T.R.M. Howard

Howard (right) was born in Murray, Kentucky. His mother worked as a cook for Dr. Will Mason, a White physician so impressed with the young Howard that he helped pay for much of Howard’s medical education.

After getting involved in civil rights issues, he moved to the all-Black town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, where he became the first chief surgeon at the hospital. Fannie Lou Hamer died at the Mound Bayou Hospital on March 14, 1977.

In 1951, he founded the Regional Council of Negro Leadership and the council carried out a successful boycott of service stations that refused to let Black patrons use the restrooms. They blanketed the area with bumper stickers that read, “Don’t Buy Gas Where You Can’t Use the Restroom.” As many as 10,000 attended their annual rallies, where Thurgood Marshall and other national figures spoke.

Howard also fought the credit squeeze by the white Citizens’ Council on those who dared to get involved in the civil rights movement. In 1955, he drew national attention when he became involved in investigating the Emmett Till murder. His compound became a safe place, and he escorted witnesses to the trial, including Till’s mother, Mamie Till Mobley, through a heavily armed caravan. After the all-white jury acquitted Till’s killers, Howard spoke across the nation, including an overflow crowd on Nov. 27, 1955, at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Rosa Parks heard the speech and four days later refused to give up her seat. She was quoted later as saying she was thinking the whole time about Emmett Till.

Howard later spoke to 20,000 at Madison Square Garden alongside Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Before the year ended, the death threats and economic pressure became too much, and Howard moved with his family to Chicago.

Location: At the intersection of Edwards Avenue and Roosevelt Street, Mound Bayou, MS. Across the street from the Mound Bayou Museum of African American Culture and History.

The Mississippi Development Authority unveiled two new markers on the Mississippi Freedom Trail on October 4, 2012. The first being in the historic town of Mound Bayou honoring the memory of Dr. T. R. M. Howard, local physician, entrepreneur, and civil rights leader.

Theodore Roosevelt Mason Howard founded and led Mississippi’s pre-eminent civil rights organization in the 1950s, the Regional Council of Negro Leadership.

Howard worked at the Taborian Hospital and later at Friendship Clinic in Mound Bayou. He is credited with giving Medgar Evers his first job, and playing an active role in helping to find witnesses in the Emmett Till murder trial. Howard also helped recruit Fannie Lou Hamer into the movement and served briefly as her physician.

In 1956, the Chicago Defender put him on the top spot on its national honor roll, and he served as president of the National Medical Association. In 1971, Jesse Jackson formed Operation PUSH in Howard’s home, and a year later, Howard founded the Friendship Medical Center, the largest privately owned Black clinic in Chicago. He died in 1976, and Jackson presided at his funeral. (Info by Jerry Mitchell)

Mississippi Freedom Trail Marker