. Later, Till was taken to Glendora where a gin wheel was fastened to his neck with barbed wire. His brains were blown out by a gunshot wound to the head. Till was dumped into the Tallahatchie River where his bloated body surfaced and was found by fishermen. Till’s murderers were tried and set free by an all-white jury.
Bryant Store
Bryant Store 1950’s.
Ruleville, MS
Significance: Hometown of Fannie Lou Hamer. Home to markers in her honor including a museum, memorial garden and grave site.
Ruleville is the hometown of Fannie Lou Hamer, the sharecropper turned freedom fighter and political activist.
This small town played a significant role in the development of the Civil Rights Movement in the Mississippi Delta. The William Chapel AME Church was the only church in Ruleville (or in Sunflower County) that civil rights and voter registration meetings could be held between 1962 and 1965. It was also in the William Chapel Church that Fannie Lou Hamer first raised her hand to go register to vote at the Sunflower County Courthouse in Indianola, MS.
Fannie Lou Hamer, Civil Rights Activist,
After Fannie Lou was forced off the plantation, she lived with the lady who invited her to attend that fateful mass meeting.
Ten days after Fannie Lou Hamer moved into Ruleville, night riders shot into the homes of community leaders and two young black college students were wounded. No one was brought to justice.
Hamer and her husband, Perry
“Pap” Hamer, are buried in a memorial garden which was created by friends of Fannie Lou Hamer following her death in 1977. A small Hamer museum is located inside the Hamer multipurpose building. A freedom trail marker was unveiled at the William Chapel Church on Saturday, November 16, 2013.
(See the Ruleville Tour Guidebook for other local tour sites.)
Significance: Andrew Plantation, City Jail, Carter Family Integration of Drew Public Schools.
Historically, Drew has a connection to the Emmett Till murder case because of the Andrew Plantation southwest of the city. The Andrew Plantation is where J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant brought Emmett Till after taking him from Money, MS. J.W Milam’s brother, Leslie Milam, worked as a manager of the plantation. The shed where Emmett Till was beaten is still standing on the Andrew Plantation today.
The town of Drew played a significant role in the successful freedom summer of 1964 voter registration work in North Sunflower County. While the whole of Sunflower County was oppressive to its Black citizens, Drew was considered most oppressive of all. Mass arrests
of civil rights workers, including Charles McLaurin of SNCC raised the consciousness of the Black majority living under white supremacy rules and powerlessness due to the lack of voting rights. There is a small one-room white stone building historically used as the jail by the town of Drew. The building, located on the roadside as you turn off of U.S. Highway 49 toward downtown, still stands today. This Stone Jail is where Sunflower County Freedom Summer Project Director Charles McLaurin, and a group of young Freedom Summer volunteers, were arrested and jailed for refusing to stop urging Drew’s Blacks to register to vote. Freedom Summer voting rights workers were placed in this building prior to spending the night in an old rundown building at the Sunflower County Farm located near Moorhead, MS. The group was finally released after posting cash bonds.
The pressure on the black population in Drew eased when a black man, Jimmy Langdon, was elected Superintendent of the Drew Public School District. Also instrumental was the Carter family’s decision to integrate the town’s all white public schools under the “Freedom of Choice Plan” of the Drew Public Schools in 1965. Mrs. Mae Bertha Carter, a black sharecropper, enrolled all seven of her children into the allwhite Drew Public Schools. The book Silver Rights tells the story.
In 1971, an 18-year-old black girl named Joeatha Collier was killed by white men in a drive by shooting as racial tension rose over public school integration.
“Everybody has a purpose in life, and God has built inside the strength you need to carry out your purpose.”
— Mae Bertha Carter
Mae Bertha Carter
Clarksdale, MS
Significance: Home to markers in honor of Aaron E. Henry
Clarksdale, MS, was the hometown of Aaron. E. Henry, a black pharmacist, State NAACP, COFO and MFDP leader, and freedom ballot candidate for Mississippi Governor. A historic marker today stands on the sidewalk of the vacant lot where Henry’s drug store was located on 4th Street (M.L.K. St.) The business was firebombed several times in the 60’s. Henry worked on the garbage truck after he was arrested for leading a boycott of downtown Clarksdale.
See tour guide for information about other landmarks related to Aaron E. Henry’s life and struggle to secure equal justice for himself, his family, and the black population of Clarksdale.
Dr. Vera Mae (Berry) Pigee was a significant civil rights organizer and activist in the Mississippi Delta. She a co-founder of the Council of Federated Organizations and participated in a demonstration that ultimately desegregated the Greyhound bus terminal in Clarksdale, Mississippi. In 1953, Pigee helped charter the NAACP branch in Coahoma County. Later she traveled to Chicago to study cosmetology but returned to Clarksdale where she opened Pigee’s Beauty Salon in 1955. She resumed her activism and became secretary of the Coahoma County NAACP, a position she held for nearly twenty years.
In 1959, the Coahoma County NAACP Youth Council was chartered with Pigee as the advisor and her daughter Mary Jane as its first president. Two years later, on August 23, 1961, members of the Youth Council participated in the demonstration at the Illinois Central train terminal. Under Pigee’s leadership, three students, Adrian Beard (a 16-year-old at Immaculate Conception Catholic School), Wilma Jones (a 14-year-old at Higgins High
Mound bayou, MS
Significance: Founded as an independent black community in 1887 by former slaves. Led by Isaiah T. Montgomery. Home of Taborian hospital.
The all-black town of Mound Bayou, MS, was founded in the spring of 1887 by pioneers from Davis Bend. They were formerly enslaved by Joeseph E. Davis, elder brother of confederate president Jefferson Davis. In 1887, Isaiah Montgomery and Benjamin Green purchased 840 acres of land in the Yazoo Delta of Northwest Mississippi to found Mound Bayou. The town recently celebrated its 124-year history. Famous history markers in this community include those dedicated to Isaiah T. Montgomery, Dr. T.R.M. Howard, and Medgar Evers. The small town in Bolivar County was known as “A Jewel in the Delta,” at the height of its
prosperity. It was home to Doctor Theodore Roosevelt Mason (T.R.M) Howard, a black surgeon and administrator at the all-black hospital. Dr. Howard led a courageous fight for equal justice for the Black Mississippi population from his professional position between the early 1930s and 60s. He also organized the Regional Council of Negro Leadership in 1951, which predates the NAACP in Mississippi as a civil rights organization. Dr. Howard encountered very strong opposition from US FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. He received many threats on his life and finally had to leave Mississippi to preserve his life. Isaiah (I.T.) Montgomery was a delegate to the 1890 Mississippi Constitutional Convention and served as mayor of Mound Bayou.
Taborian Hospital in Mound Bayou, Mississippi opened in 1942 to great fanfare by the International Order of Twelve Knights and Daughters of Tabor. Everyone on the staff, including doctors and nurses, were black. The facilities included two major operating rooms, an x-ray machine, incubators, electrocardiograph, blood bank, and laboratory. Operating costs came almost entirely from membership dues and other voluntary contributions. The first chief surgeon of the hospital was T. R. M. Howard, who later became an important civil rights leader in Mississippi and mentor to both Medgar Evers and Fannie Lou Hamer, who passed away at the hospital in 1977. After years of financial pressure, the hospital lost its fraternal status in 1967 when the federal government took it over and put it under the authority of the Office of Economic Opportunity.
T.R.M. Howard
Cleveland, MS
Significance: Home to historic markers of Amzie Moore, friend of Bob Moses and SNCC organizer.
Cleveland, MS, was the hometown of Amzie Moore, a black businessman and NAACP leader who invited SNCC into the Delta in 1962. Because of this, Amzie Moore’s business, located on U.S. Highway 61, was subjected to racism.
Amzie Moore was a World War II veteran who returned from the war to find that he had none of the rights at home which he fought for overseas. While Amzie was able to register to vote in Bolivar County, he was not allowed to vote in the Democratic primary. To gain voting and civil rights for himself and the Black
population of Cleveland and Bolivar County, he organized the NAACP in Bolivar County. Amzie Moore asked Bob Moses of SNCC to bring SNCC organizers to the Mississippi Delta.
In August of 1962, Bob Moses brought Charlie Cobb, Landy McNair and Charles McLaurin to Amzie’s house in Cleveland.
Today, Amzie Moore Park and marker in Cleveland are dedicated to his legacy. Amzie Moore’s House, located at 614 Chrisman Street, is today a museum. A historic marker and Freedom Trail Marker are located on the property.
Amzie Moore
Mississippi Civil Rights Activists, 1963: Bob Moses, Julian Bond, Curtis Hayes, unknown man, Hollis Watkins, Amzie Moore, E.W. Steptoe.
Tutwiler Funeral Home
Tutwiler, MS
The Tutwiler Funeral Home is the location where Emmett Till’s body was prepared, three days after the young man was brutally murdered. After Emmett Till’s body was recovered from the Tallahatchie River on August 31, 1955, it was sent to Tutwiler. Woodrow Jackson prepared the body there in anticipation of its return to Till’s mother, Mamie Till Mobley in Chicago. After the body was prepared, it was released to Emmett’s uncle, Crosby Smith.
From left: Walter Reed, Willie Reed, Mrs. Mamie Bradley, mother of Emmett Till, Michigan congressman Charles Diggs, Dr. T.R.M. Howard, and Amanda Bradley, at the trial Emmett Till’s murder. 1955.
Indianola, MS
Significance: Home to The Sunflower County Courthouse as well as several instrumental black leaders and business owners.
Indianola is home to the Sunflower County Courthouse where Fannie Lou Hamer registered to vote in 1962. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke there from atop a mound of dirt while leading the James Meredith March Against Fear of Voting. Indianola was also the home and business place of Oscar and Alice Giles, leaders in the MFDP, COFO and Head Start. The Giles’ Penny Saving Grocery and home was firebombed by racists. An Indianola Freedom School Historic Marker stands where the building was firebombed and destroyed in 1965. Indianola was also the birthplace of the White Citizens Council. Following the 1954 High Court ruling legally ending racial segregation
in public education, the White Citizens Council was created with a mission to stop school integration by all means. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s was slow moving into Indianola and Drew, MS due to the strong entrenchment of the White Citizens Council and a tradition of intimidation, violence, and economic reprisals against black people.
The modern freedom movement that started in Ruleville in 1962 was finally able to find support in the Black Indianola community due to the involvement of the elderly and young people in 1964.
(See the Civil Rights Tour Guidebook.)
Sunflower County Court House Built 1898 with 1927 addition before remodeling in 1967.
Sumner, MS
The 2020 census lists Sumner, MS, as a town with a population of 270 residents located in the Mississippi Delta. Sumner is one of two county seats in Tallahatchie County. The Sumner courthouse, in 1955, was the site of the trial of two white men, J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant, who went on trial accused of the abduction and murder of 14-year-old Chicago native Emmett Till. The trial lasted for five days before an all-white male jury who deliberated just over one hour before acquitting the two men of Till’s murder. Shortly following the acquittal, Milam and Bryant confessed to Till’s murder in an interview with Look magazine for which they were paid. Today, the Sumner courthouse has been renovated and is open to tourists.
Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam
Glendora, MS
Significance: Home of J.W. Miliam. Location of cotton gin which played a key role in the Till murder case.
Glendora, MS, is the home and business place of J.W. Milam. Milam is one of two white men responsible for the death of Emmett Till.
According to Mayor Johnnie Thomas and markers tracing the movement of the men who killed Emmett Till, Glendora is where the gin wheel, which was fastened to Till’s neck prior to placing his body in the Tallahatchie River, was taken from. Today, the Emmett Till Museum is located in the old gin.
Old Black Bayou Bridge in Glendora, Mississippi.
The building that once housed the Glendora Cotton Gin is now the Emmett Till Historic Intrepid Center.
Male prisoners on the porch of a building at Parchman Penitentiary.
Parchman, MS
Significance: Penal Facility
The notorious Parchman Prison, established in 1901, later became a place of incarceration for Freedom Riders who were arrested for protesting racial segregation in Jackson, MS, in the early 1960s.
Belzoni, MS
Significance: Home of Reverend George Lee, pastor and voting rights activist.
Reverend George W. Lee is considered to have been the first black man to die in the fight for voting rights in America. Reverend Lee’s name is the first of 40 names listed on the civil rights memorial in Montgomery, AL. Reverend George W. Lee was the pastor of a Baptist congregation in Belzoni, MS and was a staunch supporter of voting rights and also president of the local NAACP. Reverend Lee was constantly urging his congregation to register to vote in Humphreys County. On May 17, 1955, two white men came to Reverend Lee’s shop and told him to stop registering blacks to vote in Humphreys County
and to remove his own name from the voting rolls. Reverend Lee closed his business early and as he was driving down a street only a short distance from his home, a white man with a shotgun fired into Reverend Lee’s car. The blast ripped off part of his face killing him instantly. No one was ever brought to justice.
On May 10, 2013, a freedom trail marker was unveiled at the Green Grove MB Church, the site of Reverend Lee’s funeral in 1955. The funeral was held outdoors because the church was too small to accommodate the large crowd. Rev. George W Lee is buried in Green Grove cemetery next to the church.
Reverend George Lee
Significance: Center of Commerce and Community during the Civil Rights era.
James Carter was a black businessman known to some as “Babyface” and often referred to as the black mayor of Nelson St. This was due to his strong civic concerns and involvement. Carter supported black voting and racial reconciliation as a means of bringing about social political and economic change in Greenville and Washington County. Compared to other delta towns such as Indianola, Greenwood and Clarksdale, Greenville was liberal and it was said that the city officials treated black people with a degree of respect as long as they “stayed in their place.” In 1962, Greenville had a black policeman and black detectives. The local newspaper in Greenville was the Delta Democratic Times. The newspaper mostly spoke to a balance between the races and did not play to race baiting. It spoke out against the KKK types in Greenville.
The Flowing Fountain, and Maze restaurants at the railroad tracks were places of black life and soul entertainment.
SNCC organizers working to register black voters enjoyed the support of James Carter and other local black businessmen, such as Buddy Gulf who operated a gas station on Nelson St. where organizers purchased gas and had their cars serviced and repaired. Levi Chappelle operated a printing shop on Nelson St. and Fulton’s Cafe, located across the street from the Carter’s cleaners, where there was great food all of the time. The Elks club, the VFW club,
Mostly young people from the Greenville community and Coleman High School got together to socialize at Maze. The fact that they were young and civil rights workers made them highly visible in the Black Greenville community.
Then, in the summer of 1963, SNCC made connections with a group of young people who started meeting with them in the SNCC office to discuss local problems. The main complaint of the young group was racial segregation in downtown public places, including the Greyhound bus station, the city and county Greenville, MS
SNCC Mass Meeting, Greenville, MS, Summer 1964
court buildings, and Strange Park. Strange Park was located near the Black community but only Whites were allowed to use the park. In 1963, several young black people were arrested for trying to use the park. Several young people were also arrested for using the white section of the bus station. The old bus station is still standing. The SNCC office, located in James Carter’s cleaners building on the corner of Nelson and Harvey Streets, is today a vacant lot.
Meyersville, MS
Significance: Home to markers in honor of Aaron E. Henry
Meyersville MS, was the home of Unita Zelma Blackwell, an American civil rights activist who was the first African-American woman to be elected mayor in the state of Mississippi. Blackwell was a project director for SNCC and helped to organize voter drives for African Americans. She worked to promote cultural exchange between the United States and China. She also served as an advisor to 6 US Presidents. Unita and 67 other elected delegates traveled to the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, intending to get the MFDP seated as “the only democratically constituted delegation from Mississippi”. Blackwell was involved in the introduction of Head Start for black children in 1965 in the Mississippi Delta. In the late 1960s Blackwell worked as a community development specialist with the National Council of Negro Women. In the 1970s, she worked on a development program for lowincome housing and encouraged people across the country “to build their own homes”. During her time participating in the Civil Rights Movement, she was jailed more than 70 times
The Blackwells filed a suit, Blackwell v. Issaquena County Board of Education, against the Issaquena County Board of Education on April 1, 1965, after the principal suspended more than 300 black children—including Jerry, the Blackwells’ son—for wearing pins that depicted a black hand and a white hand clasped with the word “SNCC” below them. The United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi decided that the students were being disruptive with their use of the freedom pins, but directed that the school district had to desegregate their schools to comply with federal law, by the fall of 1965.
Gloria Dickerson Founder, CEO
Gloria Dickerson, Founder and CEO of We2gether Creating Change, Inc., created the Emmett Till Academy to develop young leaders and empower them with the necessary tools and information to speak out for change, justice, and equality. The Academy empowers youth in Sunflower and Tallahatcie counties through a weekly program that teaches students about the Civil Rights Movement and racial justice today in the Mississippi Delta and the United States through educational activities, field trips, and service learning.
Who We Are?
What
is
the Emmett Till Academy
In 1955, the death of Emmett Till served as a catalyst to spark the Civil Rights Movement. Till was murdered at the Shurden Barn located in the Drew, MS.
Rev. Jesse Jackson describes Emmett Till as “the big bang of the Civil Rights Movement.”
There are currently no markers in Sunflower County acknowledging his murder.
34% of Sunflower County residents live at or below the poverty line, and 74% of the county is African American. Educational programming grounded in local history, African American history, and racial equity is needed.
Education And Service Learning
Our
Services
The premiere 12-week course contextualizes what preceded the murder of Emmett Till, including local African American organizing efforts in the 1940s and 1950s—and the events that followed his 1955 murder.
Classes
Youth attend civil rights history lessons that connect to issues today; field trips; arts programming; and a service project.
Field Trips
Students visit prominent civil rights sites and museums throughout the country, including Washington, D.C. & Selma, AL.
Activities
Students gain career skills through practical experience in the arts including photography and film training.
Career Prep
Students receive college-level lectures from diverse professionals on topics such as social justice and human progress.
We believe that racial healing and racial equity are necessary if we are going to accomplish our mission to be a change agent in the transformation of poor and low income communities from perceived places of poverty, low skills, and despair to places of prosperity, abundant skills, and hope. If we are to inspire people in low income communities to create good lives and vibrant healthy communities and if all people, in places where we work, are happy, whole, and healthy, our work must include efforts to dismantle racial inequities that limit opportunities and hold some low income families back.
Testimonial
The Emmett Till Academy has been a great experience that will lead students to many possibilities. We have traveled through the Mississippi Delta on a Civil Rights Tour with The Real Delta Tours, owned and operated by Abe Hudson. We have also traveled to Selma and Montgomery, Alabama to visit the Civil Rights Museum. This was an experience that had the impact of awakening and raising awareness within students. This trip helped them to understand the need for stronger and more powerful young leaders.
Contact Us
For More Information on the Emmett Till Academy, visit us online or in person.
159 North Main Street Drew, Ms. 38737
gdickerson@we2gether.org www.We2gether.org (601)-832-3253
The photos used in this document are not the intellectual property of the Emmett Till Academy and are used for educational purposes only as allowed by Fair Use Doctrine. Original sources are credited via QR code. Licensed Photography are by Pexels and Unsplash.com. Original photography by Jyesha Johnson. History compiled by Charles McLaurin, Civil Rights Activist and SNCC Program Director.
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