“I’m going to Jackson,
Gonna mess around.
Yes, I’m going to Jackson,
Look out, Jackson town.”

The Johnny Cash/June Carter Cash duet looped in my head as I drove from New Orleans to Mississippi’s State Capital. I grew up in Mississippi, where Jackson was a little over an hour’s drive away. I must have visited at some point, either with family or on a field trip, but I don’t remember. This trip to Jackson brought me one step closer to the goal of visiting every state capital in the lower 48 in the motorhome.

I initially planned to stay in Jackson for five days or so, which was extended when my refrigerator gave up the ghost. (More on that another time.) “City with Soul” is Jackson’s tourism slogan, and I had plenty of time to explore the town in search of it.

City Oasis

In the middle of Jackson, a five-minute drive to the hot and hip Fondren District, LeFleur’s Bluff State Park is on Mayes Lake and the Pearl River.

Lefleur’s Bluff is in the Lefleur Museum District, home to the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum, Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, Mississippi Museum of Natural Science and Mississippi Children’s Museum.

The park is a great example of why I love camping in smaller cities. In major metropolitan areas like Boston, Miami, and Seattle, RV parks can be 45 minutes or more outside town.

The campground was rustic and felt a million miles away from city living. An egret walked along the length of the lake several times a day, fishing for a meal. It wasn’t the only one; people perched on lawn chairs and buckets and coolers cast their bait all along the banks. Long lines of turtles sunbathed on logs, hopping into the muddy water at the first sound of footfalls in the leaves. I kept my eyes peeled (and the dogs away from the water’s edge) for the resident alligator, but never made its acquaintance.

Urban Decay

I wasn’t prepared for the blight in downtown Jackson, which is in a lamentable state of deterioration and decay. I hadn’t seen anything like it since Shreveport, Louisiana. For example, one block west of the picturesque Beaux Arts style capitol building (1903)

sits the midcentury Downtown Sun ‘N Sand Motor Hotel (1960), boarded up since 2001.

The government leases the parking lot for employee parking, threatening regularly to terminate the arrangement if the owner doesn’t rehab the property. Yet, there it sits, there they park, and nothing changes.

Charred hulks of burned out homes, collapsed buildings of all shapes and sizes, and facades propped up by lumber are common downtown.

Farish Street, once a bustling African-American community where Medgar Evers set up his NAACP office, is a shadow of its former self. Except for the Big Apple Inn, which still serves pig ear sandwiches, and F. Jones Corner, a hopping club with live music, not much else remains.

The famous Alamo Theater, where greats like Nat King Cole, Elmore James, Louis Jordan, Cab Calloway, and Dorothy Moore performed, is open only for special events.

Plans of revitalizing and reinventing Farish Street as the Beale Street of Jackson have not materialized. All hopes and dreams and ideas, no funds.

I was most taken aback by the potholes in Jackson. They rise, or rather, descend, to the level of sinkholes, due in part to Jackson’s clay-rich soil.

Cones and barricades are swallowed whole. Motorists weave and swerve and drive on the opposite side of the street, yet law enforcement’s suspicion of driving under the influence is low. Even in Belhaven, Jackson’s oldest, most stately and picturesque neighborhood,

potholes proliferate like wet Gremlins. In a delightful display of Southern grace, grit and humor, they are planted with flowers, and decorated during the holidays.

While I was in town a Jacksonian wryly remarked,

OUTWARD EXPANSION

While a few good restaurants and shops tough it out downtown (most notably, the superb Parlor Market), the real money’s being spent on developments outside the downtown core, like Highland Village and The District.

The District at Eastover is a sparkling-new mix of retail, residences and restaurants. I had a memorable meal at Fine & Dandy with Carly from nearby Clinton, whom I met at the RV park in New Orleans. She invited me out for an evening in Jackson, and we had such a great time!

Mississippi native Chef Jesse Houston is a 2015 James Beard Foundation semifinalist for Best Chef: Southland, and he has created a “Grandma Chic” space that doesn’t take itself too seriously despite the high quality of the food, with names like Tater Tots We Didn’t Make, and and The Worst Ribs in Town. The entire front of house staff photobombed us while we mugged for photos.

Speaking of food, in a town of about 150,000 people (half a million in the metropolitan area), stuff to eat is really good in Jackson. I’m sure I bored most of my Facebook and Instagram followers to tears with all the food porn I posted. Worth another mention is James Beard award semi-finalist for Best Chef in the South, Derek Emerson at Walker’s Drive-In in Fondren.

Chef Derek is bringing it! I wanted to suck up the charred tomato lemon butter on the soft shell crab with a straw, and the portobello fries with Comeback Sauce (a Jackson thang) makes you wanna come back!

HISTORY

Jackson is rife with Civil Rights historical sites, from the Greyhound bus terminal where Freedom Riders were arrested in the Summer of 1961,

to Medgar Evers’s home, where he was murdered in his own driveway on June 12, 1963,

and the site of the infamous Woolworth’s sit-in.

In December 2017, two Mississippi museums – the Museum of Mississippi history and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum – opened in Jackson, commemorating the state’s bicentennial. Conspicuously missing above the two museums is the Mississippi state flag, one quarter of which is still the Confederate battle flag.

On the Mississippi history side, native son Morgan Freeman narrates the seven-minute introductory video.

Content on the Civil Rights side is harder to bear.

Murder, intimidation and hatred are on display, and the final exhibit, “Where Do We Go From Here,” felt like an afterthought and did little to instill hope for the future.

HOLLYWOOD COMES TO JACKSON

The 2011 movie “The Help” is set in Jackson, and it was filmed in three main locations in the state – Greenwood, Clarksdale, and Jackson.

There are plenty of Jackson locales that haven’t changed much since the 1960’s, including the Mayflower Café downtown,

Brent’s in Fondren,

and the Capri Theater in Fondren.

As I write this I have now also seen the filming locations in Greenwood and Clarksdale; I must re-watch the movie.

OUT AT “THE REZ”

An off-leash dog park at Old Trace Park introduced me to “The Rez,” about 20 minutes from downtown Jackson. The Ross Barnett Reservoir was constructed in 1960. The 33,000-acre lake is the state’s largest drinking water resource, with 105 miles of shoreline, and the historic Natchez Trace Parkway on its western shore. I stopped in for oysters at Schucker’s in Ridgeland,

and met Deanna and Deborah, who invited me back for karaoke.

The Rez in known to attract its fair share of characters. At Shucker’s I also met David Singletary, aka “Bud Hemp,” wearing a suit emblazoned with marijuana leaves.

He is running for Governor on the platform of legalizing marijuana. I told him in a state where the Governor added “In God We Trust” to the state seal, in 2014 (what a welcoming and inclusive move, Mississippi), his might be, in the words of Langston Hughes, a dream deferred. My advice was to wait it out a couple more generations.

JACKSON’S SOUL: ITS PEOPLE

One thing’s for sure: There are no strangers in Jackson. Along with others I had the pleasure to meet, Blue Monday at Hal & Mal’s was a highlight. I met legendary Bluesman, King Edward!

What a way to kick off my exploration of the Mississippi Blues Trail. More on that in my next installment.

To learn more about Jackson, check out the documentary/promotional videos hosted by Rita Brent at jxn.ms.