Mound Bayou

City in Bolivar County, northwestern Mississippi; population (1990) 2,200. Mound Bayou is located in the Delta, 37 km/23 mi south-southwest of Clarksdale, on Highway 61.

Named after nearby Mississippian mounds, Mound Bayou was founded in 1887 by Black settlers in conjunction with the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad, which was laying track through the area. Its founders were trying to escape post-Reconstruction violence and repression in the South by establishing their own community. Today, this essentially agricultural area remains 99.6% Black, the largest such municipality in the country.