Mississippi Makes an Impact through Music and Activism

Mississippi has a fascinating history is full of people who made an impact on others through their music or their activism. A few of these people are Charley Patton, Medgar Evers, and David Banner. Patton and Banner have made their mark in music, but in different genres. Evers was an activist who was murdered for his efforts to fight segregation and racism in Mississippi.

Charley Patton is known as the father of Delta Blues. Charley Patton was born between the years 1887 and 1891. He wasn’t born in the MS, Delta however, his family moved there and he spent much of his life there. His Blues came from the fact that he was mixed heritage having black, Cherokee, and white ancestry. As such he may never have been fully accepted in the

Cherokee Nation and certainly not in the dominant white culture. His family moved to Delta

Plantation favorable treatment of its sharecroppers and lenience on the musical indulgences

Of its residents.

At the Dockery Plantation, Patton and the others gave birth to the Delta Blues. He learned from a man named Henry Sloan and worked on his own music into the Delta Blues

Style. He influenced many other artists at the Dockery Plantation including younger protégé’s like Robert Johnson and Howlin Wolf. Although Patton was of a much bigger man which is said to have influenced the distinctive raspy voice of a Wolf.

Medgar Evers was born July 2, 1925, and he was assassinated June 12, 1963 at the age of 37. Medgar was an African American Civil Rights activist from Mississippi. Evers was a former serviceman whose only crime was in being Black in Mississippi and trying to fight the

White establishment. Evers was also involved in efforts to integrate Mississippi society through school and in voting ri...

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...r society. Hip hop is sick because America is sick.”

The history of Mississippi has many people who have made an impact in one way or another. Three men link the past and present of Mississippi through their activism, music, or both. Charley Patton began playing the Blues on the Dockery Plantation and influenced so many other Blues musicians, he became known as the father of Delta Blues. Medgar Evers was a Civil Rights activist who paid the ultimate price for his work in fighting segregation and oppression in Mississippi. David Banner bridges the past and future of Mississippi’s music and activism. He is someone the younger generations can look up to for everything he has accomplished in the world of music, movies, and charity.

Works Cited

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Banner en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charley_Patton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medgar_Evers