The Power of True Conversion by Charles Marsh

More than a decade later, while I was doing field research for my book God's Long Summer, Karen and I visited the small town of Ruleville, Mississippi. On a sweltering July morning we drove northwest from Jackson, up the old State Highway 49 to Yazoo City that I had traveled years earlier with Dr. Perkins. We drove through the dense alluvial textures of the southern summer in search of the grave of Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, the lady in a homespun dress who became the prophetic voice of poor African Americans in the rural South.

In time the hilly terrain gave way to the flat, rich fields of the Delta, and we entered the town of Belzoni. Rather than turn around at the Shell station this time, we stopped for a while at the International Catfish Museum, claiming our souvenir baseball caps and coffee cups and having our photo taken in front of the forty-foot catfish sculpture erected outside in the garden. As we drove on toward Ruleville, we passed billboards honoring many famous locals-Jim Henson, the creator of the Muppets; Mary Lou somebody, once a Miss America; and Lamar Fontaine, a Confederate poet enshrined in downtown Clarksdale. But the faded sign at the city limits of Ruleville greeted us only with the news that the Fighting Tigers had won the 2-A football title some years back-and that's nothing to laugh about. Still, you had to know in advance that one of the great prophetic voices of the rural South had lived her life and died here.