Mound Bayou
From “Mississippi, A Guide to the Magnolia State”
Compiled and Written by the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration
THE VIKING PRESS NEW YORK
FIRST PUBLISHED IN MAY 1938
Page 320
MOUND BAYOU, 88.7 m. (143 alt., 834 pop.), Renova and Wyandotte are the only towns in the State populated entirely by Negroes. Mound Bayou was founded in 1887 by Isaiah T. Montgomery and Benjamin T. Green, Negroes. Montgomery was a former slave of Joseph Emory Davis, brother of Jefferson Davis, and purchased the Davis plantation at Davis Bend after the war, living there with his family until he moved to Mound Bayou. Later he, the only Negro delegate to Mississippi's Constitutional Convention of 1890, supported the provision whose effect was to bar Negroes from voting.
Montgomery and Green, accompanied by their cousin, J. P. T. Montgomery, and twelve families, most of whom came from Davis Bend, Warren Co., Miss., surveyed this site in Bolivar Co. and cleared it for occupation. Indian mounds NE. and SE. of the site gave the town its name. The population had reached 183 before the end of the first year of settlement. In February 1898 the Negroes petitioned the Governor to incorporate the village, and in August the charter was signed and sealed. The town has the usual mayor, sheriff, aldermen, and chamber of commerce; the inhabitants engage in farming, lumbering and merchandising and service businesses. Here is the BOLIVAR COUNTY TRAINING SCHOOL, a coeducational institution. Overnight accommodations for white visitors are available at the Montgomery Home (R), a red brick house.
Founder's Day, held annually in July, is attended by prominent Negroes from all parts of the country.
Each photo in a gallery shows slightly compressed on your display. To view one full size, just click on it. Then you'll see it full size and from there you can operate as a slide show if you prefer.
Compiled and Written by the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration
THE VIKING PRESS NEW YORK
FIRST PUBLISHED IN MAY 1938
Page 320
MOUND BAYOU, 88.7 m. (143 alt., 834 pop.), Renova and Wyandotte are the only towns in the State populated entirely by Negroes. Mound Bayou was founded in 1887 by Isaiah T. Montgomery and Benjamin T. Green, Negroes. Montgomery was a former slave of Joseph Emory Davis, brother of Jefferson Davis, and purchased the Davis plantation at Davis Bend after the war, living there with his family until he moved to Mound Bayou. Later he, the only Negro delegate to Mississippi's Constitutional Convention of 1890, supported the provision whose effect was to bar Negroes from voting.
Montgomery and Green, accompanied by their cousin, J. P. T. Montgomery, and twelve families, most of whom came from Davis Bend, Warren Co., Miss., surveyed this site in Bolivar Co. and cleared it for occupation. Indian mounds NE. and SE. of the site gave the town its name. The population had reached 183 before the end of the first year of settlement. In February 1898 the Negroes petitioned the Governor to incorporate the village, and in August the charter was signed and sealed. The town has the usual mayor, sheriff, aldermen, and chamber of commerce; the inhabitants engage in farming, lumbering and merchandising and service businesses. Here is the BOLIVAR COUNTY TRAINING SCHOOL, a coeducational institution. Overnight accommodations for white visitors are available at the Montgomery Home (R), a red brick house.
Founder's Day, held annually in July, is attended by prominent Negroes from all parts of the country.
Each photo in a gallery shows slightly compressed on your display. To view one full size, just click on it. Then you'll see it full size and from there you can operate as a slide show if you prefer.
FSA photographer Russell Lee visited the town January 1939, camera in hand. These are his photos from that visit. The first one shows an attempt at 'colorizing' by Fredric Falcon.
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A high-resolution version of this photo is available. Click here.
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Here are a few Mound Bayou photos I discovered here and there.
My father and I would often get a pickup load of something (apples, peaches, watermelons) and drive through the countryside selling the fruit door-to-door. Many folks really appreciated that you came - for, otherwise, they might not see any of those fruits at all that season. "Going to town" was a real chore and - for most - not done often. Country stores existed but had limited offerings and generally no fresh fruit.
Usually all we had to do was stop in front of their house. I was always amazed at how quickly someone would emerge, walk out to the truck, take a look and ask "How much?" And they nearly always had a handkerchief with them with some money tied up in it. With a little initiative, one could turn a little profit between laying by the crop and cotton picking.
I remember my Dad and I (with the verbal permission of the town Mayor) set up our pickup truck with the covered bed on a Mound Bayou corner and sold apples, Summer of 1950. It took some time to find someone with authority to speak for the town, but Dad always got permission before setting up in any town. (Today you'd have to get a written license.)
[Dad had a few sales "gimmicks" he used occasionally. For example, say we're selling watermelons. Sometimes his answer to "How much?" would be "A dollar fifty if you choose 'em; one dollar if I pick it out." Generally each individual would have no doubt which option they would take. (Some one option, some the other, by the way.) But there was the occasional customer who would stew, ponder and cogitate mightily for minutes before deciding. Some would even ask which one we would pick out if we were going to do the choosing. (Naturally, that's the kind of question you do not answer.) Of course, the real deal was that we didn't care which one - they're all the same to us. If the decision was that we choose, we'd simple pick the nearest, easiest to get to and hand it to them. We'd never say so, but our price was one dollar to make our target profit - if some would willingly pay a dollar fifty, so much the better.
I was never quite sure how I felt about one of his devices which played on the mathematical illiteracy that is about as common today as it was then. "Apples - two for a nickel, three for a dime!!" (How long did you need think about it?)]
Usually all we had to do was stop in front of their house. I was always amazed at how quickly someone would emerge, walk out to the truck, take a look and ask "How much?" And they nearly always had a handkerchief with them with some money tied up in it. With a little initiative, one could turn a little profit between laying by the crop and cotton picking.
I remember my Dad and I (with the verbal permission of the town Mayor) set up our pickup truck with the covered bed on a Mound Bayou corner and sold apples, Summer of 1950. It took some time to find someone with authority to speak for the town, but Dad always got permission before setting up in any town. (Today you'd have to get a written license.)
[Dad had a few sales "gimmicks" he used occasionally. For example, say we're selling watermelons. Sometimes his answer to "How much?" would be "A dollar fifty if you choose 'em; one dollar if I pick it out." Generally each individual would have no doubt which option they would take. (Some one option, some the other, by the way.) But there was the occasional customer who would stew, ponder and cogitate mightily for minutes before deciding. Some would even ask which one we would pick out if we were going to do the choosing. (Naturally, that's the kind of question you do not answer.) Of course, the real deal was that we didn't care which one - they're all the same to us. If the decision was that we choose, we'd simple pick the nearest, easiest to get to and hand it to them. We'd never say so, but our price was one dollar to make our target profit - if some would willingly pay a dollar fifty, so much the better.
I was never quite sure how I felt about one of his devices which played on the mathematical illiteracy that is about as common today as it was then. "Apples - two for a nickel, three for a dime!!" (How long did you need think about it?)]
