May 22, 2024

Tutwilercommunityeducationcenter.org

Lucinda Berryhill showed us around.

Sister Maureen Delaney was the first director of the center and started a lot of the programs. The Tutwiler Quilters attracted awards and attention and provided a source of income for local women while helping to preserve an African American heritage. Right now there is only one person making quilts as part of the program.

There have been many great programs run at the community center, but since Sr. Maureen left, it has been difficult to find stable leadership and many of those programs are suffering right now. There have been some significant accomplishments in the past year or two, but the most recent director left after a dispute with the board and currently there is no permanant director.

One of the things Tutwiler was known for is being the place where Emmett Till’s body was embalmed. Emmett Till’s tragic death and the effect it had on touching off the Civil Rights Movement is of great historical significance and there is an historical marker planted in front of the funeral home. Unfortunately, until recently there was also a sign warning people not to walk on the sidewalk because the funeral home was gradually falling down.

Here is what the lot looks like today. Any plans to restore the building have obviously been abandoned.

About 2013 I shot some pictures around town and took these of the back of the funeral home building. I found it curious to see that there was street gang graffiti in a town that barely had any streets. But a further examination revealed that somebody left a herse behind.

The building is gone, but the herse holds a place of honor in the parking lot in front of City Hall.

Jay and Stephanie operate the High Cotton Cafe. It used to be the scary bar across the street from the community center. None of us were ever courageous, or foolhardy enough to look inside. Jay and Stephanie bought it after the previous owners failed to pay taxes and turned it into this lovely cafe. Stephanie is a talented artist and they run an arts program for kids in the area. They also sell merchandise like this beautiful t-shirt.

When they started the cafe, they also wanted to take over the site of an abandoned gas station and open a fruit stand. Instead, the site went to somebody who opened what the community desperately needed, another liquor store!

But the liquor store met its end in a fire.

Fortuitously, the building was located next door to the police department and across the street from the fire department. Unfortunately, the only person who had a key to the volunteer fire department lived in Greenwood, MS, which is about an hour away. When he arrived, the building was far beyond saving, but he thought the police might want to know that the building next door was on fire. They replied that they thought it had been put out already. When informed that it had not, they said they would look into it. The town can survive without another liquor store, and fortunately the fire did not claim any other buildings.

There are all sorts of interesting things one can find around Tutwiler.

I am not sure when this place burned down, or how long this car has been sitting there. Perhaps it will eventually degrade into its consituent molecules and improve the iron content of the local soil.