Shannon Evans has been back in Columbus for about three years now and it’s been a busy three years, indeed.
That includes two years as an English teacher at Heritage Academy, her current work in helping to identify and catalog Black cemeteries and burial grounds both in north Mississippi and the Delta, working on a graphic book project on the life and times of pioneering bluesman Charlie Patton and helping preservation efforts for what is to believed to be the oldest original juke joint, once owned by Lonnie Chapmon of the legendary blues group, “The Mississippi Sheiks.”
All of those have raised her profile in a town where she lived from age 10 until leaving for college.
But nothing has brought more attention to Evans than the podcasts she launched in September.
On Sept. 2 Evans posted the first of what would become more than 40 episodes on her podcast “Tombigbee Tales.”
A podcast is a digital audio file that can be played on computers, cellphones and other devices. It essentially gives anyone the ability to distribute their own radio show through the internet.
“My status says (the podcast) has been downloaded 9,462 times,” Evans said Thursday. “In the last 30 days, it’s had over 6,000 downloads. Most are in the U.S., but there have been downloads from people in South Africa, Madagascar, Mozambique, France and South Korea. I never imagined that, obviously.”
Evans’ podcast’s introduction text describes it as a podcast “about Columbus, Mississippi — its scandals, eccentric people, and our version of Southern Hospitality … which ain’t always so hospitable.”
The podcast has focused on criticisms of actions by the Columbus-Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau and its leadership.
Evans said her interest in tourism goes back to her childhood in Columbus, as does her interest in racial equality and blues music.
Her mother, Pat Broocks, worked at The Dispatch in a variety of jobs, ultimately becoming the newspaper’s managing editor in the 1970s.
“My parents were very much involved in preserving the history of Columbus,” Evans said. “One of the things my mother was involved in was working with Birney Imes Jr., (Dispatch publisher from 1947-2003) to change how the newspaper presented wedding and engagement announcements. Before, the white weddings and engagements and the Black weddings and engagements were separate. What they did was alphabetize them so that they were all together.”
As a teen, Edwards hosted her own weekly blues radio show on Sunday afternoons.
All of those interests were rekindled when Evans, 61, moved back to Columbus to be near her mom, who is now 85.
Evans has devoted much of her time and energy since returning to working with The Mount Zion Memorial Fund. The nonprofit corporation formed in 1989 and was named after the Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church in the Delta. The fund helps identify and preserve Black burial sites while memorializing the contributions of the state’s many blues legends. With the help of performers such as John Fogerty and Bonnie Raitt, the organization has erected monuments to 12 blues greats, including a grave marker of Big Joe Williams, who was buried in a pasture outside of Crawford.
“We’ve cataloged over 600 cemeteries and burial sites on our web atlas,” Evans said. “My first project was finding burial sites in a five-county area — Lowndes, Carroll, Washington, Copiah and Sunflower — through a grant.”
Evans, the only full-time worker at the Mount Zion organization, said additional grants will enable the fund to extend the project throughout the state.
Preserving the legacies of the state’s many blues legends, is something Evans takes particular joy in doing.
“It’s so important to preserve this part of our history and make sure that their stories are accurate,” she said.
As for Tombigbee Tales, Evans expects the podcast to continue indefinitely.
“The goal is to tell the history that people may not know and call out things that aren’t being done or are being done in this town,” she said. “I think it’s very important that people recognize that they have a voice, especially if it involves our tax dollars. So I think the podcast will go on providing local stories of color and whatever shenanigans that people in positions of power are up to.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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