In 871, during Reconstruction, Natchez elected a black mayor, Robert Wood, and an integrated board of alderman. Natchez was the only Mississippi town to elect an African American mayor during Reconstruction. At the end of the Civil War, Wood worked as a printer in a local photographic business. Robert Wood would later serve the city and county as both postmaster and sheriff.

Robert Wood’s descendants today operate Robert D Mackel and Sons Funeral Home, 300 North Martin Luther King Street, the city’s oldest funeral business