Mississippi Today
History is huge draw for Mississippi River cruise goers, but whose history?
Overnight cruises returned to the Mississippi River a decade ago, following the industry’s collapse. As existing cruise lines adapt, and companies like Viking enter the market, many passengers say the river’s storied past is part of the draw.
But what history do they learn, and how?
On a hot afternoon in late May, Lee Hendrix stood on stage in the dimly lit Grand Saloon — an elaborate floating reproduction of the original Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.
The former river captain and self-schooled historian described the sinking of the Sultana near Memphis more than 150 years ago, when at least 1,400 people drowned on the Mississippi River. A rapt crowd listened as their own vessel, the American Queen, mosied safely up the same route.
Hendrix is a riverlorian — think: river, lore and historian — aboard the American Queen, a steamboat that can haul more than 400 cruise-goers the length of the Mississippi River. This audience is nearing the end of a seven-day journey from New Orleans to Memphis.
This cruise line offers presentations about local history, as do all three overnight Mississippi River cruise lines — American Queen Voyages, American Cruise Lines and Viking. Some presenters are Ph.D. historians, and others are self-schooled, like Hendrix, who’s a veteran on the river.
The American Queen is billed as capturing the nostalgia of 19th century steamboat travel. The company prides itself on using a restored, century-old steam engine, and the sentiment extends to the rest of the vessel, which oozes with memorabilia of the period.
Passengers are greeted with red carpeted stairs at the bow of the boat, ending at a set of gilded double doors that open to the Mark Twain Gallery, a dimly-lit room lined with ornate bookshelves, steamboat replicas in glass cases and displays of Twain’s works.
Lower river tours with American Queen Voyages start at about $4,000 — well above the cost of an average Caribbean cruise — and the most expensive tickets come with a $10,000 price tag. They attract a crowd that’s mostly retired, wealthy and well-traveled, and history is part of the draw for many passengers.
The company’s strategy “is to identify thoughtful and deliberate shore excursions” and provide riverlorians to help guests understand the complexity of the region, Cindy D’Aoust, president of American Queen Voyages, said in a statement.. .
Most days, passengers can find Hendrix walking laps around the fourth floor deck of the American Queen or in the Chart Room — an airy room at the boat’s bow, filled with books and maps of the river — ready to answer passengers’ questions in between excursions in riverside towns.
But at a time when many plantations are facing scrutiny for not accurately representing the legacy of slavery in the South, historians like John Anfinson, a Ph.D. historian and riverlorian with American Cruise Lines, try to add context to these stops along the tour in a “Plantation Preview.”
Anfinson does his best to prepare tourists before they step off the boat, steering away from the history they often hear on guided tours and opting instead to describe the legacy of slavery in the South. That way, he said, people can make sense of the stories shared on tours in a meaningful way.
American Cruise Lines’ description of the Houmas House, one of the most notorious plantations of the South, reads: “Step off of your ship docked right at Houmas House and explore one of the most elaborately renovated of the grand homes along the river, once a private home and thriving historical agricultural enterprise.”
Anfinson read the description and exclaimed: “Talk about a way to avoid saying ‘plantation!’”
Houmas House is named after the indigenous Louisianans they stole the land from and was owned by Revolutionary War general Wade Hampton, one of the largest slaveholders in the antebellum South. In the same year he purchased Houmas House, he suppressed a slave revolt that resulted in the deaths of 95 enslaved people.
The Houmas House website does not mention this history, and Anfinson understands why not all historic sites lead with that.
“In the fractured America of today, the audience is going to be fractured in how they listen to that story,” Anfinson said.
The Laura Plantation, situated between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, was the first museum of its kind in the South that highlighted the lives of enslaved people when it opened in 1994. Operations manager Jay Schexnaydre said many other plantations have followed suit since then.
The Laura Plantation prides itself on taking guests through the house, grounds and slave quarters, compared to some other plantations that keep visitors in “the big house.” Some plantations still choose to showcase the grandeur of Antebellum homes on plantation tours, focusing on antique furniture and portraits.
“What people are interested in is the truth,” Schexnaydre said.
American Queen Voyages and Viking feature the Laura Plantation on their itineraries, but Schexnaydre said the logistics of tours can impact visitors’ experiences.
If passengers start their tour in New Orleans, the Laura Plantation is one of their first stops. If their tour starts in Memphis, heading downriver, Schexnaydre said passengers likely will spend the last week touring other plantations, and might opt for an alternate excursion instead.
“Every stop is plantations, plantations, plantations,” he said.
Part of the Laura Plantation’s tour follows the arc of one family over three generations rather than telling the stories of enslaved people in a general sense. Schexnaydre said it helps visitors connect more intimately with people whose stories might otherwise be lost to history.
Riverlorian Hendrix makes an effort to confront forgotten history in his 45-minute lecture about the Sultana — a maritime disaster that rivals the death toll from the Titanic. He talked about how commercial navigation impacted indigenous peoples; the neglect of a steamboat captain who overcrowded the Sultana for profit; and the prisoners of war who died in the fiery explosion.
The story of the Sultana was lost in headlines about the killing of Lincoln’s assassin John Wilkes Booth and other events as the war neared its end, but Hendrix said it’s more than that.
“So, why doesn’t anybody know about the Sultana?” Hendrix wondered aloud on stage. “The people on the Sultana were poor soldiers returning home. Most of the people on the Titanic were rich people.”
Anfinson and Hendrix know some passengers will skip their talks. Some people are celebrating a birthday or anniversary, Anfinson said; not everyone is there for a history lesson. In many ways, it’s up to passengers to craft their experiences, but the histories that passengers encounter often depend on who’s telling them, and how.
Hendrix became a riverlorian after decades on the river, first as a deckhand and then as a river pilot, with a brief stint away that involved performing skits where he played a steamboat captain. He said he’s always loved river history, “probably more so than other pilots.”
By the time passengers heard Hendrix’s recollection of the Sultana’s sinking, they had stopped at ports in Nottoway, St. Francisville, Natchez and Vicksburg. In St. Francisville, passengers could choose between two excursions: “Plantations of the Back Roads” or “Redemption and Rehabilitation at Angola Prison.”
The Louisiana State Penitentiary — more often called Angola, for the former slave plantation that occupied the land — is the largest maximum-security prison in the country. Under the convict lease system, prisoners were abused, underfed and worked to death during much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and it earned a reputation as “the bloodiest prison in the South.”
The Angola Museum included on the cruise line’s itinerary tries to tell “the complex and compelling stories of corrections and justice in Louisiana.” Visitors tour through the prison’s infamous past, including a stop at the Red Hat Cell Block, adjacent to a small room that was the site of 11 executions by electric chair between 1956 and 1961.
The prison now touts a philosophy of moral rehabilitation, though it continues to come under fire for involuntary servitude. The tour brings visitors to the present-day with a tour of the crop fields, where prisoners grow the food they eat.
American Queen passenger Jennifer White Fischer felt she left the tour with a more nuanced understanding of the criminal justice system. But then, she said tour guides at the nearby Louisiana State University Rural Life Museum raised critical questions about Angola she hadn’t considered.
As someone who discovered her love of history later in life, and recently wrote a book about her travels, she prioritizes the educational excursions on her tours.
“(River cruises) have just opened my eyes to the whole vastness of our country,” she said.
About halfway through the cruise from New Orleans to Memphis, passengers spent an afternoon in Vicksburg, Mississippi. The itinerary featured mainstays like the Jesse Brent Lower Mississippi River Museum and the Vicksburg National Military Park, but a more recent addition to the lineup tells Civil War history in a different way.
Charles Pendleton opened the Vicksburg Civil War Museum two years ago to talk about the war from a Black perspective.
“You open something like this, and all of the factors are not in your favor,” Pendleton said. “You’re Black, you’re in Vicksburg, Mississippi, where everybody has deep feelings about the Confederacy…and here you are telling a different story.”
A self-made historian, Pendleton started out attending Civil War gun shows, where he said white attendees made a point to tout their own theories about the war. It was the impetus for his own research, which led to him sharing presentations at his church.
Then, he stumbled across more Civil War-era memorabilia at antique shops, including a receipt for a seven-year-old girl named Ella. It elicited an emotional response he hadn’t experienced at other Civil War museums, and he wanted to capture that emotion for other museum-goers in Vicksburg.
Pendleton said most visitors are white and estimates at least half come from river cruises, which he said have been a boon for his museum and other small businesses. As cruise lines add new boats to their fleets and more stops to their itineraries, Pendleton hopes the industry will continue to elevate voices like his.
This story, the first of a three-part series, published in partnership with the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, part of Mississippi Today, is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, funded by the Walton Family Foundation.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
After 30 years in prison, Mississippi woman dies from cancer she says was preventable
Behind Bars, Beyond Care:
A Mississippi Today investigation into suffering, secrecy and the business of prison health care
Susie Balfour, diagnosed with terminal breast cancer two weeks before her release from prison, has died from the disease she alleged past and present prison health care providers failed to catch until it was too late.
The 64-year-old left the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in December 2021 after more than 30 years of incarceration. She died on Friday, a representative for her family confirmed.
Balfour is survived by family members and friends. News of her passing has led to an outpouring of condolences of support shared online from community members, including some she met in prison.
Instead of getting the chance to rebuild her life, Balfour was released with a death sentence, said Pauline Rogers, executive director of the RECH Foundation.
“Susie didn’t just survive prison, she came out fighting,” Rogers said in a statement. “She spent her final years demanding justice, not just for herself, but for the women still inside. She knew her time was limited, but her courage was limitless.”
Last year, Balfour filed a federal lawsuit against three private medical contractors for the prison system, alleging medical neglect. The lawsuit highlighted how she and other incarcerated women came into contact with raw industrial chemicals during cleaning duty. Some of the chemicals have been linked to an increased risk of cancer in some studies.
The companies contracted to provide health care to prisoners at the facility over the course of Balfour’s sentence — Wexford Health Sources, Centurion Health and VitalCore, the current medical provider — delayed or failed to schedule follow-up cancer screenings for Balfour even though they had been recommended by prison physicians, the lawsuit says.
“I just want everybody to be held accountable,” Balfour said of her lawsuit. “ … and I just want justice for myself and other ladies and men in there who are dealing with the same situation I am dealing with.”
Rep. Becky Currie, who chairs the House Corrections Committee, spoke to Balfour last week, just days before her death. Until the very end, Balfour was focused on ensuring her story would outlive her, that it would drive reforms protecting others from suffering the same fate, Currie said.
“She wanted to talk to me on her deathbed. She could hardly speak, but she wanted to make sure nobody goes through what she went through,” Currie said. “I told her she would be in a better place soon, and I told her I would do my best to make sure nobody else goes through this.”
During Mississippi’s 2025 legislative session, Balfour’s story inspired Rep. Justis Gibbs, a Democrat from Jackson, to introduce legislation requiring state prisons to provide inmates on work assignments with protective gear.
Gibbs said over 10 other Mississippi inmates have come down with cancer or become seriously ill after they were exposed to chemicals while on work assignments. In a statement on Monday, Gibbs said the bill was a critical step toward showing that Mississippi does not tolerate human rights abuses.
“It is sad to hear of multiple incarcerated individuals passing away this summer due to continued exposure of harsh chemicals,” Gibbs said. “We worked very hard last session to get this bill past the finish line. I am appreciative of Speaker Jason White and the House Corrections Committee for understanding how vital this bill is and passing it out of committee. Every one of my house colleagues voted yes. We cannot allow politics between chambers on unrelated matters to stop the passage of good common-sense legislation.”
The bill passed the House in a bipartisan vote before dying in the Senate. Currie told Mississippi Today on Monday that she plans on marshalling the bill through the House again next session.
Currie, a Republican from Brookhaven, said Balfour’s case shows that prison medical contractors don’t have strong enough incentives to offer preventive care or treat illnesses like cancer.
In response to an ongoing Mississippi Today investigation into prison health care and in comments on the House floor, Currie has said prisoners are sometimes denied life saving treatments. A high-ranking former corrections official also came forward and told the news outlet that Mississippi’s prison system is rife with medical neglect and mismanagement.
Mississippi Today also obtained text messages between current and former corrections department officials showing that the same year the state agreed to pay VitalCore $100 million in taxpayer funds to provide healthcare to people incarcerated in Mississippi prisons, a top official at the Department remarked that the company “sucks.”
Balfour was first convicted of murdering a police officer during a robbery in north Mississippi, and she was sentenced to death. The Mississippi Supreme Court reversed the conviction in 1992, finding that her constitutional rights were violated in trial. She reached a plea agreement for a lesser charge, her attorney said.
As of Monday, the lawsuit remains active, according to court records. Late last year Balfour’s attorneys asked for her to be able to give a deposition with the intent of preserving her testimony. She was scheduled to give one in Southaven in March.
Rogers said Balfour’s death is a tragic reminder of systemic failures in the prison system where routine medical care is denied, their labor is exploited and too many who are released die from conditions that went untreated while they were in state custody.
Her legacy is one RECH Foundation will honor by continuing to fight for justice, dignity and systemic reform, said Rogers, who was formerly incarcerated herself.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post After 30 years in prison, Mississippi woman dies from cancer she says was preventable appeared first on mississippitoday.org
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Left
This article presents a critical view of the Mississippi prison health care system, highlighting systemic failures and medical neglect that led to the death of a formerly incarcerated woman. The tone and framing focus on social justice issues, prisoner rights, and the need for government accountability and reform, which align with Center-Left values emphasizing government responsibility for vulnerable populations. While the article is largely investigative and fact-based, its emphasis on advocacy for reform, criticism of privatized prison health contractors, and highlighting bipartisan legislative efforts suggest a Center-Left leaning perspective rather than neutral reporting.
Mississippi Today
FBI concocted a bribery scheme that wasn’t, ex-interim Hinds sheriff says in appeal
Former interim Hinds County sheriff Marshand Crisler is appealing bribery and ammunition charges stemming from his 2021 campaign, arguing that the federal government played on his relationship with a former supporter to entrap him.
Crisler had asked Tonarri Moore, who donated to past campaigns, for a financial contribution for the sheriff’s race. Moore said he would donate if Crisler helped with several requests. Without the previous relationship, Crisler would not have acted, his attorney argues, and Crisler had no reason to believe he was being bribed.
“The government, having concocted a bribery scheme to entrap Crisler, then had to contrive a corresponding quid pro quo to support the scenario with which to entrap him,” attorney John Holliman wrote in a Saturday appellant brief.
Crisler is asking the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse his conviction and render its own rulings on both counts.
He was convicted in federal court in November after a three-day trial and sentenced earlier this year to 2 ½ years in prison. Crisler is serving time in FCI Beckley in West Virginia.
The day before Crisler reached out to Moore to ask for support for his campaign for sheriff, Drug and Enforcement Administration agents raided Moore’s home and found guns and drugs. An FBI agent called to the scene looked through Moore’s phone and saw Crisler had called.
According to the appellant brief, the agent asked Moore what Crisler would do if offered money, and if Moore was bribing him. Moore said he wasn’t bribing Crisler, and the agent asked if Moore would do it.
At that time, there weren’t reasonable grounds to start a bribery investigation into Crisler, his attorney argues, nor was there reason to believe he was seeking a bribe.
Moore agreed to become an informant for the FBI, in exchange for the government not prosecuting him for the guns and drugs.
The FBI fitted him with a wire to record Crisler during meetings, which began that day. The meetings included one inside Moore’s night club and a cigarette lounge in Jackson. Agents provided Moore with the $9,500 he gave to Crisler between September and November 2021.
Crisler’s 2023 indictment came as he campaigned again for sheriff and months before the primary election. He remained in the race and lost to the incumbent who he faced in 2021.
At trial, the government argued the exchange of money were attempts to bribe because Moore made several requests of Crisler: to move his cousin to a different part of the Hinds County Detention Center, to get him a job in the sheriff’s office and for Crisler to let Moore know if law enforcement was looking into his activities.
In closing arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Kirkham pointed to examples of quid pro quo in recordings, including one where Moore said to Crisler, “You scratch my back, I scratch yours” and Crisler replied “Hello!” in a tone that the government saw as agreement.
The appellant’s brief argues that without Moore’s requests, the government lacked a way to show quid pro quo, a requirement of bribery charge: that Crisler committed or agreed to commit an official act in exchange for funds.
Moore also asked Crisler to give him bullets despite being a convicted felon, which is prohibited under federal law. The brief notes how the government directed Moore to come up with a story for needing the bullets and to ask Crisler to give them to him.
In response, Crisler told Moore he could buy bullets at several sporting goods stores. Moore said they ran out, and eventually Crisler gave him bullets.
Crisler also argues that the government prosecuted routine political behavior. Specifically, accepting campaign donations is not illegal, and can not constitute bribery unless there is an explicit promise to perform or not perform an official act in exchange for money.
“Our political system relies on interactions between citizens and politicians with requests being made for this or that which is within the power of the elected official to do,” the brief states. “This does not constitute a bribery scheme. It is the normal working of our political system.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post FBI concocted a bribery scheme that wasn’t, ex-interim Hinds sheriff says in appeal appeared first on mississippitoday.org
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Right
The article presents the legal appeal of former interim Hinds County sheriff Marshand Crisler with a focus on his argument that the FBI orchestrated an entrapment scheme. The language is largely factual and centers on the defense’s claims and legal standards for bribery, emphasizing normal political behavior versus illegal conduct. While the article reports on the government’s position, it gives significant space to Crisler’s defense and critiques of federal prosecution tactics. This framing, highlighting skepticism toward federal law enforcement and emphasizing the defense perspective, suggests a slight center-right leaning, reflecting a cautious stance on government overreach without overt ideological language.
Mississippi Today’s politics team recaps the 2025 Neshoba County Fair. This year’s political speaking lacked some of the fire and brimstone of big election years, but state leaders laid out some major policy plans sure to dominate debate in the next legislative session.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post Political stumping mild at Neshoba County Fair appeared first on mississippitoday.org
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