In October 2023, the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund sponsored the last of the RL Boyce Picnics in Como, Mississippi. Even though we did not know it at the time, it proved the last time that RL Boyce would hold court over the event prior to his passing on November 9.
In 2024, the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund started to conduct historical research on perhaps the most important historic site in Clarksdale—the Riverside Hotel, and this blog post explains how you can be a part of the participatory research process!
In this re-published article from the Jackson Clarion Ledger, one journalist finds the mystery surrounding the blues trail marker honoring legendary bluesman Mississippi John Hurt and the cause of the Mississippi John Hurt Museum fire as winding as the maze of narrow roads that crisscross the eastern edge of the Delta.
The third installment of Tim Kendall’s “Story from the Heart” explores the development of the 1997 Sunflower River Blues Festival. Featuring the return performance of Clarksdale native Ike Turner, who headlined the event at his own expense, the event proved a milestone in the history of blues tourism in the Mississippi Delta.
Tim Kendall and Bill Barth bought ‘The Crossroads’ bar in Clarksdale under the impression that there was some kind of tourist industry in the Delta. In the second installment of this series, Kendall explains the nature of the Mississippi tourist industry–which did not include the entire Mississippi Delta, let alone Clarksdale.
This article is the first in a series by Tim Kendall, a blues enthusiast and photographer from the United Kingdom, who, along with musician Bill Barth in the 1990s, purchased “The Crossroads” bar in Clarksdale, Mississippi from Mt. Zion Memorial Fund founder Raymond “Skip” Henderson.
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