Miles total: 1700
Today, we toured the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, MS (after begging them to open it for us on Memorial Day). They have received a donation of display cases since our visit last year, so their museum has a new cohesiveness and direction to it. Since the students went to the Rock'N'Soul museum in Memphis and we added readings on music, they better understood the connection between the blues and the Civil Rights movement than our group last year. We headed down to Ruleville to see Fannie Lou Hamer's gravesite. While there last year, we met with community members (including the mayor and Hamer's campaign manager Charles McLaurin) who were beginning to spruce up the gravesite. This year, we were greeted by a large, impressive memorial garden. While it's still under construction, the community has done a lot to the space with little funding in a year's time. We then headed toward Oxford, MS, where we toured around Ole Miss (the University of Mississippi). James Meredith became the first African American to attend Ole Miss in 1962. His enrollment led to a riot 30,000 strong on campus that killed 2 people and injured dozens. Thousands of troops were called in to quell the violence. With the Mississippi sun baking us at a crisp 100 degrees, we were all excited to get to the hotel and into the pool.
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