The Taborian Hospital: A powerful accomplishment, a history of success, the impact of time, rising from the ashes…now closed once again.

When I first learned about the Taborian Hospital was June 16, 2010. E L Malvaney had written a post about the Taborian, featuring a post card of the hospital as it looked in 1942 when it first opened (Newspaper Clippings: Taborian Hospital, Preservation in Mississippi). What I knew about Mound Bayou was the history of the development of the Delta Health Center, and only a year later, I would find myself in Mound Bayou, learning about the founding of the town by men and women who were formerly enslaved. Mound Bayou was established as the first black-owned, black-governed town in the United States following emancipation.

Photograph by Susan C Allen, May 10, 2011

Photograph by Susan C Allen, May 10, 2011

Preservation in Mississippi posted later about fundraising for renovation of the Taborian, and that is how my relationship with the town began. My colleagues and students from social work and I were involved in a number of activities including two service learning classes in which students and faculty rented space in the community facility, purchased food and supplies locally, prepared our meals in that facility, and slept on air mattresses in order to be in the community and learn first hand. Service learning is not just about service, but about the opportunity to reflect on that service, what one has learned, and how to apply that learning to life and work. We made regular trips to Mound Bayou during that two year period.

Finally, we were able to see the interior just before the renovation began, after 30 years of the hospital sitting abandoned:

There was a women’s ward on one side, and men’s ward on the opposite, with a couple of private rooms. The two bottom photographs above are from the nursery looking into the women’s ward, and the women’s ward looking toward the nursery. One of the women with us shared her experience of having her first baby in the Taborian and right where her bed had been.

Our work would end prior to the completion and opening of the renovated hospital into the Taborian Urgent Care Center. The TUCC reopened in April 2014…only to close again. I had not been back to Mound Bayou since our work ended in 2013 until the day trip to begin work on the cemetery surveys in September. As I left town on my way home, I felt emotional. Some of it was hopeful and exciting. Some of it made me feel sad. When I posted about the first day trip, and mentioned those conflicting emotions, I was asked if I would share what had changed. At the time, it felt difficult and it has taken a month of processing and grappling, but finally after the visit this past week where I was there for more than a day coupled with the inspiring folks I met and talked with and learned from, it is time. In between the posts about the work in the cemeteries, I will share what was hard for me to see, and what was exciting and uplifting and just made me feel so good about the possibilities when we stand in the opportunity rather than the circumstance (Breakthrough Workshop, ca. 1986).

As Dot and I were headed to another location, we passed the Taborian, now locked and closed and unused. To date, no one that I know of has ever been able to determine exactly what happened that the facility closed not long after reopening. There are rumors, and there was a lawsuit and an appeal that indicated there was a dispute about the title and ownership of the property. What I heard from a colleague was that one day, the administrator removed all the files, locked the building, took the keys and disappeared. The only thing I can say for certain is the building is not in use as the Urgent Care Center, or anything else at the moment.

Dot needed to make a phone call, so I pulled into the parking lot and took some photographs while she did. It was wonderful to see this historic building that did so much for health care for African Americans in the Mississippi delta under the appalling and hateful Jim Crow era of American apartheid restored. It was unsettling see it once again shuttered and unused, with a broken window covered by plywood.

No amount of searching has revealed anything about what happened other than the title dispute until today when I found a Pro Publica item that revealed the organization is no longer listed as tax exempt, but data was associated with the EIN. In 2015, TUCC was designated 501(c)3 in Health–General and Rehabilitative/Hospital, Specialty. Essentially, the report showed the revenue and expenses, assets and liabilities for the first 3 fiscal years: 2014, 2015, and 2016. One can draw his or her own conclusions from the report, but from looking at the data, it was evident more money was expended than was generated, with a very small net income the final year of operation. Presumably, the remaining grant money was used the first year based on the reported contributions, and most of that went toward salaries and wages. That is generally the most significant expense in any organization.

Source: Andrea Suozzo, Alec Glassford, and Ash Ngu, Pro Publica, and Brandon Roberts, Special to Pro Publica. Updated September 14, 2023. Retrieved October 17, 2023 from https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/463944015.

One of the things I learned about historic preservation is the importance of sustainability. There must be a plan in place, along with regular income and maintenance, in order to preserve buildings. Otherwise, one runs the risk of the newly renovated and restored buildings falling into disrepair again. It happens which is why there are so many stringent rules around historic preservation. Looking at the Revenue/Expense reports for FY 2014, 2015, and 2016, it is evident sustainability was not there, or at least not in time to keep the organization running. Hopefully, someone analyzed that outcome to determine why that was the case and has a plan for the next steps.

From what I have read, the city–as it has before, continues to visualize the future and seek plans to not only preserve the history of the town, but demonstrate its resilience in the face of setbacks as it develops for that future. I taught students how to look at setbacks as “setforwards” in preparing them for social work practice. [Hackett, P. (2010). Setbacks and setforwards. Journal of Family Psychotherapy, 21(1), p. 70-75.].

Mound Bayou has a 136 year history of experiencing setbacks and setforwards, and they are still moving forward. This town continues to fascinate and inspire people as it has from the beginning. There is a reason President Theodore Roosevelt called it “The Jewel of the Delta” and why Booker T. Washington said of it:

Outside of Tuskegee, I think I can safely say there is no community in the world that I am so deeply interested in as I am in Mound Bayou.

The Mound Bayou Mississippi Story, The Delta Center for Culture and Learning, Delta State University, n.d., para.1

We should all be deeply interested in Mound Bayou,

“…located in the heart of the black belt of the South where black people and white people are side by side to work out their destiny and prove to the world that is is possible for two races different in color to live together, each promoting the happiness and welfare of the other.”

Booker T. Washington Papers, volume 12: 1912-14.