Jeremy Anderson
MC301 Contributor/Staff
A group of approximately 30 Jackson State University W.E.B Dubois Honors College students toured the Mississippi Delta, one of the most historic regions in South, on April 8, 2015.
Hilliard Lackey, associate professor at Jackson State University, narrated the trip. Lackey, who is from the Mississippi Delta, gave students valuable insight on different facts and the history of places students were traveling through.
Driving north on U.S. Highway 49, students arrived in Yazoo City, Miss., to get a look at the first black hospital in the state of Mississippi. Founded in 1928, the Afro-American Sons and Daughters hospital was funded by citizens and provided low-cost health care for people in Yazoo City. The hospital, once the main provider of health care for blacks in the Mississippi Delta, has now become dilapidated.
From Yazoo City, the students traveled to the B.B. King Museum in Indianola, Miss. King were born in Berclair, Miss., but considers Indianola his home. The museum contained videos of King’s life from his early childhood all the way to his older years as a world renowned artist. Different exhibits and artifacts assisted the students in understanding how King rose to the fame he has today.
“The part that really stuck out to me was the B.B. King Museum because, as someone who does music, seeing how his music changed the world and really made an impact, I feel like that could be something I could do as well so he just really inspired me,” said Andrew Jarriet, a freshman entrepreneurship major from East St. Louis, Ill.
Mississippi Valley State University was the next destination for the group. MVSU was founded in 1950 and provided black students in the Delta with a place for higher education. Students got a glimpse of life at the rural university by the narration of Lackey, who also teaches at MVSU.
Students then traveled through Money, Miss., to see the store where Emmitt Till supposedly whistled at a white woman. History records that the woman’s husband, along with others, kidnapped Till and performed one of the most heinous and gruesome murders in American history.
The next destination was Ruleville, Miss. The small town is the location of Fannie Lou Hamer Gardens, the burial site of Civil Rights activist and Delta native, Fannie Lou Hamer. Students took pictures of the gravesite and the statue dedicated to her.
After a ride to Clarksdale, Miss., students were fed lunch at Coahoma Community College. After eating, students from JSU and CCC had a meet and greet.
On the way back to Jackson, students were granted the opportunity to pass through Mound Bayou, Miss., a city that was founded as an all-black town in Mississippi. Students also toured Delta State University in Cleveland, Miss.
To end the tour, students enjoyed southern cuisine at Walnut Hillcrest in Vicksburg, Miss.
For some students, the tour was eye-opening.
“I just learned that today as young people, just because we didn’t go through the struggle of the Civil Rights Movement, segregation, the lynching … that I really have a privilege over my ancestors and forefathers because they went through that. Why am I living a mediocre lifestyle and not trying to excel to excellence and better myself in ways that they could never get to?” said Iasia Collins, a junior history major from Clinton, Miss.
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