On June 8, 2022, Scott Barretta and Bobby Whalen presented “Folklife and the Civil Rights Movement” as part of the History Is Lunch series.
The pair are part of the Mississippi Arts Commission’s online exhibit Folklife and the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi, which features twelve essays on a range of topics that includes family lore, protestways, folk art, music, quilting, reunions, and communal gatherings.
In “Willie King’s ‘Struggling Blues,’” Barretta examines the life of Mississippi-born Willie King and the evolution of his political voice in his music. “Blues was King’s platform for expressing his vision of social justice,” Baretta said. “But he didn’t stop at performing his ‘struggle songs,’ as he called them. Willie King was a community activist and organizer.”
King’s political consciousness was heightened while at Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee. He realized that many of the people he met there—be they coal miners or sharecroppers—had a common experience of social injustices.
“Although he died in 2009, King’s legacy is carried on by his students including Jock Webb, who fights for the rights of farmers of color and plays harmonica with the band led by Greenville's Keith Johnson.”
Bobby Whalen, an Indianola musician and painter who specializes in portraits, murals, and hand-lettered signs, is profiled in “All We Have Are Our Memories: Bobby Whalen and Art in the Civil Rights Movement.” Whalen was active in the civil rights movement, and he incorporates memories of that period into his art. “The only things that we own are our memories,” Whalen said. “My experiences as a musician, activist, veteran, teacher, and community historian all influence the art I make now.”
As a musician, Whalen has opened for B.B. King and Muddy Waters. As an artist he has painted them. Whalen’s work has been featured at the University of Memphis, University of Florida, Mississippi Museum of Art, and the Museum of Mississippi History, where his hand-painted signs were commissioned as part of the jook joint exhibit.
Scott Barretta is a writer and researcher for the Mississippi Blues Trail. He teaches sociology and music classes at the University of Mississippi. Barretta is the former editor of Living Blues magazine, hosts the radio show Highway 61 on Mississippi Public Broadcasting, and has written exhibits for the B.B. King Museum and the Grammy Museum Mississippi. In 2016 he received MAC’s Governor’s Arts Award.
Bobby Whalen describes himself as “among the last of a dying breed of blues musicians who actually played in juke joints and picked and chopped cotton.” Growing up a block away from the famous Club Ebony, Whalen developed a passion for Delta blues music. He has been an active performer for more than thirty years, and he is best known as the frontman for the Ladies Choice Band.
History Is Lunch is sponsored by the John and Lucy Shackelford Charitable Fund of the Community Foundation for Mississippi.
