Turnerosa: where generations gather, grow and give thanks.
The home Osborn and Virgie Mae Turner built is being restored and reimagined, one phase at a time, by the family they raised.
A foundation our grandparents built
To the heirs and descendants of Osborn and Virgie Mae Turner: this site is our shared home online. It holds our story, keeps us connected to what’s coming up, and tracks the work of preserving the family home at Turnerosa.
This project is not just about repairs. It’s about the next generation. Each of our children will one day inherit a part of this home, and we want to leave it better than before, as a testimony to love, unity and faith.
Go back and fetch it
Sankofa, from the Akan people of Ghana, is the bird that flies forward while looking back. It’s the idea at the center of this site: we honor where we come from so we can build where we’re going.
Know the names. Rider, Mary, Emmitt, Osborn and Virgie Mae carried this family through slavery’s end, Jim Crow and the Great Migration years, and kept land in Mississippi.
Our roots →Come home. Reunions, work weekends and celebrations at Turnerosa keep every branch of the family connected to each other.
Events →Leave it better. Phase by phase, we’re turning the homeplace into a retreat, a working farm and a gathering ground for every generation.
The vision →Most Black families in the South lost their land. We still have ours.
Land like Turnerosa is lost when taxes go unpaid, when no one tends it, and when the family can’t agree. It’s kept when the family pays together, shows up together and plans together. That’s what every contribution, every work weekend and every vote on the next phase is doing.
Source: Farm Aid, citing USDA, “Heirs’ Property and the 90 Percent Decline of Black-Owned Farmland.”
Five phases, one homeplace
Phase I restoration is in progress, and Phase II is underway this fall. Phases III to V are draft concepts for the family to shape together.
Restoration
In progressNew roof, paint, lighting, screened porch, pond-side deck, and security with front fencing.
The Addition
Underway · Fall 2026New foundation, septic, framing, plumbing, electrical and HVAC, plus a new bathroom and kitchen.
Grounds, Land & Retreat
Draft conceptsGathering grounds by the pond, a working family farm, and a legacy retreat for every generation.
Family calendar
Phase II construction
The addition goes up at Turnerosa, with completion targeted for late November.
Property taxes due
Thanks to the agricultural classification, 2026 taxes drop to about $631, down from over $2,000.
Turner Family Reunion
Plans, dues and updates are posted on the reunion page as they’re decided.
A place with its own legacy
Utica has long been a place where Black Mississippians built for the future. In 1903, William H. Holtzclaw, a student of Booker T. Washington, founded the Utica Normal and Industrial Institute here, “a little Tuskegee” for Mississippi’s Black Belt. Today it’s the Utica Campus of Hinds Community College, the oldest campus in the Hinds system and still an HBCU.
Our homeplace belongs to that same tradition: land, learning and faith, handed down.
“Together, we’ll make this vision a reality that honors both God’s blessings and the Turner family legacy.”