[A feel-good HGTV show sweeps a Southern town’s racist past, and
gentrified present, under the rug.]
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RETURNING TO LAUREL  
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Jonathan Odell
June 23, 2023
The Progressive
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_ A feel-good HGTV show sweeps a Southern town’s racist past, and
gentrified present, under the rug. _

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When I tell people where I grew up, they say, “Oh, is that the
Laurel, Mississippi, on HGTV?” Then they gush, “It sounds just
like Mayberry!” parroting one of the perky hosts on the blockbuster
home improvement show _Home Town
[[link removed]]_.

I suspected the show was repackaging my memories for popular
consumption, because my Laurel was no Mayberry. As far as I know, the
fictional TV utopia wasn’t 69 percent people of color
[[link removed]] with some
of the highest rates of poverty
[[link removed]] and crime
[[link removed]] in the nation,
not to mention being home to some of the most horrific acts of racism
in the South.

Here’s a snapshot of the Laurel I knew: On May 8, 1951, while my
mother was waiting to give birth to me at the town’s Masonite
Clinic, only six blocks away at the courthouse, Willie McGee, a Black
man, was being legally lynched
[[link removed]] to
the cheers of more than a thousand white citizens.

A few blocks east lived a business owner and Sunday school teacher
named Sam Bowers [[link removed]], soon
to become the Ku Klux Klan imperial wizard of _Mississippi Burning
[[link removed]]_ fame.
The FBI later investigated Bowers, and he was charged
[[link removed]] alongside
several other pillars of our community—including
[[link removed]] the Jaycees’
[[link removed]] 1968 Young
Man of the Year
[[link removed]]—with
carrying out another atrocity of the civil rights era: firebombing
the home of voting rights activist Vernon Dahmer
[[link removed]],
killing him. We were told by our community leaders to put these
incidents behind us and never speak of them again, and we white
residents did. Most still do.

In the 1970s, the city fell victim to the trends besetting most small
Southern towns after integration. Private segregation academies arose
[[link removed]] so
that white students could avoid going to school with Black students.
White residents fled the city limits into the county, and housing
values plummeted. No longer confined to the other side of the tracks,
the newly emerging majority could move into neighborhoods where they
were once welcomed only as domestic or yard workers.

The mass exodus of white people left Laurel with a diminished tax base
and decaying infrastructure. The downtown district suffered, and
houses and entire neighborhoods fell into disrepair. Eventually, the
downtown area and the seven-block historic district dominated by
magnificent mansions built by lumber barons became a shrinking white
sliver in a predominantly African American pie.

[Laurel_Miss.png]

When I visited in 2015 to bury my mother, what wasn’t already dead
in the city seemed to be on life support.

That’s what an HGTV crew saw when they arrived in Laurel that same
year: A down-and-out city in dire need of saving—with plenty of
cheap housing stock—and not least, an unsavory history of racism,
violence, and economic oppression that badly needed a makeover.

After binge-watching several seasons of _Home Town_, I have to admit,
I saw the draw. By restoring Laurel one house at a time, the hosts
claim to be building a close-knit, values-driven community that
hearkens back to the idealized past that white people like to picture.
After watching, even I was longing for this Laurel that never existed.

The hosts, husband-and-wife team Ben and Erin Napier, certainly seem
like lovely people, and it is hard to doubt their sincerity. Still, I
was left asking, “Where did two-thirds of the population up and go?
Where did you hide the pervasive poverty? In what closet did you cram
the racist history of my hometown?” It seemed to me that they were
not so much restoring my town as “re-storying” it.

I decided it was time to pay a visit to my birthplace—as a tourist.

If you take the recommended exit, Interstate 59 will ease you
comfortably into the historic district, the focus of much of
Laurel’s restoration. This route conveniently bypasses areas of
mostly poor people of color living on potholed streets lined with
neglected and abandoned properties—neighborhoods that scare white
people senseless.

Yet the transformation of the downtown area startled me. Once shabby
and nearly entirely boarded up, the city center was now all spiffed up
and bustling. Long-defunct businesses where my family had purchased
clothes, hardware, and school supplies and gone to see Elvis movies
were elegantly transformed into restaurants, coffee shops, upscale art
studios, luxury lofts, and gift boutiques. The façades were familiar,
but the goods advertised were too exotic for a Southern town of less
than 20,000 people, leaving me disoriented.

As I walked the crowded sidewalks, I even overheard a few Yankee
accents. But unlike the place of my youth, there were no Black faces.
To my amazement, the town seemed more segregated than it had been in
the 1960s. Post _Home Town_, Laurel does look a little like Mayberry.

But from watching the show, I knew there was at least one Black-owned
business downtown. Pearl’s Diner [[link removed]] now
occupies the former jewelry store where my father once purchased a
diamond ring for my mother. The face of Pearl Campbell, a
grandmotherly Black woman, is featured conspicuously on the show and
most media profiles, as if to make a point. I paid a visit, and the
food was as good as your favorite Southern aunt’s Sunday dinners.
Yet there were no Black customers—only cooks and servers.

As for other Black-owned businesses, that was about it. If the show
was supposed to trickle down wealth to the impoverished third of the
city, I failed to see it. Downtown looked more like _Gentrified
Town_ than _Home Town_. And again, so damn white!

As I exited the diner, there appeared another astonishing sight: a
trolley with an actual tour guide offering to show tourists around
town. I hopped on for the $25 tour.

All seven of us were white, except for the guide, a gregarious Black
woman with a quick wit who was also raised in Laurel. I took the seat
next to her and quickly discovered that she and I had gone to the same
high school, although more than thirty years apart. The same but
different. My school, by Mississippi law, was white. By the time she
began, white flight had converted her entire graduating class to
people of color.

As we putted along the streets of the white neighborhoods of my youth,
I could see more substantial changes the show had brought about since
its debut in 2016. Once grand but ramshackle houses had been returned
to a condition the original owners, more than a century earlier, could
behold with pride.

The guide stopped in front of each restoration, but before she could
utter a word, my fellow trolley mates—who hailed from all over the
country plus Canada, and all of whom were dedicated fans of the
show—beat her to the punch, reciting the name of the house and the
owners, not to mention during which season it had aired. And, of
course, we had to stop at all the cute businesses in the _Home
Town_ money-making franchise: a clothing store, the mercantile gift
shops, all carefully stocked with the tourist in mind.

We were thirty minutes into the tour and had not once strayed out of
the bubble of whiteness that is the purview of _Home Town_. So far,
the guide had not mentioned the landmark civil rights struggles, the
KKK, Black martyrs, or the crucial role that race played in the
shaping of Laurel. She didn’t point out the church
[[link removed]] where
the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. had preached and which had
survived a 1967 KKK bombing. She mentioned Laurel native
[[link removed]] and
Metropolitan Opera star Leontyne Price, but not that Ms. Price’s
aunt had once worked as a maid in one of the mansions we had just
passed.

As we approached the courthouse, I was certain the weight of history
would force her to mention the multiple lynchings
[[link removed]] and
the monstrous Confederate monument that dominated the lawn. Surely,
she couldn’t sidestep that.

Just as the courthouse came into view, she adeptly directed our
group’s attention to the Methodist church across the street. I had
underestimated her skill at putting white folks at ease. No one seemed
to notice the sleight of hand.

[confederate_monument_2.jpg]

Jonathan Odell

The Confederate monument on the courthouse lawn in Laurel,
Mississippi, was not featured on the local sightseeing trolley tour.

To be clear, I’m not criticizing our guide. These tourists weren’t
paying to hear about racism or structural poverty. They came to bask
in the glow of their favorite feel-good television show. White tourism
not only brings in money for the white investors and the nearly
exclusively white business owners, but it also puts needed tax dollars
into the city’s coffers, which still haven’t recovered from white
flight.

Nor do I begrudge the show’s hosts, the Napiers. To their credit,
the carpenter-designer duo seem sincere about what they are doing.
They do their bit for charity by promoting worthy causes
[[link removed]] on
and off the screen once in a while, and they renovate houses for Black
couples, gay couples, and mixed-race couples. The cynical part of me
thinks that these gestures give their white audience permission to
enjoy a show based in a state known for its notorious racism and
religious intolerance without feeling complicit. Guilt-free
entertainment sells.

Yet I believe _Home Town_ should give fair warning to people of
color, liberals, or queer folks who might otherwise be charmed into
moving to Laurel. When they venture out of the show’s cozy, white
bubble, it’s a different world. I’d advise them to take out a
subscription to the local paper. The _Laurel Leader-Call
[[link removed]]_ features regular columns written by
slavery minimizers, ranting homophobic preachers, Klan defenders,
and Confederate loyalists
[[link removed]].

As popular as the city booster club
[[link removed]] is the local Sons of Confederate
Veterans [[link removed]],
which the Southern Poverty Law Center says
[[link removed]] is
linked to several white supremacist groups. But that doesn’t stop
the town from cheering for them as they commandeer the courthouse
square on Confederate Memorial Day
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their flags, guns, and Confederate uniforms.

Here’s the truth I know about Laurel: The most race-baiting
politicians in Mississippi find fertile soil in the stomping grounds
around my hometown. After the publisher of the town paper called
[[link removed]] Black
Lives Matter a “Marxist terrorist hate group” in the summer of
2020, white men volunteered to serve as snipers atop city buildings to
keep a handful of peaceful Black Lives Matter marchers in line. A
contingent of Oath Keepers stood guard
[[link removed]] with
their automatic weapons to protect the Confederate monument from local
descendants of the enslaved.

That’s not history; that’s today. The show addresses none of this.
Perhaps they were filming in another part of Mayberry, or more likely,
covering this kind of story—or bemoaning the plight of the homeless
and oppressed in their midst—would mean losing viewership. It’s
not that the story the show tells about Laurel is untrue; it’s just
incomplete. Worse, it papers over the experience of an entire
people—again.

History in Laurel, like in the rest of the United States, is still
segregated. If you came to hear the Black story, you’ll need to go
elsewhere.

As luck would have it, while I was visiting I learned there would be a
grand opening celebration for the Laurel-Jones County Black History
Museum and Arts [[link removed]].
The museum is the creation of Marian Allen. Bubbly and persistent, she
is a formidable force for advancing the history of Black folks in
Laurel.

[IMG_0056.png]

Halle Grace Allen

Marian Allen stands with her godson Jalen Lindsey in front of the
historical marker commemorating lynching victim John Hartfield. Allen
is holding a photo of Hartfield.

Allen told the audience how, for a long time, she traveled with all of
her Black history artifacts in the trunk of her car, setting up mobile
exhibits anywhere people would have her—churches, schools, public
spaces. Finally, thanks to small dollar contributions, she was able
to purchase
[[link removed]] a
rambling, long neglected house to display her collection—a house,
incidentally, that she and her mother had cleaned when she was a
child. On the walls hung photos of Black Laurel’s heroes: Olympic
Hall of Famer Ralph Boston; Leontyne Price, the Metropolitan Opera
soprano, and her brother, Brigadier General George Price, the children
of a midwife; and other nearly forgotten civil rights activists and
martyrs.

She doesn’t shy away from the ugly and violent parts of history. Her
museum raised the money and successfully lobbied the Mississippi
Historical Society to erect
[[link removed]] a
marker for one of the county’s many lynching victims. The marker
represents the first public acknowledgment of John Hartfield’s
[[link removed]] murder; he was accused
of dating a white woman. Many people, Black and white, tell her it
never happened or that she should just “let it alone.” Of course,
the marker is well out of sight of the white tourists, because, well,
there’s no such thing as lynching in Mayberry.

I doubt Allen will find her way onto the show without heavy editing.
Though she delivers her message in the most congenial, entertaining
way possible, her work makes many white people uncomfortable.

I left Laurel with mixed feelings about the show. On the positive
side, the work the hosts have done is visually stunning and in true
character with the original architecture. While in the coffee shop, I
overheard locals talk as if Laurel was on the cusp of a great
transformation. I spoke with a couple from Newfoundland who, after
watching the show, were planning to retire in Laurel.

I’d love to see more amicable mingling between Northerners and
Southerners—but also between Black folks and white folks, Hispanic
folks and Indigenous folks, liberals and conservatives, the documented
and the undocumented, queer folks and straight and trans and bi. But I
don’t think that’s the community the show’s hosts or the money
backers have in mind, at least not in large doses.

Instead, the show suggests to its white, middle-class demographic that
Laurel is a financially comfortable white community without a
troubling past, simmering race issues, sky-high crime rates, or 59
percent of children living below the poverty line
[[link removed]]—a
utopia where the only conflict is whether to wallpaper the entryway or
paint it. They are promoting small-town nostalgia to a white audience
hungry for a past that never was while obfuscating the past that is.

The show, not Laurel, is the draw. Sooner or later, the hosts will
take their cameras and pleasing personalities to the next town,
leaving little sustainable behind. As I drove out of town, I had the
feeling of déjà vu—that we’ve been here before and that, for all
the hype, this is nothing new.

The last time Laurel had a bustling, prosperous downtown was during
the era of legal segregation, when all the businesses were owned and
operated by white people. Schools, like now, were segregated. We had
an underclass of dark-skinned people quartered out of view so they
couldn’t blemish the image of the town that locals like to call
[[link removed]] “City
Beautiful.” Today, like then, tax revenues are funneled into
projects that primarily improve the lives of white folks, while Black
areas are left to suffer neglect, high crime, and a sixty-year-old
flooding problem so severe that sometimes Black residents have to
[[link removed]] leave
their homes by boat. Once more, it seems we have created a gorgeous
white bubble for a privileged few while obscuring the lived truth of
the most marginal.

I could be wrong. It’s true that the population of Laurel is still
shrinking, the poverty rate has barely budged, and the national
attention brought by the show is driving up housing prices for those
who can least afford it. Still, maybe one day the show will be bold
enough to broach income inequality, structural racism, and the harm
done by our selective sense of history. Perhaps the show’s makers
will sponsor not only a tour of white Laurel but also tell how white
Laurel would not exist without Black Laurel, and how our histories are
interwoven. Instead of shooing off the homeless before filming, they
could use a wide-angle lens and expand Laurel’s sense of community
to include the disenfranchised and systemically forgotten folks
surrounding them.

It wouldn’t remind anyone of Mayberry, but it would be a show worth
watching. 

_Jonathan Odell is the author of three novels, and his essays and
short stories have appeared in The New York Times, Commonweal,
Publishers Weekly, the Baltimore Review, the Utne Reader, and
elsewhere. He lives in Minneapolis with his husband._

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* gentrification
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* poverty
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* Racism
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* TV
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* Mississippi
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