Reflections on Civil Rights History in the South:
The Intersections of Identity, Place, Gender, and Race in a Contemporary Framework
Mississippi in Photos
Mississippi Photo Essay
by Libby Guss
In education, health, history, and a myriad of other measures, Mississippi ranks among the lowest of the fifty states. Looking through a historical lens and viewing famous sites as they stand now, these photos question how history is presented in “the most southern place on earth.”
The photos start in Memphis, Tennessee, where, according to David Cohn, the Mississippi Delta begins.
Outside the Lorraine Motel in Memphis Tennessee, Trisha Walker, Quentina Dunbar, and Nicole Soley take in the site where James Earl Ray assassinated Martin Luther King, Jr. The Lorraine has since been turned into a museum dedicated to the telling of the civil rights story in America. Using the power of place, this museum ends with a view from King’s hotel room, making the history told inside the walls all the more tangible. Many praise the museum for its work in sharing this history. But at least one woman disapproves. She sits outside the museum day after day, protesting the fact that such a tragic place has been made a tourist attraction. While views differ as to the museum’s right to sit on this spot, the added power the site provides cannot be argued.
A large plaque marks the area where Martin Luther King, Jr. chatted with colleagues on the last day of his life. The space behind the windows of the “motel” no longer house individual rooms. Instead, a long and difficult history is presented to wide audiences on a daily basis. Locked behind the historical façade, the museum dares each visitor to question their understanding of some well-known, and many lesser-known, events. Here King is remembered as a real human being who fought long and hard for a brighter future. History has a tendency of idolizing such people to the point where they become flat personalities who lived in a spotlight of purpose. The reality is that these people were, in fact, accessible people who lived complex lives and were able to create change, a possibility that is open to all of us.
Here, Trisha, Dr. Chris Corley, and Quentina learn more about the March on Washington. The museum invites visitors into history by presenting it through life-sized photos and statues. It is clear that change was created through participation and a passion to see a better society.
At the end of the museum, visitors stand between rooms 306 and 307—occupied by King and his party. Coming out of the darkness of the museum to see the outside world and the balcony where King was shot, the museum invites visitors to see how today’s world copes with such a horrible past.
The museum reconstructed King’s room at the Lorraine Motel. The protective glass preserves the past and reflects the present. Visitors see their own world in tandem with the world of 1968.
King spoke to his last crowd on this balcony. After Ray shot him, his body fell to the ground, covering the portion of the balcony shown in this photo.
In the museum’s gift shop, many collectibles are available for purchase, including this bobble-head of King, displayed not far from where Ray shot him.
Across the street from the National Civil Rights Museum is another museum about conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of King. The window pictured above is thought to be the window from which Ray shot King.
In this photo, Nicole looks down at the balcony at the Lorraine. The history presented on this side of the glass is much more sensationalized, pulling drama out of any and all aspects possible surrounding King’s assassination. This is in almost immediate juxtaposition to the museum across the street where the wealth of information is presented to inform and teach. While the conspiracy museum also focuses on that, it also tries to inspire mystery and excitement surrounding the tragic crime.
Shown again in this photo, Nicole reads about the various conspiracy theories surrounding King’s assassination.
In the Mississippi Delta, our group visited Dockery Farms, which is widely regarded as the birthplace of the blues.
Quentina and Trisha take in the sites of Dockery Farms in this photo.
In one of the gas stations our group stopped at, this graffiti covered the bathroom walls. This graffiti from the Delta region shows that racism is, in fact, not dead. While much of this may be just “kids being kids,” the fact that people find these words and symbols to be funny/a strong display of their own power/perceived place in the world shows that there is an issue in our society.
Also in our first day in the Delta, our group visited Fannie Lou Hamer’s grave. This small park was built in her memory on a small portion of the land she had once owned. Famous for being “sick and tired of being sick and tired,” Hamer inspired many in the movement and was a strong force in the voting rights movement, in particular.
While driving through Drew, Mississippi, our group realized that it was stranger to see a building that is still in use rather than one that has fallen into disrepair. Stores such as this one dotted the landscape of this small town that is all but a ghost town today. When asked what the people in this town do all day, our tour guides replied, “nothing.” This region faces such poverty primarily as a result of the mechanization of agriculture. As fewer and fewer people were needed in the fields, more and more jobs disappeared. The people who lived in this region had few marketable skills outside of farming, so many were unable to find jobs elsewhere.
As our group drove to Po’ Monkey’s, a rural juke joint, we passed this sharecropper’s cabin. Cabins just like this used to line the road end to end for miles, but few still exist today. People raised families of ten and more in such buildings.
In this photo, Nicole stands outside of Po’ Monkey’s, an unregistered bar that is only advertised to be open on Thursday nights. Our tour guides informed us that it is also open on Monday nights, but those are the nights that the “girls from Memphis come down.” The man who owns the building lives in the back of it. This establishment is on the Blues Trail like Dockery Farms and is known as an important step in the development of the blues. Po’ Monkey’s also speaks to the underground economy in the Delta. Many people are quick to point to the poverty in this region and label the cause as “laziness.” The truth, however, is that the people in this area are very entrepreneurial but lack the opportunities they deserve.
This photo shows what Bryant’s Grocery looks like today. This is the site where 14-year-old Emmett Till supposedly whistled at a white woman, which led to the owners of the store kidnapping him and murdering him. Our tour guides remarked that it is “such a shame that the building has fallen into such disrepair” and they hope they can renovate it so as to continue showing this horrific site to future generations.
This is another view of Bryant’s Grocery. From this photo, it is clear that the building is now just a hollow shell of what it once was.
In the background of this photo, the railway that once carried Emmett Till into this town can be seen. Trains still run here but rarely carry passengers.
This statue stands outside the courthouse where Emmett Till’s trial was held. The statue depicts a Confederate soldier and the Confederate flag. Not shown in this photo, the bottom part of the statue shows the words, “Our Heroes.” The flags flying in the top right of the photo carried a symbolic importance for our group. The American flag at the top is tattered, while the Mississippi state flag is in pristine condition while bearing the old Confederate flag. It is the only flag left in the nation to have this flag portrayed in part of its design.
In this photo, the inside of the courtroom where Emmett Till’s trial took place is shown. This is, specifically, the view from the juror’s seats. The jurors of this trial voted unanimously that Till’s murderers were not guilty. About four months later, the men informed a magazine that they had, in fact, murdered him. As our group entered this room, we were told to sit down in these chairs as this history was explained to us. Initially, we were opposed to sitting in these chairs, but later we saw how this added to the re-appropriation of this space for a social justice purpose.
This photo was taken on the Jackson State campus where the 1970 shooting took place. In this shot, Quentina, Nicole, Peggy Seaton-Cain (a graduate student at Jackson State), Dr. Cooley, Trisha, Alejandra Galvan, and Sara Baranczyk document the site and learn more about what happened there.
Here, Dr. Robby Luckett, a professor from Jackson State taught our group about the COFO building where many civil rights activists met and helped to forward the movement. The building now focuses on the education of this history and the inside functions as a museum.
This photo shows the dome of the Mississippi state capitol building. Half of the building was under construction when our group visited.
Inside the capitol, the building is lit by lights that resemble those of a circus or vanity mirror.
In the dome of the Mississippi capitol, four paintings depict various aspects of the state’s history, including a Confederate victory during the Civil War. In all the art throughout the capitol, no African Americans are shown. As our group walked around the building, one of the state legislators, Greg Haney, approached us. He told us as he stood under this dome that it is time everyone just “moved on” from the civil rights movement.
In this photo, Greg Haney, the state legislator we met, sits at his desk in the capitol. While it is unclear what exactly he was working on at the time, our group found this photo to be an interesting depiction of the man who told us that the poverty in the state is caused by lazy people who just “don’t work.”
This photo shows the view from the stairs on the second floor of the Mississippi state capitol building. The circus lights illuminate the “KEEP BACK” sign during this time of construction and repairs for the capitol.
This is the Greyhound station where Mississippi authorities arrested the Freedom Riders. It has been rebuilt and preserved to look like it did back in the 1960’s. Set in downtown Jackson, this building is juxtaposed against many modern buildings that have been built in the wake of the civil rights movement.
In this photo, Trisha looks out on the campus of Tougaloo College in Mississippi. Tougaloo was a very important site for the activists of the modern civil rights movement. A private college, it was not controlled by the state as other colleges such as Jackson State were, allowing it to be a safe haven for the activists. Due to this fact, Tougaloo was the heart of much planning and work centered around the movement.
This photo is of Flonzie Brown Wright showing our group one of the many “No Colored Allowed” signs she encountered growing up. She told us that King’s charge to her and her peers was to keep fighting as long as there is something to fight, hence the reason she is still involved with many of today’s civil rights events. Her charge to us was to “never let these signs come back.”
This is the inside of the Tougaloo chapel, which was repaired recently. It was a hotbed for the civil rights movement and many people gave speeches here, including Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.
This sign stands at a site that is close to where the Woolworth’s building had stood back in the 1960s. A circle of grass has now been marked to commemorate this, even though it is not the actual location. This is the sit in that Anne Moody participated in and described in her memoir.
The roads in Jackson were filled with cracks and holes. Greg Haney told us this was due to the clay in the dirt beneath it. When we drove through a “white flight” neighborhood north of Jackson in Madison County, the roads were all in pristine condition. While clay may have something to do with the condition of the roads, it is also clear that there is a lack of funding to repair the roads in Jackson as the money has been pulled into the suburbs.
This photo was taken inside Medgar Evers’ house. Here, a specific room has been transformed to resemble a museum. Dr. Cooley, Trisha, and Alejandra read more about Evers.
This photo shows the blood that still stains Evers’ driveway. His wife tried to scrub it all away but could not. Despite the fifty some years between now and Evers’ assassination, the blood is still easily visible.
This photo is of our group leaving Memphis for the second and last time of the trip, now with a greater knowledge of the troubled history of the American South.
In this photo, Sara records Nicole and Quentina in Memphis as they describe the surroundings and what they have been learning.
This photo is from our last day in Memphis when we had lunch at Charles Vergo’s Rendezvous, a popular place known for its ribs. Quentina and Nicole laugh about something while waiting for their food to arrive. The food in the South is a product of multiple cultures, one of the most notable staples, Delta tamales, is from a Mexican tradition, for example. Learning about the multicultural history of the southern “soul food” helped our group to further understand southern culture.