Parchman Farm, more formally known as Mississippi
State Penitentiary, is located in unincorporated Sunflower County in the heart
of the Mississippi Delta. As the state’s only maximum-security prison, as well
as the oldest penal institution in the state, it was constructed largely by the
very same prisoners who would become the first to experience life within its
confines. As a working prison farm, inmates,
to this day, serve their sentence by working in state-owned agricultural
fields, or in the onsite manufacturing workshops-ultimately generating revenue
for the state. Since its creation at the
turn of the 20th century, Parchman Farm has been a unique character in the
narrative of the Magnolia State. The
prison has been home to several notable blues musicians, including Bukka White
and Son House. Its distinctive form of labor-intensive rehabilitation inspired
many numbers of blues songs to be written about the facility, ultimately
becoming an informal incubator of sorts for pre-war delta blues. In 1939, folklorist Alan Lomax recorded White
and multiple others at the farm for the Library of Congress. In addition to its
rich delta blues history, the facility also served as an integral component to
the civil rights movement after becoming a brief home to the 1963 “freedom
riders” upon their arrest. In 2005 Tim
Climer, the (at the time) executive director of the Sunflower County Economic
Development District, stated that he wanted to develop Parchman Farm as a
tourist attraction by establishing an interpretive center. I take this as an
invitation, as well as an obligation, to participate and
contribute-implementing my past work along with future research, student
participation, site visits, interviews, and an unprecedented level of
appreciation of all thing’s delta blues, towards the thoughtful schematic
design of a compelling interpretive center.
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