“The Lord put him there.” South Street Mourns Rodney Dillamar, Beloved Mentor and Store Owner

VICKSBURG, Miss. – For over 30 years, Rodney Dillamar and his wife, Sheila White-Dillamar, ran the South Street Shoppette. Over the years, Dillamar and the South Street store became an important staple for the local community, with Dillamar serving as a mentor for many of the neighborhood kids. Dillamar passed away on November 11.

“He sponsored baseball, he sponsored football teams, and fed a lot of them,” said his wife Sheila White-Dillamar. “We put a lot of them up in the house who didn’t have any places to stay. There was a lot of older people in the neighborhood who didn’t have anything to eat and we fed them.”

Dillamar was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His parents later moved to Palm Dale, California by way of Long Island, New York, before Dillamar found his way to Mississippi to attend Alcorn State University.

“He only came down to here to go to Alcorn State University, where he met me,” recalled White-Dillamar. “Instead of us going somewhere else, he fell in love with Mississippi so that’s where we stayed.”

Before the Dillamars opened the store on South Street, his wife said her husband already had an entrepreneurial spirit while they were at Alcorn.

“He was an entrepreneur down there anyway because he was selling sandwiches and had his little store in his dormitory,” said White-Dillamar. “People would go buy things [from him]. That was always his heart.”

For the past three years or so, due to Dillamar’s ailing health, the store has not been open as it once was. As a testament to his legacy, the South Street Shoppette has had South Street community members keeping an eye on the property.

“Every night you would go down there and you would see somebody there. They were protecting the store,” said White-Dillamar.

Although the store isn’t open anymore, it is still a community hub.

“They knew that they could go down there and BBQ,” said White-Dillamar. “Some of them would call and ask us ‘Mr. Rodney, we want to have a [community event] can we go down to the store?’ and he would tell them yes, and they’d clean up after and you wouldn’t have even known anybody had been there.”

White-Dillamar recalled that even as her husbands health was fading, he still kept his spirits high, whether it be singing Motown with his physical therapist (My Girl was his favorite) or drinking coffee at the YMCA when he was supposed to be exercising.

“He made an impact on a lot of people,” she said.

Earlier this week a balloon release and candlelight vigil was held in Dillamar’s honor. White-Dillamar plans to host a block party near the South Street store as a fitting honor of his legacy, but is concerned about the the potential upcoming weather.

“I’m trying to pull that together, but I don’t know how the weather is going to be, if it’s going to be cold or raining, I may need to have it inside somewhere. I’m trying to get it back at the store,” said White-Dillamar.

“I never thought that God put him there to make any money, because he really didn’t. He made enough money to keep the store open.” said White-Dillamar. “The Lord put him there to watch over those kids, [and] to be a mentor for those kids, because some of them didn’t have fathers and some of them did have fathers and they were not active in their lives.”

A service for Dillamar will be held November 24 at Greater Grove Street Missionary Baptist Church, 2715 Alcorn Dr, at 2 p.m.