Clarksdale, Mississippi

Clarksdale is a city in Coahoma County, Mississippi, and seat of the county. The western boundary of the county is formed by the Mississippi River. Located in the Mississippi Delta region, Clarksdale is an agricultural and trading center. It has been home to many blues musicians. Clarksdale is named after John Clark, who founded the city in the mid-19th century.

History

Early history

Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians occupied the Delta region prior to the arrival of European settlers. Clarksdale was developed at the former intersection of two important Indian routes: the Lower Creek Trade Paths, which extended westward from Augusta, Georgia, to New Mexico; and the Chakchiuma Trade Trail, which ran northeastward to the former village at present-day Pontotoc, Mississippi. The first removal treaty carried out under the Indian Removal Act was the 1830 Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, by which the Choctaw people ceded about 11 million acres in exchange for about 15 million acres in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). A similar forced removal of the Chickasaw Nation began in 1837; once in Indian Territory, they paid the Choctaw $530,000 for the westernmost part of their land.

Juke Joint (1947 film)

Juke Joint is a 1947 race film directed by and starring Spencer Williams and produced and released by Sack Amusement Enterprises.

Plot

Bad News Johnson, a con artist from Memphis, Tennessee, arrives in Dallas, Texas, accompanied by his dim sidekick July Jones with only twenty-five cents between them. Johnson is constantly exasperated at Jones’ deficient perspicacity, and at one point he comments Jones is so dense that he probably thinks "Veronica Lake is some kind of summer resort." The duo arrange to become boarders at the home of Louella "Mama Lou" Holiday, who is fooled into believing Johnson is an acting teacher named Whitney Vanderbilt; Jones takes the alias of Cornbread Green. Mrs. Holiday agrees to give the men free room and board if they will provide poise lessons to her daughter, an aspiring beauty queen named Honey Dew. The lessons pay off and Honey Dew wins the beauty contest, but problems arise when Mrs. Holiday’s husband, Papa Sam, decides to hold a party for the new beauty queen at a disreputable juke joint.