Sunflower, MS

Sunflower is a Sunflower County town in the Mississippi Delta and home to the Sunflower County Freedom Project. The program began in 1998, opened its LEAD Center in two former buildings in town in 2002, and now works with middle- and high-school students through academic enrichment, mentoring, educational travel, physical education, and art. The LEAD Center on Delta Avenue puts a year-round education and leadership program right inside the town’s daily geography. Its weekday hours run from noon into the evening.

The town is part of the Sunflower County Consolidated School District, whose calendar, transportation, board work, and student events extend across the county. Sunflower’s address carries two kinds of educational life at once: the school system serving local students and a fellowship that grew out of the region’s 1960s freedom-struggle history. The 2020 census counted 964 residents. Sunflower is small in population, while its Delta Avenue center sends students into a larger network of schools, mentors, and college pathways.