Forrest
Hattiesburg Ministers Union Headquarters
This building at 522 Mobile Street (the northeast corner of 6th and Mobile Streets), constructed in 1950 and still standing, housed J.C. Fairley’s Radio and TV Repair business and the Negro Masonic Lodge No. 115 (identified by the cornerstone). While the Freedom House at 507 Mobile Street housed COFO and MFDP headquarters, the building at […]
In 1964, beginning with Freedom Day (January 22) and continuing through Freedom Summer, Mrs. Lenon E. Woods, the owner of the Woods Guest House at 507 and 509 Mobile Street, allowed the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) to use a vacant portion of this historic two-story hotel as its headquarters. The building had been built […]
The Forrest County Courthouse was a cite of contention for many Civil Rights Movement activists in Hattiesburg. Although the U.S. Constitution guaranteed American citizens the right to vote, in many areas of the South, local registrars of voters implemented procedures designed to keep African Americans from registering to vote. The right to vote was the […]
Nathaniel Bedford Forrest (July 13, 1821-October 29, 1877) was a Confederate army general and an instrumental figure in the founding and growth of the Ku Klux Klan. Forrest was perhaps the American Civil War’s most highly regarded cavalry and partisan ranger (guerrilla leader). Forrest is regarded by many military historians as the war’s most innovative […]
Victoria Jackson Gray was a Hattiesburg native that helped lead the MFDP’s challenge to Mississippi’s all white delegation to the Democratic National Convention of 1964. Gray also ran on the MFDP ticket for the U.S. Senate seat then held by Senator John Stennis. Gray’s campaign headquarters were located in the Woods Guest House at 507 […]
Fairley was the co-owner of Fairley’s Radio and TV Repair at 522 Mobile Street and was the President of the Forrest County NAACP from 1962 to 1966. As president, Fairley pushed for the desegregation of public areas, increased voter registration and business boycotts. He was responsible for the liberation of Clyde Kennard from Parchman Penitentiary, […]
Connor was the owner of Jean’s Beauty Shop at 510 Mobile Street. She served as state Executive Secretary of the MFDP (Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party) and Treasurer of the Freedom Summer project in Hattiesburg. Sources: Tusa, Bobs. The University of Southern Mississippi Libraries Special Collections. http://www.lib.usm.edu/~archives/crsitdoc.htm
Curtis Conway Bryant, known as C. C., was born in Tylertown, Mississippi, in 1917. Bryant was an active community member and volunteer who soon became a figurehead during the Civil Rights Movement. As a member of the NAACP, Bryant worked under the leadership of Medgar Evers and worked closely with Robert Moses, a SNCC field […]