Cultural Planning in the Mississippi Delta

LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Learn about a variety of community engagement methods to tell a community's unique story.
• Explore how cultural planning can be used to promote community pride and generate tourism.
• Understand the role that MLK's Poor People's Campaign played in raising awareness about rural poverty.

MORE SESSION DETAILS

Upon realizing that the impoverished Mississippi Delta community of Marks had lost touch with its historical role in the civil rights movement, local officials reached out to the Carl Small Town Center (CSTC) to engage the community in telling their town’s story. With funding from an NEA Our Town grant, the CSTC used a variety of community engagement methods — including oral histories, community meetings, and a design charrette — to stitch together the events of the Mule Train, a pivotal part of Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1968 Poor People’s Campaign. Using specific examples from the project, CSTC staff explain how they used effective community engagement methods to develop a multimodal cultural trail that helped Marks promote its history as a means of boosting community pride, while encouraging biking and walking in an obesity-ridden region. Panelists also discuss how they maximized limited grant funds to construct and install trail signage. The project, which received a statewide APA award, serves as an example of how small towns can use their history to promote their unique sense of place and catalyze their local economy by promoting cultural tourism.

Session Speakers

Leah F. Kemp
Speaker
Mississippi State, MS

Thomas R. Gregory, AICP
Organizer and Speaker
Greenwood, MS