Mattie Newsome was a restaurant owner and lifelong resident of Hattiesburg. With her well-known Mobile Street café operating smoothly, Newsome then opened the area’s first African American-owned cosmetology school on the second floor above the restaurant.
Douglass T. Baker was a community leader and attorney. He integrated the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1965 and became one of the first African Americans to earn a Juris Doctor at Ole Miss. As a classical pianist, Baker wrote plays and music for programs at Baker’s Preschool and often performed at the Lake Terrace Convention Center.
