This image provided by A2H Engineers, Architects, Planners on August 18, 2022, shows a digital rendering of the National Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame in Marks, Miss.
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This image provided by A2H Engineers, Architects, Planners on August 18, 2022, shows a digital rendering of the National Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame in Marks, Miss.
AP
JACKSON, ma’am. – A small Mississippi Delta town with ties to the civil rights movement will soon be home to the National Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame.
Project planners hope to complete construction of the facility in the town of Marks in two or three years, Velma Wilson, Quitman County’s director of economic tourism and development, told The Associated Press on Tuesday. Marks is the county seat of Quitman County and has a population of less than 2,000.
The project is the culmination of a 50-year effort to build a hall of fame for R&B musicians such as James Brown, Aretha Franklin and BB King.
LaMont Robinson, CEO of the NRBHF, said: “There is no hall of fame in the world that is so focused and devoted to the history of R&B music on a national scale,” said LaMont Robinson, CEO said by the NRBHF. “My vision of building a hall of fame to honor R&B and its contributions to civil rights, America, and the world at large is one that I do not take lightly.”
Robinson founded the hall of fame in 2010. Since 2013, the organization has attracted more than 200 artists.
Marks appealed to Robinson due to its civil rights history. Martin Luther King Jr chose the town in 1968 as the starting point for his Poor People’s Campaign, a campaign for economic justice for poor Americans of all backgrounds. On March 31, 1968, in his last Sunday sermon before his assassination, King described the impoverished families he encountered in Marks.
“The other day, I was in Marks, Mississippi, in Quitman County, the poorest county in the United States. And I tell you I’ve seen hundreds of black boys and black girls walking down the street with no shoes to wear. ,” King said at the National Cathedral in Washington. “I see their parents… They’ve raised some money here and there; trying to get some food to feed the kids; trying to teach them a little bit.”
Conditions in cotton fields in Quitman County and other parts of the Mississippi River Delta, project planners say, were the environments in which civil rights activists and field workers initially produced sound. music that today is identified as blues, gospel and R&B.
“It is this musical and cultural phenomenon that has provided the basis for the phenomenal economic success and profitability of the US music industry worldwide,” the planners wrote in an outline document. project draft.
As of 2020, Quitman County has one of the 20 lowest median incomes of all counties in the country, according to US Census Bureau.
“The Hall of Fame will be a catalyst for growth and Delta tourism opportunities, and a vehicle for attracting business and industry,” said US Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat for Quitman County, said.
The City of Marks donated 5 acres (2 ha) of land to the project.
Under an agreement reviewed by the AP, the Quitman County Economic Development and Tourism agency secured $500,000 in funding from the Mississippi Legislature for project-related infrastructure. The agency also hopes to secure an $11 million federal grant through the U.S. Department of Transportation to boost growth around the hall of fame.
“While there is considerable energy and excitement in the project, it is also challenging for QTED employees and will require multiple partnerships to succeed,” the agency wrote in the agreement.
