April 8, 2013
Pastorgraphs: “Cleveland, Mississippi”
While
planning a Memphis trip later this month to attend the Methodist Eurasia
Roundtable, I learned that Cleveland, Mississippi was named one of the top small
historic towns to visit by Smithsonian Magazine. I know Cleveland well, and
refer to it as my “second hometown” next to Yazoo City. I love the town where I
went to college, worked at a local radio station, was ordained into the
ministry, and served as pastor for two churches (one in nearby Benoit). But
even I was surprised at the Smithsonian’s recognition of this amazing small
town.
“One of the
top small towns” is an understatement. You probably will not be surprised
Gettysburg and St. Augustine were two of the top three small historic cities
the Smithsonian recommends you visit in 2013. If I asked you to name the other
top city, you would NEVER, NEVER guess Cleveland, Mississippi. But there
Cleveland appears as the Smithsonian’s #2 recommendation, wedged between the
famous Civil War battlefield and America’s oldest city.
So what is
it about Cleveland that led the Smithsonian to rank it so high? I do not work
for the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce or Tourism Commission. But as a former
resident, I will give you a short list of why I think it deserves consideration
for history minded tourists.
DELTA
BLUES – Because
Cleveland sits at the geographic center of the
Mississippi Delta, half way
between Memphis and Vicksburg, it lays claim to being the birthplace of Delta
Blues, which influenced the development of Rock and Roll (Elvis Presley
admitted so) and other forms of American music. The Smithsonian wrote,
“American music would not be what it is today without the blues. It welled up
in the Delta—arguably at Dockery Farms plantation, five miles east of
Cleveland—for myriad reasons.” If you visit, be sure to see the legendary
“honky tonks”. B. B. King hails from nearby Indianola. Another Delta Blues
Museum is in Clarksdale, not far from Cleveland.
GRAMMY
MUSEUM – Quick
quiz: Where is the only Grammy Music Museum outside Los Angeles? Answer:
Cleveland, Mississippi. (I kid you not.) In early 2015 the $12 million 20,000
square foot Grammy Mississippi Museum will open on the Delta State University
campus. The location was chosen because of the community’s ties to so many
musical art forms, including Blues, Rock and Roll, Gospel and Country Music.
DELTA
STATE - Cleveland
is home to Delta State University (my alma mater). A traditional teacher’s
college which opened in 1925 and now has an enrollment of 4,000 students, Delta
State has become a diverse university with respected schools of aviation and
hosts the respected Center for Geospatial Information Technologies. DSU won
national
DOWNTOWN – The Smithsonian continued,
“There’s more to do now in Cleveland. New blood has washed through town,
restoring the Historic Crosstie business district with its beguiling Railroad
Heritage Museum, bringing an arts alliance to a vintage movie theater, filling
rehabbed warehouses with galleries and restaurants. Creative young locals
surprise even themselves by coming home to stay after college, though their art
group’s wry motto—“Keep Cleveland Boring”—confounds elders.”
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CULTURAL/LITERARY
DIVERSITY – The Smithsonian
article continued, “Chiefly shaped by white Methodists and black Baptists,
(Cleveland) benefited from surprising infusions of Chinese and Italian
immigrants enticed to Delta cotton fields, traveling Jewish salesmen, Irish
mule traders and Mexicans who gave Cleveland its taste for tamales. The
region’s literary bent produced Eudora Welty and Willie Morris, their work
underscoring the Delta’s loquacity.” Morgan Freeman, Charlie Pride, and Conway
Twitty (my cousin, whose real name was Harold Jenkins) are a few of the
well-known artists who claimed this region as home.
CIVIL
RIGHTS LEGACY
- Dr. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy visited Cleveland. The
Smithsonian noted, “The countryside east of town yields more history. Dockery
Farms Foundation (a former plantation) vividly describes the sharecropping
system that kept blacks in poverty or sent them into the Northern diaspora.
Freedom Riders were held at nearby Parchman Prison. The 1955 murder of
14-year-old Emmett Till by two white men, likely in the hamlet of Drew, helped
wake up a nation to the plight of Southern African-Americans. And then there’s
the town of Mound Bayou, founded in 1887 by former slaves—the first haven of
its kind in the United States—once with its own bank, train depot, swimming
pool and hospital.”
Like most
of the South, Cleveland manufactured more history than the local population can
consume. That is why the locals are always ready to share a heavy dose of
Southern Hospitality so visitors can take some of it back home. Good
call, Smithsonian! As a matter of fact, since I’m going to be driving from
Jackson to Memphis in a couple weeks, I think I will take Highways 49 and 61
through my beloved Delta to refresh golden memories of Cleveland.
Pastor Bill
From the
Quote Garden:
“When a writer knows home in his
heart, his heart must remain subtly apart from it.”
~ Willie Morris ~
Christ United Methodist Ministry
Center
“Christ
in the Heart of San Diego”
3295
Meade Avenue - San Diego, CA 92116 - (619) 284-9205
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