Mississippi Today
Mississippi River cruises in flux a decade after industry’s return
A decade after the Mississippi River’s overnight cruise industry’s comeback, the three companies running the river are expanding itineraries, adjusting their fleets to meet fluctuating demand and eyeing new customer bases, all while river towns make moves to support the industry’s return to the waterway.
For a few hours on a balmy evening just before Memorial Day, hundreds of cruise-goers sprawled across Tunica, Mississippi. Some crossed the gangway and made a right for a Mississippi River museum; others headed inland for a brief stop at the casinos that put the area on the map.
They’re passengers on the American Queen, making a final pitstop on a seven-day cruise that started in New Orleans. In Tunica, a town with about 1,000 people, river cruises bring a significant customer base to the area, and it’s one of many river towns welcoming the business of overnight cruises.
When the American Queen docks at Greenbelt Park in Memphis the next morning — one of 94 boats set to dock in the city this year, up from 57 dockings five years ago — many of the 300-odd passengers headed out to explore the city.
The cruise company estimates that each passenger spends about $135 per day at port.
Visit Natchez in a 2019 benefit-cost analysis determined total direct benefits for the Natchez River Cruise Docking Facility Project would be $167,726,440 vs. a project cost of $10,186,124.
Between the three overnight cruise lines on the Mississippi River — American Queen Voyages, American Cruise Lines and, as of last year, Viking — the industry has an estimated $100 million annual economic impact in Memphis, according to Kevin Kane, president and CEO of Memphis Tourism. That figure has tripled since 2016, according to the Memphis River Parks Partnership, a nonprofit that manages 250 acres of riverfront parkland.
Kane said the cruises’ affluent customer bases present a lot of opportunity for the city. The cruises attract a crowd who are mostly retired, wealthy and well-traveled. Many employees on board the American Queen described their audience as older people who have already been on river cruises and want to check the Mississippi River off their lists.
Tickets for a seven-day Mississippi River cruise with American Queen Voyages start around $4,000, and their most expensive cabins cost about $10,000 per person. Caribbean cruises can cost as little as $500 because ocean cruise lines rely on a high volume of passengers; the biggest ocean liner can hold 7,600 passengers at maximum capacity, while the biggest Mississippi River vessel holds just over 400 guests.
Memphis is putting $36 million toward its docking infrastructure to accommodate more cruises — the most recent development in a contentious, and sometimes tumultuous, investment in river tourism. Currently, one boat can dock at Beale Street Landing at a time; after the planned expansion, which is expected to begin by year-end, it’ll accommodate two.
The city also accommodates riverboats a few miles upriver at Greenbelt Park, where crews have to tie off to trees on the riverbank. To refill water, they have to run a hose more than 100 feet to a hydrant on the street, there’s nowhere to offload trash and there’s no shaded area for passengers waiting on transportation. With the city’s planned renovation, a new dock at Greenbelt Park will allow three boats to dock simultaneously between the two sites.
The American Queen was originally slated to dock at Beale Street Landing on Memorial Day, but ongoing construction forced it to reroute to Greenbelt Park.
“The current docking situation at Greenbelt Park is sorely lacking and is not an acceptable arrival experience for passengers,” said George Abbott, director of external affairs for Memphis River Parks Partnership.
Abbott said the preference for Beale Street Landing creates competition over the most favorable dates to arrive and depart from Memphis.
“We really feel we’re only a couple years away from having one or multiple vessels docked here literally almost every day, year round,” Kane said.
Memphis is one of many Mississippi River cities bolstering its docking infrastructure to welcome more cruises, and the cruise companies have invested money in towns to gain preferred docking rights. Cruise lines are jockeying for prime spots as the number of boats docking has expanded in the decade since overnight cruises returned to the river.
But dock expansion in Memphis has been contentious from the jump. Plans to construct Beale Street Landing started in the early 2000s and dragged on through three mayoral administrations, nearly doubling its initial budget. In that time, Hurricane Katrina hit, the river’s overnight cruise industry collapsed, federal funds dried up and many questioned the investment.
In 2001, the company that built the American Queen went bankrupt. It returned under different ownership but shuttered in 2008 alongside its only other competitor, just as Memphis broke ground on Beale Street Landing. For the first time in nearly two centuries, there was no overnight cruise on the Mississippi River.
Then, in 2012, a new company — now called American Queen Voyages — brought overnight cruises back to the Mississippi and headquartered in Memphis. It named Priscilla Presley the godmother of the American Queen, and after she christened it in Memphis, the boat set sail on its trip upriver, heralding another era of Mississippi River cruising.
Last year, Viking announced a cruise on the river, which signaled to many, including Kane, that overnight cruises on the Big Muddy are here to stay.
Captain Robert De Luca’s history with the American Queen dates back more than two decades, when he was second mate on the boat. He later piloted it before being promoted to captain, but after the industry collapsed in 2008, he left to pilot towboats instead.
When he returned to the American Queen last year after more than a decade away, he noticed changes in the customer base. During his welcome aboard, he asks first-timers to raise their hands; more hands go up today than did early in his career.
The number of passengers has changed, too. De Luca recalled times when there was a waitlist to ride the American Queen; as recently as 2016, the company reported 95% occupancy. On the lower Mississippi, De Luca said the boats tend to be about three-quarters full, but the numbers taper off on the upper river.
American Queen Voyages launched in 2012 with one boat. It later added two more to meet demand before retiring its smallest boat late last year.
“We were kind of competing against each other, almost, not filling up our own boats,” De Luca said of the company’s decision to retire its smallest boat. “When that business does hit, we’re ready.”
In late June 2023, the company announced plans to scrap its Great Lakes itineraries and sell the two boats it bought in 2019. The company characterized it as a move to refocus on its core river cruises. Its pivot away from the Great Lakes comes a year after Viking doubled its capacity in the region.
American Cruises Lines has five boats in its Mississippi River fleet, and three of those were added in the past three years. Its vessels are smaller, holding about half as many passengers as the American Queen — the biggest on the river by passenger capacity — and about half as many passengers as the Viking Mississippi — the biggest on the river by vessel size.
As American Cruise Lines expands the size of its fleet on the Mississippi, it’s also launching a 60-day cruise next fall. The $50,000 tour covers the Columbia and Snake Rivers in the West, followed by a cruise along the entire length of the Mississippi River and a final stint on the Hudson River, with flights included between the departure points.
As the two mainstays on the river adjust itineraries and fleets to meet fluctuating demand, Viking launched its first tours of the Mississippi River last September.
“Viking is a well-established cruise line, and they felt that they were really missing a strong opportunity for affluent travelers on river cruises,” Kane said.
But some of the businesses that have historically benefited from river tourism said that despite the upward trend since the industry returned in 2012, it hasn’t returned to pre-Hurricane Katrina levels.
Jay Schexnaydre, operations manager at the Laura Plantation, a stop included on two of the cruise lines’ itineraries between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, said the number of visitors from river cruises is lower than it was before the industry collapsed. When he started working at the Laura Plantation in 2001, he estimated that up to 150 cruise passengers would visit from each boat. Now, he places that number at 20 or 30 visitors, on average.
Schexnaydre has his own theories about why fewer cruise-goers turn up to the museum. Perhaps repeat passengers are opting to visit a different site this time around, or changing attitudes toward critical history drive fewer people to the Laura Plantation, which was the first of its kind in Louisiana to highlight the stories of enslaved people.
“It’s a certain kind of nostalgia for people who grew up with Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and the mighty Mississippi,” Schexnaydre said. “But the younger people — they don’t have that nostalgia for the river.”
This story, the last in a three-part series, published in partnership with the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, part of Mississippi Today, is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, funded by the Walton Family Foundation.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Feb. 25, 1870
Two days after Mississippi was readmitted to the Union, Hiram Revels became the first Black American elected as a U.S. senator.
“All men are created equal, says the great Declaration,” Republican Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts said, “and now a great act attests this verity. Today we make the Declaration a reality…. The Declaration was only half established by Independence. The greatest duty remained behind. In assuring the equal rights of all we complete the work.”
Born free in North Carolina, Revels became a national force in an office once held by Jefferson Davis, the former president of the Confederacy.
A minister by trade, Revels sought to improve the education of others, working with Black Americans in Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky and Tennessee.
In 1854, he was imprisoned for preaching to the Black community. After that, he moved to Baltimore, where he served as principal of a Black school. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, he helped recruit two Black regiments from Maryland and later served as chaplain for Black soldiers fighting in Mississippi.
After the war ended, he worked for a church in Kansas. On the train, the conductor asked him and his family to move to the smoking car. They refused, and the conductor relented. Not long after, he and his family settled in Natchez, Mississippi, where he was elected as an alderman. Winning over both Black and white with his calls for cooperation, he was elected to the Mississippi State Senate, one of more than 30 African Americans to serve in the Legislature during Reconstruction.
“We are in the midst of an exciting canvass,” he wrote a friend in a letter. “We are determined that Mississippi shall be settled on a basis of justice and political and legal equality.”
He drew attention as soon as he arrived with his moving words. After Mississippi lawmakers appointed him to the U.S. Senate, a few tried to block him from taking office. Revels remained steadfast and took office.
“I find that the prejudice in this country to color is very great, and I sometimes fear that it is on the increase,” he went on to say. “If the nation should take a step for the encouragement of this prejudice against the colored race, can they have any grounds upon which to predicate a hope that heaven will smile upon them and prosper them?”
He supported universal amnesty for former Confederates, requiring only their sworn loyalty to the Union.
“I am in favor of removing the disabilities of those upon whom they are imposed in the South,” he said, “just as fast as they give evidence of having become loyal and being loyal.”
After the end of his Senate term in 1871, he became the first president of Alcorn University, the first land-grant school for Black students. He later taught theology at Rust College and died of a stroke in 1901.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Senate passes its income tax cut plan
The Senate voted Monday evening to pass a tax cut that reduces the state income tax and the sales tax on groceries while raising the gasoline tax, setting up negotiations with the House.
The measure passed the GOP-majority Senate 34-15, with four Democrats supporting it and four Republicans opposing it. It now heads to the House, whose leadership is advocating for its own plan, which would eventually eliminate the state individual income tax.
The Senate plan amounts to a net tax cut of $326 million, a more modest sum than the $1.1 billion net cut passed by the House. The Senate would reduce the state’s flat 4% income tax to 2.99% over four years, while the House would eliminate the income tax over more than a decade.
Senate Finance Chairman Josh Harkins, a Republican from Flowood, told reporters that the legislation was a responsible way to cut taxes while slightly increasing the gasoline tax to provide more revenue for infrastructure funding.
“I think we’ve put forward a really good plan that helps families at the grocery store by lowering the sales tax on groceries,” Harkins said. “And it provides incentives and rewards work.”
The Senate plan would reduce the state’s 7% sales tax on grocery items, the highest in the nation, to 5% starting July 2025. Municipalities receive a portion of grocery tax revenue, and the Senate plan would make cities whole.
The Senate bill would raise the state’s 18.4-cents-a-gallon gasoline excise by three cents yearly over the next three years, eventually resulting in a 27.4 cents-per-gallon gas tax at completion. This is an effort to help the Mississippi Department of Transportation with a long-running shortfall of highway maintenance money.
Most of the chamber’s Democratic members opposed the plan over fears that the state could not afford to wipe out around half a billion dollars each year from its budget and still address some of the state’s critical issues such as public education and health care.
“That’s a lot of money, and we need that money for basic infrastructure,” Democratic Sen. Hob Bryan of Amory said. “Everyone benefits from infrastructure.”
Some Democratic members attempted to amend the bill to eliminate the grocery tax or change the tax structure to avoid increasing the gas tax. But the GOP-majority chamber on party-line votes defeated the amendments.
Four Republican senators voted against the final measure because it raised the gasoline tax, something they viewed as going against the GOP’s core ideology.
Sen. Angela Burks Hill, a Republican from Picayune, told reporters the gas tax increase would hurt rural people the most because they have to drive further for work and to purchase groceries.
“I’m just trying to follow my party’s platform of low taxes,” Hill said.
Now that both chambers at the Capitol have passed separate tax proposals, the key question will be how much legislative leaders can compromise on a final package. House Speaker Jason White, a Republican from West, and Republican Gov. Tate Reeves have said abolishing the income tax is their primary goal this session.
White previously told Mississippi Today that he’s willing to compromise with the Senate, but he wants a final tax cut that’s substantive and meaningful.
“We’re not interested in a small piece of a tax cut while not addressing other issues,” White said.
Reeves has thrown cold water on the Senate’s proposal because it doesn’t entirely eliminate the income tax. If lawmakers can’t agree on a proposal, he could call them into a special session to address taxes.
Harkins, though, said he hopes lawmakers can “build consensus” on a final package during the regular session. House and Senate leaders will likely debate the measure for the next month. The deadline for lawmakers to approve tax and appropriations bills is March 31.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
City goes to the suburbs, and Germantown is the winner
Can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked this question in recent years: What has happened to Jackson Public Schools basketball?
Good question.
And I do know the answer, at least a large part of it. But first some background.
Used to be, you could count on several JPS powerhouses to bring huge crowds to the State Tournament at Mississippi Coliseum every February to watch Murrah, Lanier, Provine, Callaway and Jim Hill teams that annually produced some of the greatest basketball talent in Mississippi history. Often, fire marshalls stepped in and locked the Coliseum doors with still hundreds of fans outside hoping to get in.
That’s no longer the case. Not a single JPS boys team made it to the State semifinals this year. (The Lanier girls will play Choctaw County in a 4A semifinal game Wednesday afternoon.) Even just a decade ago, no JPS boys teams in the State Championships would have been heresy. This is not to say that the Jackson metro area is not represented at the Big House. Northwest Rankin, Brandon, Germantown and Madison Central teams all played in the semifinals on Monday. The Canton girls and boys will play Tuesday.
The suburbs are killing it. Inner city Jackson is not.
OK, so here’s a major reason why: In many cases, the city has moved to the suburbs. This is best illustrated by how the Germantown team from out Gluckstadt way hammered Biloxi 55-30 in the Monday noon Class 7A semifinals.
There were Germantown guards Michael and Mason Williams controlling the flow of the game with their ball-handling, passing and defensive skills. There was 7-footer Sam Funches IV dominating the paint at both ends with his length, nifty footwork and soft touch around the basket. There was guard/forward Michael Johnson contributing in so many ways with hustle and grit. And there was Devin Moore, a sturdy, 6-5 guard/forward scoring nine points on just five shots and also contributing five rebounds, three assists and two steals.
Here’s the deal: Michael Williams (a senior) and Mason Williams (a junior) are the sons of Mo Williams the former Murrah, Alabama and NBA great who now coaches at Jackson State. Funches is the son of Sam Funches III, who also played at Murrah, was recruited by Jim Calhoun at Connecticut and finished his career at North Texas. Johnson’s dad, Trey, played at Murrah and then was the SWAC Player of the Year at Jackson State before a long professional career in the NBA and overseas. Moore’s dad and an uncle both played at Jim Hill. Now, all live in Madison County and have turned the Germantown Mavericks, 23-5, into a powerhouse. The Mavs will play neighboring Madison Central in the 7A championship game, which will be played Thursday night at 8 p.m.
Said Mo Williams, who watched Monday’s proceedings from a seat in the Germantown cheering section, “It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? It’s like the city has moved to the ‘burbs.”
We weren’t three minutes into the Germantown-Biloxi game when brothers Michael and Mason Williams combined to make a play that reminded we longtime Jackson-area fans of the kind of plays their daddy made at Murrah. Mason lofted a high, looping alley-top pass high above the basket. Michael , who will play for his dad at Jackson State, soared high above the rim and slammed the ball through to give the Mavs a lead they never relinquished.
Michael dunked again moments later, swished a three-pointer after that, and then scored on a spin move and a mid-range jumper seconds later. Before you knew it, a 7-6 deficit turned into at 21-11 lead,
Meahwhle, Funches IV, a 16-year-old junior, showed why virtually every college basketball coach in the country is recruiting him. Yes, he needs to get stronger. He could be – and probably will be – more aggressive. But you can’t teach a kid how to be 7 feet tall, and you can’t teach the deft shooting touch he already possesses. That’s inherited. These Germantown players inherited well.
This time last year, Mo Williams’ sons were helping Jackson Academy win the overall private schools state championship at Jackson Academy. Now they are trying to win a public schools championship.
Michael asked me: “Has anybody ever done that?”
I don’t know. I thought Andy Kennedy, the former Ole Miss and current UAB coach, might have done it back when he still had hair and transferred from Winston Academy to Louisville High School. But Kennedy text-messaged back: ”We won it at Winston but only won the north half at Louisville, got beat in the semifinals at the Coliseum.”
Somebody else might have done it. I don’t know. I do know precious few have had the opportunity.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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