If asked to name the most famous, the most successful baseball pitchers in history, most sports enthusiasts would name Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson, Cy Young, Bob Feller, Whitey Ford, Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Roger Clemens . . .
The history of Mississippi’s capitals and capitols involves several towns and nearly a dozen buildings. Throughout Mississippi’s territorial period and well into its statehood, choosing a permanent capital and securing adequate meeting space for government officials were constant struggles.
When young civil rights workers arrived in Ruleville in the Mississippi Delta in 1962, they were looking for local Black people who could help convince their neighbors to register to vote. They found forty-four-year-old Fannie Lou Hamer.
Ida Bell Wells (1862-1931), one of the most important civil rights advocates of the 19th century, was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, just before the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. She was the first child of James Wells, an apprentice carpenter, and Elizabeth Warrenton, a cook.
The music called the blues that emerged from Mississippi has shaped the development of popular music in this country and around the world.
Turn on the radio. You might pick up some rock with some tough guitar riffs – or some rap. But put on Robert Johnson’s recording of “I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom,” and you’ll hear it all – set down in the 1930s by a man who combined elements of the music he heard with the genius that he got from God knows where – maybe the devil, if you want to believe the legend.
Mississippi is properly famous as the home of the blues and of the first star of rock and roll. It is also the home of Jimmie Rodgers, described by many as “The Father of Country Music.” Rodgers had two other nicknames during his career, “The Singing Brakeman,” which referred to his work on trains, and “America’s Blue Yodeler,” which described one of his distinctive contributions to country music.
When William Hollingsworth Jr. arrived in Chicago in 1930 his head was filled with a pragmatic, far-from-airy dream. As his chums back in his hometown of Jackson, Mississippi, trained for jobs as clerks, lawyers, businessmen, or engineers, he fancied success as a commercial artist.
George E. Ohr (1857-1918) has been called the first art potter in the United States, and many say the finest. Ohr was born in Biloxi, Mississippi, the son of young German immigrants, Johanna Wiedman and George Ohr. Both Alsatians, the Ohrs had moved to Biloxi after a brief stop in New Orleans, their port of entry in 1853. George Ohr Sr. established the first blacksmith shop in Biloxi and later opened the first grocery store there. His son, George Edgar Ohr, would grow up to be a flamboyant, dedicated potter and a memorable figure in his hometown.
Eudora Welty is one of America’s greatest writers. When she died in 2001, she left a substantial body of prose — fiction and non-fiction. Literary critics believe her work will become a more and more enduring fixture of the American literary canon, as scholars and readers continue to explore her works in order to understand them better.
Ruby Elzy was a sweet-voiced soprano from the hills of northeastern Mississippi who became a star of Broadway, radio, and the movies in the 1930s. She sang everywhere, from Harlem's Apollo Theater to the White House, and she created a highly acclaimed role in one of the greatest American operas ever written, Porgy and Bess.
Ruby Elzy overcame poverty and prejudice to become one of the most illustrious singers of her generation. Yet for many decades after her tragic death in 1943 at the age of 35, she was largely forgotten.