JACKSON, Miss. — Phillip Martin, a longtime chief of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, was remembered Friday as a visionary who lifted the tribe from stifling poverty with casinos and other businesses.
Martin died Thursday night at a Jackson hospital with his family by his side after suffering a massive stroke a few days earlier, said his niece, Natasha Phillips. He was 83.
Martin’s 28-year tenure saw the construction of an industrial park and the $750 million Pearl River Resort, complete with two casinos, a golf club and a water park, on tribal land in rural east-central Mississippi, about 65 miles northeast of Jackson.
He was praised for creating thousands of jobs. He also set up a scholarship that pays 100 percent of college costs for tribal youths.
“He was a great man and a visionary leader. . . . He transformed the economy of our tribe and with it the fate of our people,” said Miko Beasley Denson, the current chief who defeated Martin in 2007.
Gov. Haley Barbour also praised Martin’s leadership.
“His attention to economic development while preserving the cultural aspects of Native American life in Mississippi will be long remembered,” Barbour said in a statement.
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