{"id":78398,"date":"2021-09-29T12:44:31","date_gmt":"2021-09-29T12:44:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=78398"},"modified":"2021-09-29T12:44:36","modified_gmt":"2021-09-29T12:44:36","slug":"this-ms-community-survived-slavery-segregation-now-they-fight-to-save-gods-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=78398","title":{"rendered":"“This MS community survived slavery, segregation. Now, they fight to save \u2018God\u2019s country.\u2019”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sun Herald: <\/a>“\u201cMost people would have torn it down,\u201d said Evans, who taught history at Boston College and in Massachusetts public schools while maintaining his roots as a sixth-generation member of the Turkey Creek community. \u201cI didn\u2019t. I knew it had to be historic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c . . . It was almost predestined that what has happened would happen,\u201d he said. \u201cGod\u2019s hand was in it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, the old paymaster\u2019s office is almost restored. The lone surviving structure in a 1943 plant explosion that killed 11 men, including 8 African-Americans, will serve as a memorial to those who died and a community center for the nonprofit Turkey Creek Community Initiatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The center will also be a repository for the history of the Black men who toiled in South Mississippi\u2019s timber industry, at low pay and great risk to their physical safety, while many of their wives cleaned the homes and laundered the clothes of white families on the beach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a broader sense, the paymaster\u2019s office will anchor a community with a rich history that dates to slavery, a history that has bound together residents for generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turkey Creek, tucked away beside Gulfport\u2019s busiest commercial corridor, is a place apart and a testament to the perseverance of Black Americans. The shared history of its residents, and the kinship that sprung from its founding families, created unique community ties that have survived for generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Turkey Creek, residents have always shared the bounties of their gardens, watched over one another\u2019s children, and worshiped at the same community church<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the community\u2019s founding in 1866, oral history has been a strong tradition. The old paymaster\u2019s office will tie together stories of a community that withstood Jim Crow laws and segregation to preserve its identify as the city of Gulfport continues developing the commercial and industrial corridors that threaten to swallow it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTurkey Creek is God\u2019s country,\u201d said Raymond White Sr., an 87-year-old descendant of one of the founding families. \u201cI think He smiled when He laid out that land there in Turkey Creek.\u201d”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sun Herald: “\u201cMost people would have torn it down,\u201d said Evans, who taught history at Boston College and in Massachusetts public schools while maintaining his roots as a sixth-generation member of the Turkey Creek community. \u201cI didn\u2019t. I knew it had to be historic.\u201d \u201c . . . It was almost predestined that what has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsstory"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78398"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78399,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78398\/revisions\/78399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}