To celebrate this year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day (or Great Americans Day according to some at the City of Biloxi), Preservation in Mississippi is highlighting some of the site’s many posts about the Civil Rights Movement and African American history.
Martin Luther King Jr. in Mississippi
Martin Luther King, Jr. in Philadelphia, Miss.
A Laurel Church by Clair M. Jones
Martin Luther King, Jr. in Laurel, Mississippi
Martin Luther King Jr. and the sites associated with him have been posted about on multiple occasions.
Agriculture and Industry Buildings, Mississippi State Fairgrounds, Jackson. Demolished Spring 2011.
Balancing Industry with Agriculture
A Mystery: Which building(s) were “The Fairgrounds Motel”?
Local People, this is what we think of your sacrifice
While history is still often recounted and taught in a way based on and biased towards the Great Man theory of history, the Civil Rights Movement only succeeded in its goals when large numbers of ordinary African American citizens pushed for positive change to occur. Martin Luther King Jr. would not have a national holiday in his honor without those people, nor would those people be able to use their equal rights as citizens to celebrate that holiday without the movement’s leaders, men and women like Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers, Fannie Lou Hamer, John Lewis, and others.
This series of posts by Malvaney chronicles the largely ignored history and demolition of the Agriculture and Industries buildings on the Mississippi State Fairgrounds, more infamously known as “The Fairgrounds Motel,” where hundreds of Civil Rights activists were imprisoned in the summer of 1963.
Segregated Entrance, McWilliams Building/Paramount Theater, Clarksdale
Where History Meets Architecture
One of the earliest posts about Civil Rights on the site is also one of the most evocative, telling how one building, the McWilliams Building in downtown Clarksdale, retains traces of its Jim Crow history and reveals “differences and similarities that deepen your understanding of this complicated, interwoven, very human place we call Mississippi.” Even though this post is from the very beginning of the site, when Preservation in Mississippi was still finding its audience, every MissPres author (see Thomas Rosell’s re-posting of it in 2015) thinks it is one of the best posts on the site.
Fielder & Brooks Drug Store/COFO Building, 2505 Fifth Street, Meridian,.One of Mississippi’s most significant Civil Rights sites, the office of Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman before they were killed near Philadelphia, MS, in 1964. See “Fielder and Brooks Drug Store” and “Meridian’s Nationally Significant COFO Buildings Comes Down for backstory.” Photograph by Mingo Tingle, MDAH Historic Resources Inventory.
Meridian’s Nationally Significant COFO Building Comes Down
The demolition of Meridian’s COFO Building was one of the worst historic building losses we have had the misfortune to witness in the site’s history.
Mendenhall School Administration Building (1938). Designated Mississippi Landmark Jan 20, 2012. Demolished October 2013.
Rosalind Lee’s guest post about the now-demolished Mendenhall School advocates the view that historic preservation of a formerly segregated symbol of Jim Crow can be about racial reconciliation, not glorifying an imperfect and painful past.
On the Road to Freedom: A Guided Tour of the Civil Rights Trail by Charles E. Cobb Jr.’s, published in 2008 by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.
Civil Rights Sites from Charles E. Cobb Jr.’s “On the Road to Freedom”
Although many sites associated with the Civil Rights Movement have been demolished, many still remain. Visiting those remaining sites, chronicling their histories, and advocating for their preservation is one way that we can remember those who gave up so much to gain the rights they always deserved.
Categories: African American History, Civil Rights, Historic Preservation
Preservation in Mississippi 
Leave a Reply