An hour’s drive east of New Orleans along the Gulf of Mexico, there thrives the largely unknown historic Black settlement of North Gulfport and Turkey Creek, Mississippi, established in 1866. Despite Interstate 49, which separates North Gulfport from Turkey Creek, these two historically connected communities still organize as one and together advocate against gentrification, environmental racism, and the unsustainable infill development of the Turkey Creek watershed, which community leaders insist makes their historic enclave of kinfolk dramatically flood prone.
Author: Mia White
I am a doctoral student studying urban sociology (the social theory of urban spaces), in the Housing & Community Economic Development Group, of the department of urban studies and planning at MIT. Originally from New York, I am proud to have been politicized by the experiences which come from being a Black-Korean woman raised by a single, working-class immigrant mom, as well as an old-world matriarchal southern Black grandma. I'm also the proud mom of two young children, aged 3 and 4, whom I try to figure out on a daily basis with a phenomenal spouse. In my academic life, I am interested in alternative economic and community development schemes such as urban residential land trusts, coops and other "non-traditional" methodologies for land tenure reform and for dealing with the problems which come with urban restructuring.