In the Spring of 2024, Allyson and I did a roadtrip from Atlanta to New Orleans, spending most of our time in Mississippi. State and local authorities have invested heavily in marketing their "Blues Trail" to attract tourism and stimulate economic development. There are multiple stories competing for the tourist dollar, some told by grass-roots activists, others by local chambers of commerce and still others by state-funded institutions. The Blues Trail is a contested arena, as tourists discover when they arrive in Jackson to find that there are not one but two museums sitting right next to each other, the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum. It's no wonder the good people of Blues Country can't seem to make up their mind: the blues they want to celebrate left a trail of bloody racial violence that no amount of civic boosterism can paper over.