Port Gibson & Vicksburg

The energy of Ma Rainey, her importance to blues music as we know it, is really starting to strengthen as I continue this journey into Louisiana and onto her home in Georgia.  Port Gibson, MS  was home to F.C. Wolcott's  Rabbit Foot Minstrel troupe which Ma Rainey was an integral part of in the Classic Blues period.  It was with this troupe that she met and mentored many young women (in more ways than one) including Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, Victoria Spivey and many others.  She worked this travelling minstrel show with Sid Hemphill, Jessie Mae Hemphill's much loved grand father.  This photo is part of the Mississippi Blues Trail markers.  Very helpful to have given that there would be no other way to mark the spot of this once thriving traveling minstrel company.

The Vicksburg murals on Willie Dixon Way were spectacular.  This town is considered the southern most part of the Mississippi Delta region.  It began in Memphis in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel and ends here in this town.  The rising Mississippi waters were very evident as flooding continues to close off many roads in the area.

I shall return dear Delta but for now the swamps are humming their tune...

Kat