Abstract
Unlike Georgia and Alabama which have had large civil rights museums for many years, Mississippi is just beginning to acknowledge and memorialize this part of its history. Since 2005, visitors to Neshoba County, infamous for the murder of civil rights workers Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney, have been able to obtain copies of the African-American Heritage Driving Tour which directs tourists to nine points of interest associated with the 1964 killings. In examining this development, my aim is to highlight the diverse political, economic and psychological motives underlying civil rights tourism and the formation of the Philadelphia Coalition which came together to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the murders. In specific, this paper argues that civil rights tourism rests on four convergent trends: 1) the interest of the business community in re-imaging Mississippi, 2) the formation of a fragile alliance between white conservatives and moderate African-American leaders, 3) the search for redemption among white Christians, and 4) a growing concern over who will write Mississippi’s recent history.
Highlights
From Civil War to Civil RightsCivil War tourism in the South is legendary
Civil rights tourism is far younger and less developed; since 2005, visitors to the Community Development Partnership in Philadelphia, Mississippi have been able to pick up copies of the handsomely designed AfricanAmerican Heritage Driving Tour next to promotional literature for the Neshoba County Fair and the Choctaw Indian Fair
I interviewed more than twenty individuals including several employees of the Mississippi Office of Tourism, a number of civic leaders I met during the Killen trial, the three Neshoba County tour guides who lead civil rights tours, and several members of the Philadelphia Coalition
Summary
Civil War tourism in the South is legendary. In addition to visiting the Vicksburg National Military Park with its 1325 historic monuments, its twenty miles of reconstructed trenches, and its 144 canons, one can take a virtual, online tour of the grounds and stop at any of the 23 memorials that have been photographed and archived. As I point out below, for example, it is clear that for some Coalition members (and non-coalition activists) the Killen trial, the 40th anniversary of the killings, and the new tour, represented an “opening” which would reveal untold truths about local history, and, perhaps, lead to the prosecution of other Klansmen. Others, saw these events as “acts of redemption,” and a way of putting “closure” on an event which has psychologically scared Philadelphia, MS for decades. As Horowitz points out in the opening epigram, can be seen in the uneasy juxtapositions that abound in Mississippi and other parts of the south, where street signs mark the intersection of Jefferson Davis Boulevard with Martin Luther King Drive
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