It is difficult to write about the Delta at this moment, without acknowledging the terrible tragedy of the tornadoes that hit Rolling Fork and the lower Mississippi Delta. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the people who were affected.
Ryan and I will be celebrating the release of Hidden History of the Mississippi Delta at Lemuria at noon on April 8. With this book, Ryan and I tried to view the Delta’s history from as many different perspectives as possible. In the book, we tell the stories of:
- How Hernando de Soto marched, half-dead, into the Delta in 1542
- How fortune-seekers from around the world converged on the Delta in the 1800s to begin the harvest of its primeval forests
- How a progressive politician turned regressive when a catastrophic flood hit Greenville in 1927
- How a hated natural predator, the red wolf, found its last refuge in the Delta
- How the hell-bent King of the Delta Blues, Robert Johnson, played his way to fame
- How a divinely inspired Delta preacher started his own massively popular denomination, the Church of God in Christ
- How the hot tamale came to be the Delta’s most iconic food
And others!
One of Mississippi’s greatest journalists, Tim Kalich, publisher of the Greenwood Commonwealth, wrote the foreword for the book. He calls it “captivating,” and we hope you will agree.
We look forward to seeing you in Jackson on Saturday for another great signing. Thank you, as always, to the great Lemuria Books for having us.
Foreman Starrett 