Dr. David D. Foote

Mississippi's first NAACP branch was organized in Vicksburg in June 1918, in the middle of a world war. Dr. David D. Foote, a dentist born in 1879, was a charter member and its first president, and the organizing meetings took place in his home. Dr. John Miller chaired the group, pharmacist William P. Harrison served on the committee, and attorney T. G. Ewing wrote the national office. Vigilantes summoned Miller to a hearing, where he spoke about how Black residents were treated and asked for change. The branch dissolved almost immediately, as other early Mississippi branches did.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Court House Museum — 0.2 mi
  Vicksburg's Greek Revival courthouse of 1860, raised on a hilltop with the labor of enslaved artisans and now a private local-history museum heavy on Confederate relics.
• USS Cairo Gunboat and Museum — 1.5 mi
  The raised hull of a Union river ironclad sunk by a mine in the Yazoo in 1862, displayed at Vicksburg National Military Park with the artifacts the river mud preserved.
• Vicksburg National Military Park — 1.7 mi
  A 16-mile tour road through the trenches of the 47-day siege of 1863, with a national cemetery and the story of the thousands of enslaved people who reached freedom behind Union lines.

More markers nearby

• Anchuca — steps away
• Bethel A.M.E. Church — steps away
• Newit Vick's Original Vicksburg — steps away
• Dr. Lemuel James Bowie — 0.2 mi