There’s a reason Greenwood, Mississippi, has been called “The Most Southern Place on Earth.”
Located in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, Greenwood provides a combination of music, food and fun in a Delta region. Greenwood’s unique and sometimes tragic history helped spark the Civil Rights Movement and inspired Hollywood to film “The Help” in town.
Groups can enjoy everything from cooking classes at the downtown headquarters of luxury appliance-maker Viking to music from local greats like B.B. King and Bobbie Gentry. Visitors can relax by floating on the scenic Tallahatchie, Yalobusha or Yazoo rivers or shopping at Greenwood’s charming downtown antique shops.
“People say we are so nice to come up, introduce ourselves and ask where they are from,” said Ashley Farmer, executive director of the Greenwood Convention and Visitors Bureau. “There is a lot of history of the blues here, a lot of the Civil Rights Movement happened here, and we are a foodie destination.”
Southern Charm
It all starts in Greenwood’s historic downtown. The city’s centerpiece is The Alluvian, a four-story, 50-room boutique hotel offering a classic Southern breakfast and featuring art from Mississippians on every floor. The Mississippi Delta is considered an alluvial plain, which is how The Alluvian got its name. Every Thursday night in the hotel lobby, musicians play classic blues before dinner is served.
Downtown stores feature pottery made from native clay, and groups can take cooking classes at the Viking Cooking School near The Alluvian hotel. At the school, student chefs — ranging from novices to seasoned cooks — gather in stadium seating to learn how to make traditional Southern delicacies, and participants can sample the dishes after the demonstrations.
“A chef prepares food, and they bring the dishes out to be served,” Farmer said. “They serve ‘The Help’ menu, which is fried chicken, turnip greens, mac and cheese, biscuits and cornbread and Minnie’s Pie.”
Guests can also visit The Alluvian Spa, which offers sweet tea in addition to face and body care, massage therapy, therapeutic baths, hand and foot care and hair services.
Soul Mates
The Delta’s history of hard work and self-deprecating humor shines through in its music. It’s no wonder that several of the world’s most acclaimed blues pioneers grew up in Greenwood. These masters helped birth the blues — one of the most important influences of American popular music — through legends like Guitar Slim, Furry Lewis and Robert Johnson.
A marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail commemorates the final resting place of Johnson at the rural Little Zion Missionary Baptist Church, and Johnson influenced other artists such as Muddy Waters and Elmore James with notable blues standards like “Sweet Home Chicago.”
B.B. King is another music legend who was born outside Greenwood and later returned to the area. The B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center in Indianola tells the story of King’s life and international career.
Visitors today also enjoy live blues at the newly renovated Club Ebony, one of the South’s most important African American nightclubs. Seven years before his passing in 2015, King purchased the venue to keep the club’s famous traditions alive.
Groups also visit the locations in Greenwood where Emma Stone and Viola Davis starred in “The Help.” Directed by Jackson, Mississippi, native Tate Taylor, the 2011 film based on Kathryn Stockett’s novel depicted the discrimination that Black people faced across the South. Many groups watch the film prior to their stay in Greenwood and enjoy seeing film locations, like the home where the tea party scenes were filmed.
Milestones
This August marks the 70th anniversary of the murder of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black teenager whose shocking death galvanized the birth of the Civil Rights Movement.
There is a nine-foot bronze statue of Till that was unveiled in Greenwood in October 2022 to coincide with the release of “Till,” a movie documenting the transformation of his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, into a Civil Rights activist. Hundreds of people attended the statue’s unveiling, not far from where white men kidnapped and brutally killed Till over accusations he had flirted with a white woman at Bryant’s Grocery.
Tour groups visit where Till lived with his great-uncle, Moses Wright. Martin Luther King Jr. subsequently stirred crowds during visits to Greenwood, and it was in Greenwood that Stokely Carmichael, one of the original Freedom Riders, gave impassioned speeches.
Other notable destinations include the Museum of the Mississippi Delta, which houses pieces produced by Mississippi artists and is home to one of the nation’s largest collections of Native American beads and pottery. Famous guitars from B.B. King and other greats can be seen at the museum. The exhibit, called America at the Crossroads: History of America Through the Guitar, explains how Mississippi shaped American music “six strings at a time.”
“A tour group would never forget visiting Greenwood because of its rich history, unique culture, Southern hospitality and deep connections to the Civil Rights Movement,” Farmer said. “Our Southern food scene is unforgettable, from fried catfish to hot tamales. As we like to say, no one leaves hungry.”
