CORRECTION

Editor’s Note: There was an error in a front page story that ran in The South Reporter on July 25. It was headlined, “Community celebrates legacy of Ida B. Wells-Barnett.”

A name was misspelled in the following portion of the article. The newspaper apologizes for the mistake and is happy to set the record straight.

Atlanta, Ga., immigration attorney Jeannette Freeman discussed her life in Holly Springs and her heritage as part of the 29th annual Ida B. Wells-Barnett Birthday Celebration.

A graduate of the 1971 Class of Holly Springs High School, she described the community at that time as close-knit.

“Your mother was my mother,” she said. “If you did wrong, you got it both ways.”

Her mother, the late Bennie Mae Buford Freeman, grew up in Senatobia and her father Lincoln Freeman from Moscow, Tenn., settled in Holly Springs. Her mother was sent to high school at Mississippi Industrial College when she was in eighth or ninth grade.

Jeannette Freeman, who obtained a law degree from Tennessee, said her family had scattered all over the country. Her mother was a collector of antiques and furniture and the piece Jeannette Freeman donated to the museum was a piece her mother really loved. Her mother was very active in the community as a strong woman and big personality.

Bennie Mae Buford (Freeman) was born June 25, 1926, to sharecroppers. She attended MI College from 1942 to 1950 where she met her husband-to-be, Lincoln Freeman. She earned a bachelor’s in secondary education, and graduated with master’s degrees from Ole Miss and Mississippi State.

The couple married and had four children. Bennie Mae Buford Freeman taught at Tate County Schools beginning in 1948. She taught first grade, then high school, then English at Sims High School.

Around 1966 her mother became an adult education counselor in the STAR Program and was director of social services and director of drug education at the Holly Springs School District. She also served as director of the Mississippi Department of Youth Services seven years for Marshall, Benton and Tippah counties and youth court counselor.

Bennie Mae Buford Freeman was instrumental in organizing a museum of African American Culture. She was also involved in church activities and raised money for the African American Museum that she organized.

Jeannette Freeman said her mother was very generous and well-known throughout the community, but strict as a teacher and mother.