Mississippi Today
Capital City Kayaks is an adventurers gem close to home
Before the sun reaches its searing height in the day, Chris Lockhart, 33, owner and operator of Capital City Kayakers, is out at Crystal Lake in Flowood, unloading kayaks and other gear from his colorful bus in preparation for a group he and friend Justin Henderson will guide in and around the oxbow lake.
Lockhart and Henderson begin by wiping down every piece of equipment with disinfectant — kayaks, life jackets and paddles.ย Excitement is in the air, and Lockhart is all smiles in anticipation of the arrival of his morning adventurers.
The air is warm, but not oppressive, and filled with birds singing, the endless screech of cicadas and the distant hum of occasional traffic along U.S.ย 80 and Flowood Drive.
“I started Capital City Kayaks around 2014, after I graduated from Mississippi State and I moved back to Jackson,” said Lockhart. “I had a kayak and so I’d go to different spots around the area. I really love being outdoors. I was one of those kids, ya know, who was always out exploring, riding my bike and I actually loved going to summer camp. Summer camp is where I had my first kayaking experience. I was hooked.”
The morning’s group consists of nine paddlers, varying in experience and ages. There’s chatter and laughter as everyone grabs a paddle, a life jacket, and chooses a kayak. Lockhart assembles everyone for a safety check and paddling tips.
Once on the water, one inexperienced kayaker admits to not being a very good swimmer and asks, “What happens if I tip this thing over?”
Knowing a demonstration was more believable than words, Lockhart scoots up and out of his kayak and into the water, saying, “Just stand up! The water isn’t very deep.”
The inexperienced kayaker is tickled, her nerves calmed as she paddles away with more confidence.
“People began asking me about my dip spots,”ย saidย Lockhart. “I’d mention the Rez, Mayes Lake at LeFleur’s Bluff and here at Crystal Lake, and they’re thinking I’m out of state. I’d laugh and say, no, I’m just down the street. Even my home boys wanted to join me, and I thought, yeah, that’s cool. I’ll just buy one extra boat. And you know what? A lot of people started to express interest. So I sat down one day and decided to crunch some numbers.”
“That number crunching turned into seven kayaks I used to haul around in my ’86 El Camino. As business started to grow, I went from my El Camino to a pickup truck. Now I have three buses and a couple of guys that work with me.”
“Primarily, a lot of my business are Black females. I’d say about 70% are, and they tend to bring family members, friends and partners. Being in Mississippi, especially central Mississippi and in a metropolitan area like Jackson, a lot of us can’t swim. And that’s the biggest fear that can keep people away.”ย
“Many are like, “Now look, I’m about to get in this little boat in this deep water out here with all this wildlife. Who’s going to save me?” Or it’s their apprehension that they are in a little boat in this water by themselves. So one thing I like to offer is peace of mind, knowing there’s somebody out here with you. That you don’t have to worry about all the extra variables like rough waters or unsuitable conditions. I’m here with folks every step of the way from when they check in to getting them in the boat and pointing out nature.”
“I’m letting them know that, hey, you have reassurance that there’s nothing that’s going to happen to you. That your drive over here was more dangerous than what you’re about to do on this water. Out here, it’s calm, peaceful.”
“Out here on Crystal Lake is a hidden gem, a stone’s throw from downtown Jackson, not somewhere where you have to drive miles away or go to another state. And that’s a beautiful thing. So come on out, y’all. Let’s explore.”
Book your paddling adventure with Capital City Kayaks by contacting:
www.CapitalCityKayaks.com
capitalcitykayaks@gmail.com
(601) 953-7615
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
A Mississippi town moves a Confederate monument that became a shrouded eyesore
GRENADA (AP) โ A Mississippi town has taken down a Confederate monument that stood on the courthouse square since 1910 โ a figure that was tightly wrapped in tarps the past four years, symbolizing the community’s enduring division over how to commemorate the past.
Grenada’s first Black mayor in two decades seems determined to follow through on the city’s plans to relocate the monument to other public land. A concrete slab has already been poured behind a fire station about 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers) from the square.
But a new fight might be developing. A Republican lawmaker from another part of Mississippi wrote to Grenada officials saying she believes the city is violating a state law that restricts the relocation of war memorials or monuments.
The Grenada City Council voted to move the monument in 2020, weeks after police killed George Floyd in Minneapolis. The vote seemed timely: Mississippi legislators had just retired the last state flag in the U.S. that prominently featured the Confederate battle emblem.
The tarps went up soon after the vote, shrouding the Confederate soldier and the pedestal he stood on. But even as people complained about the eyesore, the move was delayed by tight budgets, state bureaucracy or political foot-dragging. Explanations vary, depending on who’s asked.
A new mayor and city council took office in May, prepared to take action. On Sept. 11, with little advance notice, police blocked traffic and a work crew disassembled and removed the 20-foot (6.1-meter) stone structure.
“I’m glad to see it move to a different location,” said Robin Whitfield, an artist with a studio just off Grenada’s historic square. “This represents that something has changed.”
Still, Whitfield, who is white, said she wishes Grenada leaders had invited the community to engage in dialogue about the symbol, to bridge the gap between those who think moving it is erasing history and those who see it as a daily reminder of white supremacy. She was among the few people watching as a crane lifted parts of the monument onto a flatbed truck.
“No one ever talked about it, other than yelling on Facebook,” Whitfield said.
Mayor Charles Latham said the monument has been “quite a divisive figure” in the town of 12,300, where about 57% of residents are Black and 40% are white.
“I understand people had family and stuff to fight and die in that war, and they should be proud of their family,” Latham said. “But you’ve got to understand that there were those who were oppressed by this, by the Confederate flag on there. There’s been a lot of hate and violence perpetrated against people of color, under the color of that flag.”
The city received permission from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History to move the Confederate monument, as required. But Rep. Stacey Hobgood-Wilkes of Picayune said the fire station site is inappropriate.
“We are prepared to pursue such avenues that may be necessary to ensure that the statue is relocated to a more suitable and appropriate location,” she wrote, suggesting a Confederate cemetery closer to the courthouse square as an alternative. She said the Ladies Cemetery Association is willing to deed a parcel to the city to make it happen.
The Confederate monument in Grenada is one of hundreds in the South, most of which were dedicated during the early 20th century when groups such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy sought to shape the historical narrative by valorizing the Lost Cause mythology of the Civil War.
The monuments, many of them outside courthouses, came under fresh scrutiny after an avowed white supremacist who had posed with Confederate flags in photos posted online killed nine Black people inside the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.
Grenada’s monument includes images of Confederate president Jefferson Davis and a Confederate battle flag. It was engraved with praise for “the noble men who marched neath the flag of the Stars and Bars” and “the noble women of the South,” who “gave their loved ones to our country to conquer or to die for truth and right.”
A half-century after it was dedicated, the monument’s symbolism figured in a voting rights march. When the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders held a mass rally in downtown Grenada in June 1966, Robert Green of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference scrambled up the pedestal and planted a U.S. flag above the image of Davis.
The cemetery is a spot Latham himself had previously advocated as a new site for the monument, but he said it’s too late to change now, after the city already budgeted $60,000 for the move.
“So, who’s going to pay the city back for the $30,000 we’ve already expended to relocate this?” he said. “You should’ve showed up a year and a half ago, two years ago, before the city gets to this point.”
A few other Confederate monuments in Mississippi have been relocated. In July 2020, a Confederate soldier statue was moved from a prominent spot at the University of Mississippi to a Civil War cemetery in a secluded part of the Oxford campus. In May 2021, a Confederate monument featuring three soldiers was moved from outside the Lowndes County Courthouse in Columbus to another cemetery with Confederate soldiers.
Lori Chavis, a Grenada City Council member, said that since the monument was covered by tarps, “it’s caused nothing but more divide in our city.”
She said she supports relocating the monument but worries about a lawsuit. She acknowledged that people probably didn’t know until recently exactly where it would reappear.
“It’s tucked back in the woods, and it’s not visible from even pulling behind the fire station,” Chavis said. “And I think that’s what got some of the citizens upset.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Crooked Letter Sports Podcast
Podcast: New Orleans sports columnist and author Jeff Duncan joins the podcast to talk about his new Steve Gleason book and the new-look New Orleans Saints.
Jeff Duncan went from the Mississippi Book Festival in Jackson on Saturday to Jerry World in Dallas on Sunday where he watched and wrote about the Saints’ total dismantling of the Dallas Cowboys. We talk about both events and also about what happened in high school and college football last weekend and what’s coming up this weekend.
Stream all episodes here.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1899
Sept. 18, 1899
Scott Joplin, known as โthe King of Ragtime,โ copyrighted the โMaple Leaf Rag,โ which became the first song to sell more than 1 million copies of sheet music. The popularity launched a sensation surrounding ragtime, which has been called America’s โfirst classical music.โย
Born near Texarkana, Texas, Joplin grew up in a musical family. He worked on the railroad with other family members until he was able to earn money as a musician, traveling across the South. He wound up playing at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893, where he met fellow musician Otis Saunders, who encouraged him to write down the songs he had been making up to entertain audiences. In all, Joplin wrote dozens of ragtime songs.
After some success, he moved to New York City, hoping he could make a living while stretching the boundaries of music. He wrote a ragtime ballet and two operas, but success in these new forms eluded him. He was buried in a pauper’s grave in New York City in 1917.
More than six decades later, his music was rediscovered, initially by Joshua Rifkin, who recorded Joplin’s songs on a record, and then Gunther Schuller of the New England Conservatory, who performed four of the ragtime songs in concert: โMy faculty, many of whom had never even heard of Joplin, were saying things like, โMy gosh, he writes melodies like Schubert!’โ
Joplin’s music won over even more admirers through the 1973 movie, โThe Sting,โ which won an Oscar for the music. His song, โThe Entertainer,โ reached No. 3 on Billboard and was ranked No. 10 among โSongs of the Centuryโ list by the Recording Industry Association of America. His opera โTreemonishaโ was produced to wide acclaim, and he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his special contribution to American music.ย
โThe ragtime craze, the faddish thing, will obviously die down, but Joplin will have his position secure in American music history,โ Rifkin said. โHe is a treasurable composer.โ
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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