Welcome to The Most Southern Place on Earth: Music, Culture, and History in the Mississippi Delta This site was last updated 2/22/10 and will be updated periodically.
Two Landmarks in American History and Culture Workshops sponsored by The National Endowment for the Humanities

For general information about Landmarks in American History and Culture Workshops, click here. 
For complete information about eligibility and the application process click here.  To fill out the online cover sheet as the first step in your application, click here. NOTE! Simply filling out the on-line cover sheet is NOT a complete application!  Please make sure you actually complete the entire application.  Mail your completed application to Luther Brown, Delta Center for Culture and Learning, Box 3152, Delta State University, Cleveland, MS 38733. 

Dear Colleague: 
The Mississippi Delta is simultaneously a unique place and a place that has influenced the American story like no other.  This paradox is summed up in two simple statements.  Historian James Cobb has described the Delta as "The most Southern place on earth." At the same time, the National Park Service has said "Much of what is profoundly American- what people love about America- has come from the delta, which is often called 'the cradle of American culture.'"

This is the Mississippi Delta: a place of paradox and contrast, a place described by Will Campbell as being "of mean poverty and garish opulence." A place that has produced great authors yet continues to suffer from illiteracy.  A place that has produced great wealth for a few but persistent poverty for many.   A place of privilege for some and disadvantage for others.  A place that has produced powerful political leaders, both for and against segregation.  A place in which apartheid has been replaced by empowerment. A place of unquestioned artistic creativity that has given the world both the Blues and rock 'n' roll, and is also home to Charley Pride, Conway Twitty, Bobby Gentry, Sam Cooke, Mose Allison and B. B. King.  This is the Mississippi Delta, a microcosm of America, The most American place on earth.

The Delta has played an enormous and much undervalued role in the American story.  It has given the world much in terms of music, literature, journalism, political action, foodways, and even sports heroes.  It is the ancestral home of many Americans who today live in metropolitan areas like Detroit or Chicago or Oakland.  It has played an important role in changing America's attitude towards human and civil rights.  At the same time, many Americans do not really know where the Mississippi Delta is, and places far from the Delta now claim its rightful title to being the  "birthplace of the Blues." 

The National Endowment for the Humanities has made it possible for you to explore the Mississippi Delta.  You will learn the stories that have given this place such a unique flavor, a mystique unlike any other place in America.  You will learn about Charley Patton, the Father of the Delta Blues, and Robert Johnson, who may or may not have sold his soul to the devil in return for guitar virtuosity.  You will learn about Senator James O. Eastland, powerful advocate for segregation, and Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, sharecropper and equally powerful advocate for integration, who lived five miles from each other in totally different and separate worlds that were entirely co-dependent on one another.  You will learn the tragic story of fourteen year old Emmett Till, and how his lynching sparked the civil rights movement.  You will learn the stories of Mound Bayou, founded by former slaves as an all-black enclave, and called by President Teddy Roosevelt "The Jewel of the Delta."  You will learn how the Mississippi River created the Delta and how the great flood of 1927 destroyed it.  You will learn about how waves of Russian Jews, French and Germans, Lebanese, Italians and Chinese immigrated to the Delta.  You will learn about the clearing of the wilderness, the arrival of railroads, cotton, plantations, sharecropping, small towns, the Blues and Gospel, and the Great Migration to the North, East and West. 

Most importantly, you will learn about sense of place as you study the place itself as a text.  We will learn history where it happened as we move across the Delta, stopping at sites that tell stories.  We will read what has been called "the invisible landscape,"  the hidden landscape of stories from the past, as we learn about events that transpired in particular places and how they changed America. 

While doing these things, you will also have the opportunity to taste Delta foods, from fried catfish and okra and barbecue to fried dill pickles and maybe even Kool-Aid pickles if you are bold enough.  And of course you will listen to the music of the Delta, the Blues of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Son House, Charley Patton, and Willie Brown, and also the music of Ike Turner, Eric Clapton and Led Zeppelin, among others. 

You will also learn from the Delta's landscape, the vast sweep of flat, fertile ground that continues today to produce an agricultural bounty, formerly based on cotton, and now based on corn, soybeans and rice.

You will also have the opportunity to visit some of our nation's great museums, including the National Civil Rights Museum, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, and the brand new B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center.

Finally, you will work with your colleagues to discover how other places, including your own, can be read as texts, and how you can return to your own place to teach others how to read their place as text.

By the end of the workshop, you will understand how the Mississippi Delta can be both "The most Southern place on earth," and "the cradle of American culture."  If you are like most people, you will return home with stories that you will tell your classes for the rest of your life.  And you will gain new respect for the power and the poetics of place.

Let me end with some information about the Delta center and workshops.  We were funded through the NEH Landmarks program last year, and you will find portfoliuos for the 2009 workshops at links below this message.  You can also see the outline of our recent workshop on the music and musicians of Mississippi, and the syllabus for a class we offer Delta teachers.  The Music workshop was funded by NEH through the Mississippi Humanities Council.  We have also presented two versions of what we call "The Three R's of the Mississippi Delta:  Roads, Rivers and Railways," with support from the National Geographic Society and the Mississippi Geography Alliance, and we often present short workshops for local teachers on various subjects.

I hope you participate in this summer's programs and look forward to your application.  The links below will lead you to further information about the workshops.

Sincerely,

Luther Brown
Director of the Delta Center for Culture and Learning at Delta State University

Workshop dates are June 20 through 26 and July 11 through 17, 2010.  Please do not plan on departing before 4pm at the end of each workshop. 
For map information about the Delta, we recommend Google Maps

Your agreement with fellow participants and presenters
Financial issues:  per diem and travel assistance
The daily itinerary
Pre-workshop reading
Pre-workshop assignments
Daily assignments during the workshop
Getting to Cleveland, Mississippi: travel directions
Our Meeting Spaces and Places (including comments on weather, the bus, classroom, attire, and amount of walking)
Contact information
Enrolling for graduate credits at Delta State (Over $3,000 worth of credits, almost for FREE)
Presenters and their backgrounds
Hotels in Cleveland
What is Cleveland, Mississippi like?
Dormitory housing
Restaurants in Cleveland
Sample press release for your home town paper
Program Evaluations
Links to pages of interest
A Bibliography for the Mississippi Delta
A Bibliography for the Great Migration, by John B. Strait
A Bibliography for Emmett Till by Marilyn Schultz
A map of the Delta State University campus
Pictures from the June workshop 2009
Pictures for the July Workshop 2009
Pictures of the Blues Trail Marker Unveilings at Po' Monkey's and Chrisman Street
Facebook for the Workshop
Lesson Plans from the 2009 workshops
The Emmett Till Exhibit
The Portfolio for June's Workshop 2009
The Portfolio for July's workshop 2009
Po' Monkey's Lounge on ABC Good Morning America
A Play List for driving around the Delta