Delta Blues Museum - Blues Museums

Delta Blues Museum

Mission Statement

The Delta Blues Museum is dedicated to creating a welcoming place where visitors find meaning, value, and perspective by exploring the history and heritage of the unique American musical art form of the blues.

History

The City of Clarksdale, located at the intersection of Highways 61 and 49 (“the crossroads”), and the surrounding Delta region are known as ”the land where the blues began”.

Since its creation, the Delta Blues Museum has preserved, interpreted, and encouraged a deep interest in the story of the blues. Established in 1979 by the Carnegie Public Library Board of Trustees and re-organized as a stand-alone museum in 1999, the Delta Blues Museum is the state’s oldest music museum. A five-member board appointed by the Mayor and Board of Commissioners of Clarksdale governs the museum. Funded by the City of Clarksdale, admissions, memberships, gift shop revenue, granting agencies and donations, the museum uses public and private funds to carry out its mission.

Museum Sites

Since 1999, the Delta Blues Museum has been housed in the historic Clarksdale freight depot, built in 1918 for the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad. The building was designated a Mississippi Landmark Property in 1996. The former freight area- about five thousand square feet of ground floor space – is devoted to permanent and traveling exhibits.

The Delta Blues Museum Stage is adjacent to the museum classroom, which hosts a year-round music education program as well as lectures and symposia. The Delta Blues Museum Stage serves as the main venue for local festivals such as the Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival in August and the Juke Joint Festival in April.

In 2005, the Delta Blues Museum was granted programming oversight of the historic Greyhound Bus Station, from which many local residents departed for Chicago and points north during The Great Migration in the first half of the 20th century. The building was designated a Mississippi Landmark Property in 2001. The Station hosts exhibits and the Greyhound Speaker Series, a brown bag lunch program held at noon on the third Friday of every month. The series is funded through a grant from the Mississippi Humanities Council. The station is also available for rent for special events; contact the Delta Blues Museum office for details.

#1 Blues Alley
Clarksdale, MS 38614

P.O. Box 459
Clarksdale, MS 38614

P: 662.627.6820
F: 662.627.7263