Monday: Memphis, Tennessee

The Peabody dubs itself "the South's grand hotel," and after the long drive through the Delta's blinding heat and light, the hotel lobby certainly ranks as one of the South's most soothing oases. There are cool marbled floors covered in dark carpets, a carved wood ceiling with a stained glass atrium, and ducks paddling in a fountain that burbles just beside a spacious bar.

I resist the urge to while away the day over mint juleps, and head instead for a walking tour of downtown. Though modern Memphis has almost a million people, its population has always drawn heavily on migrants from Mississippi, giving the city a friendly, country air; H.L. Mencken once termed Memphis "the most rural-minded city in the South." Memphis feels closely linked to the Delta in another way. It is here that much of the region's cotton has long been bought and sold, much of it at a stately building labeled Cotton Exchange.

I pause to study several historic plaques on the Exchange's facade. One tells about Front Street, for decades the hub of downtown Memphis. The other commemorates much more recent history. Headlined "John Grisham," the plaque reads: "In 1993, he became the first author to have four books on the bestseller list at the same time." The plaque also notes that Grisham "immortalized downtown Memphis" in his novel, "The Firm."

From the Cotton Exchange I'm drawn by the strains of "Johnny B. Goode" toward nearby Beale Street, the famed stretch of night clubs where so many bluesmen got their start. The air is balmy, so rather than pay a cover charge to sit in a smoky bar, I sit outside on a bench and listen to the music wafting from the clubs' open doorways. In between tunes, I eavesdrop on the banter among the streetcorner men loitering around me.

When a passing tourist drops a nickel on the sidewalk, the men watch it for a moment, too proud to make the first move. Then a well-dressed man walks past, spots the coin and stoops to pick it up.

Wino #1. "Shit, seems like a rich man will fall over himself when he drops a penny, while a poor man won't pay it no mind."

Wino #2. "Guess that's how the rich get rich."

Wino #3. "Man, you can't afford to throw nothing away these days. Just set it aside for awhile, that's all."

From Beale Street I travel uptown to Forrest Park, a large, well-shaded square enclosing a statue of the most controversial figure from the Civil War. Nathan Bedford Forrest was a fierce warrior for the Confederate cause, a private-turned-general who slew 30 Yankees while having 29 horses shot from under him. But the brilliant cavalryman also became infamous for his exploits off the battlefield, first as a slave trader and then as the founder of the Ku Klux Klan. During the War, he was accused of sanctioning the slaughter of surrendering black troops at a Tennessee redoubt called Fort Pillow.

The bronze Forrest still seems ready for battle, sitting erect in the saddle, tall and imperious, with a saber by his left hand and a pistol by his right. The statue was sculpted by a Parisian and etched with overwrought Victorian verse:

"Those hoofbeats die not upon fame's crimsoned sod,
But will ring through her song and her story:
He fought like a titan and struck like a god,
And his dust is our ashes of glory."

Forrest and his wife lie buried beneath the monument. But the memory of the man does not rest in peace. His monument has been frequently defaced by Memphians who abhor Forrest and what he represents; there remain what look like paint splatters on the horse's flank.

Forrest must endure one further indignity. His unyielding gaze is directed out towards swirling traffic on a boulevard named for the cause Forrest fought so hard to defeat: Union Avenue.