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est of the community and the welfare of the race.” Out of this courtship, local businessmen, bankers, politicians, and law enforcement officials became some of Gulfside’s most vocal supporters, always on hand to cut ribbons on a new facility or write a letter of endorsement to creditors and philanthropies. In addition to Merchants Bank president George R. Rea, a “man of high standing” in Hancock County, Jones counted Waveland mayor George Hearly, Hancock County attorney E. J. Gex, and Sea Coast Echo editor Charles G. Moreau among his local allies. Jones assembled a board of trustees that consisted of presidents of black' Methodist colleges, local bankers and businessmen, and prominent national white supporters of African American education and institution development. In addition to serving as a trustee, Rea penned a letter that Jones included in solicitations of support testifying that white coastal leaders “have the greatest confidence as to [Jones’s] ability and integrity. We think much good has been accomplished by this organization and they have our co-operation at all times.”41
Gulfside cultivated a spirit of cooperation with local whites not simply by appealing to their sympathies, but by publicly positioning itself as an asset to the local economy. To railroad executives, Jones promised to bring upward of six to seven thousand “representative, progressive Christian men and women” aboard their trains each summer. Among the growing numbers of hotel and restaurant owners in the region, Gulfside’s food preparation training programs and emphasis on “sanitation, food and health” were singled out for praise. The vocations taught at the boys’ school were all uniquely suited to the needs of a building construction and service-oriented coastal economy. As an article in the New Orleans States commented, Gulfside “should be heartily supported for what it stands for and seeks to do to better fit and prepare men and women for life’s work.”42 Northern investors also seemed to take notice. Articles in northern newspapers extolling the benefits of Mississippi coastal development stressed the region’s cheap labor supply as a main selling point.
More fundamentally, Gulfside seemed to embrace the region’s progrowth ethos. Articles in local white newspapers pointed to the “rapid manner in which [Gulfside covered] its vacant spaces . . . with new buildings” as evidence of the “growth and material prosperity” Gulfside promised to contribute to Hancock County. The Sea Coast Echo called the enterprise “quite a credit to the colored mind and effort of Hancock County
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“material side of the enterprise rests on a foundation of permanence.”'B On August 31, 1927, over two thousand African Americans arrived on special trains to attend the dedication ceremonies of the Gulfside Chautauqua and Camp Meeting Grounds. It was considered the largest single gathering of African Americans in the history of the Gulf Coast, and hailed by black newspapers across the country as a monumental achievement in the history of the race. Guests from the rural backwoods and small towns of Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and Louisiana stepped off the train in Waveland, hiked through the woods that separated the town from the coast, and upon arrival stared out onto the gleaming waters of the Gulf, many for the first time in their lives. Bishop Wilbur R Thirkield, the former president of 1 toward University, a Tuskegce trustee, and a longtime advocate for African American education, dedicated the grounds and praised Gulfside for its focus on fostering “peace, good will, and race adjustmf 1 ” To “wave[s] of hearty applause” for their “support and cooperation,” Jc..es introduced Hancock County sheriff A. J. McCloud and Rae. Gex spoke 011 behalf of the “responsible white business and professional men and women of Hancock County,” professing their eagerness to help build and grow Gulfside. At this and all future interracial events, Gulfside observed segregated seating arrangements.44
! Similar events in the coming years aimed to show for audiences of powerful white business and political figures both the desirability and necessity of the Gulfside venture. First staged in 1931, Song Fest brought together five hundred singers from several African American college choirs across the Deep South in an effort to display the talents and spiritual strivings of the Negro.45 It proved enormously popular. An estimated twelve hundred of Gulfsidc’s “white friends” were in attendance at the first Song Fest; the following year, the crowd swelled to well over two tb' • sand, and in the coming years it regularly numbered well over hve thousand. The audience consisted, as one account noted, of “bankers, mayors, other officials, and well-to-do residents of Biloxi, Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, Gulfport,- and New Orleans.” White attendees described the performances as “the real thing,” “unadulterated by refinements, close to its roots in the soil from which it sprang.” “The humor and pathos of the negro race,” one account described, “lifted many a white listener a little above the earth for a brief space.” “The spirit of friendliness that character->zed the gathering,” an article in the white newspaper the New Orleans
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