What's Good in Mississippi: Art + Stories
Jennifer Drinkwater. Ski Mississippi, Acrylic on wood panel, 24” x 36”, 2020.
The Mississippi Delta is one of my very favorite places on the planet.
In 1979, I was born in Greenville, a small town on the Mississippi River in the heart of the Delta. Our family lived in Greenville until I was eight and my brother was two, and then we moved 120 miles south to Jackson, Mississippi’s capital city. Before I was a year old, I had already met my two of my very best friends in Greenville, and after we moved, I would go back to the Delta two to three times a year for decades to visit them.
There was always something different about Greenville and the Delta in general. I knew this intuitively, but I couldn’t really put my finger on what it was until much later in life. My father, the consummate Southern storyteller, describes Delta culture in a way that really rings true. In Jackson, a dinner party goes something like this. Folks arrive at six o’clock, eat dinner at six-thirty, and head home promptly by eight-thirty. In the Delta, folks are invited at six and arrive at eight, drink until dinner’s served at eleven, dance until two, home before dawn.
That, my friends, is the Delta. And really just the tip of the iceberg.
The Mississippi Delta
According to Greenville writer David L. Cohn, the Mississippi Delta begins in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee and ends on Catfish Row in Vicksburg, Mississippi. The geographically isolated “Delta”, as called by locals, is an alluvial plain used historically for cotton plantations in northwestern Mississippi along the Mississippi River. It is deeply complicated place – home in the nineteenth century to hundreds of white millionaires who created their wealth on the backs of African Americans. In the twentieth century, socioeconomic inequity and Jim Crow hamstrung Black communities, the effects of which are still felt today. Blacks and whites often are educated in unequal institutions, worship and socialize in different locations, and often lead separate lives in many Delta communities.
The beauty and the cultural richness of Delta are palpable. The proximity to the Mississippi River attracted Chinese, Lebanese, Italian, and Jewish immigrants, which in turn shaped the local cuisine and the regional economy. Many of the most celebrated blues musicians of the twentieth century were born in Coahoma, Issaquena, Tunica, Yazoo, and Sunflower counties. Established by former slave Isaiah T. Montgomery in 1887 as an autonomous, resilient, visionary all- Black community in the middle of Mississippi, Mound Bayou served as a beacon for African Americans during Jim Crow and was influential to Medgar Evers’ evolution as a civil rights activist. Tennessee Williams based much of his work on his childhood experiences in and around Clarksdale, and mentioned Moon Lake Casino in nearly every play. Storytelling and folklore are hugely important in Mississippi communities, and the best storytellers I know are Mississippi Deltans.
What’s Good in the Delta
In 2019, I spent several weeks traveling around the Delta interviewing folks about what’s good in their communities. My process is simple: I connect with residents by asking them to consider and share with me “what’s good” where they live. Some participants I know prior, but many I don’t, having been recommended to me by friends, or friends of friends. A few interviews transpired after coincidental meetings. I transcribe these interviews, transform these conversations into drawings and paintings, and upload them to this website. Each participant receives a signed print of a painting from our conversation and identifies a local non-profit organization to receive a portion of sales of any sold artwork. In the coming months, I’ll be sharing the stories and art inspired by these conversations.
Mississippi Delta Participants
Yolande van Herdeen, South African native, artist, and instructor at ArtPlace Mississippi. Greenwood, Leflore County, Mississippi.
Benjamin Saulsberry, Gospel singer and Museum Director of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center. Sumner, Tallahatchie County, Mississippi.
Julia Ewing Clark, Farmer and barrel racer. Rolling Fork, Sharkey County, Mississippi.
Hank Burdine, Author of Dust in the Road: Recollections of a Delta Boy. Chatham, Washington County, Mississippi.
Joey Young, Artist and instructor at Lee Academy. Clarksdale, Coahoma County, Mississippi.
You can read about the community of Marks, located in Quitman County, Mississippi, here. You can read Velma Benson-Wilson’s wonderful essay about seeing Martin Luther King, Jr in Marks as a high school student here.
Read what’s happening in my hometown of Greenville here. And though not technically the Delta, Water Valley, Mississippi, is a close neighbor. Learn about Water Valley here.
Who else should I meet? I’m looking at you, Tunica, Issaquena, Bolivar, Sunflower, Humphreys, Yazoo, Tate and Carroll counties. Send me an email or let me know in the comments.