Nemo visits The Delta NEH Teacher landmark workshop: The most southern Place on Earth June 2016

On June 18, 2016, Nemo and I embarked on a journey that took us to "The Most Southern Place on Earth", the Mississippi Delta. A place where a way of life was created for African Americans by white farmers, the home of The Blues, and the Civil Rights Movement kicked off. Although Nemo didn't visit all the same sites I did, he had a great time sampling the cuisine and taking in many of the sites. Here's a bit of his journey...
Nemo isn't so sure about eating catfish. Nanci enjoyed it though!
Nemo didn't get off the bus at this first stop...the site of the 1927 Mississippi River Levee Break. Some beautiful views of the river can be seen here, in addition to a barge being towed down the river. You can see I got quite close as I got some Mississippi Mud on my sneaker. The last two photos show you the new levee that was built after the flood.
Later in the week we visited the 1927 Flood Museum in Greenville.
Nemo visited the Chinese Cemetery and the neighboring African American cemetery. He noticed that the Chinese cemetery was kept much cleaner and orderly than the other cemetery which had headstones arranged in no particular order and many headstones had either fallen over or were even hand engraved. The one above was provided by the federal government as Pvt. Holt Collier was a veteran.
Chinese Cemetery
African American Cemetery
Nemo visited a Jewish Synagogue as there was a small Jewish Immigrant population in the Delta.
Nemo enjoyed his visit to The Dockery and learning about this plantation's impact on The Blues and the home of Charlie Patton. Following our trip to The Dockery, we took a quick stop at The Crossroads and stayed on the bus so no one sold their soul to the devil!
The Crossroads
Next stop...Rueville to visit a Civil Rights Leader, Fannie Lou Hamer. Thanks to Fannie, many African Americans were able to register to vote for the first time.
Like the sign says..."The rural Juke Joint played an integral role in the development of the blues..." Po' Monkey's is certainly no exception except that it is still operating! Our visit to Po's during the day was fun to learn more about the man himself, but that evening going back when the Joint was in full swing was just a blast! Po is the perfect host and there wasn't a soul in there that wasn't having a great time!

A couple of our stops Nemo stayed on the bus. But rest assured, he heard all about the experience I was having. Here I am with Simeon Wright, hearing his story of the night Emmett Till was kidnapped from their room and later murdered. There are also some photos from the Sumner Court House where the historic trial took place. Later we visited the Emmett Till Intrepid Center where artifacts from the horrific event and evidence were on display. And finally, we visited the store where Emmett made that fatal "cat call" at Mrs. Bryant.

Our final day took us to Memphis where we experienced a little bit of everything The Delta has to offer. We went to The Cotton Museum as this was the place where cotton was king! We went to the Stax Museum to explore the impact The Blues had on music as soul was introduced to the world and for the first time both African American and white artists performed and recorded in the same place. We took in a little BBQ lunch at Central BBQ and finished our day off at the National Civil Rights Museum where history truly comes alive as one witnesses the site of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination and can travel across the street to the site where James Earl Ray fired the fatal shot. Our final stop this day was The Peabody Hotel where we watched the ducks march back to the elevator and head on up to their penthouse suite. Nemo was a bit confused as he was looking for others like him and kept finding a bunch of ducks!

Memphis with Nemo!

Finally, Nemo had a couple adventures alone...he decided since he had never been to this part of the country, he wanted to see all he could. He journeyed across the Mississippi River into Arkansas and took the time to take pictures as he ventured into Mississippi and Tennessee, too.

To conclude, I wanted to thank the folks at The Delta Center Lee Aylward, Rolando Herts and Heather Miller in addition to the Robertson Scholars, Trey Walk and Kyra Exterovich-Rubin for making Nemo's and my week in The Delta a life changing experience.

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