Overview: the SNJMs in
The Mississippi Delta is a geographical entity, but it is also a state of mind. Faulkner said that the Delta starts in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis and ends in Catfish Row in Vicksburg. This area along the Missisippi River has a sorry history of poverty and racism, though the land is the richest in the country. It's the birthplace of the blues because slavery, and then sharecropping, was so very life-draining for so many people. Most agricultural jobs, though, have been mechanized. People now work on the riverboat casinos north of Jonestown and Tutwiler, in hospitals, in service industries, or in a private prison in Tutwiler.
The communities where five SNJMs serve have fewer than 2,000 people each; about 9 of every 10 residents is African-American. These photos, and the links to our ministries, will introduce you to our work and to this part of the world.
Top row: Maureen Delaney, SNJM, the Mississippi Mission Centre Coordinator; Cathy Leamy, SNJM, and Celia Evers, OP (Sr. Cathy works in prison ministry), Teresa Shields at Jonestown Learning Center. Left: Kay Burton, SNJM (with SNJMs Jo'Ann De Quattro and Agnes Ly Thi Le) works at the Jonestown Durocher Service Development Program and with A Call to Vietnam. Bottom: Dr. Anne Brooks, SNJM.
Mississippi
Links
• "Seeing Our World"
University of
Mississippi web site's
display of 1990s
photography by the
children of Tutwiler,
Mississippi
• Tutwiler Community
Education Center and
gym
• Tutwiler Quilters (a
quilting project that
enables women to
earn money with
their craftwork)
• Download Jonestown
newsletter