Dr. Felix Henry Dunn

Dr. Felix Henry Dunn practiced medicine in Gulfport from 1953 until 2002 and led the Gulfport branch of the NAACP. In 1959 he joined Dr. Gilbert Mason, Joseph Austin of Handsboro and Eulice White of Turkey Creek in a petition asking Harrison County supervisors to open the beaches. The board's attorney and the state Sovereignty Commission answered with threats; White lost his job, Austin was suspended, and both withdrew their names. Dunn's work went on. He later marched with Martin Luther King Jr. and championed public housing and Head Start.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Biloxi Beach Wade-In Marker — 12 mi
  The beachfront parking lot beside the Biloxi Lighthouse where state markers recall the 1959 and 1960 wade-ins that opened Mississippi's public beaches to Black residents.
• Biloxi Lighthouse — 12 mi
  A cast-iron tower lit in 1848 on the Biloxi beachfront, kept by women for most of its first century and still in service after Camille and Katrina.
• Ship Island and Fort Massachusetts — 14 mi
  A barrier island twelve miles off the Mississippi coast with a brick fort burned half-built in 1861, a Union prison camp, and the garrison post of the 2nd Louisiana Native Guard.
• Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art — 14 mi
  Frank Gehry's pavilions on the Biloxi waterfront, built around the pottery of George Ohr, the self-styled Mad Potter, and the rebuilt Pleasant Reed House.

More markers nearby

• 1863 East Pascagoula Raid — 1.2 mi
• Gulfport-Harrison County Library — 1.3 mi
• Old Gulfport High School — 1.3 mi
• Gulfport Civil Rights Wade-In — 1.7 mi