Mississippi Civil Rights Project

History of the 82 counties

Background/History

Little is known about how Jones County got its nickname "The Free State of Jones,"but there have been many rumors and theories.

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Charles Marsh
Author of "The Last Days: a Son's Story of Sin and Segregation at the Dawn of a New South."
Hattie V.J. McInnis
McInnis was the first music teacher of Leontyne Price and the first minority columnist for the Laurel Leader-Call (then known as the Laurel Daily Leader).
Leontyne Price
Leontyne Price was the first successful black female opera singer and was born in Laurel, Mississippi, on February 10, 1927.
Ed Hubbard
Hubbard was born in 1867 and eventually became one of the founding members of the Saint Elmo Baptist Church in 1895.

Places

Lincoln Theatre
The Lincoln was the black community's theater and was located at the intersection between North Maple and Church St. in the shadow of the Southern Railroad train depot in downtown Laurel.
St. Paul's United Methodist Church
517 Jefferson St. Laurel, MS 39440 601-428-7613
Triangle Housing Project
"Built in 1940 as part of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal Recovery Program, [the project] was bounded on the east by South Fourth Avenue, on the west by Maple Street and on the south by Jefferson Street
"Laurel Colored Schools"
There were four schools for the black children in Laurel known as the Laurel Colored Schools: Kingston/Nora Davis, Sandy Gavin, Southside Elementary and Oak Park High School.

Events

Masonite Strike and worker organization
Date of Event:
1967
In April 1967, the members of Local 5-443 of the International Woodworkers of America walked out on their jobs at Masonite Corporation after a shop steward was fired for supporting two workers who ref
Voting Rights Act in Jones County
Date of Event:
1965
After passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Laurel Leader Call reported that while 99.9 percent of whites in Jones County were registered to vote, only 8.8 percent of blacks were registered.

Organizations

Laurel Leader-Call
The first weekly newspaper in Laurel, the Laurel Chronicle, was founded by Wallace Rogers in 1897.