JACKSON, Miss. — When John Tierre launched his restaurant in Jackson’s neglected Farish Street Historic District, he was drawn by the neighborhood’s past as an economically independent cultural hub for Black Mississippians, and the prospect of helping usher in an era of renewed prosperity.
This week he sat on the empty, sun-drenched patio of Johnny T’s Bistro and Blues and lamented all the business he has lost as tainted water flows through his pipes — just like other users in the majority Black city of 150,000, if they were lucky enough to have any pressure at all. The revival he and others envisioned seems very much in doubt.
“The numbers are very low for lunch,” Tierre said. “They’re probably taking their business to the outskirts where they don’t have water woes.”
Torrential rains and flooding of the Pearl River in late August exacerbated problems at one of Jackson’s two treatment plants, leading to a drop in pressure throughout the city, where residents were already under a boil-water order due to poor quality.
Officials said Sunday that most of Jackson should have running water, though residents are still advised not to drink straight from the tap. The city remains under a boil water notice.
Another Black entrepreneur who has taken a hit is Bobbie Fairley, 59, who has lived in Jackson her entire life and owns Magic Hands Hair Design on the city’s south side.
She canceled five appointments Wednesday because she needs high water pressure to rinse her clients’ hair of treatment chemicals. She also has had to purchase water to shampoo hair to try fit in whatever appointments she can. When customers aren’t coming in, she’s losing money.
“That’s a big burden,” she said. “I can’t afford that. I can’t afford that at all.”
Jackson can’t afford to fix its water problems. The tax base has eroded over the past few decades as the population decreased, the result of primarily white flight to suburbs that began about a decade after public schools integrated in 1970. Today the city is more than 80% black, and 25% of its residents live in poverty.
Some say the uncertainty facing Black businesses fits into a pattern of adversity stemming from both natural disasters and policy decisions.
“It’s punishment for Jackson because it was open to the idea that people should be able to attend public schools and that people should have access to public areas without abuse,” said Maati Jone Primm, who owns Marshall’s Music and Bookstore up the block from Johnny T’s. “As a result of that, we have people who ran away to the suburbs.”
At a water distribution site in south Jackson this week, area resident Lisa Jones brought empty paint buckets to fill up so her family could bathe. In a city with crumbling infrastructure, Jones said she felt trapped.
“Everybody can’t move right now. Everyone can’t go to Madison, Flowood, Canton and all these other places,” she said, naming three more affluent suburbs. “If we could, trust me, it would be a dark sight: Houses would be boarded up street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood.”
