Historic Turkey Creek Site Receives National Park Service Funds for Restoration as Community Center
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Turkey Creek Historic “Yaryan” Selected for National Park Service Civil Rights Restoration Program
On March 13, two Mississippi Senators announced that the National Park Service will award $500,000 to restore an historic Turkey Creek building that will house a community center. The Land Trust for the Mississippi Coastal Plain will restore the Phoenix Naval Stores Office (known as the “Yaryan”), one of the last vestiges of a thriving timber industry on the coast which employed many African Americans. The city of Gulfport moved twice to demolish the building before Derrick Evans bought it and donated it to the landtrust. It was named one of Mississippi’s “10 Most Endangered Historical Places” by the Mississippi Heritage Trust in 2015. Learn more from the 5th grade curriculum developed about the site and Derrick’s text message to friends (below).
The Funders Network & Wyncote Foundation Host Screening on March 18
Come Hell or High Water: The Battle for Turkey Creek will kick off The Funders Network 2018 annual conference in Houston. The screening is hosted by the Wyncote Foundation and will be followed by a Q&A moderated by Laura Isensee of Houston Public Media with filmmaker Leah Mahan and Christopher Hastings, WORLD Channel executive producer.
Notes from the Road
In February, Rev. Ambrose Carroll of Green The Church hosted a screening and discussion of #Battle4TurkeyCreek to kick off the Green Ambassadors Program, to engage congregations in the fight against climate change. Rev. Carroll came to a Come Hell or High Water preview at Power Shift in 2013 that was organized by Working Films with a Q&A with a crew from Bridge The Gulf.
Derrick Evans of Turkey Creek sent this text to friends on March 14, 2018:
“Mississippi Republican Thad Cochran’s parting shot before retiring from the U.S. Senate in a few weeks has been to announce HALF MILLION !$#%$! BUCKS to restore a permanent home for Turkey Creek Community Initiatives, Bridge the Gulf and Gulf Coast Community Initiatives — i.e., the former Phoenix Naval Stores or “Yaryan” office building on Creosote Road in Turkey Creek.
A leaking, termite-infested, and repeatedly city-condemned eyesore since the 1990s, the structure was nonetheless a GREAT investment of $10K in 2003 for the ambiguous “dream” of someday lifting up and weaving southern and coastal Black industrial labor and environmental justice themes into the cultural and civil rights history of my native Mississippi, Turkey Creek and Gulf Coast.
Appropriately, December 2018 will mark the 75th anniversary of the 1943 plant explosion that killed 11 of these long forgotten workers, including the handsome young husband (Lee Skinner) of the late Mrs. Eva Skinner (star of the documentary film “Come Hell or High Water”). The memory of these local men and their nationally significant contributions and sacrifices (and countless others like them) will soon rise like a “Phoenix” from the ashes of that tragic disaster and from many ensuing decades of intentional bias and/or abject ignorance about 20th century Southern, African-American, and Gulf Coast history and heritage in general.
Much thanks to Thad Cochran and many others for this latest news from Turkey Creek — where self-determination still persists, patience is still a virtue, and The Lord still works in exceedingly mysterious ways.
Be well.”
