Themed Photo Gallery & Information: Ruleville, Greasy Street and Fanny Lou Hamer
History
Ruleville is a city in Sunflower County, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta region. The population was 3,234 at the 2000 census. It is the second-largest community in the rural county.
Ruleville was described as “surrounded by a fine fertile country and timber lands”. Development of the settlement followed construction of the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad, which established a stop here. The village was laid out in 1898 by J. W. Rule, for whom it was named. In September 1899 the official petition to Governor Anselm J. McLaurin to incorporate contained 98 names of the ‘citizens and electors of Sunflower County…[who] reside in the village’ noting that 150 people currently lived inside the village.
The rural area was being developed for cotton plantations after the American Civil War. Ruleville was established as an important cotton shipping point on the railroad. By the early 1900s, Ruleville had telephone and telegraph facilities, about 20 businesses, two white churches and one black church, a water works system, an electric light plant, three public gins, and excellent public schools. The population in 1900 was 336. The Bank of Ruleville was established in 1903.
During the Civil Rights Movement that expanded beginning in the 1950s, Fannie Lou Hamer, a farm worker, started a movement for poor people.
Source: Wikipedia
Greasy Street
Full text:
For many decades this block of Front Street, known locally as “Greasy Street,” was the center of commercial activity for African Americans in the Ruleville area. On Saturday nights Greasy Street was packed with people dressed in their finest clothes who visited establishments including Mack’s Colored Cafe. Blues musicians who played in Ruleville included Charley Patton, David “Honeyboy” Edwards, and Howlin’ Wolf.
Front Street was the first commercially developed area in Ruleville, its name stemming from its location fronting the railway line. It is not clear how the block known as “Greasy Street” got its nickname, but a popular explanation is that café owners would throw old grease on the street to keep down the dust. J. W. Rule of the founding Rule family laid Ruleville’s city plan in 1898, the year after the Yazoo Delta Railway (called the “Yellow Dog,” after its initials) extended its line northward from Moorhead, where it intersected with the Southern Railway—a location famous in blues lore as “where the Southern cross the Dog.” With the arrival of the train the local population grew dramatically, both in town (from 226 in 1900 to 1022 in 1920) and on plantations in the area.
Located a block south of the railroad depot and across the tracks from several cotton gins, Greasy Street became a destination for blues performers, especially on Saturday afternoons, when the street was crowded with residents of nearby plantations who came to town to shop and relax. Shaw native David “Honeyboy” Edwards recalled seeing Charley Patton play here in the 1930s. Patton, the Delta’s most influential bluesman, lived on the Dockery plantation four miles to the west. Edwards played on Greasy Street together with Howlin’ Wolf (Chester Arthur Burnett), who lived on the Young & Morrow plantation between Ruleville and Doddsville. The main musical establishment on Greasy Street for many years was Mack’s Colored Cafe, operated by McKinley Harvey, and during the segregation era the Annex Theatre catered to African Americans. The block also housed two grocery stores run by people of Chinese descent. In 1918 Jim Kee opened his store, which was later run by Kan and May Jee as Kan’s Food Market; James Jee operated the adjacent Jee & Company store. Saturday night juking remained a vibrant tradition in Ruleville longer than in many other Delta towns, thanks to Greasy Street nightspots such as Club 21, Top Ten Club, Main Event, Jap’s Disco, and especially Club Black Castle, which also housed Mr. Fugee’s Bar and Grill.
Other musicians who were born or lived in the Ruleville area include Chicago bluesman Jimmy Rogers (1924-1997); Charley Patton associate Ben Maree (born c. 1870), one of many artists that folklorist David Evans identified as playing in a local blues style he called the “Drew tradition”; Chicago bassist Hayes Ware (1927-1987); singer-guitarist Jeanne Carroll (1931-2011), who was based in Chicago prior to spending her final years in Germany; guitarist Jerry “Duff” Dorrough (1952-2012), who was adept at blues, soul, gospel, and country; and Olin “Grandad” Hughes, a friend of Honeyboy Edwards. Hughes learned from another guitarist in Ruleville, Clyde Richardson, who was known locally as “T-Bone Walker.” Artists from nearby Doddsville include acoustic performer and blues educator Fruteland Jackson (b. 1953) and Chicago vocalist Peaches Staten (b. 1961).
Source: http://www.msbluestrail.org/index.aspx
Ruleville Depot
Ruleville Depot is a historic railroad depot on the east side of railroad tracks at the junction of East Floyce Street and North Front Street in Ruleville, Mississippi.
It was constructed in 1930 and closed as railroad depot in 1978. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.
Fannie Lou Hamer
Ruleville’s role in our country’s civil rights story rests on the words and actions of many brave men and women, but one woman’s voice continues to reverberate through time. Fannie Lou Townsend Hamer, born in 1917 in Montgomery County, Mississippi, was the youngest of 20 children and at an early age labored in the fields with her sharecropper parents. Despite her lack of formal education, Hamer was smart and eager, acquiring various leadership roles on the plantations where she worked. Hamer was known for her beautiful voice and would sing to uplift the spirts of a community oppressed by a racist society. She was one of 17 individuals who traveled to Indianola, Mississippi, in an attempt to register to vote. Her bravery had severe repercussions: She was driven from her home, endured threats, beatings and arrests, and was even shot at. Yet she continued to fight for social equality, becoming a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and helping organize the 1964 Freedom Summer African-American voter registration campaign. She was also instrumental in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
Source: https://civilrightstrail.com/destination/ruleville/
Photo Gallery
Greasy Street (North Front Street) with Ruleville Depot in the background
Greasy Street store fronts
Ruleville Depot
Fannie Lou Hamer grave in the Fannie Lou Hamer Memorial Gardens.