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AFRICAN AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY MUSEUM (EAST SIXTH STREET USO BUILDING)

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1942; 2008–2009 restored, Albert and Associates. 305 E. 6th St.

This frame T-shaped United Service Organizations (USO) building accommodated entertainment and recreation for the thousands of African Americans training at Camp Shelby during World War II. The federal government built the structure using a standardized plan, and the YMCA operated it. The USO club offered off-duty black soldiers “A Home Away from Home”: showers, food, games, a library, and dances. It also hosted national music groups and speakers, such as educator and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune. A community center for many years after the war, the building was restored and opened in 2009 as the African American Military History Museum. The larger brick USO building (1942) for white service members at 220 W. Front Street has been converted into a civic center.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Jennifer V.O. Baughn and Michael W. Fazio with Mary Warren Miller
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Data

What's Nearby

HISTORIC EUREKA SCHOOL
FORREST COUNTY COURTHOUSE
U.S. POST OFFICE
GEORGE L. HAWKINS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL (JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL)
S. H. KRESS STORE BUILDING

Citation

Jennifer V.O. Baughn and Michael W. Fazio with Mary Warren Miller, "AFRICAN AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY MUSEUM (EAST SIXTH STREET USO BUILDING)", [Hattiesburg, Mississippi], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/MS-02-PW36.

Print Source

Buildings of Mississippi, Jennifer V. O. Baughn and Michael W. Fazio. With Mary Warren Miller. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2021, 321-321.

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