Choctaw Indian Fair

The Choctaw Indian Fair began in 1949, as a successor to the Green Corn Festival, run by the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians for their own community. Stickball, once used to settle disputes, is still played, and war, social and animal dances share the grounds with fiddle-led house dances that resemble square dances and French cotillions. Choctaw fiddling goes back to the 1700s, and Big Chief Henry's Indian String Band was recorded in 1929 after a Mississippi talent scout saw them at the fair. Nashville acts came after 1967.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Chahta Immi Cultural Center — 2.1 mi
  The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians' own museum and cultural center at Pearl River, with basketry, artifacts and the tribe's guidance on what visitors may see.
• Old Neshoba County Jail — 6.6 mi
  The 1955 jail in downtown Philadelphia where James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were held on June 21, 1964, hours before they were murdered.
• Mount Zion Methodist Church — 13 mi
  The Black church in Longdale burned by the Klan on June 16, 1964, rebuilt by its congregation, and the place Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner had gone to visit when they were murdered.
• Nanih Waiya — 19 mi
  The Mother Mound of the Choctaw in Winston County, a sacred origin place returned to the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians in 2008.

More markers nearby

• Bob Ferguson — steps away
• Neshoba County Fair — 4.8 mi
• Otis Rush — 6.2 mi
• Marty Gamblin — 6.6 mi