Mamie "Galore" Davis Memorial Dedication

Capturing Black Culture on Film

Capturing Black Culture on Film

By Bill Nichols - 1982

Roland Freeman is driven by dreams that can hide in the guise of demons.

Just watch him as he talks. He coils and uncoils in his chair, tenses his body or tosses back his head in a horselaugh, all depending on the mood of the moment, as a stream of ideas flow forth, racking his body like the pains of labor.

He's a man driven by a vision of history.

Southern Roads/City Pavements, the exhibit of this acclaimed photographer's work on display at the Old Capitol Museum, offers a major clue toward understanding Freeman's artistic obsession. It's the latest compilation of work from an artist/documentarian who intends nothing less than crystallizing the black experience within a lens frame before it is buried like a relic of a lost civilization.

That dream pushes this young black photographer all over the world in search of black culture. Southern Roads/City Pavements pairs pictures shot in 13 counties in southwest Mississippi with photos of urban New York, Baltimore and Chicago, and Freeman is certain of the similarities, the shared tradition, even of the most dissimilar places.

He's developed an eye for the black soul. But it wasn't always that way.

Freeman was born some 44 years ago in Baltimore in the midst of the Depression and lived the street life to the fullest until he was 13, when he was sent to live on a Maryland tobacco farm. It was there he learned the love for the land that is so evident in his pictures of rural farmers.

He grew up some more, joined the Air Force, won a Brownie camera in a crap game and became interested in a growing American civil rights movement. One march led to another until Aug. 28, 1963.

The march on Washington occurred that day and would forever more change Freeman's life.

"I was so choked up watching that march that I knew I wanted to say something," Freeman said. Photography quickly revealed itself as his voice.

The Poor People's Campaign March

"Most people starting photography don't know what they want to say," Freeman said, reminiscing about his start. "I knew from the beginning." He studied the work of Gordon Parks and Roy DeCarava, tried and experimented for about five years and in 1968 found himself documenting the Poor People's Campaign march from Marks to Washington, D.C.

The Farm Security Administration documentaries from the Depression fascinated this young artist. "I thought to myself, `If white people were hurting this much, hell, what were the black folks doing?' "Freeman said.

He went on to work for Life Magazine, string for the prestigious Magnum photographic service in Washington and generally become "a pretty hotshot Washington photographer," in Freeman's words.

Yet his real vocation had yet to begin. He always had been fascinated by black traditions in Baltimore, and began photographing street scenes during off-hours. "I didn't even realize what I was doing was folklore," he said as he laughed about his beginnings in the documentary trade.

The Smithsonian Institution knew better. In 1972, Freeman was asked to contribute pictures to the Smithsonian's yearly folklore festival. That association led him to a job in 1974, shooting pictures in Mississippi for the 1974 festival, and finally his own project in 1975, called the Mississippi Folklife project, which Freeman worked on with folklorist Worth Long, a man Freeman calls a brother, "one of those elusive geniuses."

All of which led Freeman down the path to Southern Roads/City Pavements, an extension of the work he began with Long in 1975. The exhibit opened in the New York international Center of Photography before coming to Jackson and New York Times photo critic Gene Thornton described his work as going, "beyond reportage to express something that is universal and lasting."

That pleased Freeman immensely, but the drive goes on. Much remains to be done. After all, this is a man who describes his creative process as "working on raw guts. I work on a lot of nervous, mad energy."

He wants to catalog a black heritage he is intensely proud of, a tradition he maintains exists in spite of the black migration from the South to the economic opportunities of the city.

A city boy by birth, Freemen loves the simplicity and honesty of farm people and that love shines forth in his work.

"What some people call hick is hipper than the people who think they're hip," he said.

The anger he felt in the civil rights period has transformed into the objectivity of the documentarian. "I'm interested in how black people have survived. We've been subject to a mass conspiracy through the Western world, yet we've managed to educate people, sustain a culture and move into mainstream American life," he said.

Southern Roads/City Pavements will remain at the Old Capitol Museum until March 14, but Roland Freeman's work will go on the rest of his life. Commercial assignments, for clients like the World Bank, pay his bills, and his documentary work keeps the energy flowing.

Freeman leaves you certain of his belief in his art. His eyes glaze, the hands swirl in an inadequate attempt to describe what only a photographer's eye can conjure.

The demons subside, the dreams are given form, molded with the press of a finger, the quiet click of a tiny shutter.

The Headstone of Sonny Boy Williamson II: The Foundation of Blues Tourism Sits in Tutwiler

The Headstone of Sonny Boy Williamson II:
The Foundation of Blues Tourism Sits in Tutwiler 

The back of Williamson's Grave

In the early 1900s, the only way across the Mississippi at Helena. Ark., was a ferry run by Harold Jenkins, father of country singer Conway Twitty. The ferry closed at midnight. "which was good in my favor," says Mrs. Hill. who still runs the hotel, when they were playing juke joints in Clarksdale or nearby towns. 

"When they had to stay over, they stayed with me," she says. The musicians kept a piano on the premises, and the place rang with music.

Mrs. Hill was a good friend of Sonny Boy Williamson, a flamboyant harmonica player and singer who was featured on the popular live radio show King Biscuit Time on station KFFA in Helena. The show's sponsor, Interstate Grocery Co., manufactured Sonny Boy Corn Meal, featuring a drawing of Williamson playing his harmonica while sitting barefoot on an ear of corn.

During the 1960s, Williamson became popular with the rock generation. He played extensively in Europe and considered moving there. But, sensing that he was dying, he returned home a few months before his death in 1965. 

Mrs. Hill recalls that Williamson stopped by one Sunday afternoon and found that she was taking a nap. "Wake her up." he demanded. "I want to play some music." 

"He played in front of my window, on my porch," she recalls. "Oh he had a crowd that Sunday. It didn't take him long to draw a crowd. He went on, and a few days later he was dead." 

Williamson's body was found in the second-floor apartment he kept over a business in downtown Helena. According to King Biscuit Time announcer Sonny Payne, the downstairs business in those days was the Dreamland Cafe. If that sounds like a touch worthy of Tennessee Williams, you'll be interested to know that the late playwright once lived in Clarksdale. 

Williamson's grave is near Tutwiler, which is on U.S. 49. about 15 miles southeast of Clarksdale. No signs point the way, but it's not hard to find someone to direct you down a country road to the churchyard. Unlike in the 1980s, you won't find the musician's grave overgrown. 

McMurry's Rough Draft (c. 1976)

The idea for the headstone came about in Jackson, Mississippi.  Lillian McMurry and the board of directors of Globe Music Corporation met in Jackson to discuss promotions and the music business on December 3, 1976.  Since she wanted to “to get some publicity” for its blues catalogue, McMurry made a motion “to design and purchase a headstone/memorial” to place on the grave of Sonny Boy Williamson II in Tutwiler.  She estimated that the marker and memorial service might cost as much as $1,500.  The motion was seconded and carried on a vote. On December 14, 1976, McMurry commissioned Davidson Marble & Granite Works, of Canton, to provide an upright granite monument for placement on the blues musician’s grave in Tutwiler.  It cost $654.75.  On March 5, 1977, McMurry reported to the board that the “headstone was in the process of being set as per her conversations with Davidson Marble Works.”  The board, however, decided “to do nothing definite right now about a memorial service.”

The grave is in Tutwiler because his two surviving sisters, Mary Ashford and Julia Barner, lived and died in the city.  The late blues researcher Bill Donoghue erected a marker in their honor following their deaths in the 1990s.

Tutwiler is a fitting place for a great bluesman's final resting place because it's also the place where W.C. Handy claimed to have had his first encounter with the blues, around the turn of the century. 

SBW II's Sister's Graves

Handy, who orchestrated and popularized the folk music of his people and created such standards as St. Louis Blues, was a classically trained musician who had expressed little interest in the work songs and field hollers he'd heard. But he later recalled that his interest was piqued when. on a visit to play at a Tutwiler hotel. he was introduced to the weirdest music I'd ever heard." 

During a long night of waiting for a late train in the Tutwiler station, a ragged-looking man sat beside him and began playing a guitar. sliding a knife up and down the strings to produce a moaning, voice-like sound. Picking out a complex rhythm, he sang. repeating a line about "going where the Southern cross the Dog." a reference to the intersection of two railroads in Moorhead, Miss. Handy incorporated that line into his Yellow Dog Blues. 

In the 1980s and 1990s, tourists often made unsuccessful attempts to find the grave of the legendary harmonica player, and the gas station attendant often steered them to the small Whitfield Baptist Church. 

Beside it, in what looked like nothing more than weeds from the road, was the headstone with Williamson's picture cut into it. The grave was decidedly off the beaten track, but others had made the trek too. Fans often left harmonicas, guitar picks, even a pint of whiskey on the headstone. 

"It's this diamond of headstone, yet it's overgrown with weeds," said Joe Zochowski, host of Nothing But the Blues on WFYI-FM (90.1) in Indianapolis. "You have to look for it, to tramp through the weeds and cut through the briars and the B.S. to get to the heart of it. But people are willing to do it because they care that much about the music. That's a metaphor for the blues to me." 

The Charleston (MS) Sun Sentinel, Nov 29, 1990.

The 1st Annual Tutwiler Blues Festival 

The first Tutwiler Blues Festival was held in late November 1990 in the town's Railroad Park. Mayor Gary Shepherd and the city sponsored the fundraising event and proceeds from donations were supposed to help memorialize Sonny Boy Williamson II, the well-known blues musician who grew up in Tutwiler and was buried in a nearby plantation cemetery.

"We plan to buy a bronze plaque to go in the park in his honor and to put up road signs on the highway showing how to get to the place he is buried," said Shepherd. 

The headliner was none other than will be T.J. Wheeler of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the famous breeding ground of farmers who sold their souls to the devil and got an honest defense from an attorney named Daniel Webster - "The Devil and Daniel Webster" (1937).  In an attempt to undo the legacy of these weak-minded farmers from his home state (that's a joke about soul-sellers), Wheeler traveled the country performing and delivering his anti-drug message of "hope, not dope." (not a joke, just a good man)
The mayor said the blues artist plans to make an appearance in several local Tallahatchie County schools while in the area.  As a part of Saturday's activities, the Tutwiler Lions Club had the sight van in the town to screen festival-goers for eye diseases such as glaucoma. Lions members also manned the concession stand to provide refreshments. 

"I'm hoping it'll be a big success," said Shepherd. "I'm looking for several thousand people to show up." He said he expects blues followers from out-of-town. The mayor noted that the festival, if successful, could become an annual event in the town.  In the end, $100 was raised for the Sonny Boy Blues Society, which maintained the site for a while.  Some folks gave lip service to disinterment and reburial in Helena, but the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund obtained a grant for local nuns, who maintained the property into the new millennium.

Payne Chapel Marker Dedication--Last Performance of Johnny Shines

Ignorance, Priviledge, and Self-Interest Equal Exploitation Not Honor: The Activism and Victimhood of Johnny Tombstone and the Intellectual Foundations of the Killer Blues Headstone Project

In late 1990, Living Blues magazine published an article suggesting, among other things, that Johnson was buried at Payne Chapel Missionary Baptist Church in Quito--about 2 miles from Mt. Zion MB Church--Morgan City. One woman, at least, remembered it that way. Known as Queen Elizabeth, Ms. Elizabeth Thomas claimed she was once Robert Johnson's girlfriend and she recalls his burial at Payne Chapel. She even pointed out the gravesite--about 30 yards from the white-frame church, near an old tree stump. "It's my gut feeling that it's at Payne," exclaimed Peter Lee, editor of Living Blues, "but I could never prove it. Who knew for sure?"

Skip Henderson wasn't sure, but he planned to erect a marker at Payne Chapel as well as install a brand new PA system--donated by Harley Peavey.  He had the PA installed inside the white-frame church, but a band from Atlanta had plans of their own for the burial ground....

"Admirers Mark Blues Musician's Grave" 

by Tiffany Tyson 

Delta blues king Robert Johnson no longer lies in an unmarked grave. A group of Johnson's admirers, musicians from Atlanta, Ga., placed a marker on his reported gravesite in the cemetery at Payne Chapel Missionary Baptist (MB) Church. They were accompanied by Johnson's boyhood friend and fellow blues singer, Johnny Shines. 

Stevie Tombstone, lead guitarist for the Atlanta-based band the Tombstones, said, "It's a shame that there wasn't a marker there already. (Johnson) was a big influence on our music and we just decided to do it. Once we had the opportunity, we just did it. 

When Stevie says opportunity he means money. Although the Tombstones have been playing together for about six years in clubs and colleges, they just signed their first big recording contract with Relativity Records. With their first advance check from the contract the three-sometimes four-member band bought the 125 pound marker for the grave of Robert Johnson. 

The Tombstones purchased this flat stone grave marker in honor of Robert Johnson, which sits on the spot pointed out by Queen Elizabeth.

The marker is tasteful. It says simply: 

"Robert Johnson, Born -May 8, 1911, Died - August 16, 1938, Resting in the Blues."

Rick Richards of the band Georgia Satellites was also at the service. `The way I see it, if it weren't for the blues we wouldn't have a job." 

Greenwood Commonwealth, Feb 28, 1991

Shines, who lives in Tuscaloosa, Ala., said, think he should have had a headstone a long time ago. His influence meant a lot to a lot of people and I'm glad to see this finally happening." 

While there are many rumors that blues music is associated with voodoo and Robert Johnson was reported to have made a pact with the devil, Shines said that blues is the basis of all other modern music. He explained that slaves used music to get messages across the fields to each other. This lyrical communication became a way of life that is now called the blues. I have a God given talent to play the blues," he said. "If you don't use your talents they'll be taken away from you." Shines says he has proof of that. "In 1978 I quit playing the blues, and in '80 I suffered a stroke that paralyzed my left hand. I've started playing again now and my hand is coming back." 

Greenwood Commonwealth,
Feb 28, 1991

Shines played one of the most famous Robert Johnson songs, "Crossroads," at the gravesite after the stone was laid. Stevie, Richards, folklorist Charles Locke and Tombstone manager Andrew Adler stood by silently, heads bowed, listening with the reverence usually reserved for religious services. 

And it was a religious service of sorts. While Robert Johnson has had a cult following among blues enthusiasts, the myths about his associations with the devil have kept his life and death shrouded in mystery. He was buried without a funeral service and no stone was ever placed a the gravesite. The only marker there was a small pot, rumored to be a sort of collection plate. People place money in the pot to buy Johnson's soul back from the devil. At last count, someone had contributed one penny. 

But now, 53 years after he with reportedly poisoned, he has been properly laid to rest with a marker and a service befitting the man known best as 'The King of the Delta Blues." 

Shines passed away the following year,
Greenwood Commonwealth, Apr 20, 1992.

Johnson was reportedly poisoned at a have down the road from Payne Chapel church, located a few miles from lila Bena. 'there have also been reports that he was stabbed, although the cause of death is officially pneumonia.

No one in the group wanted to speculate about his deals with the devil or the varied myths about when and where he was killed.  They just wanted to remember a man they consider a friend.

The 1992 Robert Johnson Memorial Blues
Festival (Greenwood) was dedicated to Shines. 

Click HERE for more on Johnny Shines 
Shines explained Johnson's death this way. "Robert was versatile and he was way ahead of his time. That's why he had to die and that's why someone will come back and be as great as Robert Johnson was. I don't know who it will be yet, but someone will come back." 

Johnson's music is still alive and well. Columbia Records, who has been releasing Johnson's music regularly since his death, recently put out a two CD reissue set. "Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings," has gone gold. 

The Tombstones, a band from Atlanta, had signed a record deal after several years on the road.  The band used some of its advance to purchase a flat marker for Robert Johnson and dedicate it at Payne Chapel.  Johnny Shines attended the graveside service, and despite his ill health, even performed a few songs.  The Mt. Zion Memorial Fund had already planned to commission a separate cenotaph to erect at Payne Chapel,  but the Tombstones and a retired Johnny Shines did the honors themselves.  Everyone at the time felt it in their bones that his remains were at Payne Chapel.