As part of your Natchez Tricentennial celebration plans for May, come out to the Hotel Vue at 5:30 p.m. on Monday evenings this month for a free and entertaining look at some fascinating slices of Natchez history.

In May the Natchez Legends & Lore speaker series will be recognizing National Travel and Tourism Week, National Historic Preservation Month, the Natchez Festival of Music and the roots of our Memorial Day commemorations.

This weekly series is organized by the Tricentennial Ethnic & Social History Committee, and light refreshments will be served.

To kick off National Travel & Tourism Week, on May 2 Kathleen Bond will present “History, Memory, and Tourism in 20th Century Natchez: What are We Selling? What are we Buying Into? And Who Is in Control?” a look at how the tourism industry in Natchez burst onto the local economic scene in the 1930s and has grown and changed over time.

As part of our community’s focus on music in May during the Natchez Festival of Music, on May 9 attendees will enjoy a sneak look at Lynette Tanner’s “Delta Music” tour usually presented in the plantation church at Frogmore Plantation that takes visitors on a journey of the South through song.

On May 15, to commemorate National Historic Preservation Month, Mary Eidt will illuminate the life and works of Charlie Compton, a noted colorful character and one of the earliest preservationists in Natchez. Miss Compton labored valiantly — though ultimately in vain — to save the old Natchez city hall and town marketplace from destruction.

On May 22, the series will look ahead to the Memorial Day holiday which falls on the following weekend. Ser Seshsh Ab Heter-C.M. Boxley will talk about the origins of this national commemoration day in the years following the Civil War, when U.S. Civil War veterans established the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), an organization to care for veterans and their families that initiated the annual ceremony of decorating the graves of U.S. soldiers and sailors on the May 30.

There will be no speaker on Memorial Day itself, May 29.

The Tricentennial Ethnic & Social History committee extends many thanks to the Hotel Vue for providing hospitality for this month.

For more information, please contact Kelin Hendricks at the Natchez Tricentennial Office at 1-800-647-6724 or by email at kelin@natchezms300.com.

 

Kathleen Bond is superintendent of Natchez National Historical Park and serves with Dr. Betty Cade as co-chairman of the Tricentennial Ethnic & Social History Committee.