Organized by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, this annual spring tour focuses on the Mississippi Delta’s legendary literature, blues, and food, along with its often-tumultuous history. The tour is based in Greenwood, with day trips to Greenville and Clarksdale. We will take a close look at the tour’s home base, Greenwood, and include new excursions to Cleveland, Leland, and Carrollton.

This year the Delta tour will consider a tumultuous period in Mississippi history—the Mississippi civil rights movement—through a lively conversation on the bestselling novel The Help, by Kathryn Stockett. Literary scholar Marion Barnwell, UM journalism professor Deidra Jackson, and historian Mary Carol Miller will discuss the Delta during the Mississippi civil rights movement (a great deal of which occurred in Greenwood), the role of women (actual and fictional) in the movement, how the movement was portrayed in The Help, and controversies and praise regarding the novel and the subsequent blockbuster film. We will also take a guided bus tour of more than a dozen sites in Greenwood and the surrounding area that appear in the film. The day will end with a tour of and cocktails and dinner at Cotesworth in Carrollton—the historic house used as Celia Foote’s home in the movie.

At the Cutrer Mansion in Clarksdale, University of Mississippi film and literature scholar Jack Barbera will give a talk on Tennessee Williams’s Delta plays and screenplays, including 27 Wagons Full of Cotton, Baby Doll, Tiger Tail, and Orpheus Descending and its versions. At St. George’s Episcopal Church we will explore Tennessee’s childhood as grandson of the church’s rector.

We will also visit the art studio of folk artist Carolyn Norris, with novelist and scholar Dorothy Shawan, in Cleveland and tour the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center in Indianola. Other stops will include Club Ebony in Indianola, various art galleries across the Delta, Turnrow Book Company in Greenwood, Cathead Records and Folk Art in Clarksdale, and McCormick Book Inn in Greenville. Other guides across the Delta will include Delta State University scholars Luther Brown and Henry Outlaw. Author and literary critic Marion Barnwell will speak in Greenwood on local authors, and architectural historian Mary Carol Miller will give a historical tour of the city.

The Delta tour is $600 per person for all program activities, eight meals at local restaurants and by Delta caterers, and local transportation. The fee does not include lodging. Remember to sign up early. Only 40 spots are available, and they will go fast.

Group accommodations are offered at the Alluvian, in downtown Greenwood (www.thealluvian.com). Rooms at the Alluvian require a separate registration and are priced at a discounted rate of $170.00 a night plus tax, which includes a full, Southern breakfast. Call 866-600-5201 and ask for the “Literary Tour” rate. Rooms are also available at the Greenwood Best Western, 662-455-5777, or the Hampton Inn, 662-455-7985.

For new and updated information please contact tour organizer Jimmy Thomas via e-mail at jgthomas@olemiss.edu or by telephone at 662-915-3374.