New Orleans had been constant noise. Police sirens, trains (they hoot a lot whatever the time of day), loud music etc. So our campsite in a miniature state park in Jackson, Mississippi was a blessing.
However, the first thing we did on the way was visit the history and civil rights museum there. We only had a couple of hours that afternoon so there was no way we were going to see it all, so they very kindly told us to come back the next day on the same tickets.
The museum was so moving, and there was so much to take in. Trying to take on so much general history and then the civil rights on top.
I was so engrossed that I completely forgot to take pictures.
There were videos to watch and sound clips in the background. The comments a black person might have expected to hear on a daily basis. “What are you doing there boy” “You can’t walk here ” “Are you looking at her”
There were clips from speeches declaring that black people should never have voting rights. The timeliness of legislation ,after the civil war, but only effective while enforced by Union soldiers, All a waste of time once the Union soldiers moved out and the local politicians found their own way around it. The difficult negotiations within the Democratic Party as Southern Democrats resisted de-segregation.
Interestingly women’s rights followed behind rights for black people. Maybe why the USA still refuses to vote for a woman president.
There was so much to take in!
We saw Klu Klux Klan uniforms and saw pamphlets advertising their family days with picnics and entertainment. We heard and saw recordings of state politicians saying, no integration, or no voting on my watch. You could feel the anger that black people had been given rights.
We were taken through how these rights were withheld by a sleight of hand making it almost impossible for black people to register.
We learnt about all the work to try and change things and the murders along the way to try and stop that work.
I wondered what had changed. There are still men in masks beating people up and killing them for their colour or perceived nationality. Only it is Federal not State enforcement this time. The SAVE Act is being proposed again to block people’s rights to vote.
Civilisation is such a thin skin and its always easier to find a scape goat than actually make reforms to improve the world.
Our campsite 5 minutes from the centre was a peace haven. Obviously built for flooding as all the amenities were up on stilts. This was the first place where we saw smaller caravans and camping vehicles. Probably a retreat for fishing! Our taxi driver loved this park. He hadn’t known it existed before and so close to the city, he is planning to take his family there now.
As we got here the weather turned colder. We’d missed the big freeze a few weeks back with thick snow in places it never snows, but we were now heading for a second more minor event.
We had to do a blues evening! So, we looked up the local clubs and decided Hal and Mals was the place to be and booked up for Piper and the Hard Times there.
https://www.facebook.com/share/1Ap7EuTYPt/
In fact we booked months in advance . The bar was a wonderful quirky place, converted from a warehouse. The place was right, the band was great, but no-one turned up! This was the main Blues Club with a band that had been labelled the best new blues band and no audience.
They had a few friends from New Orleans, one of whom was introduced as the King of the Mardi Gras, so looking at him he must have been King Rex of the Rex Krew, the last major parade. So we were part of a very exclusive group, one other group of three who bought tickets and us two.
Leaving Jackson we were on the blues highway 61, not that we had realised that until the day before. However, we stopped at a museum on the way, disappointed as how shack like it was and found a really good museum.
It was full of memorabilia including a pig nose amplifier, a memory of searching every website I could find to get son Dan a Pig nose guitar with built in amplifier.
The museum concentrated on the emergence of the Blues from the Mississippi delta.
Route 61, known as the “Blues Highway,” is a historic 1,400-mile route running from New Orleans to Minnesota with its heart in the Mississippi Delta. It is famed as the birthplace of Delta blues, where legends like Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson lived, and it famously connects Memphis and Vicksburg, heavily influencing American music.
In Memphis our first stop was Stax museum. Stax was a predominantly black record company, bringing soul music to everyone. It started small in 1957 and grew along with the popularity of it’s artists
However, this had its problems at a time of great racial tension as black people fought for their rights. The company made some musicians very rich and this wasn’t popular in all circles. The company also in an effort to sell to the West coast had its own music festival in LA. In 1967, their distribution company Atlantic got bought out by Warner. Their records got stockpiled , money stopped coming in and eventually the company went bust.
After this we did a bus tour of Memphis with a tour guide who played music between stories. It was brilliant.
We heard so much about Memphis and the different musicians. We sang along to Proud Mary as we went by the Mississippi.
We saw the flat where Elvis grew up and the amphitheatre were he first performed. Apparently he ran off after the first number as the girls were screaming and he thought they didn’t like him. He got told to go back out. He did the same after the second number and got told the same. His band only had two numbers do they had to do them again.
We went past various recordings studios and past the Lorraine Motel where all the black artists stayed when in town as it was one of the few places allowing black people to stay. Martin Luther King Jr stayed here as well and this is where he was assassinated.
It has now been turned into a civil rights museum, but more on that later.
We ended up at Sun Studios, still a working recording studio. This business started off as a recording service, recording people’s special events etc. They also had recording booths where people could make recordings for their nearest and dearest. This was how Elvis got discovered, coming in to record a song for his mum.
The female assistant recognised the potential straight away, however, it took a while to get the owner on board.
We got taken down to see the working recording studio, used by many famous bands.
We had to end up in Beale Street- Home of the Blues, and in B B King’s to eat and listen to the band.
Our campsite was across the river from the main town. It looked a bit run down with rickety looking wooden bathroom structures raised up incase if flooding. However they had heating and hot water really important with an overnight temperature of -5 degrees two of the three nights.
For the second day we debated a taxi again but decided to drive as there was parking at the civil rights museum.
It would have been so much cheaper to get a taxi.
We waited for the temperature to rise above freezing before leaving which completely broke our routine and we pulled away without disconnecting the Shoreline. (electric cable). A phone call later we left again and set off for an RV repair centre, who very luckily could see us straight away and do the repairs.
A few hours later we finally got to the civil rights museum at 4pm. Just time for a quick whizz around.
Apart from being the site of Martin Luther King Jr”s assassination, this focused on the freedom riders. A mixed race group called the freedom riders travelling down breaking the rules on seating and running education and support programmes around getting people registered to vote.
It also focused on those killed as part of this movement, black and white. They had a replica of a destroyed bus from the freedom riders being attacked and a normal bus with the seating arrangements in place.
They had also preserved the rooms that Martin Luther King Jr and his assistants stayed in, made up as they would have been then.
Listening to his last speech “I have been to a mountain top” delivered the day before he was shot it seems presentient as he said that he may not be there for all the journey.
Something that had been confusing me was the apparent role reversal of the two main parties on freedom issues. Apparently this was due to the Freedom Democratic Party trying to get seats with the Democrats. Although they weren’t successful, their attempt was enough to make, some Democrats switch allegiance and between two elections the votes switched in the lower states.
Back to our campsite and one of the magnificent sunrises along by the river. It might have been very cold now, but apparently they’d had 12 inches of snow a couple of weeks earlier, while we were in Arizona, so we were really very lucky. We’d also had a very hot shower room and hot water which is a good as we could hope for!
Birmingham, Alabama, a city whose name is almost synonymous with the Civil Rights Movement, was the site of much bloodshed and strife as civil rights leaders faced strong opposition and the attempted destruction of their churches and meeting places.
It is so sad that nothing gets learnt, the focus gets shifted, different groups get attacked but that same urge to attack those different remains.
This museum focused on the experience, a rendition of a segregated city in the 1950s, as well as showing a replica of a Freedom Riders bus and even the actual cell door from behind which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr penned his famous “Letter From Birmingham Jail.”
In Atlanta we found the visitor’s centre closed for refurbishment, however, on our lightening tour through the states we only had a few hours and the whole area there was preserved in honour of Martin Luther King Jr. The street where he was born was still there, although the actual house was also closed for refurbishment
“We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream”.
This is very much the theme here. The water flowing down towards his mausoleum. It is also behind the continuing work of the King Centre carrying on the work. Now focused on Beloved Communities a vision of a society based on justice, equality, and unconditional love (“agape”) where poverty, racism, and violence are replaced by reconciliation and inclusion. It is a global, nonviolent framework
We did get to one of the talks at Ebenezer Baptist church where both Martin Luthers worked. Daddy King as senior Pastor and junior as an Assistant Pastor.
They are very proud of only having had 5 pastors since they opened in 1886. Rev. A.D Williams promoted black businesses, urged his congregation to become homeowners, and “get a piece of the turf.” He led them in the battle for adequate public accommodations for blacks, despite Jim Crow segregation laws. His Assistant Daddy King took over on his death.
This was a, normal to us, sized church after all the warehouse sized churches we had driven past or visited.
Last on our civil rights tour was Montgomery known as the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement.
The Civil Rights Memorial Centre here was very small, no parking and almost hidden. The main interest was the video at the beginning and one partway through. It honours the martyrs of the movement
The presentation was very effective though and its aim is to carry the march forward fighting against poverty and for people’s rights.
A very emotional journey through some very cold weather we were looking forward to warming up in Florida.
