The “Jewel of the Delta” Proves the Upside of Free Speech

Margaret Brennan, the moderator of Face the Nation, recently stated matter-of-factly that the Nazis had “weaponized free speech” to bring about the Holocaust. She is not alone in holding the belief that free speech, if not constrained, will be manipulated by the wealthy or political extremists for their own ends. 

To some extent, this idea forms the basis of both European and Canadian anti-hate speech law. However, countless historical illustrations provide compelling evidence of ways in which oppressed peoples used free speech for the better.

A case in point was the black-controlled town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, which excelled as a “free speech safe space” for African Americans in the South. Both before and during the rise of the modern civil rights movement, it preserved the essence of the Bill of Rights while it was besieged on all sides by Jim Crow and disfranchisement.

Founded in 1887 by two former slaves of Confederate president Jefferson Davis and his brother Joseph, Mound Bayou stood out in the South as a beacon of freedom. It was a place where African Americans voted, held office, and did not have to endure humiliating curfews and other restrictions on free movement.  By the first two decades of the twentieth century, its population had mushroomed to about 2,000. It had a thriving business and educational community, including the leading black-owned bank in Mississippi and a well-equipped high school. 

The citizens of Mound Bayou conceived of themselves as a saving remnant for the “Spirit of 1776,” proudly espousing the ideals and values that motivated American colonists to fight for independence from Britain.

Mound Bayou served as an outpost to spread that vision to others in the Jim Crow South. Zee Barron, a longtime resident, said that as a child, he was deeply impacted by hearing one of Mound Bayou’s founders, Isaiah Montgomery, describe the town.

“He [Montgomery] told us why he came to Mound Bayou and how he established this community in order that Negroes may have the freedom of expression and freedom to live and earn a livelihood,” Barron said.

If African Americans were coming to regard Mound Bayou as an illustration of American freedom, prominent whites were starting to notice, too. President Theodore Roosevelt once ordered his train to make a special stop there, citing it as “an object lesson full of hope for the colored people and therefore full of hope for the white people, too.” He dubbed it “the Jewel of the Delta.”

The community’s self-awareness of its pro-freedom mission persisted well beyond its founding. 

Journalist Enoc Waters observed in the 1940s that Mound Bayouans, “go where they want without reservation, express themselves freely, live democratically and modestly. They’re a free people in a land of opportunity. And the Delta knows them as a different people.”

A decade later, Montgomery’s son eventually became Mayor and carried on the town’s legacy, describing it as, “the most free city in the South. I say this because I have seen so much injustice done my own people, I could not pass it on.”

Mound Bayou’s outsized contribution to civil rights was that it served as a secure operating base for the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RNCL), which included notable members such as civil rights icon, Medgar Evers.  

The RCNL successfully boycotted service stations which denied restrooms to African Americans, using the slogan on ten thousand bumper stickers, “Don’t Buy Gas Where You Can’t Use the Restroom.”  It also organized rallies in Mound Bayou, which drew as many as 10,000 people with such headliners as NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall and the famed gospel singer Mahalia Jackson.

Andrew Young, a member of Congress who eventually become Atlanta’s mayor, acknowledged Mound Bayou’s importance during the Civil Rights Movement. 

“When we marched in those glory days, flanked by police cordons shielding us from angry crowds, we knew that there was the little hospital at Mound Bayou that would care for us,” he said. 

For many friends of civil rights during the 1960s, a small town founded by two former slaves was still both a refuge and a torchbearer of freedom. This likely couldn’t have happened if free speech were restricted as many are calling for today. The Jewel of the Delta teaches us an important lesson: free speech should be embraced for its essential role in advancing and protecting civil rights.