African American
The Education of Jesse Leroy Brown
Jesse Leroy Brown, the third son of John “Papa” Brown, came of age during the Jim Crow Era. Racism clung to Jesse’s childhood experiences like the oppressive humidity of a Mississippi summer afternoon. Despite many obstacles, Brown eventually attended Ohio State University. He became the first African American to complete the U.S. Navy’s basic flight training. In the closing months of 1950, Ensign Jesse Brown participated in twenty “strike missions” during the early stages of the Korean War.
A Prince Enslaved in Southwest Mississippi: The Story of Abdul Rahman Ibrahima (1762-1829)
Introduction
Prince Abdul Rahman Ibrahima (1762-1829) was from Futa Jallon in today’s Republic of Guinea in Africa. He was captured during war, brought to America, and sold to Thomas Foster, who enslaved him for forty years near Natchez. Through complex negotiations, he and his wife Isabella were freed in 1828 and departed from this site. He never reached his homeland, dying in 1829 of disease in Liberia, where he had landed. Ibrahima became known as the “Prince Among Slaves.” Descendants remain in the U.S. and Liberia.
A Prince Enslaved in Southwest Mississippi: The Story of Abdul Rahman Ibrahima (1762-1829)
The story of Ibrahima, who was known as the “Prince Among Slaves,” is one of the most remarkable stories to emerge from the Natchez-Adams County area.
Okolona Industrial School Lesson Plan
Overview
Okolona Industrial School was founded by Wallace Aaron Battle in 1902, citing the size of Mississippi’s Black population and the high rate of illiteracy as the catalysts for his decision. The school was located in northeastern Mississippi and provided industrial and teacher training for Black residents of the state. Battle structured the school after Booker T. Washington’s curriculum at the Tuskegee Institute.
Okolona Industrial School
Founded in 1902 by Wallace Battle, the Okolona Industrial School offered industrial and teacher training for generations of Black men and women in northeastern Mississippi. The institution was one of the most successful industrial schools in the state, having a plant of 380 acres in Chickasaw County and a valuation of nearly a quarter million dollars by the 1920s.
The Big Dreamer: James Meredith’s Fight for Integration
Applying to the University of Mississippi on January 20, 1961, Meredith was immediately rejected after writing in his application that he was a Black man. Unwavering in his mission to be admitted, he reached out to Medgar Evers, field secretary for the NAACP.
Student Protest at Delta State College in March 1969
Today, legal and institutionally supported racial segregation within places of higher learning feels like a thing of the past. Yet, integration and increased representation of students of color, especially Black students, did not come easily in the Mississippi Delta even after racial segregation was outlawed.