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Old-Time Music Festival May 17
The Great Big Yam Potatoes Old-Time Music Gathering and Fiddle Contest returns for its seventh year to Historic Jefferson College on Saturday, May 17. Enjoy performances by some of Mississippi’s best old-time musicians on the outdoor stage, watch talented fiddlers young and old vying for the prize in the fiddle contest, or join a jam session in the shade of the majestic live oaks.
“This is one of my favorite events all year,” said Robin Person, Historic Jefferson College director. “The sound of the banjos and fiddles takes you back to the early days of the college when it opened in 1811.”
This free festival celebrates Mississippi’s long tradi- ‘ tion of fiddle and string band music. Live acoustic performances begin at 9 a.m. on the outdoor stage and will feature some of the region’s finest traditional musicians. Scheduled acts include old-time swing band the Canegrinders; gourd banjo player Jason Smith; clawhammer banjo player and multi-instrumentalist Johnny Rawls; early Americana duo Hal and Connie Jeannes; finger-picking blues guitarist Reeves Jones; and multi-instrumentalist Charlie Patton.
The old-time fiddle contest gets underway at 10 a.m. in the circa-1839 East Wing building with musicians 17 and younger. Fiddlers 18 and older take to the stage after lunch. Cash prizes will be awarded to the top three fiddlers in each division. The contest entry fee is five dollars. Updated rules, registration information, and an event schedule are online at www.bigyampotatoes.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.
com/GreatBigYamPotatoes.
A dance featuring live music will be held in the East Wing in the evening following the contest and performances.
Arthur Davis of The Old Country Store in Lorman will return as food vendor. Davis’s cooking has been featured in Southern Living and on the Food Network. Primitive camping is available Friday and Saturday night on the grounds of Historic Jefferson College.
The Great Big Yam Potatoes Old-Time
Music Gathering and Fiddle Contest is presented by the Mississippi Fiddlers Association. The Mississippi Fiddlers Association was formed in late 2007 to advance interest in rural fiddle music. To learn more contact Robert Waldo Gray at rwgray@umc.edu or at 601-898-8265.
Historic Jefferson College is located in Washington, four miles north of Natchez. Jefferson College was the first institution of higher learning in the Mississippi Territory.
Jefferson Military College, as it came to be known, closed its doors in 1964 after serving as a prep school from 1866. The Department of Archives and History acquired and restored the property. Today the site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is open throughout the week, allowing visitors a look at the restored student dormitory, dining hall, kitchen buildings, and other historic sites. A nature trail winds by Saint Catherine Creek, and a museum and gift shop are located in the visitor center. Hours are Monday through Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday 1 to 5 p.m. The grounds are open daily sunup to sundown. Admission is free. For more information call 601-442-2901.
Freedom Summer Commemorations Planned
As part of the continuing, multiyear commemoration of the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi, MDAH will observe the fiftieth anniversary of Freedom Summer with an original exhibit and special programs.
On June 2, a special lecture by Bob Moses, a Freedom Summer organizer, will open the exhibit “Stand Up! Mississippi Freedom Summer of1964. The exhibit will run through October at the William F. Winter Archives and History Building in Jackson then travel the state. Drawing on photographs, artifacts, documents, and film foot-
age from the MDAH collection, the exhibit will examine the courage, violence, and promise of the “long, hot summer.”
In 1964, Freedom Summer made Mississippi the central battleground of the Civil Rights Movement. Hundreds of northern students, most of them white, joined local blacks to register voters, conduct Freedom Schools, and promote civil rights. Throughout the summer, project staff endured threats, arrests, beatings, and bombings.
The activities of Freedom Summer were spread across the state in communities such
as Holly Springs, McComb, Gulfport and Biloxi, Meridian, Hattiesburg, Indianola, and Canton. MDAH staff will take to the road this summer and present “Freedom Summer, 1964-2014: Telling the Story” in partnership with public libraries and local members of the Veterans of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, Inc. The outreach program will include conversations with local movement veterans, special presentations from MDAH staff about important artifacts and documents in the collections, and information about
the upcoming-Mississippi Civil Rights Museum.
Many of the key events leading up to the modem Civil Rights Movement, including the Secession Convention in 1861 and the writing of the 1890 Constitution, took place in the Old Capitol. Through June the museum will highlight its program “Black Mississippians: Road to the Vote,” which examines the state’s nineteenth-century political history and its relation to slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and segregation. To make a reservation call 601-576-6920.