Steeped in Black History, MACE Elevates—and Celebrates—the Delta

The year was 1967, in rural Greenville, Miss., the heart of the Mississippi Delta: Fifteen trailblazing women and men—veteran leaders of the Civil Rights movement who had put their lives on the line many times over—formed an organization to help enfranchise poor African-Americans living where the benefits of civil rights had yet to arrive. 

Among the founders were Fannie Lou Hamer, Unita Blackwell, Amzie Moore, Annie Devine and Rev. J.C. Killingworth, and they called their group MACE, for Mississippi Action for Community Education. Their first order of business was to train a cadre of local leaders who could fan out into the Delta to connect people living in isolated rural pockets with education, resources and routes to activism.

But ultimately, they also created one of the country’s first community development corporations, and went on to practice what we now call comprehensive community development—by tackling persistent poverty and a dearth of opportunity through everything from housing and jobs to social services and small businesses. In 1995, LISC began partnering with MACE, helping connect the group to farflung public and private resources, and to other rural CDCs across the country with a shared mission. Since then, LISC has also invested in MACE's work on affordable homes, economic and youth development and even a music festival. 

For its part, MACE has worked continuously to link people with tools that improve lives, and to celebrate, promote and preserve the history and culture of African-Americans in the Delta. “MACE’s commitment to its communities over the last 50 years is unparalleled, and has made it possible to do what we do in the region,” said Rural LISC director Suzanne Anarde.

MACE's leaders had their work cut out for them. Structural racism and inequities were deeply entrenched. Many Mississippians lived without indoor plumbing or electricity; literacy rates were low and jobs were extremely scarce. But in just a few years, MACE’s leaders had spearheaded the incorporation of four rural communities, bringing basic municipal services like sewage systems, power and paved roads to places that had never had them before.  

“The founders felt there needed to be a grassroots organization to hold leaders accountable and to make sure opportunities were available to the people,” said Mable Starks, president and CEO of MACE, who returned to her Delta roots and got involved with the organization after nearly 20 years working in services for the homeless and education in New York State.

In its earliest days, MACE also created a subsidiary dedicated to economic development and setting up manufacturing plants—making such products as blue jeans, bicycle wheels and folding attic staircases—and whose mission was to create jobs and train black managers and entrepreneurs. At their height in the 1970s, those enterprises employed hundreds of people and helped stimulate the local economy.

Quality affordable housing is also still a crucial item on MACE’s day-to-day agenda, and Starks and her staff take pride in managing buildings that are indistinguishable from market-rate homes in the area. Sheila Watson, a MACE staffer, is a third-generation resident of the Bannerman Apartments, named for Charles Bannerman, one of the first CEOs at MACE. Watson moved in as a girl, after her family’s home burned down, and then raised her three children in an apartment of her own there. Under Starks’ leadership, property managers of MACE developments are required to hold monthly tenant meetings. “We all come together for fellowship,” Watson said. “We have really bonded. We know each other and each other’s kids. It’s made a huge difference in the community.”

If MACE is renowned in the Delta for its legendary beginnings and its contributions to the community, it may be equally well-known as the founder of the first large-scale celebration of local African-American culture and history: The Delta Blues and Heritage Festival, which marked its 40th anniversary last year. “Our great-grandparents and grandparents grew up on the legacy of the blues and gospel in order to make it through another day and to make things better for their children,” Starks said. “We are descendants of that, and [the festival] is a recognition of just how important this music is and that we need to pass it on to our children.” 

The event has also become a powerful economic engine for Greenville, bringing $3.7 million dollars in investment and tens of thousands of visitors to the area, and raising Greenville’s rightful profile as a destination on the American cultural map.  

With support from LISC, MACE recently renovated the field where the festival got its start—at the former site of Freedom Village, a housing community built for and by displaced agricultural workers. A museum charting the festival’s history was also just inaugurated on the site last year, along with a three-story stage, a commercial kitchen and 100 RV hook-ups with electrical and water. MACE is still raising funds to complete the stage and build a parking lot. “If we ever have a rain during the festival this Mississippi buckshot soil will hold every vehicle parked,” Starks joked about the parking lot. “Back in the day I am told people had fun playing in the mud, but I’m not so sure our guests today would enjoy that adventure.”