Supervisors back proposed center focused on history of cotton

CLEVELAND — The Bolivar County Board of Supervisors has endorsed a proposal for a new center dedicated to the history of cotton.

The Bolivar Commercial reports officials with the nonprofit Khafre Inc. told supervisors the center would be located on U.S. 61 in Mound Bayou. Plans are to start work sometime within the next year.

C. Sade Turnipseed, executive director for Khafre and its board chairman, Hermon Johnson, and Cheryl Line, director of Tourism for the Cleveland-Bolivar County Chamber of Commerce, made the presentation to the board.

“This project is a way to recognize the people who prospered from the early cotton industry and to honor the people who planted, chopped and picked cotton,” said Turnipseed.

Plans for the center include a 25-30 foot tall monument and displays to take visitors through a “walking tour through the history of cotton,” said Turnipseed.

Turnipseed said the center will include exhibits on cotton farming, workers and slave labor, the Delta Blues, sharecropping and black farming.

Khafre, Inc. was organized in Dec. 2009 in Indianola. The organization hosts workshops, seminars and conferences that celebrate the Mississippi Delta heritage and its contributions to world culture.