On November 29, 2023, Larry Morrisey and Terrence Shirley presented “Knots in the Safety Net: The Community Health Centers of Mississippi” as part of the History Is Lunch series.
The nation’s largest primary health care system has its origins in Mississippi. Born of the Civil Rights Movement, the first community health centers opened in 1965 in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, and Boston. Today there are more than 1,400 community health centers in the United States and U.S. territories that collectively serve more than 30 million patients—regardless of their ability to pay.
“Our state’s twenty-one community health centers operate nearly 300 clinics and mobile units that serve more than 300,000 people,” said Terrence M. Shirley, CEO of the Community Health Center Association of Mississippi. “With the group’s sixtieth anniversary approaching, we knew we were in danger of losing the stories of those early significant figures, so we partnered with the Mississippi Humanities Council to interview current and former doctors, nurses, administrators, and board members.”
“The interviews focused on the growth and changes in community health centers over the past thirty years,” said Larry Morrisey, who conducted the oral histories. “Topics discussed included what they offer the community, how they have created a space for themselves in the overall healthcare system in Mississippi, and their response during the initial months of the COVID-19 public health emergency of 2020.”
Larry Morrisey has worked as an oral history interviewer and project coordinator for more than twenty-five years and is deputy director at the Mississippi Arts Commission. He earned his MA in Folk Studies from Western Kentucky University. Morrisey is a host of the Mississippi Arts Hour radio show on Mississippi Public Broadcasting.
Terrence Shirley has worked in healthcare administration since 1980 and served as chief executive officer of the Community Health Center Association of Mississippi since 2021. He earned his BS in political science and government from the University of Southern Mississippi and his master’s in public health from the University of Tennessee—Knoxville. He is a co-founder of the Drs. Aaron and Ollye Shirley Foundation.
