THE DELTA 347 THE DELTA 347 heard stories of Alfonzo Robinson, a serial killer who struck fear in the hearts of all in Bolivar County in 1934. Robinson, who went by the alias James Coyner, preserved and ate part of the body of one of his victims and was eventually captured. He confessed to the killing of a Bolivar County couple and was executed by hanging on the Bolivar County Courthouse lawn in Cleveland. The story of Alfonzo Robinson helped inspire the creation of Harris’s character Hannibal Lecter, the most famous cannibal in all of literary history and one of the most famous characters in all of modern film. Of the many notable figures to come from the Delta, no one has represented the Delta on a world stage quite like Riley “Blues Boy” King. The world’s most famous blues musician was born near Itta Bena in 1925. The King of the Blues and master of the electric guitar eventually declared Indianola to be his home, although his professional life kept him on the road for more than 200 days per year throughout his musical career. A brilliant guitarist and powerful gospel singer as a child, King made an impression as a teenager by singing in churches around the Delta and playing on a local radio station out of Greenwood. King spent his late teens and early twenties going back and forth between Memphis and the Delta. By the late 1940s, King gained consistent work as a disc jockey and singer for station WDIA out of Memphis. While at WDIA, King attracted audiences with his powerful, raw performances of the blues, earning him the nickname Beale Street Blues Boy. That moniker would later be shortened to Blues Boy and then simply B. B. His electric guitar was named Lucille and became an integral attraction at a B. B. King show. From the 1950s until his death in 2015, King was not only a shining star for the Delta blues, he was an ambassador for the genre both in the United States and throughout the world. King put out more than forty albums and spent much of his life on the road playing with the greatest blues and rock musicians of the modern era. He also performed in front of the world’s most notable leaders, from American presidents to Pope John Paul II. A member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Blues Hall of Fame, King won fifteen Grammy Awards. In 2007, President George W. Bush awarded King the Presidential Medal of Freedom. At the medal ceremony, President Bush remarked that even though King was in his later years of life, the blues legend was still going strong and continued to captivate audiences all over the world. PRISON LABOR Prisoners have been used to help clear land surrounding prisons and do other menial tasks as they pay their debt to society since the first state prison was established in Mississippi in 1789. PHOTO COURTESY OF MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY Of the many notable figures to come from the Delta, no one has represented the Delta on a world stage quite like Riley “Blues Boy” King. The world’s most famous blues musician was born near Itta Bena in 1925. PARCHMAN The state penitentiary was moved from the site of what is now the new Mississippi Capitol to land bought from the Parchman Plantation in Sunflower County in 1901. Constructed using mostly state prisoner labor, the prison is located on about twenty-eight square miles of flat Delta land. Originally built to house around 200 inmates, the penitentiary currently has capacity for more than 20,000 inmates. PHOTO BY GREG CAMPBELL