Civil Rights Trail – Chapter Four: Mound Bayou, Mississippi

Food, Music and Enlightenment

The Civil Rights Trail Chapters

Join us in this seven-part series as we share our once-in-a-lifetime adventure.

• Chapter One: Introduction
• Chapter Two: Emmett Till
• Chapter Three: Juke Joint Festival – Clarksdale, Mississippi
• Chapter Four: Mound Bayou – Mississippi
• Chapter Five: New Orleans
• Chapter Six: Montgomery, Alabama – The Epicenter of The Movement
• Chapter Seven: Final Thoughts

Posted June 14, 2024 – Narrated by Carmen

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As we drove north toward Mound Bayou, on our way to the King Biscuit Blues Festival, we expected to visit a Museum.

But we soon discovered that the entire town is a museum.

The Museum

The day was “warm” (that’s how southerners describe a scorcher) and the Mound Bayou Museum was blissfully cool. Our guide, Hermon Johnson Jr., kindly suggested we “take a chair.” Pleased to be inside for as long as possible, we gladly obliged.

For most museums, a short introductory film is usually in order before exploring the exhibits. At Mound Bayou, the introduction is delivered the southern way, through the art of storytelling.

We arrived on a slow day. It was just us. Hermon sat down, leaned in, and in a soft, pleasant voice he transported us to plantation times when silken laced ladies with blond nests of tornado ringlets perched on piano benches dispatching music from wide open transom windows across green lawns with mossy oaks and then out, out to the fields beyond where enslaved field workers mopped their brows under the critical eye of a red-headed blue-eyed overseer …

“No. It wasn’t like that.”

Hermon record-scratched my subconscious overture of Gone With The Wind.

“Wasn’t like that at all,” he emphasized with all seriousness. “Not on Hurricane Plantation. My ancestors were literate, had plenty to eat, wore nice clothes and didn’t work under the whip.”

Jim and I exchanged rapid fire glances. Did we miss something in the guide book? Had we stumbled into a Dixiefied Lost Cause propaganda trap?

Mound Bayou

If you’ve ever heard of Mound Bayou, then you are the exception. Both of our families are from Mississippi and, until recently, we had only a vague knowledge about this Utopian community in Bolivar County.

Former slaves, left to their own resources, built a city that actually thrived all the way into the Civil Rights era … in Mississippi.

Hermon continued, breaking through our cognitive dissonance with genius precision.

Through cooperative action, a group of recently emancipated black settlers, escaped the sharecropper dead-end existence by carving out a wilderness to create a prosperous town with a strong independent economy, education system, bank, and a state-of-the-art hospital staffed by resident professionals who laid the groundwork for managed care in America. In its heyday, Mound Bayou had a library and public swimming pool and more luxuries than the Queen Cities. Teddy Roosevelt called it, “The Jewel of The Delta.”

After Hermon wrapped up the story, I asked him if there was a historical novel?… film… ?

“No and no” he answered.

“So, no television series ‘coming soon’ about this fascinating history?”

“No,” he laughed.

“I mean, with the story of the Montgomerys, why am I bingeing on Succession?”

“Beats me” Hermon said, shrugging it off.

The Mound Bayou story is pure unaffected elegance with mouth-watering history and a rich tapestry of cinematic moments. The dramatic circuitry is complex with the occasional and humorous turn of events. This true story is character driven romance of epic American proportions with real dilemmas, emotional peaks and valleys, complications, regrets, tragedies and wild-card successes.

To understand the story of Mound Bayou, you must go back to Davis Bend, now known as Davis Island. As Hermon says, “It all began in a library, on a plantation at Davis Bend.”

Davis Bend

In 1837, 18 year-old Benjamin Thornton Montgomery, was separated from his Virginia family and sold down the river to Joseph Emory Davis, elder brother to the future president of the failed confederacy.

Benjamin soon escaped, but was quickly recovered by slave hunters. Rather than punish his runaway slave, Joseph, a lawyer, questioned Benjamin about his complaints at Hurricane Plantation. Benjamin’s eloquence so impressed Joseph that the two men negotiated a truce about how their relationship as slave and master might proceed on the Plantation.

An ambitious businessman and a scholar, prone to tyrannical fits, Joseph Davis adapted his plantation to the principals of “rational treatment” according to the writings of British social reformer Robert Owen. Owen was introduced to Joseph by his son, Robert Dale Owen, the democratic representative from Indiana.

Educating a slave in Mississippi could land a white person a year in prison, that is, unless he’s extremely rich. In the gentrified south, Joseph was entitled to his eccentricities. Education and lighter governance, Joseph believed, would condition his 365 “servants” (valued at $600,000 – ~$22 million in 2024) to be more submissive and productive.

Joseph commissioned a teacher and wrote by-laws to establish an independent court for his slaves to oversee disciplinary matters internally. Enslaved people could marry and raise their own children to adulthood. Sexual exploitation of enslaved women (a common practice on many plantations) was strictly forbidden. Clean quarters, medical and dental care were provided along with gentler working conditions.

This highly unconventional culture distinguished Hurricane Plantation in Mississippi. Furthermore, Joseph incentivized Benjamin’s cooperation by promising to sell him his freedom. Wages could be earned by working extra jobs, Joseph said.

Their agreement also included an education and access to Joseph’s grand personal library – detached from the house – the finest collection in the South.

Joseph wanted Benjamin to surrender mind and body to Hurricane Plantation. That’s not far from selling your soul. But since Benjamin wasn’t likely to escape Mississippi alive, he agreed and set himself to work. Soon he met Mary Virginia Lewis, and in 1840 they married.

With a family on the way, Benjamin applied himself. A natural student, he took advantage of all opportunities to expand his knowledge and abilities. Eventually, Joseph gave him full oversight of Hurricane. By 1850, under Benjamin’s executive leadership, Joseph’s strategy to “combine idyllic living with profit and prestige” paid off. Hurricane Plantation was the envy of southern gentry throughout the Deep South.

Fifteen years before Benjamin’s arrival, Joseph’s father died, saddling him with his hell-raising, academically challenged, teenaged brother, Jefferson Davis.

Barely graduating from West Point – and an embarrassment to his big brother, “Joe,” – who had pulled favors to gain “Jeff’s” enrollment – he failed in his first career as a military leader. So, Joseph financed his brother’s future by giving him one-thousand undeveloped acres of Davis Bend, adjoining Hurricane. Jeff called his portion, “Briarfield,” and it is likely no oversight that Joe failed (for decades) to surrender the deed.

Jefferson and his wife Varina Howell Davis, built a home in Briarfield.

Archived correspondence between Ben and Joseph details the workings of plantation life. Crops were planted and harvested. Children were born. With his own earnings, Benjamin and Mary opened their own business on Hurricane Plantation. The wildly successful “Montgomery & Sons General Store” provided enough income for Benjamin to buy Mary’s freedom from Joseph.

As Joseph expected, his brother decided he was born to better things than farming cotton. But, under a system where “inequality provides,” Benjamin’s help with Briarfield freed the late-bloomer to pursue a new career. The future president of the Confederacy spent his days next door in Joseph’s spectacular library strategizing and networking with his big brother’s wealthy connections.

Nevertheless, in this flawed Utopian paradise, with his work load greatly increased, Benjamin continued his rise. He emerged a renaissance man. Proficient in a multitude of disciplines and excelled as an inventor of industrial design. Together, Joseph, Jefferson and Benjamin entered into a business partnership to produce one of Benjamin’s inventions – a unique steam propulsion device for more efficient shallow water navigation.

Over the years, as Jefferson rose to prominence, he would occasionally encounter Benjamin with his sons, William and Isaiah, in the library – The Room Where It Happens – where the Montgomery family quietly fueled their dreams.

One day at Briarfield, while clipping roses with Varina, Jefferson received a message announcing him President of the Confederacy. Varina cried with anguish.

Benjamin, knowing his boss’s brother well, must have questioned Jefferson’s competency to defeat the Union. Miss Varina’s cynicism about The Southern Cause was certainly no secret at Davis Bend. What would happen to him? his family? and the workers of Davis Bend when the confederacy lost? Again, he was left with no choice but to persevere at Hurricane.

As the war raged, Benjamin kept the plantation profitable on minimal resources. Long before the Union army invaded Vicksburg, the Davis brothers evacuated their households – Jefferson’s to Montreal, Joseph’s to Tuscaloosa – leaving Benjamin to save Davis Bend alone. But when Vicksburg fell in 1863, Benjamin took no chances and dispatched his family to Ohio. Benjamin and Mary’s young son, Isaiah – who had been Joseph Davis’ valet – saw his father and family safely to Cincinnati before joining the Union Navy.

Isiah’s older brother William also enlisted with the U.S. Navy, serving aboard the USS Carondelet.

The War – The Beginning of the End

As the Union soldiers fell upon Davis Bend, burning Joseph’s stately mansion, but sparing the elaborate library, the Unit (most gleefully) repurposed Jefferson’s home into the Freedmen’s Bureau where the U.S. government explored ways to assimilate slaves into freedom and the market economy.

In February 1865, before the end of the war, 22-year-old William returned to Davis Bend. One night, as he sat with his brother Isaiah, watching a gun battle on the river, they noticed how quickly the Confederate boat increased speed to escape the Union vessel. Knowing the Confederates were using armed boats to ship cotton, William said, “They dropped cotton!” That night the young men retrieved five or six bales of cotton out of the river and sold them for $1,800. (~$34,000 in 2024)

Within days, the Montgomery and Sons General Store reopened and William mustered a company of formerly enslaved cotton farmers protected by the United States Colored Troops.

They sent word to Ohio for their family’s return, and Benjamin Montgomery, once again, took up his leadership role.

Applying the same Utopian principals Joseph relied on to build Davis Bend, Benjamin created “The Association,” a community of former Mississippi sharecroppers. For the next decade, they raised cotton on the plantation, producing up to 3,000 bales a year.

$5.9 Million Purchase

On November 19, 1866, Benjamin Montgomery and his former master, Joseph Davis, reached another agreement. Benjamin would purchase both Davis Bend plantations, on terms, for $300,000 (~$5.9 million in 2024).

In 1867, a federal post office was built and William T. Montgomery became the 2nd formerly enslaved postmaster in the south. Benjamin was elected Justice of the Peace of Davis Bend – the first African-American and former slave to hold office in Mississippi. An international exposition judged Davis Bend Cotton “The World’s Finest“.

At its peak, Montgomery and Sons Association was among the wealthiest merchant-planters in the South. The community flourished with improved living conditions and educational opportunities.

Davis Bend’s Final Days

Then came a long dreary spell of terrible bad luck. The Association faced a devastating storm surge which flooded the peninsula and separated Davis Bend from the mainland, henceforth to be known as Davis Island.

Sustainability problems mounted with the collapse of the cotton industry and, to top it off, Jefferson Davis’ nasty dispute with his departed brother’s estate (See the year 1874) ruined all hopes of an enterprising future. Benjamin was forced to default on the loan for Hurricane Plantation. Thus, the Davis Bend legacy died. Heartbroken, Benjamin Montgomery’s health rapidly declined and he passed away in 1877.

In this period of despair, the Montgomery brothers parted ways. William, a brilliant academic, trusted in only two things: the power of soil and the continuing escalation of racial tensions in the Deep South. He felt the family’s hope was in Bonanza Farming opportunities up north in Dakota Territory. As always, William’s logic was flawless, his economic plan sound. But Isaiah would not be moved.

The Birth of Mound Bayou

Isaiah stayed in Mississippi holding onto his father’s unfulfilled dream of a Utopian community of black refugees of enslavement. In 1887, with his cousin Benjamin Titus Green, they gained Freedmen protection.

Attracted by an ad for land, they bought 840 acres of dense, swampy hardwood forest in the heart of the Mississippi Delta where a new railroad connected Memphis to Vicksburg.

The parcel – named for the ancient Choctaw mounds flanking the tracks – was priced for quick sale due to malaria risk. The railroad officials doubted any whites would ever settle there.

Eleven families from Davis Bend co-founded the settlement (including Samuel and Sally Thompson, the great grandparents of our guide, Hermon Johnson). Isaiah initiated a mass advertising campaign calling emancipated settlers throughout the south to join the community.

Booker T. Washington joined his voice to Isaiah’s dream, and settlers from far and wide boarded the train to Mound Bayou. But when the men stepped out of the Blacks Only passenger car and cast their eyes on that swamp with massive hardwoods several stories high, some turned around and got right back on that train. So, Isaiah and Booker learned to wait there at the platform to encourage and inspire the men to disembark and continue their path to freedom.

Those who stayed built sawmills, cotton mills and stables.

They moved earth, felled trees, cleared land, plowed fields.

They built barns and homes …

… and, they started families.

Meanwhile, up North, William flourished as a successful farmer, prominent businessman, social reformer, and policy maker.

Mound Bayou grew to become one of the Mississippi Delta’s most successful towns – the largest black city in the nation. With no white citizens present, segregation didn’t apply. The leadership had a work-around for every economic and soul-crushing hurdle thrown their way.

Every story worth a listen has conflict. In August of 1890, Isaiah attended Mississippi’s constitutional convention in Jackson as the only former slave and Republican delegate.

He protested a clause crafted by the majority to secure white domination of state politics but, ultimately, he accepted it. From that compromise he emerged a divisive figure, losing the support of his friend Booker T.

Who was right? Historians could make the case that Washington was right and that Isaiah’s support for the legislation strengthened white supremacy in Mississippi. It could also be argued that Isaiah, who had learned to prepare for the worst, had little choice if he was to secure the independence of Mound Bayou during the post-war period.

In 1892, schools began to open. Any formerly enslaved person could flourish in this paradise of academic freedom.

Meanwhile, up North, William Montgomery’s investments in wheat futures and Manitoba property crashed. In 1900, he decided to move south and join his family as a citizen of Mound Bayou. William became the director of the Bank of Mound Bayou and co-founded the Mound Bayou Loan and Investment Company.

In 1910, it all came full circle when the Carnegie Library was built.

The high regard for education – a touchstone of Mound Bayou – brought more families – up to 800 – and fourteen-thousand citizens. Still, the community remained under the national radar.

Another stretch of bad luck set in. The World Wars, the stock market crash, the Dust Bowl and plummeting cotton prices crippled the economy everywhere, including Mound Bayou. These were hard times. In 1941, a fire decimated most of the business district. The population dwindled as residents packed up and migrated north.

Then, Harvard educated, Benjamin Allen Green (son of the town’s co-founder Benjamin Titus Green, first cousin of William and Isaiah, and the first soul born in Mound Bayou) led the town as mayor bringing a new era of revitalization.

In 1942, the arrival of Dr. T.R.M. Howard, the chief surgeon of the new Taborian Hospital brought Mound Bayou into a golden age with new infrastructure.

A Place Apart

Being unnoticed suited the citizens of Mound Bayou. Bad as racial tensions were in Mississippi, their city functioned outside of the norm – and it didn’t hurt to have a couple of Gatlin guns mounted on a rooftop.

The national spotlight finally settled on “The Little Town That Could” when the Emmett Till murder trial commenced in 1955. Journalists, investigators and witnesses sheltering in Mound Bayou were interviewed on camera for the evening news. Suddenly, the Utopian community captured the nation’s attention.

Mound Bayou Today

Though the population has declined, Mound Bayou is still a functioning community. On a drive through it could pass for any small Mississippi town without confederate memorials. This parcel of Delta Dirt doesn’t look like anything special, but then, neither do the Civil War battle fields that draw vast crowds of tourism.

After Hermon’s riveting story, we toured the museum’s collection.

We’ve mentioned before in this series that the Civil Rights Trail is about healing. It’s also about revelation. We welcomed this truth that a small group of black Mississippians who lived through the horrors of slavery, war and terrorism managed to flourish as a group. And it’s encouraging that Mound Bayou still functions as intended as an example of group cooperation straining against the cultural tide.

A Tale of Two Brothers

Mound Bayou is a remarkable story of Brothers – the Davis brothers and the Montgomery brothers, who knew each other almost intimately, whose children played together and studied together, yet shared nothing in common as they worked side-by-side to opposite ends.

A story for our time.

Now, will someone please make the television series? Mound Bayou Museum would welcome the film tourism. In lieu of a finder’s fee, I wouldn’t mind playing the role of Varina Davis, and Jim would slay as Ulysses Grant.

Happy Juneteenth National Independence Day

If you want to see the exact route we travel, click here.

*photos in this post (unless otherwise noted) were taken and copyrighted by Living In Beauty.

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