Turning the tides.

After the devastating 1927 Mississippi River flood, construction of the Tri Lake dams—in Sardis, Enid and Grenada—was begun in the late 1930s, with Sardis operational by 1940.  While the war postponed Grenada’s dam, the city found itself occupied in other ways, as German soldiers under the General Rommel were shipped in as prisoners of war.  (There was even a prison break, although the event proved somewhat anticlimactic, with the prisoners found wandering the streets of nearby Belzoni, window shopping.)

After the war, the dam and impoundment lake at Enid were completed in 1952 and then finally in Grenada in 1954, bringing much needed flood control as well as thousands of acres of recreational opportunities.

It was lack of opportunity and equality that brought on Grenada’s next great battle, when the Southern Christian Leadership Conference launched its project for Grenada school integration in 1966.  For several weeks, volunteers and civil rights leaders including the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Andrew Young and singer/activist Joan Baez used Belle Flower Missionary Baptist Church as their headquarters.  The church was firebombed, but the hateful act could neither destroy the house of worship nor extinguish the fire in the hearts of the people of Grenada. 

Only a year later, Reverend King would praise the successful efforts in the city in his address at the annual SCLC meeting:  "We can never forget the courageous action of the people of Grenada who moved our nation and its federal courts to powerful action in behalf of school integration, giving Grenada one of the most integrated school systems in America.  The battle is far from over, but the black people of Grenada have achieved forty of fifty-three demands through their persistent nonviolent efforts."

Today, you can still see the shadows of flames on the walls of the Belle Flower Baptist Church.  You may want to start your Grenada tour at this inspiring place.  Or you may want to begin at the historic cemetery where the yellow fever victims were laid to rest, or at any number of the other fascinating sites on the city’s self-guided driving/walking tour.