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Black Grocers, Black Activism, And The Spaces In Between: Black Grocery Stores During The Mississippi Freedom Struggle Movement, Keon Ahmad Burns

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the role of Black-owned grocery stores and their owners during the Mississippi Freedom Struggle Movement. The thesis highlights four Black grocery store owners, and the impact they had on the movement. Grocery stores played a vital role and were often sites of contestants. Black-owned grocery stores served as meeting spaces for Black activism, targets of White domestic terrorism, and safe havens for Black Mississippians. These spaces provided a space for political agency, leisure, and safety. Likewise, this thesis centers Black grocery store owners as fundamental to the progress of the movement. It explores an array of ways …