Editing Clarksdale, Mississippi (section)

===Delta Blues Museum===
{{main | Delta Blues Museum}}
[[File:Delta Blues Museum.jpg|right|thumb|Delta Blues Museum]]
[[File:Juke Joint Festival, Clarksdale, Mississippi.jpg|thumb|right|Juke Joint Festival at Delta Cinema in Clarksdale]]
In late 1979, Carnegie Public Library Director Sid Graves began a nascent display series which later became the nucleus of the [[Delta Blues Museum]].<ref>{{cite news
|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/23/arts/muddy-waters-s-imprint-on-mississippi.html |title=Muddy Waters's Imprint on Mississippi |author=Robbert Palmer |date=April 23, 1988 |access-date=October 4, 2009 |work=The New York Times}}</ref> Graves single-handedly nurtured the beginnings of the museum in the face of an indifferent community and an often recalcitrant Library Board, at times resorting to storing displays in the trunk of his car when denied space in the library. When the fledgling museum was accidentally discovered by [[Billy Gibbons]] of the rock band [[ZZ Top]] through contact with Howard Stovall Jr., the Delta Blues Museum became the subject of national attention as a pet project of the band, and the Museum began to enjoy national recognition.

In 1995, the museum, at that time Clarksdale's only attraction,{{Citation needed|date=February 2025}} grew to include a large section of the newly renovated library building, but remained under the tight control of the Carnegie Library Board, who subsequently fired Sid Graves, at the time seriously ill. Graves died in [[Hattiesburg, Mississippi]], in January 2005. In an interim move from the renovated Library building, the Museum spent most of 1996 in a converted retail storefront on Delta Avenue under the direction of a politically connected Wisconsin native, the late Ron Gorsegner. In 1997–1998, Coahoma County finally provided funds to form a separate Museum Board of Directors composed mainly of socially prominent, local white blues fans; and to renovate the adjoining [[Illinois Central Railroad]] freight depot, providing a permanent home for the Delta Blues Museum.{{Citation needed|date=February 2025}}