Up and out this AM, headed towards Ferriday, LA - home of Jerry Lee Lewis and the Delta Music Museum. As I left Baton Rouge, I began to notice a familiar pattern, superimposed upon pattern I know only from reading. Familiar were the periodic trailer parks interspersed with modest individual homes of brick or wood. Brought suddenly into focus were shacks, and the periodic antebellum mansion behind a grove of live oaks. When I saw the sign for Rosedown Plantation, I detoured. In my Museum Studies class, we have been discussing the plantation museums/attractions of the south, and how they address the issue of such wealth being amassed on the backs of enslaved humans. Couldn't resist the chance to explore.
The cotton fields stretched for 3500 acres beyond the grounds, and the cheap 8.5 x 11 photocopied "brochure" indicates that the 450 slaves
(at this and three other plantations owned by the same Turnbull family)
became sharecroppers after the Civil War. But the mansion, gardens, and the surrounding structures were all that visitors could access.
Spanish moss? Check. Magnolias? Check. Upper middle class retirees queuing up for the tour? Check.
I opted to purchase the self-guided grounds tour - not that interested in seeing Ms. Ellen's portieres, or other trappings of luxury and success. The gardens were lovely, especially on this perfect, blue-skyed, 74 degree morning, although it was troubling to consider that 150 years ago slave labor created the paths and fountains that led to such a peaceful experience for me in 2014.
What I found really fascinating was what was going on around the house.
The kitchen had its own building, a little away from the house. This is where the slaves cooked.
This is the garden patch, where the slaves tended the vegetable supply for their masters. The buildings were all built by slaves, one slave, named Augustus, was involved in hybridizing camellias on the plantation, according to the photocopied brochure.
Just beyond the kitchen, right on the other side of the garden, was this structure -
It is identified as a "woodshed" in the brochure, and on its little sign. But I wonder. I mean, the cotton fields were a good walk away from the grounds. Slaves had to get breakfast going, and attend to all the other early morning house activities. No mention was made about slave quarters, at all. I mean, even if this wasn't a slave abode, there should be some mention of where and how they lived, not just what they contributed, by force, to the plantation.
As I progressed up the highway, there were so many more plantation available to view. I wish I could have stretched time and visited them all to compare. But, my mission is an academic presentation, and music museums, so I had to press on.
Onto the legendary Highway 61...
In Natchez, I made the first of what I hoped will be many stops for hot tamales. As in, "hot tamales and they're red hot -
yes she got 'em for sale." The Tamale Trail (so grateful for the intrepid food mappers!) included this spot, so I stopped.
Sorry to say, I hated them. I loves me some tamales, whether from the late, great Mom is Cooking in the Mission district of SF, or from the sublime Mi Ranchito in Austin, or from Oaxacan Tamaleo. But, these brought to mind a Junior League cookbook I encountered that included a recipe called "Wetback's Delight" that included canned tamales as an ingredient.
Ugh - it was like someone took an immersion blender to a can of HEB chili, thickened it up with raw cornmeal, and put it in flavorless, grainy masa. Bleh. If this is what a Delta/Robert Johnson tamale is, I'm thinking that I'm-a-gonna pass.
I crossed the mighty Mississip and headed for Ferriday, where I had a brilliant hour at the tiny, lovely, Delta Music Museum. June Vaughan ("spelled the hard way") met me at the door and gave me the low-down - not just on the history of the music, but also of the museum, and the town. She was so lovely!
The museum is housed in the old post office, and even has a WPA-era mural within, depicting black laborers in a cotton mill.
Ms. Vaughan told me that the museum started off as a tribute to Ferriday's Big Three - Jerry Lee Lewis, Jimmy Lee Swaggart, and Mickey Gilley (pronounced "Jilley" she said), along with Leon "Pee Wee" Whittaker, a black musician whose name is clearly not as recognized as the other 3 original subjects.
The museum began a "hall of fame," and for over a decade had annual inaugurations, and the musicians in the museum include Irma Thomas, Governor Jimmie Davis, and Clarence "Frogman" Henry.
But, I think the coolest part of the visit was learning that Ms. Vaughan came to Ferriday in 1963 as a new bride. Her husband opened up a drugstore, where he still works, alongside their son.
She worked as a public health nurse and a home health aid, and is working at the museum in her retirement. Her passion for local history was infectious, and she should write a book. She should.
On up to Vicksburg, and although I was too late for the museums, it was cool to see the city built on the banks of the Mississippi. The
Mississippi Blues Trail indicated
this address as the birthplace of Willie Dixon, and I went. I love Willie Dixon. I recorded Violent Love with the Cornell Hurd Band, and visited the Blues Heaven Foundation in 1998 in Chicago, where I met his daughter Shirley.
I have no pictures, because I felt very uncomfortable driving on this short street. I don't know what I was expecting - I guess I thought if there was a marker, that it was an OK place to visit. But, the marker is considerately placed away from the residential street - if you google map it, you can zoom to street view and get an idea. Anyhow, there was just an empty lot where the exact address was, but all the other little houses were occupied, and I felt like an intruder. I drove off, thinking of Elvis's birthplace. Same kind of shotgun shack, same kind of neighborhood feel, but Elvis's is commemorated and many tourists are expected, and I guess, welcome. Not so with Mr. Dixon's home.
Peckish (since I only ate one of the nasty tamales from Natchez), I happened upon the Tamale Place, and grabbed a half dozen. Seems like no one sells these by the threes, which is what I would prefer. Oh well, I ate one in the parking lot, and it was GREAT.
This is what I'm talking about. Corn that tastes like corn, meat that tastes and feels like meat, spicy, yummy, fantastic! OK, I'm going to keep exploring delta red hots. None of them have been red, but they are nice and spicy hot.
I headed off to Jackson (looking for a pony keg to dance upon), worried about finding Medgar Evers home - something I really wanted to do. I didn't need to worry - he and Myrlie bought in a cute mid-century subdivision, and the powers that be put the marker right in the yard of the house where he was killed in front of his children.
I got the feeling that the residents were used to people coming through and taking pictures. One of the most heartbreaking things I learned is that they were the first owners of this house, and they intentionally built without a front door, thinking that it would be safer to enter the house from the carport. This perfect little suburban, American Dream home shows so clearly that blacks who tried to live the dream could not. When Dr. King spoke at the March on Washington, the dream was alive, but so many who tried for and fought for it were not.
Anyhow, I had a crappy motel in a crappy section of Jackson. I had read that there was a local deli near the hotel, but the abomination of a "roast beef sandwich" I was served made me wish I had gone to Subway. Supermarket bread, low-grade cold cuts...and after he built the thing, with shredded iceburg lettuce, mayo, and tomatoes, he asked me if I wanted it heated up in the microwave. NO! THANK YOU, NO!
Into my room, and honest-to-goodness, there was a bloodstain on the bed cover. But, since there were two beds, I just chose the clean(er) one and collapsed.
Next - up the Delta to Clarksdale.....
