Posts Tagged With: Jackson MS

Little Rock, Arkansas Saturday Jan 6

We are driving back and forth across this part of the South due to: a. Our desire to focus on visiting National Park Service units we have not seen previously, and b. These lesser visited park units are closed on varying days of the week making a logical touring route impossible.

We have traveled most of these roads in earlier trips. Our first few years we did not have such a strong focus on visiting NPS units. But there are only so many times you can visit an art museum or a flower garden. NPS units cover such a wide variety of topics, we can keep going for a few more years.

Friday we left Vicksburg, MS for Jackson, MS, a one hour drive. Our destination was a new NPS site: Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument. Older readers will recall that Medgar Evers was a nationally recognized civil rights advocate in Mississippi. He was assassinated in the carport of his home in Jackson on June 12, 1963. The high powered rifle bullet that killed him went through his body, broke a window, passed through a wall, and ricocheted off the refrigerator. The hospital where he was brought initially refused to treat him because he was black.

His murderer was arrested with his fingerprints and rifle found at the scene. He was set free after two all-male, all-white juries deadlocked. After one of the trials, the then Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett stood by the murderer’s side and shook his hand.

31 years later, new evidence convicted the murderer. Myrlie continued the fight for civil rights she and Medgar had worked so hard for. The home reflects the life and battles fought not only by the Evers but by black families throughout the South and the entire U.S.

Leaving Jackson we drove 2.5 hours north through modern Mississippi evidenced by the Nissan car factory and then through rural Mississippi with poverty and agricultural lands. We passed the Ross Barnett reservoir, “central Mississippi’s largest recreational area and one of the most desired residential locations in the state.”

Our destination was Sumner MS, site of the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument. Emmett Till was a 14 year old boy from Chicago visiting relatives in Money MS who was kidnapped and lynched in August 1955. His severely mutilated and decomposing body was found in the nearby Tallahatchie River.

The sheriff tried to have Emmett’s body quickly buried but Mamie Till-Mobley insisted the body be brought back to Chicago where the open casket viewing shocked people and raised awareness of vicious injustices suffered by American blacks.

The two white men arrested were acquitted of all charges by an all male, all white jury. Later in a magazine article they confessed to the charges but could not be re-tried.

Both of these sites were small, in not impressive facilities with no fancy technological graphics, not appearing to attract throngs of visitors, etc. but the impact was huge.

The afternoon was wet and windy. We spent the night in Clarksdale MS a blues hot spot. We spent 90 minutes in the Delta Blues Museum. No pictures allowed. Other than Muddy Waters and B.B. King, most of the names of musicians did not ring any bells. Both of the two locations we had been considering for music and food were closed in early January. We ended up having bar b q at Abe’s, a 100 year old joint that reeked of atmosphere and friendly, talkative people.

Sidenote: We talked with St. Paulites while in Vicksburg while Chris was doing the laundry and in Sumner while visiting the Emmett Till interpretive center.. Not snow birds but just travelers.

Today we crossed the Mississippi River again, westward into Arkansas this time. First stop Arkansas Post National Memorial. This off the beaten path location had been a trading post with the Quapaw Indians under French and Spanish rule, was the site of Revolutionary War and Civil War battles, and the capital of the Arkansas Territory.

Today it is in an isolated area, cut off from the rivers that initially sustained it due to changes in river channels from flooding and creation of dams. The facility is well done and the ranger knowledgeable; I think he was happy to have some visitors to talk to. Going in we had no expectation of the wealth of new knowledge we would pick up.

From the eastern side of Arkansas to its western side we traveled next to the birthplace of President Clinton. This was the home of his first years. The house was rehabilitated and given to the NPS by friends and citizens of Hope AR. We were given a personal tour by a park ranger, followed by a video of Clinton’s formative years.

It was all very positive, not touching on the convoluted family tree aspects of his life. We were not over whelmed and if this was not an NPS site, would most likely have skipped it. We had visited the Clinton Presidential Library years ago and that gives a more nuanced presentation of his life.

Tomorrow, Sunday, we cross the Mississippi River again, going east into Tennessee.

Ed and Chris