Orange Mound Collaborative

Orange Mound Collaborative

Orange Mound was originally a part of the 5,000 acre Deaderick Plantation which, established in 1825, was one of the first settlements of land ceded by the Chickasaw Indians to the United States. Then, it was five miles away from the tiny village of Memphis, along an Indian trail through the woods called the "Pontotoc Trace" (now Lamar Avenue). In the 1890's, part of the Deaderick Plantation was subdivided, and lots sold for an exclusively black suburb of Memphis called "Orange Mound." The original town of Orange Mound was bounded by what are today Airways (east), Cable (north), Park Avenue (south) and Marechaneil (east).

About our association

The Orange Mound Collaborative was started as a part of a national community development demonstration project entitled the Neighborhood and Family Initiative (NFI) created by the Ford Foundation (in New York, NY) in partnership with local community foundations. The initiative aims to address the physical, social and economic conditions in four U.S. cities (Memphis, TN; Hartford, CT; Detroit, MI and Milwaukee, WI.) Since its inception in 1991, the Orange Mound Collaborative has worked with those inside and outside of the neighborhood to make Orange Mound a better and safer place to live, play, work and learn.