Musings from the Adventure

• You must say hello or wave to all people passing, including cars. I was repeatedly honked at by cars and had know idea what was going on. I originally thought I looked good that day, but the people were really just saying hi.
• Women always defer to their husbands to give directions to anywhere. It happened on multiple occasions, which was quite astonishing.
• Women were also astounded that I was traveling alone and repeatedly looked at me as if I were from another planet, which I guess sometimes I am.
• All food in the South is really good. I believe the secret is butter. The other secret is that homemade biscuits are served with everything.
• Advice: Don’t go into a home cooking place and try to order a low-fat salad dressing. I did this and the woman’s response was, “We don’t have that kind of thing here”.
• Sugar free drinks are few and far between and usually in the back of the refrigerator next to the old bologna packages.
• Many of the building in the small towns and some larger ones are boarded up. There is a hole in many parts of our country that needs to be filled. So many people are working on ways to bring industry back to their towns.
• Many cities in Mississippi claim to be the home of the blues… back to that push for industry.
• If ever in trouble or worried, explain you born in Mississippi or reference that your father was a minister. This quickly dissolves any anger that might be created by my living in Boston or having New Jersey plates on my rental car.
• White people generally think that race relations are good and headed in the right direction. Most black people believe it has come a long way but there is a lot more to be done. They deal with and talk about the subtlety of it that they deal with everyday, something most white people are not aware of or even think about.
• Young people rarely cite that there is an issue. It seems that most people under the age of 30 do not see race as a big deal, and this is across races.
• Many white people said that racism is reversed and that whites have it worse now.
• Many small and larger southern towns have African-American mayors and politicians. Mostly these positions are in local government and rarely reflect representation in a federal capacity.
• Schools are egregiously segregated. In almost all towns the public schools were 90 percent, if not more, black. Every town had one if not multiple private schools. People said they took out a second mortgage to send their children there. These schools are almost all white.
• Black parents do care about their children's education deeply, but in many situations they are economically disadvantaged so they are forced to keep them in the lower performing schools.
• Cotton planting ended about 10-20 years ago, which cut 2/3 of the farming jobs and has left an entire group or people and generation with nothing to do in Mississippi. On any regular day you will see hundreds of people sitting on their front porch. Like that one woman said , “we pray for a job as a form of work”.
• Most people want to talk or share their stories. The world would be much better, closer, and tolerant if we just took the time to listen and learn from each other.
• City with most profound impact: Selma, AL- I will never forget the people's faces and the sun setting over the city that has been forgotten. It is a really interesting city with a a history steeped in voting rights, that now has some fantastic grassroots organizations, a cool historic hotel on the river, and so much more.

The Final Day

Last dance in Memphis. Went on a run through downtown Memphis, which happens to be a pretty happenin city. There are always a lot of people around, and every corner has someone playing either country, blues, soul, or funk music. Spent the day at the Civil Rights Museum, Stax records, and the Slave Haven. Interesting twist at the Civil Rights Museum is the story of the woman outside protesting the museum. She has been outside the museum in a tent for 22 years. She lived in the Lorraine Motel but was forced out along with many other low income tenants. Her argument is that the museum takes up a ton of affordable housing, and the site is not approved by Coretta Scott King. She is arguing that MLK Jr. would have rather had it be for the low-income citizens. She sits outside under an umbrella armed with newspaper clippings and information. It is an interesting argument that has a lot of validity.
I then journeyed into the museum to get their stance on her argument, and they said that they wouldn’t comment.
Stax records was an all-black record company that produced the likes of Sam & Dave, Otis Redding, Tina Turner and Issac Hayes. It was a great lesson on the history of music and a really, really cool place. I recommend visiting this place.
Slave Haven is a small museum off the beaten path in Memphis. It is a home that would harbor slaves on the Underground Railroad. The crawl space and the hiding places are still preserved, and it was a very educational experience. My guide was incredibly knowledgeable and also tipped me off to the irony of a sculpture placed on one of the main streets in Memphis. The sculpture is of William Bedford Forrest, a slave owner and slave breeder. His sculpture is predominantly placed in a park at a big intersection. Could be my next mission to organize people to bring that sucker down.

The evening was fantastic when my parents arrived to meet me. We ate some local BBQ and saw my dad's home where he grew up and his former schools. It was a great conclusion, and now I am in the car headed back to Dallas. I will probably have a few more posts about highlights, lessons learned, and various other things. Thanks for tuning in. More information will come later.

Day 15 Little Rock and Memphis

It is Christmas Eve for my documentary travels. One more day of intended Southern inquiry. The most shocking thing of the day is how big Central High School is. I started my morning with a tour inside and outside the famous High School. The current racial breakdown of the school now is 52 percent black and 48 percent white. I was told that the only issue currently is that they are not encouraging as many black students to take AP courses, which I think is an issue across the country. The tour was interesting and the museum is very well done. I spoke with a good amount of people in the area, and in particular a man who lived across the street from the school for the last 50 years. He said that racial relations are a lot better, but then he also explained how there are neighborhoods where you just don't go if you are black or white.
Later part of the afternoon was spent taking a look back in time at the Bill Clinton Presidential Library. You know he balanced the budget and received a standing ovation at a UN meeting. I was moved by the video titled "a young boy from Hope" and wish we could somehow get that economy back.
You know you are tired when you fall asleep on the lawn in front of the presidential library in 98 degree weather.
Ended the day in Memphis in the Cooper-Young neighborhood. It is super artsy with live music everywhere, rainbow flags, and tattooed rockers. I was impressed with Memphis. Ended the evening with my traditional listening to live music and talking with the owner of a bar/restaurant, in which she notified me that racism is still a HUGE problem in Memphis... it's just reversed. The whites are being discriminated against, she said.

Tomorrow: Memphis and then back to kick it in Dallas for a while.

Day 14 Cleveland, Ruleville, Indianola, Glendora, Sunflower, Sumner Mississippi and Helena, AR

I hit up a lot of small, colorful towns in the Delta today. I also hit up a lot of mosquitoes while traveling in that area. I had homemade biscuits, grits, preserves, and bacon with my old man friends in Cleveland. They sent me off into the Delta with a hand written map, well-wishes, and a full stomach. Visited Fannie Lou Hamer's grave in Ruleville, which was a moving experience.
In Indianola I visited B.B. King's brand new multi-million dollar museum. It really stands out in the town and hopefully will add much needed economic gains for the town. So many of these downtowns will have 75 % of the buildings boarded up or have rocks thrown through the windows. To see a famous musician put some roots and generate economy for their hometown is really important.
In Sunflower I met with an incredible group called the Freedom Project that takes middle school kids from the surrounding communities and gives them the extra help, activities and nurturing they need to go to college. They have a 100 percent success rate, and the determination of these students who live in absolute poverty is amazing. When you drive into Sunflower, almost everyone is sitting in their yard because there is no work to be done. The buildings are utterly dilapidated. It is great to see such a bright spot and with such a fitting name such as "sunflower".
Glendora is the site of Emmitt Till's murder, and there is a self-made museum by a local fellow that was not open. I did take some incredible pictures of the museum and of the town.
Sumner was the site of the trial, and I was able to speak with a couple of members of an organization that is reaching across racial lines. Older community leaders (black and white) are working together to create an Emmitt Till museum and curriculum in the local schools. An older white farmer that I spoke with said the best part of the whole thing is the bonds and friendships being built across racial lines. He is on the board with a black man that used to work on his farm. The building of mutual respect is truly contagious, and today was proof of just that.

Journeyed to Helena, AR to see where my grandmother grew up and take a whole bunch of pictures so she can see what her town is all about these days. Ended up in Little Rock, which is a charming town. Funny side note: I am so used to always saying hi and really talking to everyone you see while in Mississippi, which I love. So today in Little Rock I was literally saying hello to everyone, and it was not as well received. Good thing I wasn't just dropped off in NYC.

Little Rock tomorrow and ending in Clarksdale (need more blues)

Day 13 Oxford, Clarksdale, Merigold, Cleveland MS

Wow! This was quite the day -- a day that has left me wondering what to post and how to sum it all up. Spent the morning on a run through Ole Miss, a beautiful campus with a lot of conflicting history. Took pictures at the James Meredith Monument, which is centrally located on the campus and a really great monument. Next stop was the so called capitol of the Delta Blues, Clarksdale, MS. Went to the Blues museum, bought an incredible guitar that sings at a used music store in town, hung out with Cat Head (local blues player), bought some of his artwork, walked around the town. It was early so I inquired about another cool town in the delta and headed to Merigold, MS on the hunt for a hidden gem called "Po Monkey". I went to Merigold (a charming city) and was given some crazy directions that I followed down a long dirt road in the middle of nowhere and stumbled upon a blues club. It was crazy and the guy "Monkey" who was born and still lives in the back of the club runs the show. I have included a picture so you can see this place. Spent the evening in Cleveland walking around the town, had dinner (shrimp and grits again) at the Market, which was fantastic, and then ended my evening at a local bar called the Airport. This is where the true story of my evening occurred. Sat down next to the owner of the bar and another man. We started talking about my film, and he was a wealth of knowledge about the area. He actually invited me to meet him at his bar so he and all the local historians of the area could cook me breakfast (on his birthday) tomorrow. He was a nice man, and then it hit. We started talking about Emmitt Till, and they then began a conversation about how he wasn't murdered in Money, MS. He was killed seven miles down the road, and they were friends with the guys that did it. They were talking about how they ran Fannie Lou Hamer out of town. They also talked about the harassing they did of the Northerners that came down to register blacks to vote. It was truly the authentic stereotypical thing you would expect to hear. The interesting part was they couldn't believe that Mississippi got such a bad rap for racism because other states were much worse. They were, however, happy that the "blacks" had not taken over Cleveland and that the school systems were still segregated. Needless to say, hearing this after the discussion I had last night really left me with a lot to ponder about humanity. An interesting dilemma of a person who is kind to you but not so kind to others? I will leave this at that and tell you about breakfast in the morning.

Tomorrow: All over the Delta and spending the night in Little Rock, AR

Day12 Starkville and Oxford, MS

"You smell that air? We are in Mississippi now." This phrase spoken to my grandmother by my grandfather, who went to school at Ole Miss, could not have been more true today.

I chased down an old family friend who still lived in Starkville as a way to better understand my roots. I think it is a powerful and important thing to understand the place and people we all come from. The two I had lunch with were some of the kindest people I had ever met. They also happened to be freshmen in college at Ole Miss the same year James Meredith integrated. I believe we all take care of and protect those closest to us. If those closest to us happen to be black, Jewish, gay, you name it, we are more apt to defend them. We all fear what we don't know and what seems strange. It is a human reaction that I believe we have to work to counteract. When talking with this woman, she said that she hoped she didn't sound racist but she was scared that James Meredith was coming to her school -- not out of malice but out of a lack of interaction. She had at that point in her life she had never met a black person before... I believe after spending a lot of time talking with people that we are all pretty much kind at heart. We want the best for those closest to us and do not set out to be hateful. We hate out of fear and out of protection, and today that rang even more true.

Oxford, Mississippi is the kind of town you want to live in. The downtown square is filled with cool bookstores, home cooking, and more than ten live music venues. Just outside of Oxford is a town called Taylor. In this town is the best fried catfish and coolest joint around. It is called the Taylor Grocery. It is a hidden secret that is not much of a secret in these parts. Every night it has legit, and I mean legit, live music. They never post who is playing, and sometimes they don't know until someone shows up. There are a couple of art stores, an art studio and the coolest special event venue called the Big Truck in an old converted barn. I was blown away by the town and its people. I had a three hour conversation with the owner and artist at the art studio/Big Truck venue that really got me thinking. He challenged me to think about this whole racism issue and the south in a bigger way. His belief, and one I started to see, was that Northerners come down to the south and meddle in everyone's lives when really the same issues that happen in the south happen in the north. The south's indiscretions were and continue to be headline news. The bigger problem is, and I quote "There are too many rats on the cheese". We as people are growing exponentially and our earth cannot handle it. We as humans are working out how to relate, and the more we try to bring up color, the more that detracts from everyone as people??? After talking with many people across age, income and race lines there is a resounding theme of how it is better or non-existent with the younger generation. Racial hatred is held closer by those who lived the turbulent past or know a lot about it. He believes if we just let it be, that we as humans will keep working it out. The north needs to worry about its own problems and leave the south to their's. There are ten stories of interracial harmony to every story of racial issue. People in the South just don't see it that way. You don't play music on your front porch with a black guy because he is black; it's because its Frank and you have been playing with Frank forever. Integration just happens naturally. People just want to eat, and whatever it takes to do that is more important. He also believes that there are far bigger fish to fry than race and that generally if people are given time, they either like or don't like each other, and it is much bigger than race. It was a lot to think about, a very enjoyable and challenging conversation as well. Now I am back at the Inn at Ole Miss.

Tomorrow: Clarksdale, MS home of the delta blues

Day 11 Starkville, MS

Started the birth of our nation with a run in downtown Jackson and eating an entire watermelon at a farmer's market. Starkville...what do you say about this college town in the middle of Mississippi? I was able to see the house I lived in as a baby, where I was born, where my father worked, and hear some local music. The evening was spent in a place that epitomizes what most people love about our country. It was a gathering of thousands of locals from all races playing together. Parents did not worry a minute about their children running off; there was free food and ice cream for everyone. No one complained about standing in line, and everyone seemed to be respectful. There was a group of senior citizens singing timeless classics into a microphone. It was a little piece of perfection. I laid there on the grass with my head propped up on an environmentally friendly Mississippi Styrofoam cup.