Marks Mules & Blues Fest Honors 1968 Mule Train, Delta Blues

Marks hosted the Mules & Blues Fest on Oct. 3-4, 2025, centering the town’s role in the 1968 Mule Train that helped launch the Poor People’s Campaign while celebrating North Delta blues, art and southern cuisine. The two-day event revived attention to a civic landmark installed in 2015 and underscored the town’s effort to turn civil rights memory into an ongoing cultural and tourism asset.

The Mule Train cultural trail and marker anchor the festival’s message. Quitman County documentation states, “This cultural trail is a tribute honoring Dr. King’s heroic effort, the members of SCLC and all those who participated in launching and the implementation of this campaign.” The marker’s installation was completed in 2015 as part of work tied to the 2011 Mississippi Freedom Trail project, with matching funds secured from the Quitman County Board of Supervisors and the City of Marks Board of Aldermen.

Local planning for the trail was a community effort. Records note a three-year planning and implementation period during which residents mapped the trail’s route around “key locations in Marks, Mississippi, that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. visited, and the places where the Mule Train activities were planned and organized.” Mississippi State University’s Carl Small Town Center was approved as the project consultant, and the CSTC hosts photographs of the trail route. Project materials also include a verbatim fragment that “of $50,000.00 provided the opportunity for the Quitman County/Marks communities to come together through a series of town hall meetings to develop the idea for a Mule Train trail.”

Festival organizers positioned the event as both commemoration and a showcase: the festival “showcases the north delta region's historical treasures, artistic talents - music, art, literature - and our southern style culinary skills.” Photographs by Dr. James Goldman, many of which appear in his book Goldman’s Gold with Macklyn Hubbell, document the Mule Train and are part of the festival’s archival materials. The festival committee publicly thanked local officials and supporters: “The committee members of the Annual Quitman County Mules & Blues Fest want to personally thank the Quitman County Board of Supervisors, the City of Marks, and all the municipalities of Quitman County for coming together to bring this festival to this region. We would like to sincerely thank each sponsor, patron, volunteer, entertainer, vendor, and the general public for their support and participation.”

The Marks festival figures into a crowded fall calendar for Mississippi blues events. Listings placed the Marks Mules & Blues Fest alongside regional gatherings such as the Highway 61 Blues Festival and the Bukka White Blues Festival, reinforcing October as a key month for heritage tourism across the Delta. For Marks, that seasonal clustering creates opportunities for vendors, local restaurants and lodging to capture visitors drawn by music and civil rights tourism, though detailed attendance and economic-impact figures were not available in the festival materials.

Organizers have signaled ongoing media plans and programming: tours of the Mule Train cultural trail “will become a part of the annual Mules & Blues festival held during the month of October,” and future videos of unveiling tours are slated for county website and Facebook pages. Festival contact information listed in event calendars includes a phone number for local inquiries: 662.388.1550.

One detail remains unresolved in public materials: Quitman County records describe the inaugural festival as kicking off in 2015, while festival site copy on 2025 materials invites visitors to “Relive the highlights from Quitman County’s 9th Annual Mules & Blues Festival!” The two statements conflict on the festival’s annual-count chronology and merit clarification from organizers.

For residents and small-business owners in Quitman County, the Mules & Blues Fest ties local history to year-round cultural tourism, preserves Dr. King’s local legacy and creates recurring opportunities for vendors and cultural institutions. With trail tours becoming part of the program and archived photos and videos planned for public pages, Marks is positioning its Mule Train story as a durable attraction for history-minded visitors and Delta music fans.