Month: August 2013

When Food and Wine did their list of ‘Best Fried Chicken in the U.S.‘ they named 25 restaurants, and one of them: Two Sisters Kitchen in Jackson, Mississippi:

It’s really next door to the birthplace of Eudora Welty which is its own destination with a bookstore, coffeeshop and more, and the restaurant is in this home:

It’s actually setup as a buffet but once you see it, those ‘eh. a buffet.’ feelings disappear.  So not all of this was finished, but there were tastes of blackeyed peas, roll, green beans, cabbage, fried squash, grits, succotash, turnip greens, and of course, their famous fried chicken.

Oh that was good!  And dessert just automatically comes with your meal, so they brought out a choice of bread pudding and peach cobbler, so a taste or two of this also:

This is the view up the street, of the capitol.  Next time, we’re getting it to go and making a picnic on the lawn here.  Nice:

In Utica, Mississippi, we found this monument to Frost J. Kelley, 1870-1909, and besides the beauty of his dress and detail of the likeness, the quote here — and on the monuments of his extended family — extraordinary:

‘He was an honor to the earth on which he lived, and worthy of the heaven to which he has gone.’
The overall base would suggest that plans were for his wife, M.J., to have stood here beside.

The monument for their daughter, Julia May Kelley:

‘Oh rain! Fall softly, lightly, above these little heads, oh angels! Spread your sheltering wings above these narrow beds.’

This little lamb for the son of what was probably Frost’s brother, Graves D. Kelley, 1859-1902 (above, ‘His many virtues form the noblest monument to his memory’).  Graves Davis Kelley Jr. was born July 5, 1896 and passed away September 4, 1897:

‘Sleep on sweet babe and take thy rest. G-d calls away when he thinks best.’

The tragedies that must’ve befallen this family.  Graves’ mother passed away August 1, 1896, less than a month after he was born.

‘It was an angel that visited the green earth and took a flower away. How many hopes lie buried here.’

I tried to find a little bit about the Kelley family, and came across this page of (terribly interesting, sometimes funny) recollections by Richard Powell, who was born in 1919 near Gallatin, Mississippi:
After the boll weevils destroyed the cotton crops, my grandmother sold the Ringgold Plantation to Mrs. Frost Kelley of Utica, Mississippi. Mrs. Frost Kelley’s husband owned a furnishing business in Utica, Mississippi and Mr. D. C. Simmons went to work there as a young boy, as a bookkeeper. When Mr. Frost Kelley, Mr. Simmons took over the business and that is where he made most of his money furnishing the farmers of the area with things that they needed to run their farms. My Grandmother was kin to Mrs. Frost Kelley. When Mr. Frost Kelley died, Mrs. Frost Kelley had a life size marble statue made in Italy of Mr. Frost Kelley and it stands today in the cemetery in Utica, Mississippi.

Selz Royal Blue Shoes ghost sign in Columbus, Mississippi.

If you’re interested in ghost signs around Birmingham, my friend Charles Buchanan has written ‘Fading Ads of Birmingham‘ and sells his block prints of well-known area features here.

Above, the ‘On Air’ sign at WSM in Nashville

‘Next Week’s Various’ will be back next Friday!

Last month in Port Gibson, we saw this mural — the story behind it is really, really interesting.  To imagine that refusing to spend one’s money somewhere would lead to the Supreme Court sounds ridiculous now, but…:

On April 1, 1966, the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) imposed an economic boycott on the majority of the white-owned businesses in Port Gibson / Claiborne County.  In the months leading up to the Boycott, a number of demands for change in the treatment of African-American citizens, employment opportunities available to them, and full enfranchisement as citizens had been made of local business and political leaders with little or no substantive change or response.  The Boycott garnered the overwhelming support of the majority of the County’s black citizens.  Although blacks also represented a majority of the County’s residents, they had little other economic power and had been denied the right to vote (political power) through segregationist laws and practices.

Change would not come easily.  The Boycott would continue off and on over an eleven (11) year period, during which a significant number of businesses would fail or close.  Working with both State and local law enforcement to harass Boycott leaders and disrupt the Boycott, white business and political leaders believed they could simply hunker down and eventually things would return to the status quo.  With picketing and peaceful marches/demonstrations throughout the downtown area and boyond, black citizens would continue to press their demands for equality and racial justice.  Black voter registration would become a major focus.

On October 31, 1969, seventeen (17) of the boycotted merchants sued the national NAACP, Mississippi Action for Progress (MAP) and 146 individuals in the Hinds County (MS) Chancey Court to business losses caused by the Boycott and to enjoin future boycott activity (“Claiborne Hardware et. al. vs NAACP et. al.).  In 1976, the Chancery Court held that the NAACP, MAP, and 128 of the other defendants were jointly and severally liable for damages to 12 merchants in the amount of $1.25 million plus interest, and a permanent injunction against certain boycott activities was issued.  The judgment had the potential to bankrupt all of the defendants including the NAACP and, in addition, placed a cloud over all similar boycott activities nationally.  The judgment was upheld by the Mississippi Supreme Court in 1980. 

The state courts’ decisions were appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and on July 2, 1982, it overturned their rulings, holding that “the Boycott clearly involved constitutionally protected activity” through which the NAACP and the other defendants “sought to bring about political, social and economic change.”

Found in a cemetery on Highway 11 in Dekalb County, Alabama: