Utica Normal and Industrial School

William Holtzclaw, born in Alabama in 1870 to formerly enslaved parents, brought the Tuskegee model to Hinds County. In 1902 he organized a small public school, then raised money and builders for a private one where students worked toward tuition. Carnegie and the publisher F. A. Ginn were among the donors. Courses ran from teaching and agriculture to printing, steam engineering and dressmaking. Holtzclaw started a Negro Farmers Conference in 1905, published two newspapers, and spoke out against James Vardaman for cutting funds to Black schools. His autobiography, The Black Man's Burden, appeared in 1915.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Vicksburg National Military Park — 25 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.
• Old Court House Museum — 26 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 — 27 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.
• Farish Street Historic District — 31 mi
  Jackson's Black business and cultural center, where Medgar Evers kept the NAACP office and furniture-store owners recorded the blues, now a quiet National Register district.

More markers nearby

• Utica — 4.6 mi
• Federals Occupy Rocky Springs — 12 mi
• P.T.A. Birthplace — 16 mi
• Fight for Hankinson's Ferry — 16 mi