COLUMBUS, Miss. (AP) — Many of the earliest Black leaders of a Mississippi city were celebrated as part of the community's Eighth of May Emancipation Day.
Students from the Mississippi School for Math and Science on Monday highlighted some of Columbus' key African American leaders buried at Sanfield Cemetery, some of whom include Robert Gleed, a state senator from 1870 to 1876; publisher and businessman Richard D. Littlejohn; Jack Rabb, a businessman who bought his own freedom; W.I. Mitchell, an educator who served from 1907 to 1913 as president of the Penny-Savings Bank, the city's first African-American bank; and Simon Mitchell, a Justice of the Peace during the Reconstruction Era.
“Sandfield Cemetery is the oldest African American cemetery in the city of Columbus and a lot of 19th and early 20th century leaders in the black community are buried here,” the school's history teacher, Chuck Yarbrough, told WCBI-TV.
Yarbrough said the program not only gives the city a history lesson, but helps students in life.
“There’s no use in studying the past unless you can make it in fact present, projects like this allow students to research and develop all the skills associated with that to become critical thinkers, but then they also develop their skills of sharing with the community and presenting," he said. "Ultimately, they’re developing an ethic of participation and community involvement that I know will turn into an ethic of leadership one day, these kids are our future.”
Columbus' District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks said he credits Yarbrough and other residents for helping keep the city’s history relevant.
“There’s probably a whole generation or two that do not know many of the Black leaders that have evolved in this community whether it was during the reconstruction period or contemporary period and I think they have to understand that they didn’t arrive where they are simply because of somebody’s gratitude,” Brooks said.
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