Charles Young grew up in the Mississippi Delta during the heart of the Jim Crow era. He remembers visiting his doctor’s office, which had a sign for “whites” and a sign for “coloreds.”
At the time, Young says his parents tried to shield him from “the bad things” that happened to Black residents of the Delta during segregation, sharecropping and the long and painful history of slavery that came before.
“Storytelling was not appreciated, not encouraged,” says Young, 68, a pastor and orator who lives in Cleveland, Miss.
“But you don’t have to look back very far to see the terror and anxiety that people felt.”
Today, Young is determined to ensure that residents of the Delta – Black and white alike – learn about and understand the region’s cultural history. Not a sanitized or one-sided version, but the truth told through the voices of residents whose stories have often been overlooked or ignored.
Charles and his daughter, Layla Young, are members of the first cohort of graduates from the Delta Cultural Heritage Ambassadors Program, a multi-platform oral history, interpretation and education project.
The ambassadors program was created by the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area in partnership with StoryWorks, a documentary theater company based in Clarksdale, Miss.
Launched in early 2024, it aims to empower local residents to take control of their community's narrative, teaching participants the fundamentals of cultural heritage interpretation.
This is about addressing the negative narratives of the Delta and moving the needle from the inside out.
The project’s storytellers, who range in age from their 20s to their 60s, are committed to telling their stories in ways that are authentic, meaningful and create economic benefit for the community.
“This is about addressing the negative narratives of the Delta and moving the needle from the inside out,” says Rolando Herts, former executive director of the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area, and former director of the Delta Center for Cultural and Learning at Delta State University.
“It starts with the residents. It starts with the culture keepers of the community – getting them to understand the importance of their voice, of their history, of their present and how those are all connected.”
The program’s mission is rooted in the belief that local residents are the most qualified to share their community’s history. “They have the power and the knowledge to tell their own stories,” Herts says. “No one else should be telling the stories for them.”
The pilot program culminated in August with the cohort hosting guided bus tours through Coahoma County, Miss., called “Beneath an Unknown Sky Tour: Reflections of African Americans in Coahoma County."
The tours examined the impact of Reconstruction, the fragile enfranchisement of African American voters and the Civil Rights movement. It spotlighted the strength of Black citizens working to overcome injustice and build economic, social, cultural and political autonomy.
Each ambassador shared a unique piece of the area’s history—from quilting traditions to blues music legends like Muddy Waters.
“We wanted to create a way for residents to take back the power for the community and build the skills, partnerships and the coalitions needed to have control and autonomy in telling their story,” says Jenna Welch, artistic director StoryWorks Theater and the capstone project director for the ambassadors’ program.
“The point of the tour was to showcase the stories that haven't been told by the mainstream tourism of the Delta and to build economic opportunity for cultural tourism and heritage.”
For Charles Young, who grew up in Mound Bayou, a town with deep roots in African American history, the program represents more than just an opportunity to tell his own story. It’s a chance to restore dignity and truth to the experiences of Delta residents, particularly Black residents whose histories have often been ignored or distorted.
“It’s not a matter of undoing a thing that was done, or moralizing about it,” Young says. “It’s about sharing our experiences and lives in the Delta. We know exactly why things happened the way they did.”
Young’s daughter, Layla, who has been with StoryWorks since 2017 as associate artistic director, agrees.
“There’s a lot of beauty in the Delta, and people come here seeking authenticity in the roots of this country. If we don’t tell our stories, then the right story and the right perception aren’t going to be made,” she explains. “The question we ask people is: who would you rather tell your story—you or someone else?”
One key theme that emerged during their training in the program is the concept of “erasure”—the intentional exclusion of certain stories from mainstream narratives. “You do have stories that are purposely not being told,” Layla adds.
The program is designed to combat that, providing a platform for stories that might otherwise go unheard.
The “Beneath an Unknown Sky Tour” was held during the Sunflower Blues Festival in Clarksdale. Each ambassador led a portion of the tour, focusing on a different aspect of Delta history.
Mary Ann Mackey, former head of the Tutwiler Quilters, shared the rich quiltmaking traditions of the region.
Other stops highlighted the role of Black churches through emancipation and the Civil Rights era, explored the history of the New World District – the Black business district once known as the Beale Street of Clarksdale – and the Riverside Hotel, where blues singer Betsy Smith died.
Charles Young led the portion of the tour at Stovall Plantation, where legendary blues guitarist and singer McKinley Morganfield—better known as Muddy Waters—was raised as a sharecropper.
Today, the farm remains a tourist destination, but Young offered a new perspective.
He reminded visitors that the owners of the plantation profited off Waters’ labor when he was a sharecropper, and continue to benefit from his legacy today.
“This is the same place where Muddy Waters played music, developed his craft, and earned his nickname by playing in Mississippi mud,” Young told the group. “But all of that identity, it still does not belong to the cotton picker.”
The Delta is known as the home of the Blues, and Blues tourism is a significant industry today. But many of the people who profit financially are not from the Delta, and it’s not always Black residents who get to tell the story of the Blues.
“There’s an entire economy that’s been built around this with no regard for what it does to further marginalize the Black communities that created that culture,” says Herts. “It wasn’t a choice for them.”
While the program is still in its early stages, its leaders have high hopes for its future. Herts and his team envision it as not only a way to reclaim historical narratives but also an opportunity for economic growth in the Delta through cultural tourism.
“Cultural heritage tourists, by and large, are looking for authentic experiences,” Herts explains. “What better way to give them that than to hear directly from people who either lived the history or are descendants of those who did?”
The economic potential is significant. By teaching residents how to interpret and present their own stories, the program is also offering them new career opportunities. StoryWorks, which has long focused on uncovering and performing little-known civil rights histories, has expanded on this approach through the ambassador program, exploring other forms of interpretation such as videography, photography and music.
The Walton Family Foundation has provided support for the program. Herts and Welch hope to build a community of trained storytellers who can contribute to the region’s economic revitalization.
“This isn’t just something you’re doing for academic purposes,” says Herts. “This can lead to jobs at museums, cultural institutions, or other opportunities in heritage tourism.”
For Charles Young, the chance to help reclaim his community’s history is both deeply personal and profoundly important.
“Our past is what our past is. Don’t tell me it didn’t exist,” he says. “It’s important to tell the story, and it’s important for me to be a facilitator of that storytelling.”
