Fernando Green sits on a pile of plywood in a new barn on a humid Mississippi Delta afternoon. The barn will be a center for students like his daughter to get a feel for local jobs in agriculture. There’s school swag for the incoming middle schoolers.
A petting zoo with a baby alligator is off in one corner while boys throw a pigskin around in the back. A Mississippi Delta native, Mr. Green hardly breaks a sweat in the nearly 100-degree Fahrenheit heat.
“You get used to it,” he says with a friendly chuckle. He looks out with a glint in his eyes on the grounds of a middle school that used to house his revered high school: East Side. That took getting used to too, he admits.
But a recent effort by a parent group looking to heal divides and counteract disinvestment has locals like Mr. Green excited to be back at their alma mater. Using donated lumber and dollars, a parents’ group is fighting not only for their children’s future but for their town’s as well.
And, they say, they are showing that progress is possible, even in a place where tourists come to see the past captured in amber. “When you’re backed into the corner, sometimes you’ve got to fight,” says Todd Davis, a professor at the town’s own Delta State University in an interview with The Monitor. “I’m not fighting for some grand mission .
.. I just want my kids to go to a nice school.
...
Every kid should have that option ...
And if no one else is going to do something, then I will.” Dr. Davis .