Health Services
Up through the 1950s, '60s, and '70s, adequate, affordable, health care was hard to find for a poor Black -- or White -- around Mendenhall, Mississippi. Then Dr. Dennis Adams in 1976 left his comfortable New York practice for Mendenhall, where he's been ever since. Gospel music plays in the lobby of his clinic. Unlike the rest of TMM's ministries, the health center sits a few miles across the tracks in the middle of town, adjacent to the county courthouse and public-service agencies. There, it is readily available for those who need it most: low-income and uninsured residents of rural Simpson County. Dr. Adams, along with one nurse and four full-time staffers, see about 9000 patients a year.