We’re off the boat, the shuttle got us to Graceland before 9 AM and from there we found our way back to town to the National Civil Rights Museum.

Getting these was a slight challenge. I tried for a 5-passenger Uber (none available) or Lyft (one promised but the reservation failed). The bellhop found us a taxi with a suitable vehicle albeit at a price more than twice the Uber fare for two vehicles. But we got there.

This civil rights thing has got me scratching my head. I sort of get the years leading up to the Civil War. Slavery was the engine that propelled the tobacco, rice, cotton and sugar/rum industries to worldwide success. White Europeans created the belief that Blacks were simply inferior beings, capable of only menial labor. Thus, we have an economic motivation and a belief sysstem, no matter how flimsy, that justified the practice of slavery. It would be easy for a plantation owner to grasp the thin reed of inequality belief so as to avoid economic disaster.

Slavery was practiced in all original thirteen colonies. There’s a book that tells the story of the Hempsteads of Connecticut and their slave (Judy is a Hempstead although not of that line). Abolitionists in the North rejected the inequality premise. But those in the North didn’t have the economic motivation to retain the premise that those in the South did. Hence the Civil War.

OK, I get it. It was a terrible miscarriage of justice and morally repugnant. But there is a thread of logic that explains why slave owners did as they did.

The Civil Rights Museum gave a very detailed account of slavery and the subsequent struggle for civil equality for African Americans in the U.S. I had heard much of the pre-war and war-time story in the context of the sugar and cotton plantations and the Vicksburg battlefield we’ve visited this week.

The museum goes much farther, detailing the Jim Crow era, starting in 1896 “separate but equal” doctrine established by the Supreme Court in Plessy vs. Ferguson. Southern states used the doctrine to establish separate-but-unequal conditions, to suppress Black voting rights, educations  and in general to laws that ensured the life for Blacks would continue as second-class citizens. Jim Crow laws continued until segregated schools were declared illegal by the Supreme Court in Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954. Johnson-era passage of the Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act (1965) followed.

Throughout the 1950s, 60s and 70s various groups, the NAACP, Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Council and a host of others fought for civil rights through demonstration and protest movements. The response from Southern government officials was swift and violent. The museum details the atrocities in words, images and video. And, of course, the senseless assassination of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King are highlighted, given that the museum is housed in the former Loraine Motel where King was killed. We ended up spending five hours, with a break for lunch, emersed in this narrative.

So here’s what I don’t get: While there may be some convoluted way of understanding slavery, what is the motivation that leads to the hatred embodied in Jim Crow policies and the violence with which Black demands for equality were met? Whites no longer relied on Black slave labor for economic viability. Blacks couldn’t be seen as an economic threat, taking away White jobs. The only thing that remained was the belief that blacks were inferior beings and should therefore be treated as such. Given the evidence that average Blacks and Whites, coming from equal circumstances (education and wealth) perform equally well in society, why doesn’t the “I’m better than you” belief collapse? And why is the hatred so strong? 

I don’t get it. I’m just about ready to take the 1850s plantation owner with 200 slaves as being morally superior to Governor George Wallace of Alabama, Sheriff James Clark of Selma, the Klu Klux Klan and so on.

It’s a great museum. It opened more questions than it answered, and that’s a good thing.

So now we’ve looked at slavery, Jim Crow and the civil rights struggles. We’ve touched on the spate of assassinations in the 1960s – JFK, RFK, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, etc. We’ve seen how Elvis brought African American music to White audiences and launched interramal music making in America. And then there was Vietnam, Johnson’s Great society, the Cold War and the counter-culture of the 1960s going on all at once. It’s hard to believe I lived through all of that!

The other part of the day revolved around Memphis Barbeque and Blues. We interrupted our museum tour for lunch at the next-door Central BBQ – ribs and pulled pork for the most part. After leaving the museum around 4 PM we waddled down Main Street to Beale Streat, home of the Memphis Blues scene. We had a drink at an Irish pub where I tried to introduce my fellow travelers from the North to pork rinds. Everyone took a small “bragging rights” taste but no life-long converts in this crowd. 

The section of Beale Street dedicated to the “blues” encompasses two blocks. It’s a mini Bourbon Street and, like its New Orleans cousin, it’s a tourist destination. Live music is provided in most restaurants and bars but it’s no longer the hotbed of innovative jazz and blues development it was back in the day.

By now it’s pushing 6 so we walked the streets looking for a place that a) had a menu we could all agree on; b) offered live music and c) offered live music that wasn’t too loud. A security guard in front of one restaurant pointed us to BB King’s restaurant for music and good food or to the Blues City Café for good food but no music. BB King hits you up for $10 cover charge per person; nix that. Blues City got our business and I’m embarrassed to report that Steve and I had a second half-rack. They played recorded music and the service was fast once we got in.

Our taxi friend had us “home” by 8, we claimed our bags and are safe in Elvis’s tender embrace for the rest of our trip. Tomorrow: Graceland and then home.

Yesterday was a cruising day with little to report so I spent the idle time putting out the Vicksburg report. Today we’re touring Memphis, the final stop on the trip.

The trip from Vicksburg to Memphis took all day. It wasn’t until after 10 that the Jazz arrived here. I was surprised that we saw virtually no towns, factories, or even riverside cottages all day. Our guide this morning told us we’d passed through delta country – low lying ground. What little human activity we saw consisted of farmland only a few feet above the river’s current height. I can imagine those fields would frequently flood, depositing, I assume, beneficial silt when the waters recede. 

Memphis is located on the southernmost of four “Chickasaw Bluffs,” high ground 50 to 200 feet above the Mississippi. The Chickasaw Indians were the dominant tribe in this area before Europeans arrived. The high ground provided good defense and protection from flooding. Memphis is sometimes called the Bluff City.

This morning we took a city tour by bus, guided by a nice local lady with a perfect Southern drawl and excellent knowledge of the city, both past and present. The first stop was the Loraine Motel where Martin Luther King was assassinated by James Earl Jones in April of 1968. There is a co-located Civil Rights Museum that we did not tour but might tomorrow. The motel is in a nondescript area off Main Street and not far from Beale Street. It’s a sobering reminder of the 1960s when JFK, RFK, MLK and others were assassinated, changing the course of U.S. history so dramatically.

We stopped at Sun Studios where Elvis and other well-known Blues and Rock and Roll performers recorded. We stopped at the Peabody Hotel where Mallard ducks march down from the roof to swim in the lobby fountain every day. We drove by a number of antebellum homes and stopped at a huge pyramid-shaped structure that at one time was home to the Memphis Whatchamacallits basketball team. Today it’s a Bass Pro Shops store that sports the tallest freestanding elevator in the U.S.: Memphis’s answer to LL Bean.

This afternoon we toured two music museums. First up: the Rock n Soul Museum. Now I think of the Smithsonian as focusing on high-brow subjects, or at least higher-brow subjects than Rock-n-Roll. But the Rock n Soul Museum was established under the auspices of the Smithsonian. And after doing the tour, it’s clear that Memphis in mid-twentieth-century was a truly important place and time that shaped American culture far from the jukebox. 

The Rock n Soul Museum provided us with portable listening devices. Each display had a number that when entered would provide a narrative of what we were seeing. We could also play songs representative of songs found in jukeboxes during each era. 

When I, and maybe most people, think of music and Memphis I think of Elvis. He was of course featured in the museum but not to the exclusion of many other pioneers in the field of popular music, both performers and recording studios and music promoters. Elvis is said to be the first true rockabilly, soon to become rock and roll, performer. Rock n roll had its roots in African American spiritual and field songs sung by slaves, which formed the basis for blues and gospel songs. That source material transformed and developed into rock and roll and jazz. 

The thing I learned from today’s visit is that Elvis, in addition to being the first RnR singer, brought what was essentially a Black music genre to White America. After Elvis, most of the rock and roll groups and record labels in Memphis were racially integrated. White and Black musicians focused on creating the music rather than worrying about race. In that respect Elvis can be thought of as a vanguard in the Civil Rights movement.

The Memphis Music Hall of Fame was more of the same. Memorabilia from Memphis greats. 

Someone was quoted in a museum today saying, “Rock and roll would never have succeeded if it hadn’t been abhorred by parents. It became the perfect vehicle for kids to express their rebellion. All those questionable lyrics and shacking hips.”

So, while I may never be a dyed-in-the-wool Elvis fan, I certainly have a better appreciation for the contribution soul, blues, jazz and rock n roll made to American culture. 

This is or last night on the river. Tomorrow at 8:30 AM we’ll be unceremoniously kicked out into the cold, cruel world to fend for ourselves. The shuttle bus will drop us off at Graceland Hotel where we’re staying for two nights. Sunday we’ll be back in Memphis to eat ribs, do the Civil Rights Museum and eat more ribs. Then on Monday we’ll do Graceland and we’ll fly home on Tuesday.

I gave myself the night off yesterday, choosing relaxation over typing and photo editing to meet my usual self-enforced same-day deadline. In addition to laziness, I have two excuses. Tomorrow is a “day at sea” with no shore excursions so I’ll have spare time and Internet coverage in this area is spotty, making uploads a time consuming and frustrating task.

I’ve looked forward to visiting Vicksburg ever since we signed up for this trip. I can’t say I’m a Civil War buff, but I do enjoy reading about it and visiting the occasional battlefield. We’ve visited Gettysburg several times; I have a great-great-something grandfather who fought there.

My main source of knowledge about the Siege of Vicksburg comes from Jeff Shaara’s historical novel “A Chain of Thunder.” In it he follows the experience and (imagined) thinking of General Grant, General Sherman, General. Pemberton, plus the fictional lives of a private in the Union army and a young woman civilian resident of Vicksburg.

Historical fiction is fun but dangerous, depending on how many literary liberties the author takes with the facts. I have a mental image of Vicksburg at the time of the 47-day siege. My objective in visiting is to square my probably misshaped conception based on a fictional account with on-the-ground reality. My fear has been that the visit wouldn’t meet my expectations, that it would be too superficial to fulfill my need for understanding.

General Grant came to Vicksburg with one objective: to take control of Vicksburg to open the Mississippi to Union transport and to deny the Confederates access to the river, thereby cutting both its military supply lines and its access to markets for cotton and sugar. Abraham Lincoln saw Vicksburg as key to Union victory.

Grant tried several unsuccessful attacks from the North. The Union Navy was successful in bringing its river forces, including Ironclad battleships, to Vicksburg and launching a continual bombardment of the town. Eventually, Grant marched his 35,000 troops down the western side of the Mississippi, crossed them over the river south of Vicksburg and then went east to capture the Mississippi capitol of Jackson some 40 miles to the east of Vicksburg.

With that success, Grant assumed further military success would be possible by launching a frontal attack on Vicksburg. However, the confederate forces had had a year to fortify the town, taking advantage of its high elevation over surrounding ground to build what proved to be an insurmountable defense of the town. Several attacks on the fortified city failed, resulting in high casualties for the Union. That led Grant to institute a siege, cutting off food supplies. After 47 days and near-starvation conditions for troops and townspeople, Pemberton surrendered the city to Grant.

Our visit came in two parts: a walk around Vicksburg and an afternoon bus tour of the Vicksburg battlefield with a National Park ranger.

It rained in the night and the forecast was for more morning rain. But by the time we left at 9 AM there were only a few sprinkles as we walked to the bus for a 5-minute ride up the hill into town. We had dry weather for the rest of the day.

The further north we go the more Fall colors are in evidence. It’s definitely Fall in Vicksburg. Not Onawa fall (see https://gallery.jonrickphoto.com/onawa_colors) but not too bad for the South.

The walk, with perhaps 20 fellow passengers, started slowly. Our guide was a local woman who knew every building and seemed to focus on recent history: “This one was built in 1875 and opened in 2010 by my friend Good Old Joe as a B&B.” But many of the houses were antebellum (pre-war) and that was getting closer to the mark from my viewpoint. One had a wrought-iron gate with a dent caused by a cannon ball during the siege. Now we’re getting somewhere.

Then we found two homes of great interest to me. The first was the house occupied by Confederate General John C. Pemberton, the commanding officer ordered by CSA President Jefferson Davis to defend Vicksburg at all costs. Pemberton’s commanding military officer, General Joe Johnston, gave contradicting orders: Vicksburg can’t be defended; march your army out and defeat Grant in the field. Pemberton, greatly conflicted, chose to defend the city. Johnston failed to reinforce him with men and supplies. Pemberton’s headquarters house is in disrepair but is now owned by the National Park Service and is being restored.

Next door to Pemberton’s headquarters is the Balfour House, the site of a December 1862 ball attended by Confederate officers and ladies of the town. The ball was interrupted by the arrival of Union naval ships on the Mississippi and the commencement of shelling of the city that would continue for the next six months.

During the siege many buildings were destroyed by the continual bombardment by Union ships in the river and artillery on the far side of the Mississippi. Citizens dug some 100 caves in the sides of hills to serve as bomb shelters, rather than running the risk of being killed in their homes. Somewhat to my surprise, we found many antebellum buildings in Vicksburg. The bombardment during the siege, while a terrible ordeal for the townsfolk, did not result in total destruction of the city.

Today, Vicksburg has a population of 25,000 or so; 50,000 in the surrounding county. Tourism is a big part of the economy. The Corp of Engineering has a research facility in the area that employs 4,000. Our afternoon bus tour guide spent his career at the lab.

Covid has placed limits on touring activity in the Vicksburg National Military Park. Curiously, our guide could not ride with us in the bus. Instead, he drove ahead of us and communicated over a telephone link to the bus. It worked, but why?

Confederate defenses encircled the east of Vicksburg in an arc from north to south extending about six-and-a- half miles. The Mississippi provided protection to the west of town. Union forces created a corresponding line roughly a half-mile or less outside the Confederate line. Despite continual shelling, the Confederate line held and repulsed several attacks.

It’s a bit hard to envision the geographic conditions today. First, the Mississippi River no longer flows past Vicksburg. On April 26, 1976, the Mississippi cut a new path for itself, leaving Vicksburg high and dry. Actually, one of Grant’s early strategies was to do exactly what the river did on its own 13 years later: cut Vicksburg off from the river. Digging proved to be infeasible. Not until 1903 was the Yazoo River Diversion Project completed, giving Vicksburg access to the Mississippi once again. That’s where our cruise ship parked.

The other problem in visualizing the battlefield is that it is today heavily forested. The Confederate and Union forces had cut down trees to open a clear line of fire. They left the branches on the approaches to deter enemy charges and used the tree trunks to build bulwarks. Fortunately, John Nau, a major Anheueser Busch distributor, donated money to clear a 90-acre area near the Illinois monument, giving us a better idea of the terrain. At many spots, cannon are located in historically-accurate spots, seemingly aimed into a dense forest, which in the day were pointed at open fields.

The Park provides a loop path that first travels along Union lines and then reverses course to follow the Confederate lines. Founded in 1899, the Park administration has gone to great lengths to place unit markers at the actual location of each. Veterans from both sides were brought to the former battlefield and asked to show where their units were positioned. Vicksburg is said to be one of the most accurate battlefields in the country.

The service held a reunion for Confederate and Union soldiers at Vicksburg in 1903, forty years after the battle. Some 8,400 showed up. Unfortunately, the three-day event was suspended after two-and-one-half days because the veterans began fighting with their walking canes.

If I have it right, 14 Confederate states sent at least a regiment of soldiers to Vicksburg and the Union 22. Two states, Missouri and Kentucky had regiments on both sides of the battle. Brother-against-brother was a reality at Vicksburg. Over the years each state has erected a monument commemorating its soldiers. Missouri’s monument is split into two sides: Union and Confederate. Northern states came earlier and erected more and larger monuments. Southern state memorials came later and were less extravagant, due to limited post-war resources in those states.

One stop on the tour that turned out to be of particular interest to me was the Illinois memorial, on a ridge line overlooking the cleared battlefields. Judy, very much at random, found the name of one Captain Charles Libby, commander of Company D of the Illinois’ 176^th Division. My grandfather was a Libby; all his ancestors are from Maine, so the connection to Illinois seemed slim. But a quick google search revealed that Charles Libby is buried in Harrison, Maine, not far from Grey where Grandpa Libby was born and where Libby Hill is located. Could it be? Ancestory.com here I come!

Another highlight of the tour was a stop at the reconstructed ironclad the Cairo (pronounced C”A”ro, not C”eye”ro as in Egypt). It was one of eight ironclad warships constructed in 100 days in Mound City, Illinois by the Edes Company. They ran the gauntlet of Confederate fire to reach Vicksburg and begin the naval bombardment of the city. Confederate artillery did not damage the ironclads, but the first-ever remotely detonated mine: a five-gallon container of dynamite detonated by a plunger-type device just like in the old Western movies did the trick. It sank The Cairo, which was raised, restored and put on display at the park. See the pictures.

The other seven Ironclads were sold for scrap after the war since there was no further need for “brown water” ships. The remains of the Cairo give us a good idea of what these ships were like. Incidentally, the Mississippi ships are of a completely different design than the Monitor and Merrimack, which again were entirely different.

So, were my expectations met? Yes, for sure. I have a much clearer picture of what conditions were like in the town and along the battlefronts. I have a better understanding of the historical events. And I have a better appreciation of what terrible suffering, sacrifices and loss of life the siege of Vicksburg entailed. Would I like to know more? Infinitely more but for now I’m a happy warrior.

Today the scenery is entirely rural. I haven’t seen even a small town and only a few barges. Nothing like the Lower Mississippi where one chemical plant followed another.

And I’ve decided that typing Mississippi is as much fun as spelling it: “M – i – double s – i – double s – i – double p – i.” Try it, you’ll see!

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” ― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad / Roughing It

I saw this quote in a gift shop today, and when people ask me why we like to travel, I fumble around and try to say what Mark Twain said so eloquently.

I must admit to a certain prejudice when it comes to the South and Louisiana and Mississippi in particular. I’ve seen a fair amount of Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama cities to have a feel for them, at least in the cities I’ve visited. And I know New Orleans from several visits but of course that’s not really Louisiana.

But Mississippi and Louisiana have always been in my mind defined by those rankings you see occasionally in the newspapers (OK, that you see on line) where these states are ranked at the bottom for health, education, wealth, employment . . . whatever other states strive to be good at and which Louisiana and Mississippi fail miserably at achieving. And they are the center of slavery, Jim Crow and discrimination.

But a dose of driving around these past few days and meeting some real southerners has proved fatal to my prejudice. The people I’ve met are as warm, friendly, welcoming and intelligent as anywhere else in the world. Do the towns I rode though have the enclaves of the sophisticated and rich folks that you find elsewhere? No. Are all those statistics in the papers true? Probably, but not because the people here are deficient in some way.

Another thing. In all the encounters I’ve had the White people have fallen over backwards to provide accurate portrayals of slavery and the exploitation of African Americans in the name of sugar and cotton and wealth. Nor did anyone breath the phrase “states’ rights.” No one made the slightest excuse or rationalization. They didn’t assume a judgmental attitude. They allow the viewer to reach the inevitable conclusion on their own based on the facts. Bigotry is no stronger here than it is anywhere else.

Today we again divided to conquer:

• This morning I went to a cotton ginning operation across the river in Louisiana to a horse ranch in Mississippi this afternoon.
• Judy and Sharon visited a Natchez home for a piano concert this morning and the Monmouth Historic Inn this afternoon
• David, Rolande, Carolyn and Steve did the Natchez shuttle this morning.

Judy will provide her description of those other activates later on. Here is what I did.

Cotton in this region is what sugar was in Baton Rouge – the source of great wealth in the past, built on the backs of slaves, and still a significant crop today. I visited The Frogmore Plantation and Cotton Gin. This is a modern, working cotton gin that takes in raw cotton from the fields and produces cotton bales ready for weaving and production of cloth. “Gin,” incidentally, is short for “engine” and is, as you recall from grade school history, the machine invented by Eli Whitney.

This operation is highly mechanized and automated, but the process remains the same as it has been for several hundreds of years. Raw cotton must first be cleaned of sticks and stones picked up by the automated harvesting machines, cotton seeds are removed from the cotton bolls and the resulting clean cotton is compressed into bales for shipment to a warehouse and sale to cloth and garment producers.

Frogmore provides a service to farmers. The gin takes no ownership or monetary interest in the cotton itself. They track each farmer’s cotton coming in the and clean cotton going out, but the cotton is the farmer’s to sell. The gin makes money by selling the seeds that are removed from the cotton bolls. A small portion of the seeds are recycled to plant for next year’s crop, but most are used for producing cotton seed oil used in a variety of food products. Did you know that Crisco is short for CRYSTlized Cottonseed Oil? I didn’t.

Next door is an old steam-driven gin that was used from the 1850s onward. The husband of our hostess grew up on this farm and has restored many of the old buildings to show what life was like back in the day. In particular, the slave quarters have been restored. After the Civil War these same quarters were used by sharecroppers, often former slaves who returned to work the fields and gin. Sharecroppers here typically kept 80% and the land owner 20% of produce. Sharecroppers were both freed slaves who returned “home” and white farmers.

The plantation and gin are run by our hostess’s two sons and she does the tourist end of the business (the fate of the husband was never made clear to me). She gave a presentation of the history of cotton production with special emphasis on slavery. She was assisted by a Black Gospel singer, a woman who sings for seven churches in the area. She sang songs typical of the slavery era including “Get on the Wagon, Sally,” a not-so-subtle suggestion that slaves should find their way north to cross into the free states. It turns out that only Canada was a safe haven since bounty hunters regularly sought escaped slaves for return to their owners in the south. Read Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” for a not-so-pleasant narrative of what that was like.

This afternoon I did nothing with an ounce of cultural, historic, or artistic value. I went on the Great River Outdoor Adventure, which consisted in trying my hand at:

• Hand feeding a Brahman bull and his harem of at least a dozen
• Demonstrating my skill at lassoing cattle (OK, plastic cows). I was two for four attempts!
• Demonstrating my skill at archery. I was the only archer to hit the playing card (a 10 of clubs, if it matters) attached to the straw bundle we were shooting at
• Demonstrated my skill at tomahawk throwing. I’d peaked early and went oh for a whole bunch, never getting the thing to stick in the log target.

But the big deal, for me, was spending three hours traveling five miles on a genuine four-wheel all-terrain vehicle, something I’d never done before. And we’re not talking straight and level ATVing. Almost all was on dirt trails and across cow-infested pastures and up and down hills that were steep, narrow, rough and twisty.

A whole lot of fun and feeling of accomplishment for achieving very little of importance. But a guy can’t chase history and culture every day. Right?

Actually, I think there may have been a bit of cultural interest here. Let me quote the owner’s bio from the ranch’s web site (https://greatriveroutdoors.com/our-team-2/):

“David is the owner of the Double C Ranch and founder Great River Outdoors. He has an immense background in public speaking and agriculture with multiple degrees in agriculture, business, and education. He packs more knowledge and fun into every tour than can be absorbed in just a few hours which is why many people want to come back and experience it again.”

So here we have a guy who, from what I saw, is a rancher who loves horses, cows and the great ranching life. He has a family of three adorable kids, age 6, 12 and a teenager plus his wife. My impression from being there for the afternoon is that this is a guy who’s trying to support his family while living the life that is his passion. It’s probable that ranching won’t bring the income he needs so he’s turned to the tourist trade to supplement his income.

I suspect there are lots of people in Mississippi who lead the Southern life because they love it. Our hostess at the cotton gin this morning was born and raised in Illinois. She said that when she first came here she wouldn’t touch a collard green with a ten foot pole. Now, she wouldn’t live Louisiana for anything. It’s a life she loves.

My prejudiced viewpoint slayed once again.

Here, now, is Judy’s writeup to bring you the rest of the story:

 

Sharon and I went to the JN Stone House for a piano concert.  The owner is a Stone and lived in the house as a child.  He is a wonderful pianist and played for 45 minutes, with an explanation of each piece.  He played, in chronological order, Beethoven, Schubert’s Nocturn 8, Louis Gottschalk (a composer from this region), Brahms and Claude Debussy.

He then gave us a tour of the four rooms of his house with history of the people who lived there and the furniture pieces that are in the house.  His dog attended the concert and then requested his owner put him on a chair.  Our host served us all champagne or Praline Liquor which I found delicious.

David, Rolande, Carolyn and Steve all took the Natchez Local Loop bus tour of the town this morning.  In the afternoon Carolyn, Steve, Sharon, and I went to the Monmouth Historic Inn & Gardens.  The gardens and pond were a relaxing place to walk. They served Mint Juleps which I did not care for. 

On the way back to the ship the tour guide told us about the town pointing out various houses and buildings.  Natchez was not much damaged during the Civil War, and they say it is because they surrendered three times. Only two Natchez residents were killed during the war: an old man who died of a heart attack when Union ironclad ship bombed the town. That bombardment killed an eight-year-old girl named Rosalie when she was hit by a shell fragment.

 

After dinner Chris Gill and the Sole Shakers gave a great Blues concert. They demonstrated why the motto displayed on Mississippi highway welcome signs, “Birthplace of America’s Music,” is true by playing selections of Blues and early rock-and-roll songs. Did you know that Mississippi had three kings at the same time? B.B. King, Jimmy Rogers, the king of country music, and of course Elvis.

I’ve heard Proud Mary a million times at Sun City Center dances sung by old white guys and gals. But I never heard it sung like the gal did tonight. She could shake her hips in ways I never thought possible.

Tomorrow, on to the Civil War and the Battle of Vicksburg.