JACKSON - Jackson State is about to embark on the first phase in an ambitious program that could not only transform the face of the state's only urban university, but the neighborhood that encompasses a five-mile area around the campus.
"In order for Jackson State to be the kind of university that (the College Board) expected, which is the urban university of the capital city, we knew what happened in the community around us was tied directly to the campus and vice versa," said JSU President Ronald Mason Jr., the moving force behind the project.
Crumbling walls that decades ago echoed with calls for equal rights are all that remain of the one-time headquarters of the Council of Federated Organizations.
The weed-infested ruins are reflective of what has happened to the once bustling, middle-class neighborhood that surrounds Jackson State University. It's now littered with neglected homes - many abandoned - boarded-up store fronts, and vacant lots.
JSU is the largest of the three historically black state universities and growing - its enrollment this fall is projected to top last year's 7,800 students.
The College Board has approved the first $47.9 million phase. Mason hopes to break ground within a year on new and renovated campus housing, a new president's house, and a new student union.
The second phase includes parking facilities and improved campus housing. The third will reach out to the neighborhood with programs designed to improve housing and the quality of life of its residents.
From start to finish, the multiyear project is expected to cost about $120 million and will be funded by a university bond issue, repaid through student fees.
Jackson City Councilman Leslie B. McLemore remembers the Jackson State area as it was when he started teaching political science at the school in 1971.
Many of the school's professors and students lived in the thriving middle-class community that has steadily deteriorated as affluent blacks and whites moved out.
The ruins of the COFO building, where a coalition of civil rights groups once worked to register black voters, could become part of Mason's efforts.
He's working with a group that has suggested restoring the building for use as a civil rights museum.
However, Mason will have to earn the trust of those in the community who still remember a yet to be completed university parkway - developed before Mason's tenure began in 2000 - that displaced many residents and even some churches.
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