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A boy plays basketball at a community court in Mound Bayou, Miss. Carl shields himself from the midday sun in Memphis, Tn. A cross inside the window of Payne Church in Quito, Miss. One of the three supposed burial sites of Robert Johnson sits behind this church. The site of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tn. Portraits of Elvis “The King” Presley hang at Tops Bar-B-Q restaurant in Memphis, Tn. Friends dance at Wild Bill’s bar in Memphis, Tn. Jessie Clay performs at Hurricane Social Club in Cleveland, Miss. A woman plays the jukebox at Wild Bill’s bar in Memphis, Tn. Bill Hony, artist and archaeologist, inside his home near Rising Sun, Miss. Leo “Bud” Welch, blues musician, inside his home in Bruce, Miss. Henry fishing in the Little Sunflower River in Clarksdale, Miss. A petroleum plant outside of Kenner, La. from inside the Amtrak train. A man works to get his car out of a ditch after driving off the road outside of Quito, Miss. A car sits in a driveway in Clarksdale, Miss. Isaac lays on the ground after falling off his skateboard in Jackson, Miss. Discarded pieces of cotton at a cotton gin in Quito, Miss. Nebraska “The King” Johnson, 96 years old, in front of his neighbor’s home in Baptist Town, Miss. A basketball court overtaken by kudzu in McComb, Miss. A view out of the train window outside of Magnolia, Miss. A man walks down the street as seen out of the train window in Yazoo City, Miss. Industrial train cars as seen from the train in Magnolia, Miss. A large industrial plant as seen from the train in Arcola, Miss. Beer bottles sit under a tree at Wonderlight City, a juke joint in Alligator, Miss. North Farish Street in Jackson, Miss. Storefront in Jackson, Miss. “Lil B.B. King” performs at Red’s, a juke joint in Clarksdale, Miss. Two men play dominos into the evening in Greenwood, Miss. St. John Church in Roebuck, Miss. A group of friends gather for a front yard barbeque in Mound Bayou, Miss. A family sits on their stoop in Baptist Town, Miss. Graffiti in Jackson, Miss. A woman with curlers in her hair in Baptist Town, Miss. Author Eudora Welty’s desk inside her home in Jackson, Miss. A turtle crosses the road outside of Merigold, Miss.

The Amtrak “City of New Orleans” train departs from the Crescent City, cuts a line through the heart of The Mississippi Delta, and terminates in Chicago. I rode the train north to Memphis then spent the better part of a week driving through The Delta exploring the landscape, checkered with lush cotton fields and scarred with the remnants of decayed industry—an almost too obvious metaphor for the region’s complex history. A history that shaped the musical, culinary, and economic identity of America; yet, at the same time, established a system of racism and inequality that has yet to be confronted honestly.

It would be easy to interpret many of these photographs through the shallow lens of poverty and struggle, but that would miss the fertile undercurrent of optimism that I encountered at every stop along the way. From Baptist churches to back porches, in the laughter of kids at corner stores and in the histories recounted in the familiar din of dive bars, there was an almost musical momentum as if everyone and everything was on its way somewhere even if no one knew exactly where.

Bill Hony, retired archaeologist and self-appointed Delta historian, of Rising Sun, MS lovingly and un-ironically, refers to The Delta as The Wishbone, presumably in reference to the shape made by the convergence of the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers. As an outsider, I struggle to reconcile the economic poverty with the cultural wealth, the racism with the collective identity, the spirit of pride with the shadow of a dark history. But, where I see apparent contradictions, Bill sees a region balanced—turning oppression into opportunity and hardship into song. In a way, The Delta has always made its own luck.

The Wishbone for The National

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