Let's Talk About It with Jenny White/Would you like to own your own business?

According to history, in 1887 a town was founded in the Mississippi Delta by two former freed slaves who purchased 840 acres of Mississippi swampland that was covered with a forest of trees.  

In 1907, a small group of settlers came to the town that had been named Mound Bayou, that were prepared to face the hardships of hard work.

Mound Bayou was soon home to dozens of businesses, three cotton gins, a sawmill, a cottonseed oil mill, and a bank. All of them black-owned. It also had several schools, a train station, a Carnegie library and in 1942, Taborian Hospital opened, serving Blacks from all over the Delta.

Hundreds of years later, Mound Bayou is still there. Although it's not thriving like it used to be. One local put it like this: "We're not where we'd like to be, but we're still here." 

You can join the conversation tomorrow night at 8 p.m.by calling 646-668-8485 or you can download stitcher on your electronic device.