Palmers Crossing: A Black Enclave in the Gulf South

This dissertation is a community study of Palmers Crossing, a historically Black and unincorporated community south of Hattiesburg. While historians have mentioned Palmers in their discussions of the civil rights movement because of local leaders like Victoria Jackson Gray Adams, Dorie Ladner, and Joyce Ladner, I emphasize the everyday lived experiences of the residents of Palmers. I utilize the business empire of local resident Milton Barnes, who owned Barnes Cleaners, the Embassy Club, the Hi-Hat Club, the Hattiesburg Black Sox, Smith’s Drive-In, and a construction company, as a lens to tell the history of the community. I argue that Palmers was a Black Enclave—or an unincorporated, autonomous, and self-sufficient Black space that nurtured Black culture, social life, and business—in the Gulf South. In addition, this dissertation also adds to the historiography of the Chitlin’ Circuit in the Gulf South and the longevity of local, independent Black baseball post-MLB’s integration and the end of Jim Crow. By analyzing the history of Palmers Crossing from 1939-1994 through the lens of Barnes’s businesses, I show how Palmers played a significant role in Black life in south Mississippi and that the community should not be seen as peripheral to the city of Hattiesburg. To tell this story, I rely on oral histories with Palmers community members to describe their experiences with Black musical artists who appeared at the Hi-Hat Club, a game at Black Sox Park, and their lived experiences of what it was like to grow up in Palmers Crossing. This dissertation tells the story of Palmers Crossing—its different neighborhoods, businesses, and clubs—an aims to preserve the history of this community that has so often been overlooked and marginalized in the history of Black life in south Mississippi. My methodological approach of a Black Enclave is a rural analogue to the Black Metropolis and highlights that rural Southerners were cultural innovators and brokers.