Jackson Free Press

Curnis Upkins, 27, knows what he wants. He wants more contemporary restaurants on the west side of Jackson. He wants his neighborhood to support the kind of diversity found in thriving communities. He wants the Jackson Metro Parkway landscaped so folks that walk alongside it can do so in the shade of trees. Serendipitously for him, he gets paid to create opportunities for his community to flourish.

A graduate of Jim Hill High School and the University of Southern Mississippi with a degree in business, Upkins is working on a master's degree in urban and regional development at Jackson State University. Upkins also works for the college's Center for University-Based Development where he is the program manager for the Lynch Street Initiative, a project to redevelop the area from John R. Lynch Street to downtown Jackson.

Before his current position, he worked as the assistant director of business development for the Hinds County Economic Development District and was the assistant vice president of the Area Development Partnership in Hattiesburg.

"If everyone keeps leaving Mississippi, it will never get better," he says. "The point of economic development is to create more opportunities. A lot of people leave because they don't think there are enough opportunities here to succeed."

The majority of Upkins' work centers on the renovation of the former Council of Federated Organizations complex (an umbrella organization for civil rights during the 1960s) that will soon accommodate a student-designed and operated business and a civil-rights museum celebrating the area's historic significance. Upkins sees the complexes' reopening as a continuation of the action and empowerment COFO embodied.

As a resident of Pecan Park in West Jackson with his wife LaShondra, Upkins is working with the West Jackson Community Builders' Initiative and JSU to install signs identifying Pecan Park, Presidential Hills, and other neighborhoods as distinct pieces of a larger community.

"When you go to Fondren and see signs like Fondren Corner, you get the feeling you're in Fondren," he says. "But when you get to West Jackson, there is no way to know you are in those neighborhoods. It's about branding more than anything and setting these neighborhoods apart so they can establish their own identity."

As the co-chairman of community relations for the builders' initiative, Upkins also works with active West Jackson residents to improve their neighborhoods through community gardening, support networks and landscaping the Jackson Parkway.

"People look and see greener pastures. I want to make my pasture green," he says.