Greenwood, Mississippi

Greenwood, Mississippi
City
Nickname(s): Cotton Capital of the World

Location of Greenwood, Mississippi
Greenwood, Mississippi

Location in the United States

Coordinates: 33°31′7″N 90°11′2″W / 33.51861°N 90.18389°W / 33.51861; -90.18389Coordinates: 33°31′7″N 90°11′2″W / 33.51861°N 90.18389°W / 33.51861; -90.18389
Country United States
State Mississippi
County Leflore
Area
 • Total 13 sq mi (33.7 km2)
 • Land 12.4 sq mi (32.1 km2)
 • Water 0.6 sq mi (1.6 km2)
Elevation 131 ft (40 m)
Population (2010)
 • Total 16,087
Time zone Central (CST) (UTC-6)
 • Summer (DST) CDT (UTC-5)
ZIP codes 38930, 38935
Area code(s) 662
FIPS code 28-29340
GNIS feature ID 0670714
Website www.cityofgreenwood.org

Greenwood is a city in and the county seat of Leflore County, Mississippi,[1] located at the eastern edge of the Mississippi Delta, approximately 96 miles north of Jackson, Mississippi, and 130 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee. It was a center of cotton planter culture in the 19th century.

The population was 16,087 at the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Greenwood Micropolitan Statistical Area. The Tallahatchie and the Yalobusha rivers meet at Greenwood to form the Yazoo River. Throughout the 1960s, Greenwood was the site of major protests and conflicts as African Americans worked to achieve racial integration and voting access during the civil rights movement.

History

Howard Street, Greenwood
Fron Street skyline

The flood plain of the Mississippi River has long been an area rich in vegetation and wildlife, fed by the Mississippi and its numerous tributaries. Long before Europeans migrated to America, the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indian nations settled in the Delta's bottomlands and throughout what is now central Mississippi. They were descended from indigenous peoples who had lived in the area for thousands of years, including the Mississippian culture, which built earthwork mounds beginning about 950CE.

In the nineteenth century, the Five Civilized Tribes in the Southeast suffered increasing encroachment on their territory by European-American settlers from the United States. Under pressure from the United States government, in 1830 the Choctaw principal chief Greenwood LeFlore and other Choctaw leaders signed the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, ceding most of their remaining land to the United States in exchange for land in Indian Territory, what is now southeastern Oklahoma. The government opened the land for sale and settlement by European Americans. LeFlore came to regret his decision to sign away his people's land, saying in 1843 that he was "sorry to say that the benefits realized from [the treaty] by my people were by no means equal to what I had a right to expect, nor to what they were justly entitled."[2]

The first Euro-American settlement on the banks of the Yazoo River was a trading post founded in 1834 by John Williams[3]:7 and known as Williams Landing. The settlement had competition from Colonel Greenwood Leflore's rival landing called Point Leflore just three miles up the Yazoo River which had an all-weather turnpike to the more established settlements. The rivalry ended when Titus Howard donated parcels in exchange for a commitment from the townsmen to maintain a road to the hill section to the east.[4] In 1844 it was incorporated as "Greenwood", named after Chief Greenwood LeFlore. Founded during a strong international demand for cotton, the city's success was based on its strategic location in the heart of the Delta: on the easternmost point of the alluvial plain and astride the Tallahatchie and the Yazoo rivers. The city served as a shipping point for cotton to major markets in New Orleans, Vicksburg, Mississippi, Memphis, Tennessee, and St. Louis. Thousands of slaves were brought as laborers to Mississippi from the Upper South, in a forced migration that moved more than one million slaves in total to the Deep South to satisfy the demand for labor, as cotton cultivation spread to these new territories of the Southeast. Greenwood continued to prosper, based on slave labor on the cotton plantations and in shipping, until the latter part of the American Civil War.

The end of the Civil War in 1865 and the following years of Reconstruction changed the labor market to one of free labor. The state was mostly undeveloped frontier, and many freedmen withdrew from working for others. In the nineteenth century, many blacks managed to clear and buy their own farms in the bottomlands.[5] With the disruption of war and changes to labor, cotton production initially declined, reducing the city's previously thriving economy.

The construction of railroads through the area in the 1880s revitalized the city,[3]:8 with two rail lines running to downtown Greenwood, close to the Yazoo River, and shortening transportation to markets. Greenwood again emerged as a prime shipping point for cotton. Downtown's Front Street bordering the Yazoo filled with cotton factors and related businesses, earning that section the name Cotton Row. The city continued to prosper in this way well into the 1940s, although cotton production suffered during the infestation of the boll weevil in the early 20th century. For many years, the bridge over the Yazoo displayed the sign, "World's Largest Inland Long Staple Cotton Market".

The industry was largely mechanized in the 20th century before World War II, displacing thousands of sharecroppers and tenant farmers. Since the late 20th century, some Mississippi farmers have begun to replace cotton with corn and soybeans as commodity crops; the textile manufacturing industry shifted overseas and they can gain stronger prices for the newer crops, used mostly as animal feed.[6]

Greenwood's Grand Boulevard was once named one of America's 10 most beautiful streets by the U.S. Chambers of Commerce and the Garden Clubs of America. Sally Humphreys Gwin, a charter member of the Greenwood Garden Club, planted the 1,000 oak trees lining Grand Boulevard. In 1950, Gwin received a citation from the National Congress of the Daughters of the American Revolution in recognition of her work in the conservation of trees.[7][8]

The civil rights era in Greenwood

In 1955, following the US Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, ruling that segregated public education was unconstitutional, the White Citizens' Council was founded by Robert B. Patterson in Greenwood to fight against racial integration. Chapters were established across the state.[9]

From 1962 through 1965, Greenwood was a center of protests and voter registration struggles during the Civil Rights Movement. The SNCC, COFO, and the MFDP were all active in Greenwood. During this period, hundreds of African Americans were arrested in nonviolent protests; civil rights activists were subjected to repeated violence by police and whites. In addition, whites used economic retaliation against African Americans who attempted to register to vote: they fired them from jobs, evicted them from rental housing, and cut off federal commodity subsidies in poor communities.[10] The city police set their police dog, Tiger, on protesters while white counter-protesters yelled "Sic 'em" from the sidewalk.[11]

The civil rights protesters in Greenwood in the mid-1960s were supported by an economic boycott organized by the Catholic peace organization Pax Christi, which had a chapter in the city. Pax Christi's ultimately successful efforts were encouraged by native Mississippian Joseph Bernard Brunini, the Bishop of Jackson.[12] Major gains were achieved by the movement with Congressional passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In June 1966, James Meredith, the first African American to attend the University of Mississippi, announced that he was going to walk from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, to protest racism, in a March Against Fear over a distance of more than 200 miles. He invited only men to walk with him, in a highly individualized journey. After Meredith was shot two days into his walk,[13] a number of high-profile civil rights leaders of major organizations, including Stokely Carmichael of SNCC, Martin Luther King of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Floyd McKissick, and Wilkins of the NAACP vowed to continue his protest, recruiting marchers to accompany them.

Goals differed among the various groups, and the logistics of food and shelter were more difficult to organize for larger groups. But, they negotiated and collaborated, also with some groups expanding the march to achieve community organizing and voter registration in the Delta communities which they reached. National leaders tended to come and go, checking in on the march in the midst of other responsibilities; some marchers also walked for short periods, while others stayed through most of the journey. With high-spirited gatherings and song, they recruited marchers from local residents, inviting them to join the occasion. The state had promised to provide police protection if the marchers obeyed the law. Many local whites jeered and threatened the marchers, driving near them and waving Confederate flags.

When the group reached Greenwood on June 17, Carmichael was arrested but released after a few hours. Later, in Greenwood's Broad Street Park, Carmichael gave his famous Black Power speech, stating:

This is the twenty-seventh time I have been arrested—and I ain't going to jail no more! The only way we gonna stop them white men from whuppin' us is to take over. We been sayin' "freedom" for six years and we ain't got nothin'. What we gonna start saying now is Black Power![14]

The speech was a turning point in the civil rights movement in the sense that younger members took up Carmichael's slogan, taking it to support the use of violence in the defense of their freedom.[15] The speech has been said to have marked the beginning of the fragmentation of the civil rights movement in the mid 1960s,[16] but the process was already underway.

Geography

Greenwood is located at 33°31′7″N 90°11′2″W / 33.51861°N 90.18389°W / 33.51861; -90.18389 (33.518719, -90.183883).[17] According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 9.5 square miles (25 km2), of which 9.2 square miles (24 km2) is land and 0.3 square miles (0.78 km2) is water.

Demographics

Historical population
Census Pop. %±
1880308—
18901,055242.5%
19003,026186.8%
19105,83692.9%
19207,79333.5%
193011,12342.7%
194014,76732.8%
195018,06122.3%
196020,43613.1%
197022,4009.6%
198020,115−10.2%
199018,906−6.0%
200018,425−2.5%
201015,205−17.5%
Est. 201515,431[18]1.5%
U.S. Decennial Census[19]

2010 census

At the 2010 census,[20] there were 15,205 people and 6,022 households in the city. The population density was 1,237.7 per square mile (771.6/km²). There were 6,759 housing units. The racial makeup of the city was 30.4% White, 67.0% Black, 0.1% Native American, 0.9% Asian, <0.1% Pacific Islander, <0.1% from other races, and 0.5% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.1% of the population.

Among the 6,022 households 28.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 29.8% are married couples living together, 29.0% had a female householder with no husband present, 4.6% had a male householder with no wife present, and 36.6% were non-families. 32.5% of all households were made up of individuals living alone and 10.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.48 and the average family size was 3.16.

Mississippi Blues Trail markers

Radio station WGRM on Howard Street was the location of B.B. King's first live broadcast in 1940. On Sunday nights, King performed live gospel music as part of a quartet.[21] In memory of this event, the Mississippi Blues Trail has placed its third historic marker in this town at the site of the former radio station.[22][23] Another Mississippi Blues trail marker is placed near the grave of the blues singer Robert Johnson.[24] A Blues Trail marker notes the Elks Lodge.[25]

Government and infrastructure

Local government

Greenwood is governed under the city council form of government, composed of council members elected from seven wards and headed by a mayor.

State and federal representation

The United States Postal Service operates two post offices in Greenwood. They are the Greenwood Post Office and the Leflore Post Office.[26][27]

Media and publishing

Newspapers, magazines and journals

Television

AM/FM radio

Transportation

Railroads

Greenwood is served by two major rail lines. Amtrak, the national passenger rail system, provides service to Greenwood, connecting New Orleans to Chicago from Greenwood station.

Air transportation

Greenwood is served by Greenwood–Leflore Airport (GWO) to the east and is located midway between Jackson, Mississippi, and Memphis, Tennessee. It is about halfway between Dallas, Texas, and Atlanta, Georgia.

Highways

Education

Greenwood Public School District operates public schools. Greenwood High School is the only public high school in Greenwood. As of 2014, the student body is 99% black.

Leflore County School District operates schools outside the Greenwood city area, including Amanda Elzy High School.

Pillow Academy, a private Christian school, is located in unincorporated Leflore County, near Greenwood.

St. Francis Catholic School, run by the Catholic Church, provides educational services from Kindergarten through Sixth Grade.

In addition, North New Summit School provides educational services for specials-needs and at-risk children from Kindergarten through High School.

Notable people

Furry Lewis

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Find a County". National Association of Counties. Retrieved 2011-06-07.
  2. ↑ Greg O'Brien (2008). Pre-removal Choctaw History: Exploring New Paths. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 221. ISBN 978-0-8061-3916-6. Retrieved 13 May 2013.
  3. 1 2 Donny Whitehead; Mary Carol Miller (14 September 2009). Greenwood. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-6786-0. Retrieved 13 May 2013.
  4. ↑ Smith, Frank E. (1954). The Yazoo River. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. pp. 57-58. ISBN 0-87805-355-7
  5. ↑ John C. Willis, Forgotten Time: The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta after the Civil War. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2000
  6. ↑ Krauss, Clifford. "Mississippi Farmers Trade Cotton Plantings for Corn", The New York Times, May 5, 2009
  7. ↑ Delta Democrat-Times, November 26, 1956.
  8. ↑ Kirkpatrick, Mario Carter. Mississippi Off the Beaten Path. GPP Travel, 2007
  9. ↑ "White Citizens' Councils aimed to maintain 'Southern way of life'". Jackson Sun.
  10. ↑ Mississippi Voter Registration — Greenwood ~ Civil Rights Movement Veterans
  11. ↑ Hendrickson, Paul (2003). Sons of Mississippi. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-40461-9.
  12. ↑ Michael V. Namorato (1998). The Catholic Church in Mississippi: 1911 - 1984; a History. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 111. ISBN 978-0-313-30719-5. Retrieved 13 May 2013.
  13. ↑ "On this day June 6, 1966: Black civil rights activist shot". BBC. Retrieved May 13, 2013.
  14. ↑ Matthew C. Whitaker Ph.D. (1 March 2011). Icons of Black America: Breaking Barriers and Crossing Boundaries [Three Volumes]. ABC-CLIO. p. 152. ISBN 978-0-313-37643-6. Retrieved 13 May 2013.
  15. ↑ Richard T. Schaefer (20 March 2008). Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society. SAGE Publications. p. 246. ISBN 978-1-4129-2694-2. Retrieved 13 May 2013.
  16. ↑ Williams, Horace Randall and Ben Beard (2009). This Day in Civil Rights History. NewSouth Books. p. 187. ISBN 978-1-58835-241-5. Retrieved 13 May 2013.
  17. ↑ "US Gazetteer files: 2010, 2000, and 1990". United States Census Bureau. 2011-02-12. Retrieved 2011-04-23.
  18. ↑ "Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2015". Retrieved July 2, 2016.
  19. ↑ "Census of Population and Housing". Census.gov. Retrieved June 4, 2015.
  20. ↑ "Greenwood Mississippi". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved May 14, 2013.
  21. ↑ Cloues, Kacey. "Great Southern Getaways - Mississippi" (PDF). www.atlantamagazine.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-06-25. Retrieved 2008-05-31.
  22. ↑ "Historical marker placed on Mississippi Blues Trail". Associated Press. January 25, 2007. Retrieved 2007-02-09.
  23. ↑ "Film crew chronicles blues markers" (PDF). The Greenwood Commonwealth. Retrieved 2008-09-30.
  24. ↑ Widen, Larry. "JS Online: Blues trail". www.jsonline.com. Archived from the original on 2007-12-15. Retrieved 2008-05-29.
  25. ↑ "Mississippi Blues Commission - Blues Trail". www.msbluestrail.org. Retrieved 2008-05-29.
  26. ↑ "Post Office Location - GREENWOOD." United States Postal Service. Retrieved on August 12, 2010.
  27. ↑ "Post Office Location - LEFLORE." United States Postal Service. Retrieved on August 12, 2010.
  28. ↑ Mike Celizic (February 11, 1985). "Stardom Comes too Slowly for Speedster". The Record. p. s09.
  29. ↑ Richard Skelly. "Nora Jean Bruso | Biography & History". AllMusic. Retrieved 2015-12-16.
  30. 1 2 3 "Carl Small Town Center Continues Making a Difference in the Delta". US Fed News. December 4, 2013.
  31. ↑ "Louis Coleman Stats". Baseball Almanac. Retrieved July 18, 2013.
  32. ↑ "A Little Abnormal: The Life of Byron De La Beckwith". Time. July 5, 1963. Retrieved January 26, 2014.
  33. ↑ "Football Signings in the Mid-South". The Commercial Appeal. February 7, 1991. p. D5.
  34. ↑ "Betty Everett, 61, of 'The Shoop Shoop Song'". New York Times. August 23, 2001. Retrieved January 26, 2014.
  35. ↑ Bryan Crawford (October 29, 2009). "Ford left huge legacy in Euroleague basketball". Greenwood Commonwealth.
  36. ↑ "Franklin, William Webster, (1941 - )". U.S. Congress. Retrieved January 26, 2014.
  37. ↑ Bill Burrus (July 19, 2012). "A hectic week for golfing Gallaghers". Greenwood Commonwealth.
  38. ↑ John Howard (10 October 2001). Men Like That: A Southern Queer History. University of Chicago Press. p. 176. ISBN 978-0-226-35470-5.
  39. ↑ Scott Stanton (1 September 2003). The Tombstone Tourist: Musicians. Gallery Books. p. 134. ISBN 978-0-7434-6330-0.
  40. ↑ David Kenneth Wiggins (2010). Sport in America: From Colonial Leisure to Celebrity Figures and Globalization. Human Kinetics. p. 370. ISBN 978-1-4504-0912-4.
  41. ↑ Sal Maiorana (January 2005). Memorable Stories of Buffalo Bills Football. Sports Publishing LLC. p. 82. ISBN 978-1-58261-963-7.
  42. ↑ "Mississippi Slave Narratives from the WPA Records". MSGenWeb. Retrieved January 26, 2014.
  43. ↑ Filip Bondy (27 April 2010). Chasing the Game: America and the Quest for the World Cup. Da Capo Press, Incorporated. p. 253. ISBN 978-0-306-81905-6.
  44. ↑ "Cleo Lemon". nfl.com. Retrieved January 26, 2014.
  45. ↑ Paul Oliver (27 September 1984). Songsters and Saints: Vocal Traditions on Race Records. Cambridge University Press. p. 232. ISBN 978-0-521-26942-1.
  46. ↑ "The President". University of Florida. Retrieved January 26, 2014.
  47. ↑ "Paul Maholm Stats". mlb.com. Retrieved January 26, 2014.
  48. ↑ "Matt Miller Stats". mlb.com. Retrieved January 26, 2014.
  49. ↑ Bob Doerschuk (2001). 88: The Giants of Jazz Piano. Backbeat Books. p. 287. ISBN 978-0-87930-656-4.
  50. ↑ Max Apple (1976). Mom, the Flag, and Apple Pie: Great American Writers on Great American Things. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 39. ISBN 978-0-385-11459-2.
  51. ↑ The Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory. 10. LexisNexis. 1996. p. 1135.
  52. ↑ Nigel Williamson; Robert Plant (2 April 2007). The rough guide to the blues. Rough Guides. p. 308. ISBN 978-1-84353-519-5.
  53. ↑ Richard Rubin (15 June 2010). Confederacy of Silence: A True Tale of the New Old South. Simon and Schuster. p. 2. ISBN 1-4516-0265-0.
  54. ↑ Tracy Hargreaves (1 September 2001). Donna Tartt's The Secret History: A Reader's Guide. Continuum. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-8264-5320-4.
  55. ↑ Bob McCann (2010). Encyclopedia of African American Actresses in Film and Television. McFarland. p. 314. ISBN 978-0-7864-5804-2.
  56. ↑ Jas Obrecht (2000). Rollin' and Tumblin': The Postwar Blues Guitarists. Miller Freeman Books. p. 210. ISBN 978-0-87930-613-7.
  57. ↑ Martha Ward Plowden (January 1996). Olympic Black Women. Pelican Publishing. p. 143. ISBN 978-1-4556-0994-9.
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