“It has been a lot of hard work…. It took – and I can’t emphasize that enough – a lot of hard work to get to where we are,” said Charlie Benn, of the business successes the Choctaw have created for themselves and its more than 8000 full-time employees. RON MERASTY PHOTO

Charlie Benn, the Director of Administration for the Choctaw, was a keynote speaker for the Prince Albert Grand Council Community Economic Development Conference held at the Prince Albert Inn November 14-16, 2006. A visitor from the Deep South, he was delighted to find snow on the ground in Prince Albert.

The lands of the Choctaw Nation are located on about 35,000 acres in a checkerboard pattern on seven counties in East Central Mississippi, about 70 miles northeast of Jackson. The Choctaw were considered one of the “five civilized tribes” in early 19th Century America because they had integrated a number of cultural and technological practices of their European American neighbours.

Prior to 1830, the Choctaw Nation had about 15,000 members, but a number of treaties in that decade ceded most of their lands to the United States. Between 1831 and 1838 they were forcibly removed from their lands and force-marched to Oklahoma. But not all complied with the order to vacate. As Benn said, a fraction of them took off for the swamps, and “bore generations of disdain and disease to hold on to their birthright.”

They survived by being sharecroppers – working for landowners for a small share of the proceeds. Their average lifespan may have been only 50 years. Around 1910, they numbered about 1300.

In 1934 they created a new tribal council and a 17-member business committee.

In 1945 the Choctaws adopted a Constitution and by-laws, which they still use today. They have a system where they have a popularly-elected Chief and a 16-member tribal council. Present Chief Phillip Martin has been in that position continuously since 1979. Benn credits Martin with having a vision that has been fulfilled.

In 1955, Phillip Martin, a United States soldier stationed in Germany, saw the rebuilding of the country after the ravages of World War II. He envisioned a similar renaissance for his nation.

In 1960 they had about 5500 members “and 80 percent unemployment,” Benn said. Per capita annual income, mostly from sharecropping, was about $2000.

In the 1960s the Choctaw were actively attempting to bring industrial jobs to their nation. Mississippi is a “right to work state,” that affirms the right of a person to work for a living without being compelled to belong to a union. That factor worked to their advantage.

They wrote about 500 letters to companies, asking if they could partner with them. They got one response from a company called Packard Electric Co., interested in keeping their labour costs down. The Choctaw began manufacturing automotive wiring harness assemblies for automobiles, and still do today.

As Benn said, they bought the materials from Packard Electric, made the product and sold it back to them. “We made minimum wages, yes, but we had jobs.”

Once they tasted success, the tribal council promoted adult education, got its members into basic reading and writing and showed them how to start bank accounts. Benn stated that this was a very important development.

Today, MBCI owns and operates a diversified portfolio of manufacturing, service, retail and tourism enterprises. The tribe chose to develop for-profit businesses to create jobs for its people, while also generating revenues to fund government services such as education, health care, police and fire protection among others. The success of those enterprises has allowed the tribe to become self-reliant while making significant economic contributions to the surrounding non-Indian communities.

Throughout Mississippi, the Southeast and even Mexico, MBCI provides more than 8,000 permanent, full-time jobs for tribal members and others (more than 65 percent of its workforce is non-Indian). With an annual payroll of more than $123.7 million, the tribe is one of the 10 largest employers in Mississippi. In addition, tribal revenues have helped the Choctaw to reinvest more than $210 million in economic development projects in Mississippi.

Grand Chief Ron Michel presents a gift of a birchbark biting to Charlie Benn, Director of Administration for the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. RON MERASTY PHOTO

Some of their businesses include:

• American Greetings, which manufactures greeting cards seasonally, leases a 120,000 square-foot facility in the Tribe’s industrial park. It employs an average of 250 local residents with an annual payroll of $2 million.
• Choctaw Electronics Enterprise, a joint venture that supplies automotive loudspeakers to primary clients Ford Motor Company and Daimler-Chrysler. Its two plants – one in the United States and the other in Sonora, Mexico – employ 255 people and realize annual sales of approximately $40 million.
• First American Printing & Direct Mail, which has 95 employees and $6.8 million in annual sales.
• First American Plastic Moldings Enterprise. The joint venture is a custom injection molder with plants in Mississippi, Illinois, and Texas. The enterprise has 120 employees and over $10 million in annual sales. Major customers include McDonald’s, Harman-Becker International, Pepsi, and Panasonic.
• Choctaw Resort Development Enterprise, which oversees the development and management of the destination resort. The goal of the CRDE is to transform the Choctaw reservation into a world-class gaming and entertainment destination. The Silver Star Hotel & Casino, Golden Moon Hotel & Casino, Dancing Rabbit Golf Club and the Pearl River Resort at Choctaw, Mississippi draws millions of visitors annually.
• The Choctaw Shopping Center Enterprise, which operates retail and residential developments on the reservation.

The Choctaws have learned to make free enterprise work for their nation, and all has been achieved without losing appreciation of their culture.

“It has not been easy to get to this point,” Benn said. “It has been a lot of hard work…. It took – and I can’t emphasize that enough – a lot of hard work to get to where we are…. We tried to provide opportunities, but some folks won’t take advantage of them, even if it is in their own backyard.”

For all their successes, the Choctaw have not relied on dumb luck to get to where they are. “You have to know what is best for your community,” said Benn. “You have to know the skill level of your people.”

Ninety-two percent of all revenues from its businesses go back into their communities. They have daycare and early childhood development programs, health care, a nursing home, a tribally operated education system, law enforcement, their own justice system, and a fire department. They have a program set aside to bring Elders into a centre for lunch and fellowship five days a week.

In 1996 they began a post-secondary scholarship program, where they pay the tuition for its students at any university in the United States. They did not stipulate a requirement that the students come back to work for them, because they invariably do. “It is one of the best things we ever did,” Benn said.

In the 1980s, the Choctaw saw that a lot of its electrical business was going to head south to Mexico (themselves victims of yet cheaper labour), and they started considering casino development.

Being in the heart of the Bible Belt, there was plenty of opposition to casinos. The more conservative and religious anti-gaming tribal members were used to lobby against the evils of gambling. Nonetheless, in 1988, the state passed a law allowing for gaming. Their stipulation was that the casino had to be on water – either along the Mississippi River or the Gulf of Mexico. That same year, the United States Congress passed the National Indian Gaming Act, with no requirement that their casinos be on water.

On the July 4 weekend in 1992 they opened the Silver Star Casino, and signed a seven-year contract with a Las Vegas company to manage it. They had borrowed $35 million to start up the casino. By April 1995, they had paid off their $35 million loan! They bought out the last two years of the casino management contract in 1997. In 2002 they opened the Golden Moon Hotel & Casino, which has 135,000 square feet of gaming space and 5000 slot machines. (They have more slot machines than some major Las Vegas Strip casinos.)

“Those casinos are moneymakers,” said Benn. Despite the success of the casinos, MBCI is every trying to diversify, “so that if the casinos go bust, it won’t hurt us.”

“Not everything is cookies and cream where we are,” Benn said. “We cannot start patting ourselves on the back and quit. Either you are moving forward, or you are moving backward.”

 

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