At first glance, it becomes obvious that the home located at 301A Oklahoma Avenue needs quite a bit of renovation. A blue tarp is draped over the roof. There are places around the home where light from the outside enters this two-bedroom domicile making it uninhabitable in its current condition. But the value of the home cannot be understated as it was one of the central pieces in the Mississippi Delta’s civil rights movement. “This is a family home originally owned by my grandfather, Estell “Tie” King,” said Dr. Felecia King. “My grandfather offered it without hesitation as a Freedom House for Freedom Riders headquarters back in the 1950s and 1960s when the original Freedom House owned by Irene McGruder was firebombed and burned to the ground.”
The home’s exact date that it was built is hard to determine. Records that King has been able to obtain suggest that the home could have been constructed as early as the 1920s or as late as the 1950s. But like many houses of the time, the home is approximately 500 square feet with two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and bathroom.
On Thursday King took National Public Radio journalist Debbie Elliot on a tour of the home and discussed plans and partnerships that have been formed to refurbish the Freedom House. Instrumental in the restoration, preservation, and insertion of 301A Oklahoma Avenue into the broader narrative is the Mississippi Heritage Trust.
Representing the MHT Lolly Rush explained, “Our mission is to save and renew structures that are meaningful to the history of Mississippi. Freedom Houses have been listed as some of our most historic places and when we talk about the history of the state, Freedom Houses attribute to a sense of place whether they are here or on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. And there are not many of them left.”
MHT has received funding from organizations such as the Mississippi National Heritage Area to do oral histories about Freedom Houses and the National Park Service to do repairs to the homes. “We’re identifying and documenting the houses all over the state,” Rush said. “We are providing funding in the current phase to repair the roof and to do emergency stabilization to the foundation.”
As the house is being restored in different structural phases, the vision for what the house is to be is ever evolving. King harkened to the indominable spirit that had to be present in people seeking equal rights but at the same time experiencing threats to their lives, violence acts, and marginalization.
“I think about people like Virginia Mack who was one of the first kids to integrate schools in the area and that must have been a traumatic experience for a child to not fully understand why people didn’t like her or want her attending their school,” King said. “And as I learn so much about the history of the Freedom Houses, I realize that my father was a young adult when the house was being used but he never talked about it because it was painful and traumatic. One of the visions that I have for the home is just a place where people who have experienced this type of trauma and have repressed it over the years will just have a place they can come and just have a conversation and dialogue.”
“I’m a chiropractor by trade,” King continued. “I am a healer and therefore, I want this house to become a place of healing.”
As the vision unfolds for this location, the house and its contents speak volumes for what it has already meant in the broader context of the fight for human rights. Across the back door of the house is a board nailed diagonally across the door frame to protect against intruders. The house sits just off Garrard Road, which had been developed southward just past the home in those days. The location was chosen because people on their lookout posts had uninterrupted vantage points for would-be interlopers. “There was one man who stayed in the house and it was firebombed when he was staying here,” King said. “But he caught the firebomb and threw it back into the yard before it exploded.”
Inside the living room sits an old wooden bench facing the front with electrical outlets affixed midway along the walls. “This was a location where Freedom Riders would meet and they would strategize,” King said. “They would also print off flyers and information on mimeograph machines to distribute in the community.”
King said that she, like many people in the area, did not remember the significance of homes like these provided by her late grandfather. She said that she just viewed it as a rental property until several years ago when Dr. Stacey White started bringing attention to places like this in a book and during a civil rights driving tour. Going forward, King’s mission is to make sure that the spirit and contribution of the people who made great sacrifices burns brighter than a thousand firebombs. “They had to be extremely courageous and brave and my words don’t quite do them justice,” King said. “You had Freedom Riders coming in from all over the country and people right here in the community putting their lives on the line for what resulted in improved living conditions all over the world. But what they had to go through is unfathomable for me to try and understand.”
