Pine Bluff/Jefferson County has been one of the Arkansas Delta’s most culturally rich areas since its inception in 1829. Serving as a haven for runaway slaves during the late years of the Civil War, the area attracted droves of African Americans throughout the Delta and south Arkansas. Brimming with talent and expectations, they and their descendants traveled a road full of extremes. Although they endured what appears to have been the largest mass lynching in US history in 1866, they also attained one of the largest per-capita concentrations of black wealth in the entire South by 1900. As the hands that labored in the area’s boundless cotton fields and sawmills joined with the hands that held books at the state’s only historically black public college, astonishing accomplishments were churned out in every imaginable field. Naturally, Pine Bluff/Jefferson County’s Delta roots made its blues, jazz, and gospel contributions a source of pride, with native or area-affiliated artists receiving multiple Grammy awards and nominations, as well as other distinctions.

African Americans of Pine Bluff and Jefferson County (Images of America)

Arts & Photography

Cunningham, Donna

Cunningham Jr., Jimmy

Photography & Video

Arcadia Publishing

African Americans of Pine Bluff and Jefferson County

History

Americas

Arcadia Publishing Library Editions

<p>The Delta Lowlands, a place of stunning innovation and creativity in music and film, has laid an incredible foundation for American entertainment. Talented singers, producers, and musicians from a narrow stretch of Arkansas Delta land--traversing U.S. Highway 65 south near England down to Pine Bluff and on through Lake Village/Eudora--have garnered every conceivable distinction, including Grammys as well as Country Music Association (CMA), Gospel Music Association (GMA), Stellar, Dove, Soul Train, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and other music awards. The mosaic of cotton blossoms, catfish farms, blues juke joints, foot-stomping churches, and rich Delta dirt has also served as the training ground for legends in blues, R&B/soul, country music, jazz, and gospel. In film and television, the Delta Lowlands has birthed the invention of sound in movies, the development of slow-motion footage, the creation of television's Neilson's ratings, the first western-genre movie star, a cadre of Emmy and Oscar award-winning personalities, and a television tower that was once the second tallest man-made structure in the world.</p>

Delta Music and Film: Jefferson County and the Lowlands

Humor & Entertainment

Movies

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