Looking for Justice at Turkey Creek: Out of the Classroom and into the Past
Teaching Reflection by Hardy Thames
Derrick Evans outside his great grandfather’s house in Turkey Creek after Hurricane Katrina, leaning on a sign he built before the storm. Spencer Weiner.
As a freshwater paddler who had recently moved from Memphis to the Mississippi coast, I first encountered Turkey Creek and Mr. Flowers White from my canoe. White was clearly having more luck with his cane pole than my boys and I were with our spinning reels. He taught us some insider’s tricks and then invited us back to his home for fried crappie. As he shared his fish and the recipe for a mean fry batter, he also shared stories about himself and his community. This was my introduction to the rich history that my students at Gulfport High School and I would later explore.
White can trace his family history back to the founding of Turkey Creek in 1866. A group of freed slaves bought 320 acres of “swampland” north of what would later become Gulfport. They created a self-sufficient and socially isolated community of farms, residences, businesses, a church, and a school that flourished for more than a century. Then, beginning in the 1980s, Gulfport’s growth nearly led to Turkey Creek’s demise.
Gambling was legalized in our area in 1992. With the inrush of casino money, Gulfport became Mississippi’s fastest growing city. City planners sought to annex only the affluent areas north of town, which would have created a dumbbell-shaped city. When a judge ruled against this plan, Turkey Creek was included in the annexation. Gulfport’s planners then proceeded to make decisions with weighty implications for the fate of this low-income Black community without including its members at the table. Acres of wetlands in the Turkey Creek watershed were filled in and new zoning laws passed to allow Walmart, Family Dollar, and other commercial buildings to go up along the section of Highway 49 (Gulfport’s north–south corridor) that intersects Turkey Creek. As a result, the Turkey Creek community has shrunk precipitously and is now surrounded by an airport, concrete and electrical companies, and a strip-mall business district.
According to Ella Holmes-Hines, a Turkey Creek resident and longtime city councilwoman, the community has been “under attack” ever since its incorporation at the expense of Gulfport’s growth. The environmental and political repercussions for Turkey Creek have been profound.
Hidden in Plain Sight
My students pass over Turkey Creek every time they go north of I-10 to get to the movie theater, the soccer fields, or any of the big-box stores and fast-food restaurants they frequent. In fact, the shortcut to Walmart takes them right through the heart of the Turkey Creek community. But I suspected that the community, creek, and watershed — their history and the controversy surrounding them — were as invisible to my students as they had been to me. I decided that Turkey Creek would be the next “text” for my elective contemporary issues course. In this history class, I attempt to empower students and foster empathy through case studies. The 21 students enrolled in the course were representative of our large public high school’s demographics: 57 percent Black and 40 percent white, with only a few Latina/o and Asian American students.
I introduced the unit to my students by reading I introduced the unit to my students by reading an excerpt of the history compiled by Derrick Evans, founder of the Turkey Creek Community Initiative, in response to the threat posed by the development of wetlands:
The pioneers who settled the poorly drained “eight forties” [the eight original 40-acre parcels] were visionary, industrious, and innovative. With far less financial, political, or social capital than the celebrated founders of Gulfport, Turkey Creek’s early settlers created arable land to practice sustainable agriculture, and developed a viable, self-sufficient American community bound together by local customs and institutions.
My students were surprised to learn that such a community existed within our city. I challenged them to identify it: “Where is the African American community that was founded in 1866 by people who had been enslaved?” No response. “Where is the community, just a few miles from here, which predated the city of Gulfport by 30 years?” No response. “Which community’s homes and businesses used to be where the airport now stands? Most of you cross the bridge running through it every day.” Finally, one student offered, “Oh, that bridge past the golf course on the way to Sonic?” I promised that, after our study, they would know the place’s history and importance, and they would get to see the bridge from a canoe. With that, my students were on board.
Before we began our study of Turkey Creek, I searched the archives of the local Sun Herald newspaper, as well as the internet and academic journals, for relevant and accessible articles. Then I divided the published literature on Turkey Creek among small groups of students. I explained the overall driving question for the unit: “Is what has happened to Turkey Creek a question of social and economic growth, or is it a social justice issue?”
The students read the articles in their groups and presented the information to the class, which then generated lists of topics that interested them and questions they wished to pursue further. Their task was to formulate a driving question from an area of interest. For example, one group’s question was “Is the water dirty?” When a student encountered the name of someone who might help them answer their questions, they added the name to the list of “follow-ups” on the back wall of our classroom. The students then called these community members, litigators, activists, and city officials — including the mayor — and invited them to come speak to the class. At times, the students’ attempts were more successful than mine. I had attempted without success to contact Rose Johnson, a Turkey Creek activist, and Reilly Morse, president of the Mississippi Center for Justice. Then one day Armin* announced that they had accepted his invitation to come speak to us.
When my students read that councilman Kim Savant had referred to Turkey Creek as a “drainage ditch” that would service a growing Gulfport, my students took offense. This “drainage ditch” flowed through the community that was home to Warren White (Flower’s brother), with whom Antonio would soon spend a day learning to make Warren’s signature aluminum can airplane weather vanes. Antonio later reflected:
It was like visiting my grandfather in the summer. Turkey Creek is a special place that should be appreciated by more people, not bulldozed or flooded. To say that it is a drainage ditch is just ignorant.
As their knowledge grew, so did their appreciation for Turkey Creek and their affinity with its residents; and with that, their ability to empathize with them.
A Bill Moyers’ Journal segment on Leah Mahan’s documentary Come Hell or High Water: The Battle for Turkey Creek proved a rich source of material. We were moved by the accounts of residents whose relatives’ graves had been “developed” into a parking lot for an apartment complex. We watched Eva Skinner clutching the 10-foot chain-link fence that prevents entry to the few marked graves left in the historic Turkey Creek cemetery and lamenting, “What’s all that back there, they used to be graves. My son was buried on the corner. Oh, my God, it’s sad, honey. Ain’t no telling how many hundreds of people were buried here.”
Come Hell or High Water: The Battle for Turkey Creek, directed by Leah Mahan, is an intimate portrait of a community’s struggle for survival. The film follows Boston teacher Derrick Evans, who moves back to his Mississippi home after his community’s ancestral graves are bulldozed to make way for Gulfport’s “development.” For years, Evans and longtime residents of this historic African American community resist powerful corporate interests and the politicians who do their bidding. And they survive the ravages of Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil catastrophe. This is the perfect classroom resource to introduce concepts of environmental racism and environmental justice. It’s one of those small films that tells a gigantic story — about community, resilience, resistance, and hope. — Bill Bigelow, Rethinking Schools
An article from our local newspaper archives stoked my students’ outrage. When a reporter asked Savant about the legality of bulldozing and paving a graveyard, he replied, “We were going to rezone the property and I was told that there was a minority cemetery in that area.” But when he looked at the written record, Savant told the reporter, he “couldn’t find a cemetery . . . we couldn’t find it.” My students could not believe it. “It’s down the street from here! Just take a walk and talk to people. Open your eyes.” Later, in her culminating project on the Turkey Creek grave site, Raina would conclude: “This would not have happened to a ‘white’ graveyard.”
*Student names have been changed. © 2014 Rethinking Schools. Reprinted with permission. Rethinking Schools Volume 28, No. 2 (Winter 2013/14).