A Brief Tour of Miss-iss-ippi

This past week, I had the chance to visit, for the first time, the Deep South, and let me be the first to tell you that it sure is awfully deep down there. It's nearly a different country. I went as a leader for the 14-18 year old boys in my ward and probably had more fun than they did. We left Wednesday and headed to Enid Lake, which is about an hour south of Memphis. We wakeboarded and tubed on the boat for seven hours, then headed down to Biloxi, Mississippi, which, up until this trip, I had only heard of briefly in a Limp Bizkit song in 7th grade (don't even bother asking about that section of my life).

When we got to the beach in Biloxi, I found this historical marker that I thought was pretty interesting.


Apparently the beach was the setting for what they called "Wade-ins" during the Civil Rights Movement, very similar to the "Sit-ins" that were organized in diners and restaurants throughout the South. In the book, Black Like Me, the author, John Howard Griffin, mentions arriving in Biloxi and begins talking to a man about how beautiful the beach is, only to be told that "Negroes weren't permitted to use the beaches" despite the taxes paid by everyone for the upkeep of the waterfront. John Griffin arrived in Biloxi on November 19, 1959, a little over six months after the first wade-in. I realized that I was at the exact same beach where Griffin had been 52 years earlier. I found this photo from the actual wade-in from April 24, 1960.


It was a cool experience to be on the very beach where so many people had risked emotional and bodily harm a half-century earlier in the name of equal rights. It definitely gave some weight to the occasion.


On a lighter note, apparently turtles are protected wildlife in Mississippi.

Once we had stayed in Biloxi a couple of days, we headed over to Mobile, Alabama to tour the USS Alabama, which fought in the Pacific during World War II.


It was gigantic and, actually, really awesome. They have a program where scout troops can stay overnight on the ship to experience it as much as possible, so we grabbed our bags and headed aboard. We had a rude awakening when we got to where we were supposed to sleep. Apparently, they really wanted us to have the real deal because the beds were the exact same as they were in 1943.


The kid on the left (from the other ward) didn't wear sunscreen the first day when we were at the lake for seven hours, so he woke up the next day and his face was swollen so much that he could barely see......and then he didn't wear sunscreen again that day (defying the advice of his leaders), so, sure enough, his face swelled up even more the next day. Needless to say, he was miserable for a good portion of the next three days.

We hit up the lake again on our way back on Saturday. But, as usual, all good things must come to an end. As we were crossing the Mississippi-Tennessee border, a torrential rainstorm hit and we realized immediately that we were no longer on the beach.


Welcome (back) to Memphis.