Once a cornerstone of Starkville’s Black business district, the Fred Gandy Barber Shop, located at 119 Dr. Douglas L. Conner Drive, now sits vacant on a shifting foundation, its stucco walls crumbling and windows shattered.
Though Cyndi Parker, assistant professor in the Department of Interior Design at Mississippi State University, has plans to bring the building back to life.
“It’s important to maintain its history and strengthen and help revitalize this portion of downtown that once was known as the African American Business District,” Parker wrote in an email to The Dispatch. “For any and all historical buildings, each has a story and it’s just sad, and should be criminal, to see them abandoned, dilapidated and eventually demolished.”
Parker has researched the building for more than a year and plans to buy it from current owner Mike Frayser. She hopes to redevelop the building into a mixed-use property with three residential units and a commercial space – a project she estimates will cost more than $500,000.
Built in 1950, the two-story structure housed Fred Gandy’s barbershop downstairs and a tenant office upstairs. Though little is known about Gandy’s life, Parker uncovered through archives that his first tenant was Civil Rights activist Dr. Douglas L. Conner, the city’s first Black physician.
Conner opened his first medical practice in the building that year after Gandy, with the help of a group of other local Black business leaders, offered Conner an all-expenses-paid trip to travel from his medical internship in St. Louis, Missouri, to Starkville to establish his practice. The group paid Conner’s first six months of rent.
By 1951, he opened his own standalone practice just two doors down and organized meetings of the NAACP in the building next door.
Vice Mayor Roy A. Perkins, who knew Conner from childhood until his death in 1998, said Conner became a voice for the Black community, leading marches down Washington Street and speaking out against injustices in the community.
“He was just extraordinary in every aspect of his life, and served for not only the community that he fought so hard for to remove injustices and inequalities and other obstacles that many people had to face that he came in constant interaction with, but he was just a voice for the community, and many people may not have acknowledged that, but they knew he was here,” Perkins said. “He had a profound presence.”
The Conner Gandy
Despite its history, the Gandy Barbershop sits just yards away from Starkville’s nationally registered historic downtown district. As part of her restoration plans, Parker has nominated the building for the National Register of Historic Places and has proposed the historic district extend to include both the barbershop and Conner’s standalone practice.
If successful, Parker’s restoration would honor both men who originally housed the building. She plans to name the space “The Conner Gandy” and incorporate design elements that reflect its past, including a south-facing mural, stair balusters shaped like barber poles and light fixtures inspired by the caduceus, the symbol of medicine.
Though the biggest challenge she faces is funding.
“The bottom line … is that the numbers have to work,” she said. “No matter how much we love it and want to restore it, it has to make sense financially.”
In its current state of disrepair, Parker is relying on the city to bear the costs of repairing water and sewer connections, a decision that could “make or break” the building’s restoration. She is also seeking tax credits from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, though they can’t be earned without first achieving historical status through the national register.
Lolly Rash, executive director for the Mississippi Heritage Trust, named the building among Mississippi’s 10 most endangered historical places earlier this month.
Rash said the list is a way to raise awareness of the challenges historical buildings like the Fred Gandy Barber Shop face, in hopes that the community will rally around it.
“It’s a chance to give the story that these places have to tell a broader platform to educate people throughout Mississippi about our collective history,” Rash said. “… It’s a chance to have a little history lesson through these buildings, and it’s also the opportunity to give community activists a statewide platform to say, ‘Hey, this is worthy of preservation. How are we going to rally behind finding a solution to this endangered building?’”
Perkins said although he didn’t know the history behind the Fred Gandy Barber Shop, said Conner was deserving of “any type of recognition.”
“He was a frontline soldier,” Perkins said. “… He was always ready. He knew what to do. He was fully equipped. He was fully knowledgeable. He was fully prepared. He was fully educated. … Anything that recognizes the life and legacy of Dr. Conner is very worthy. Dr. Conner was worthy to be praised.”
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 34 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 34 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
