KHAFRE, INC TEAM

C. Sade Turnipseed, MS, MBA, PhD (defense pending), Executive Director/Founder

Linda Rule, BA, Special Projects Director

Board of Directors:

Bobby Rush, Honorary Chair

B.B. King, Honorary Chair (past)

Maya Angelou, Honorary Chair (past)

Eulah L. Peterson, PhD, Board Member, Chair

Valerie Simpson, PhD, Board Member, Treasurer

Karen Wilson, PhD (candidate), Board Member

Bessie Hutchins, PhD (candidate) , Board Member

Advisory Board:

Dr. Christopher W. Shults, PhD, Board Member (past)

Willie Simmons, Mississippi State Senator

Dr. Joseph Martin Stevenson, PhD, Board Member (past)

Dr. Carroll Van West, MTSU Center of Historic Preservation, Director

Dr. Rebecca Conard, MTSU Public History Program, Director

Leo Turnipseed, MA, Board Member (past)

Mary Francis Shepard, Queen of Jook

Robert Terrell, African Blues Consultant

Sylvester Hoover, Delta Heritage Specialist, Board Member (past)

Marvin Haire, PhD

Arthur Marble, Mayor of Indianola (past)

Robert Terrell, Cultural Arts Activist

Rev. Charles Thomas, Educator

Sherry Nelson, General Manager WABG-TV

Heather McTeer-Toney, JD, Board Member (past)

Catherine Gardner, MA, Board Member (past)

Freida L. Wheaton, JD, Board Member (past)



Steering Committee:

Rev. Darryl Johnson, Mayor Mound Bayou, MS                                  

Cheryl Line, Manager of Tourism, Bolivar County

Linda Stout Coleman, Parents 4 Public Schools

Ms. Bonita A. Conwell, President, SRBWI Women in Agriculture                                

Mr. William Crockett, Superintendent, Mound Bayou Public Schools              

Rev. Larry Haywood, Mound Bayou Area Ministers                                        

Mr. Pedro Woods, Owner, Peter's Pottery                                             

Mr. Sampson Williams, Civic Representative, Little Mound Bayou                 

Ms. Lynette Criss, President, American Legion Auxiliary                     

Dr. Elaine Baker, Chair, Mound Bayou Revitalization Task Force        

Ms. Jarvis Malone, Student, John F. Kennedy Memorial High School  

Sis Donella Hartman, St. Gabriel Mercy Center                                                 

Mr. Louis Sanders, Mound Bayou Area Farmers                                               

Mr. Melvin Gant, Chairman, Mound Bayou Planning and Zoning Commission           

Mr. Earl L. Carmicle, Civic Representative                                                                     

Mr. Henry Perkins, Mayor, Winstonville,MS                                                               

Mrs. Willena S. White, Civic Representative

Professional Resources

Ed Dwight Monument Developer/Designer

Eric Davis, Landscape Architect

Clifton Taulbert, Writer/Historian/National Spokesperson

Jerry Redmond, Principal and Sr. Design Director, Redmond Designs

Jaribu Hill, Legal Consultant

Dr. Stephanie Toothman, Associate Director, Cultural Resources, National Park Service

Kaiser Brown, Certified Public Accountant—Banks, Finley, White & Company

Kenneth H. P’Pool, Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer for Mississippi and

Director, Historic Preservation Division of the Mississippi Dept of Archives and History

Pam Chatmon, WABG-TV

Cissy Anklan, Interpretive Center/Museum Consultant

Will Hooker, Bolivar County Administrator

Government Officials:

Bennie Thompson, Congressman District 2

Darryl Johnson, Mayor Mound Bayou

Mound Bayou, Board of Alderman

Trina George, Director Rural Development, Mississippi

Derrick Simmons, Mississippi State Senator

Robert Jackson, Mississippi State Senator

David Jordan, Mississippi State Senator

Willie Simmons, Mississippi State Senator

Preston Billings, Supervisor Bolivar County

Ernest Holmes, Supervisor Washington County

Linda Coleman, Mississippi State Representative, Bolivar County

Kathleen Jenkins, NPS, Natchez

Mike Madell, NPS, Vicksburg

 (Resumes available upon request)



THE SITE, THE PEOPLE, THE CULTURE

Where Mound Bayou, Mississippi intersects with the blues highway (HWY 61) is prime cotton land. Two ex-slaves from Davis Bend, Warren County, Mississippi, founded mound Bayou on July 12, 1887. Isaiah T. Montgomery and Benjamin T. Green led the migration from Davis Bend. They, along with others, purchased land from the Louisville, New Orleans, and Texas Railway (L.N.O.T.) Company. Mound Bayou was a land of promise for African Americans. Self-help, race pride, economic opportunity, and social justice were encapsulated in this “promise.” It was a self-segregated community that fostered self-governance. Early on, Mound Bayou had a railway station, post office, cemetery, bank, six churches, historic homes, retail stores, and several schools. Its economy depended heavily on the production of cotton, timber, and corn. Politically, co-founder and mayor, Isaiah T. Montgomery and Charles Banks worked with Booker T. Washington to maintain the growth of Mound Bayou.  President Theodore Roosevelt visited Mound Bayou and called it the “Jewel of the Delta”…the key example of prosperity in the Mississippi Delta.

From 1907 to 1915, the cotton industry and the railroad center allowed Mound Bayou to flourish grow. The 3,500 people currently living in and around the city of Mound Bayou are very aware of their glorious past and are currently exploring ways to reinvigorate their community and forge a new empire, to honor the “Cotton as King” era. Too much of their story is unknown to most people in the South and throughout America. The proposed site of the Cotton Pickers of America Monument and Sharecroppers Interpretive Center is located just outside the city limits. Thus, visitors to the Monument will have the opportunity to tour this historic city.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Although our country is blessed with many places of great historic value, it is also true that most of the structures, in the places associated with cotton, sharecropping and the “Cotton Kingdom” in the Mississippi Delta are suffering from neglect and are in serious disrepair. The issue of cotton, as an industry and way of life, speaks most profoundly and eloquently to the struggles that shaped our American culture.  The Delta, and all its historic truth, continually challenges our diverse peoples to become better aware of the contributions of the American South.

The educational and economic benefits of increased tourism to the downtown Mound Bayou area would be tremendous, as many visitors would no doubt enjoy the museum(s), sculptures, tour homes, bed-and-breakfast accommodations, shops, restaurants and other amenities that will be within walking distance to The Cotton Pickers of America Monument and Sharecroppers Interpretive Center. We also anticipate that the Monument Plaza will become a regular stop en-route to annual family reunions, as members come in search of their family’s “Legacy Brick(s).”

Linkage between The Cotton Pickers of America Monument and Sharecroppers Interpretive Center and historic Mound Bayou is vital to the city’s economy and is strongly supported in an official resolution by local leaders, Mayor Darryl Johnson, former Mayor Kennedy V. Johnson, the Board of Aldermen, United States Congressman, Bennie G. Thompson and our United States Senator Thad Cochran.

At the end of the estimated three-year construction period, the plan calls for a three-year transition of its management into an entity within the National Park Service (NPS). The NPS presence in the midst of the cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta shall further enhance The Cotton Pickers of America Monument and Sharecroppers Interpretive Center’s role as a good citizen of Bolivar County and the State of Mississippi.

Your financial support for this proposal is respectfully requested.  It will provide an excellent opportunity to honor and at long last say “thank you” for the “sweat equity” investment made by some of America's most important people: cotton pickers, sharecroppers, and farmers. In so doing, the historic city of Mound Bayou, with its rich legacy of quality cotton production and the history of the entire southern region of America will be shared with the world!