By: The People’s Paper MS
By the time Dolphus Weary graduated from high school in 1965, about 70% of his classmates left Mississippi within two weeks.
They were part of a long tradition of Black Southerners fleeing poverty, racism, and the limitations of Jim Crow.
Weary had plenty of reasons to join them and never look back. What changed his path began with a spiritual turning point.
“In 1964, I became a Christian,” Dr. Weary recalls, “and began to attend Bible classes and Bible studies” under the ministry of John and Vera Mae Perkins, who had moved to Mendenhall in the early ‘60s and started a mission called Voice of Calvary.
Perkins and his team reached out to young people like Weary, drawing them into Bible studies and community programs that connected faith to daily life.
After high school, Weary attended Piney Woods Junior College, where a gospel team from Southern California and connected to Voice of Calvary visited.
On that team was the director of admissions from L.A. Baptist College, who spotted his basketball talent.
In 1967, Weary and his friend, the late Jimmy Walker, headed to the all-white L.A. Baptist College, stepping into a very different world than rural Simpson County.
Even while in California, Perkins kept inviting him back home for the summers.
“John Perkins invited me back to Mendenhall during the next few summers,” Weary said, “where we started vacation Bible schools in Black churches throughout Simpson County and started an education program to prepare the young people who one day would be integrated into the White school.”
Those summers were an early experiment in holistic ministry: teaching faith, building education, and quietly preparing the community for the changes coming with the civil rights movement.
Still, Weary had no plans to stay in Mississippi long-term.
“I had too much pain and hurt connected to growing up Black and poor in Mississippi,” he admits.
While overseas in 1970 with Overseas Crusade Sports Ambassadors, he was challenged to consider becoming a missionary abroad.
That invitation forced a deeper question into his heart:
“Am I going to a mission field or am I running away from a mission field? I immediately felt convicted,” Dr. Weary said, “And, I came to the conclusion that I needed to think about staying in Mississippi and dealing with poverty and racism.”
He realized that his true calling was not an escape, but a return to face the poverty and racism he knew firsthand.
In 1971, after graduating from college and seminary, Weary moved back to Mendenhall to work alongside John Perkins.
Together, they helped transform ministry in the area from a traditional charity model into a holistic effort to renew the whole community: spiritually, socially, and economically.
“Working with and learning from Dr. Perkins helped me to recontextualize how I saw my community and how the Gospel can change it,” Weary reflected.
“On one side of the tracks in Mendenhall was the White community, with paved streets, street lights, businesses, and nice homes. On the other side, in the Black community across the tracks, there were no paved streets, no street lights, no businesses, and dilapidated houses,” Dr. Weary recalled.
“So how do you recontextualize that?” he asked. “John Perkins encouraged us to think about coming back to Mississippi and changing that image, to do holistic ministry, to begin to work in the community, and to work to build that community up.”
Mendenhall Ministries became a model of that holistic vision. The work encompassed:
• A Head Start program already underway to support school readiness for Black children.
• A community co-op store so families targeted for their civil rights activism, whose credit had been cut off by White business owners, could still buy food and essentials.
• Genesis One Christian School, a health clinic, radio ministry, adult education ministry, thrift store, farm, community law office, gymnasium, and more.
“It became a holistic ministry within the poor community,” Dr. Weary said, “and became a model for other organizations across the country to learn from and duplicate in their communities.”
Over time, Mendenhall Ministries gained national attention as a model of Christian community development, showing how local faith communities could confront poverty, racism, and structural inequality in practical ways.
In 1998, after decades of work in Mendenhall, Weary stepped into a new chapter as executive director of Mission Mississippi, a statewide ministry focused on racial reconciliation within the body of Christ.
“When I left Mendenhall Ministries in 1998 and joined Mission Mississippi,” he recalled, “I initially thought most of my work would be in the White church. I felt like most of the groundwork would be needed in the White church only to be forced to wrestle with the fact that the Black church in Mississippi was no more ready to engage with reconciliation than the White church.”
Dr. Weary believes one of the biggest misunderstandings about reconciliation, especially in the Deep South, is that “we’ve arrived, because we can now work on certain jobs, go to school with each other, work with one another, go to church together. It’s not. Reconciliation is an ongoing, everlasting process. Why? Because sin is and will be an ongoing, everlasting threat,” said Dr. Weary.
When tensions surface, churches on both sides often blame the other.
“We’ve not arrived,” he emphasizes. “We still have a long way to go. And we trust that God will enable us to continue to move forward on it and quit blaming each other, but let’s start working together.”
When it comes to the next chapter of Black history and community leadership in Simpson County, Dr. Weary places his hope and challenge squarely on young people.
“We want to encourage young people to do their very best by either going to college and getting an education or going out and getting a trade in order to do better than the older generation,” he says. “Go as far as they believe God wants them to go. After that, we would like them to reflect on what they will be willing to do to impact their community. They should wrestle with questions such as ‘am I going to just get an education for myself to move out and just do what I want to do, or am I getting an education so that I can help build my community in a better way?’”
He outlines three pathways for this new generation:
• Come back: “Consider coming back to Mississippi. The community needs young, successful people in it. They need to be a part of the community and be a part of the solution.”
• Serve back: If moving back isn’t desired, “serve on boards of organizations who are trying to make a difference… Keeping contact with your community and putting effort into improving life for those still living there is such an important concept.”
• Give back: “Give back financially. Give to those organizations that are working to make a difference. I believe that young people need to be challenged in those areas.”
For Dr. Dolphus Weary, Black history is not just a story of what has been endured, but a call to what can be built.
The young son who once watched land stolen from his family now spends his life helping communities claim something greater: dignity, opportunity, and a shared future shaped by faith, justice, and reconciliation.
