Mt. Zion Memorial Fund

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The Mt. Zion Memorial Fund is a Mississippi non-profit corporation formed in 1989. It was named after the 108 year old Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Morgan City, Mississippi. The fund was organized by a former social worker turned vintage guitar dealer from New Brunswick, New Jersey, Raymond 'Skip' Henderson, in order to create a legal conduit to get financial support to rural African-American church communities in Mississippi and to memorialize the contributions of numerous musicians interred in rural cemeteries without grave markers.

[edit] History

Over a 12 year period from 1990 to 2001, the Mount Zion Memorial Fund erected twelve memorials to blues musicians across Mississippi. The organization was officially incorporated in spring 1990 to raise money to save the Mount Zion Church from foreclosure and to place a cenotaph historic marker (not a headstone as is often mistaken) in the Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church cemetery in honor of Robert Johnson whose death certificate lists "Zion Church" as a burial site. This goal was accomplished in partnership with Columbia Records through the work of Columbia A&R man Arthur Levy, with the support of Columbia President Don Ienner, and with the cooperation of the Mt. Zion congregation under the guidance of Pastor Rev. James Ratliff. The granite obelisk has a central inscription by Peter Guralnick, side inscriptions by Skip Henderson which were later used with permission on the Robert Johnson marker in Hazelhurst, Mississippi, and all of Johnson's known recordings added also at the behest of Columbia Records. The memorial has been vandalized on at least three occasions, apparently by souvenir seekers. Shortly after the Robert Johnson memorial was placed on 20 April 1991, John Fogerty agreed to fund a headstone to be placed on the grave of Charley Patton at the New Jerusalem M.B. Church cemetery in Holly Ridge, Mississippi. The Patton ceremony took place on 20 July 1991, the same weekend as the Pops Staples Festival in nearby Drew, Mississippi and subsequently Roebuck "Pops" Staples was in attendance along with Fogerty and three generations of Patton's family including daughter Rosetta Patton Brown, granddaughter Martha Brown and great granddaughter Keisha Brown at the ceremony.

In early September 1991 after reading an article about the Mt. Zion ceremony in Billboard Magazine, Phil Walden and Capricorn Records commissioned a bronze sculpture mounted on a granite headstone through the Mt. Zion Fund in honor of Elmore James. This memorial was placed on James' grave in the Newport Baptist Church Cemetery in Ebenezer, Holmes County, Mississippi on 10 December 1992 with several members of the Mississippi State Legislature in attendance along with Dick Waterman, Phil Walden, musician Marshall Crenshaw, members of James' family, and many others. Months afterwards with the help of Jackson, Mississippi attorney Robert Arentson, on 6 August 1993 a memorial was placed on the gravesite of Mississippi Fred McDowell at the Hammond Hill Baptist Church cemetery in Como, Mississippi. The ceremony was presided over by Dick Waterman and the memorial with McDowell's portrait upon it was paid for by Bonnie Raitt. In this case the memorial stone was a replacement for an inaccurate (McDowell's name mis-spelled) and damaged marker - the original stone was subsequently donated by McDowell's family to the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

The following year a large gravestone for Big Joe Williams, who lies buried in a rural pasture near Crawford, Mississippi, was purchased through a collective effort of musicians (led by California music journalist Dan Forte) who were gathered at Clifford Antone's nightclub in Austin, Texas. The memorial was unveiled on 9 October 1994 with a eulogy by Charlie Musselwhite. Following these memorials, a headstone was erected with the help of musician Kenny Brown on 29 April 1995 to honor Mississippi Joe Callicott in the Mount Olive Baptist Church Cemetery in Nesbit, Mississippi, this marker was financed through the Mt. Zion Fund by Chris Strachwitz, Arhoolie Records and John Fogerty. Callicott's original marker was a paving stone which read simply "Joe" and this was also subsequently donated to the Delta Blues Museum. For work with the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund, Henderson received the W.C. Handy Award for blues preservation in May 1995. Memorial headstones were added for James Thomas (blues musician) on 9 March 1996 at St. Matthews Church in Leland, Mississippi and Memphis Minnie at the New Hope Baptist Church Cemetery in Walls, Mississippi, on 13 October 1996, and . Both memorials paid for by Bonnie Raitt and John Fogerty.

With the help of Greenville, Mississippi photographer Euphus "Butch" Ruth, the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund dedicated memorial headstones for Sam Chatmon in Sanders Memorial Cemetery, Hollandale, Mississippi on 14 March 1998 and Eugene Powell "Sonny Boy Nelson", on 4 November 1998 at the Evergreen Cemetery in Metcalf, Mississippi, both memorials funded once again by grants from Raitt and Fogerty respectively. On 8 October 2000 a memorial paid for by Fogerty and Rooster Blues Records, was placed on the grave of Lonnie Pitchford near Elmore James at the Newport Baptist Church cemetery in Ebenezer, Mississippi. This headstone is designed to have a playable, one string diddley bow mounted on the side as per the family's wishes. In 2001 a headstone was commissioned by the family of Tommy Johnson and paid for by Bonnie Raitt. The large, granite memorial engraved with Johnson's portrait has not been placed on Johnson's grave in the Warm Springs Methodist Cemetery in a rural, unincorporated part of Copiah County however, due to an ongoing dispute between Tommy Johnson's family led by his niece Vera Johnson Collins, the owners of property encircling the cemetery, and the Copiah County Board of Supervisors. The headstone has remained in the Crystal Springs, Mississippi Public Library since being unveiled on 20 October 2001. An annual Tommy Johnson Blues Festival is now held in Crystal Springs, Mississippi on this weekend.