Miles total: 1500 miles
The "Delta day" is one of my favorites. We left Little Rock and headed toward Mississippi via the Arkansas Delta. Once in Mississippi, we drove around backroads looking at a variety of uncommemorated sites related to the Civil Rights movement. We saw the field in Greenwood, MS where Stokeley Carmichael of SNCC declared "Black Power" in 1966. We saw the ever-crumbling store where Emmett Till said something or whistled at a white woman - his body was found a few days later tied to a cotton gin fan in the Tallahatchie river. There is no commemoration at the site, although a nearby community center is named for Till and a sign in Tutwiler points out the local Black funeral home that prepared his body for its journey back to Chicago. We also saw various sites in Indianola, including the future home of a museum dedicated to B.B. King (his hometown). Here's a picture of Club Ebony, a juke joint where B.B. got his start - he recently purchased it in order to renovate it for the future opening of his museum in town. We spent the night at the Shack Up Inn (check out the website!) in Clarksdale, MS.
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