5-20-19 Vicksburg to Memphis via Mississippi Delta

Called the "The Most Southern Place on Earth," the Mississippi Delta is an alluvial plane that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers. It's mostly in the northwest section of Mississippi with portions in Arkansas and Louisiana.

Its heritage ranges from horrific to inspired. The exploitation of successive generations of Africans did not end with slavery. Plantations provided high quality cotton to the industrial north and England. White owners amassed incomparable wealth from some of the richest soil anywhere. Blues musicians changed the face of music in the US and around the world. See post on the Blues Museum a half-hour south of Memphis. And read more about the Mississippi Delta (not to be confused with the Mississippi River Delta at the mouth of the Mississippi River in New Orleans).

It had been an unusually wet winter and spring when I drove through the Delta; you can see high water, roads washed out, houses half-submerged.

Maybe two-thirds of the way from Vicksburg to Memphis is Clarksdale, home to many blues musicians and a center of blues culture and history. Clarksdale is at the crossroads of Hwys 61 and 49,

where, legend has it, Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil. How else to explain his otherworldly virtuosity?

There's a blues museum in Clarksdale,

  but I couldn't find it. I probably didn't look hard enough.
Then continuing north on 61 is Tunica.

Past Tunica I stopped by a roadside stand called "61 Produce" for some boiled peanuts,

contemplated where I was headed after I die,

then rolled into Memphis.


If you've not had enough of the Delta and want to see moving pictures, click here, and you can almost smell the humidity.