The DETOURIST Pete Candler

Back on Episode One, I told you about Hurricane Plantation on Davis Bend south of Vicksburg, a plantation owned by the brother of the President of the Confederacy. I told you then that the story of Hurricane Bend has another chapter. This episode is that chapter, the next chapter in the story of Davis Bend. Mississippi: the establishment of pioneering all-Black settlement in the Mississippi Delta. Join us as we stop in Mound Bayou, learn about how white people co-opted and sentimentalized a landmark of Black independence, and how its visionary founder ultimately contributed to the vengeful return of white supremacy to Mississippi law in 1890. This is The DETOURIST.
This week’s episode features a special excerpt from my forthcoming book, A DEEPER SOUTH: The Beauty, Mystery, and Sorrow of the Southern Road. Available for pre-order now!
[00:00:00] Didn’t See That One Coming: How Jefferson Davis’s Brother Influenced The Foundation of an All-Black Town
[00:03:06] Mississippi 1890: We Don’t Like Equality After All
[00:06:02] An Experiment in Eccentricity
[00:08:36] Here Come the Whites
[00:11:04] The Crowe’s Nest: The Signs Don’t Say Everything
[00:12:53] Mound Bayou Hitches Its Wagon to the Booker T. Washington Express Train
[00:14:32] “A Noble Speech” Has Disastrous Results
[00:20:00] Frederick Douglass Would Like a Word
[00:22:49] The Delta Is Ready When You Are


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An inconspicuous address in the heart of the Mississippi Delta turns out to have enormous significance for American politics and history. This is the story of 626 East Lafayette St. in Ruleville and what it means for us. Join me as we explore Sunflower County, Mississippi, a region rife with contradictions, with villains and saints—home to Mississippi's notorious state penitentiary, site of the until-recently erased site of Emmett Till's final moments, the home of one of America's most prominent voices for white supremacy and segregation, and also the home of one of the nation’s most powerful voices for freedom. This is the DETOURIST.
[00:00:00] An Inconspicuous Address
[00:02:00] Same Street, Different Worlds: Fannie Lou Hamer and James O. Eastland
[00:04:00] A Revolution Begins in a Brick Church in Ruleville
[00:06:37] A Simple Song Lights a Flame
[00:09:29] Misruleville: Sunflower County
[00:11:17] A Procession to a Barn
[00:15:58] A Tale of Two High Schools
[00:17:57] Chinese Groceries, Tamales, Italian Beef Sandwiches: The Delta’s Micro-cultures
[00:21:49] The Civil Rights Movement Hobbles into Atlantic City
[00:24:17] The President is Getting Antsy
[00:29:41] A Black Sharecropper Helps Capsize 20th Century American Party Politics
[00:33:21] You Are Warmly Invited to a National Crisis of Conscience




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In this dispatch from our virtual road trip through the American South, we travel north from Greenwood into Leflore County, once the most violent county in Mississippi. We encounter overlooked and forgotten stories, including the history of African American emigration, memory and willful amnesia on Money Road, and how a forgotten massacre in the 19th century and generations of anti-Black violence in Leflore County helped to create the culture that enabled the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till. Join us as we run up against the persistent genie-souls of the Mississippi Delta, who continue to turn everything upside-down.
[0:00] Two Roads Diverged in Greenwood
[0:43] The Evacuation of Leflore County
[1:59] Losing it All on the Money Road
[3:34] Choosing What to Remember and What to Forget in Money
[7:20] The Most Violent County in Mississippi
[8:06] Why We Need to Remember Emmett Till
[9:34] The Forgotten Massacre of Leflore County
[18:15] The Power of Memory and the Danger of Forgetfulness
[22:46] A Hall of Injustice Becomes a House of Praise


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In this episode, we continue our captivating journey through the Mississippi Delta, a land steeped in blues music, cultural heritage, and the unexpected. From meeting the blues in person in Leland, to an unexpected encounter with the world’s most famous frog, to an accidentally famous restaurant in Greenwood and its courageous waiter, to the spiritual birthplace of Stokely Carmichael’s calls for “Black power,” and the last nights of Robert Johnson and Emmett Till, prepare to have your perceptions screwed up for good. As we navigate east along US 278 from Greenville to Greenwood, I invite you to join me as we explore the profound stories the Delta has to tell. Welcome to “The Detourist.”
[0:00] Leland, Mississippi: The Land of Blues
[1:20] It’s Not Easy Being Green in The Mississippi Delta
[2:13] The Muppets Take Mississippi
[4:36] All the Blues Come About on Account of Cotton
[7:14] The Troubling Beauty of the Mississippi Delta
[8:14] Greenwood: Capital of the Cotton Kingdom
[10:38] Southern Restaurants are Never Just about the Food: Lusco’s
[12:04] Booker Wright: “Double Consciousness” In the Flesh
[15:25] “Black Power” Hits Primetime
[20:34] The Delta, Land of Unlearning
[22:02] The Last Nights of Robert Johnson and Emmett Till


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In this episode of our road trip through the landscape of memory in the American South, we stumble into Greenville, Mississippi, a town with a surprisingly rich past and a unique relationship with the Mississippi River. We will explore the impact of the devastating 1927 flood, how it shaped American culture, and how it occasioned in the Percy family an internecine conflict of Shakespearean magnitude. We will look at the impact of the flood and of Southern aristocratic stoicism on Will Percy, who both upheld and defied societal norms in the region, and became a godfather to a generation of Southern writers, including his cousin Walker. This one has it all: pathos, drama, virtue, vice, and gambling. Welcome to “The Detourist.”
[0:00] Introduction and Journey Begins[1:03] They Said It’d be Daft to Build a Town on the Mississippi River[2:21] Dead Mules in the Foyer: The Great Flood of 1927[4:55] Tumblin’ Dice on the Other Side of the Levee[5:44] Greenville, Fiefdom of the Cotton Kingdom[6:56] The Percys of Greenville[8:27] LeRoy Percy: Doomed Flight of the Silver Eagle[10:21] “The Rout of the Aristocrats: The Percys and the Bilbos”[15:14] Will Percy: Episcopalian Melancholic[19:27] An Unlikely “Center of Cultural Dissent”[26:14] High and Dry on the Levee[35:06] The Mississippi Delta is America


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Our road trip through the Mississippi Delta continues north from Vicksburg, into the little hamlet of Glen Allan. In this episode, we dive into the legacy of Stark Young, a forgotten but not inconsequential figure in Mississippi literature. Discover what Stark Young’s work has to do with the ruins of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Glen Allan. Get ready for a thought-provoking journey through history and culture in the Mississippi Delta. Welcome to THE DETOURIST.
[0:00] Only Faulkner Survives[3:21] Stark Takes a Stand[8:01] What Do You Mean “We,” White Man?[13:59] Mississippi Coventry: Glen Allan[20:55] Breaking the Spell of Southern Sentimentalism[28:07] The Heights of the Mississippi Bottoms



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