#297 Stooges Brass Band @ Men of Class 2012 Joe’s House of Blues (by John Shaw)
The Stooges Brass Band play as the Men of Class come out of Joe’s House of Blues to resume the second-line, Uptown New Orleans, 10/21/12
The Men of Class second-line leaving Joe’s House of Blues and continuing on their route, Uptown New Orleans, 10/21/12
The Men of Class 2012 taking a break in front of Joe’s House of Blues at Seventh and Dryades, Uptown New Orleans, 10/21/12
#279 Second-Lining on the Roof-Men of Class 2012.MOV (by John Shaw)
Second-liners often end up on roofs of cars, roofs or buildings or other high places, either to see everything below from a vantage point, or in the hopes of being seen or noticed themselves. At the Men of Class second-line at Joe’s House of Blues, Seventh and Dryades, Uptown New Orleans, 10/21/12
Thursday 9/21/12 I drove up to Jackson, Tennessee for the Colt Ford show at the Carl Perkins Civic Center, and spent some time driving around the city before dinner.
On the Ohio River northeast of Cairo, Illinois. Unlike the Mississippi, the Ohio River has a number of locks and dams that maintain a 9-foot channel at all points along the river. A new massive one is under construction above the town of Mounds, Illinois. 8/20/12
At the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers sits Cairo, Illinois, a historic river town that the cruise lines no longer visit, at least in part because of complaints from passengers. Cairo today is nearly a ghost town, its broad Commercial Street almost completely razed. What few buildings remain are largely abandoned, and passengers disliked the eerie feel of the town built to house 20,000 people where only 3000 reside today. With such historic buildings as Riverlore mansion, built in 1865, the Customs House museum, or Fort Defiance, which is directly at the confluence, Cairo still has some points of interest, but the town is largely in shambles due to a eight-year shooting war between its white and Black communities from 1967-1975. Blacks refused to buy from Cairo businesses as a matter of principle. Whites preferred to shop where there weren’t fires, bombings and snipings, so they also stayed away, and the end result was that nearly every restaurant and retail business closed. In recent years, there have been efforts to rejuvenate the town, and to heal race relations in Cairo, but the lack of jobs and the extreme poverty have thwarted efforts at any renaissance. The historic buildings on Commercial Street, neglected since the 1960’s, have collapsed one by one. Furthermore, while the picketing, marching, boycotting and shooting stopped in the early 1970’s, the mysterious fires did not, and buildings and houses continue to burn in Cairo, under circumstances that suggest that multiple arsonists may be at work. Cairo is a sad story, a cautionary tale to America of what happens when people are stubbornly racist and refuse to reconcile.Â
As a Confederate stronghold, Columbus was thought to be nearly impregnable, and thus was called “The Gibraltar of the West.” Unfortunately for the South, its fortifications proved to be meaningless after the Union managed to seize Paducah, Memphis, Nashville and other areas around it. The same things that made it impregnable also made it subject to siege, and the Confederates soon abandoned it.Â
Columbus, Kentucky was the site of a major Civil War battle, as the Confederate army tried to cut off Mississippi River travel by placing a large iron chain across the entire river from Columbus to Belmont, MO. Ulysses S. Grant, in his first battle of the war, attempted to reopen the river, without success, but as he gradually captured everything else around Columbus, the Confederates abandoned it. A large section of the chain and an anchor were discovered after a river bluff caved in in the 1920’s. The town of Columbus, at least according to folklore, was considered as a possible capital for the United States by those who felt the capital should be more centrally located in a country that was rapidly expanding to the west. Unfortunately, continuing floods made life in Columbus difficult. The final one in 1927 destroyed the town more or less completely. The American Red Cross arranged for the town to be completely relocated to the top of the bluffs, and a city planner from Indianapolis was engaged to draw up a comprehensive plan for the new Columbus. He designed a town plan that was largely an oval, centered around a broad parkway, and the buildings from the old town that could be saved were relocated to the new townsite. Only about 200 people remain in the new Columbus today, but there is a Columbus-Belmont State Park that commemorates the old town and its importance in the Civil War.
