A Beautiful Day and Great Fun at Coldwater Day
The phenomenon of “town days” is fairly unique to the state of Mississippi, and occurs mainly in predominantly-Black towns. It is possible that they began …
Black History
75 Years of Hollering “Goat” in Tate County, Mississippi: Blues and Fife and Drum
For 75 years, there has been a Labor Day picnic in Tate County, Mississippi, featuring barbecued goat and fife and drum music. The tradition was …
The Field Is Empty, The Drums Silent
A friend of mine in Senatobia had heard that there might be fife and drum going on at a party on the Compress Road between …
Bull Day in Covington’s Frazier Park-A Day of Peace and Community
Orlandus “Bull” Cobbins of Covington, Tennessee was only 29 years old when he was senselessly murdered at a relative’s home by two men who wanted …
The Marianna Cut-Off: The Old South in Marianna
Lee County, Arkansas was named for Robert E. Lee at its founding, and by its folklore, at the suggestion of a Black resident, which highlights …
The Marianna Cut-Off: What’s Left of Chatfield
Ghost towns are generally places where it is evident that a town was located at the spot, but in parts of the Arkansas Delta, there …
A Delta Afternoon: The Ghosts of Earle
On September 10, 1970, the Rev. Ezra Greer and his wife, Jackie, who was a candidate for mayor of Earle, Arkansas, led a march from …
A Delta Afternoon: The Sad Death of Parkin
The Cross County, Arkansas town of Parkin is yet another rural town ravaged by Arkansas’s forced school consolidation law. The loss of its local schools …
A Delta Afternoon: Wynne’s Abandoned Childress High School
I had been told that Wynne, Arkansas once had a number of juke joints in its northwestern section, which was the town’s Black community. But …
Iyuana Patrice and Jonathan Ellis Bring the Blues to Broadway in West Memphis
Blues Off Broadway is a weekly blues concert every Thursday evening in the month of May in West Memphis, Arkansas, usually held on a portable …