Memorializing Blind Roosevelt Graves
Since the pandemic derailed our original campaign, the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund has renewed its campaign to mark the grave of Roosevelt Graves in Gulfport, MS
T. DeWayne Moore
About T. DeWayne Moore
Posts by DeWayne Moore:
State-Sponsored Erasure of Historic Sites in Virginia
In this republished ProPublica article, Seth Freed Wessler explains that, despite layers of federal and state regulations nominally intended to protect culturally significant sites, the expansion of a Microsoft data center inspired authorities in Virginia to desecrate a historic cemetery.
“Kansas City” Jim Jackson
This blog post not only explains the historical significance of Jim Jackson in the history of the blues, but it also introduces stakeholders to our efforts to mark his grave in the racially segregated Hernando Memorial Park Cemetery in Hernando, MS.
Miracle in Mississippi
In 2022, the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund received a grant from the MDNHA to write a National Register of Historic Places nomination for the jook joint of recording artist Alonzo Chatmon in Glen Allan, Mississippi. This blog post details the initial stage of the project.
Reconciling the Blues King
Although the Mississippi Blues Trail marker installed in 2009 to purportedly further “racial reconciliation” and rehabilitate the state’s image as an intransigent racist backwater claims that he was buried in Pelahatchie, Mississippi (based on the information written on his death certificate), his remains actually never made it back to the Magnolia State–a fact that Mexican American blues artist, custodian, and Mt. Zion Memorial Fund affiliate Gabriel Soria discovered in the early 1990s, when he raised the funds to mark his actual gravesite. Eschewing the Manifest Destiny-like memorialization process of the Blues Commission, Soria tracked down the descendants of the “Blues King,” learned the actual location of his remains, and worked with them to design and install his headstone in Union Cemetery in Bakersfield, California.
Oxford and Benton County, Mississippi
Oxford, Mississippi Meeting Burns Belfry Museum A very good and productive time indeed for Team Mt. Zion on May 19 […]