Yazoo County is a county located in the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2010 census, the population was 28,065. The county seat is Yazoo City. It is named for the Yazoo River, which forms its western border. Its name is said to come from a Choctaw language word meaning "River of Death."
Holmes County is a county in the U.S. state of Mississippi; its western border is formed by the Yazoo River and the eastern border by the Big Black River. The western part of the county is within the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta. As of the 2010 census, the population was 19,198. Its county seat is Lexington. The county is named in honor of David Holmes, territorial governor and the first governor of the state of Mississippi and later United States Senator for Mississippi. A favorite son, Edmond Favor Noel, was an attorney and state politician, elected as governor of Mississippi, serving from 1908 to 1912.
Mound Bayou is a city in Bolivar County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 1,533 at the 2010 census, down from 2,102 in 2000. It is notable for having been founded as an independent black community in 1887 by former slaves led by Isaiah Montgomery.
Yazoo City is a U.S. city in Yazoo County, Mississippi. It was named after the Yazoo River, which, in turn was named by the French explorer Robert La Salle in 1682 as "Rivière des Yazous" in reference to the Yazoo tribe living near the river's mouth. It is the county seat of Yazoo County and the principal city of the Yazoo City Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is part of the larger Jackson–Yazoo City Combined Statistical Area. According to the 2010 census, the population was 11,403.
Alphonso Michael Espy is an American politician who served as the 25th United States Secretary of Agriculture from 1993 to 1994. He was both the first African American and first person from the Deep South to hold the position. A member of the Democratic Party, Espy previously served as the U.S. Representative for Mississippi's 2nd congressional district from 1987 to 1993.
A benefit society, fraternal benefit society, fraternal benefit order, or mutual aid society is a society, an organization or a voluntary association formed to provide mutual aid, benefit, for instance insurance for relief from sundry difficulties. Such organizations may be formally organized with charters and established customs, or may arise ad hoc to meet unique needs of a particular time and place. Many major financial institutions existing today, particularly some insurance companies, mutual savings banks, and credit unions, trace their origins back to benefit societies, as can many modern fraternal organizations and fraternal orders which are now viewed as being primarily social; the modern legal system essentially requires all such organizations of appreciable size to incorporate as one of these forms or another to continue to exist on an ongoing basis.
Theodore Roosevelt Mason Howard was an American civil rights leader, fraternal organization leader, entrepreneur and surgeon. He was among the mentors to activists such as Medgar Evers, Charles Evers, Fannie Lou Hamer, Amzie Moore, Aaron Henry, and Jesse Jackson; founded Mississippi's leading civil rights organization in the 1950s, the Regional Council of Negro Leadership; and played a prominent role in the investigation of the kidnapping and murder of Emmett Till in the late 1950s. He was also president of the National Medical Association, chairman of the board of the National Negro Business League, and a leading national advocate of African-American businesses.
George Washington Lee was an African-American civil rights leader, minister, and entrepreneur. He was a vice president of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership and head of the Belzoni, Mississippi, branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He was assassinated in 1955 in retaliation for his efforts to register African Americans to vote. Since 1890 they had been effectively disenfranchised in Mississippi due to a new state constitution; other states across the South passed similar acts and constitutions, excluding millions of people from the political system and establishing one-party states.
David T. Beito is a historian and professor of history at the University of Alabama. He is the author of Taxpayers in Revolt: Tax Resistance during the Great Depression (1989); From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890–1967 (2000); The Voluntary City: Choice, Community, and Civil Society (2002); and T.R.M. Howard: Doctor, Entrepreneur, Civil Rights Pioneer (2018) which was co-authored by Professor Linda Royster Beito of Stillman College). It is a biography of civil rights leader, surgeon, entrepreneur and self-help advocate, T. R. M. Howard, who was a mentor to Medgar Evers and Fannie Lou Hamer, and was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Harper's Magazine, and other publications.
The International Order of Twelve Knights and Daughters of Tabor is an African-American fraternal organization best known as the sponsor of the Taborian Hospital.
The Italian-American National Union is a Sicilian-American organization, which controlled much of the Italian vote within the United States during the early twentieth century. It was based on Chicago, Illinois. It was a major source of conflict during Prohibition, as underworld figures fought to control the highly influential organization through a series of puppet presidents largely controlled by the Chicago Outfit. During the 1970s, the organization was probably merged into the Italian Sons and Daughters of America. However, similar groups still exist and have much influence in Italian American communities throughout the United States.
Linda Royster Beito is professor of political science and criminal justice at Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Henry Espy was the Mayor of Clarksdale, Mississippi until 2013. He is the brother of former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy and father of Mississippi state Representative Chuck Espy, a Democrat of Clarksdale, Jaye Espy, Charisse Espy, and Paula Espy.
Thomas Jefferson Huddleston Sr. was a prominent African American entrepreneur and community leader in Mississippi. He owned dozens of funeral homes in Mississippi. He was the grandfather of former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy, former Mayor Henry Espy of Clarksdale, Mississippi, and great-grandfather of current Clarksdale, Mississippi, Mayor and former Mississippi Representative Chuck Espy.
Perry Wilbon Howard, II, was an American attorney from Mississippi and partner of a prominent law firm in Washington, D.C. He served as the longtime Republican National Committeeman from the U.S. state of Mississippi from 1924 to 1960, even as he conducted his career in the capital. He was appointed in 1923 as United States Special Assistant to the Attorney General under Warren G. Harding, serving also under Calvin Coolidge, and into Herbert Hoover's administration, resigning in 1928.
Taborian Hospital in Mound Bayou, Mississippi opened in 1942 to great fanfare by the International Order of Twelve Knights and Daughters of Tabor. Everyone on the staff, including doctors and nurses, were black. The facilities included two major operating rooms, an x-ray machine, incubators, electrocardiograph, blood bank, and laboratory. Operating costs came almost entirely from membership dues and other voluntary contributions.
Lloyd Tevis (L.T.) Miller was an American physician who was the first medical director of the Afro-American Hospital in Yazoo City, Mississippi, the first private hospital for blacks in the state. He was also a co-founder of the Mississippi Medical and Surgical Association.
Sara Winifred Brown (1868–1948) was a prominent African American teacher and doctor. She worked in disaster relief and gynecology. In 1910, she helped to found the group that would later become the National Association of University Women, and in 1924 was the first woman to serve as an alumni trustee of Howard University.
Roberts Clinic, a historic Colonial Revival building completed in 1937, was the first medical facility in Austin, Texas established to provide hospital rooms and care exclusively for the comfort of American Black patients. The practice offered treatment for acute and chronic illnesses, preventive treatment, minor surgeries, labor, delivery, and abortion services through the 1960s.
