Natchez Burning

Walter Barnes, a Vicksburg native raised mostly in Chicago, led swing bands in a tuxedo and popularized long tours by Black musicians. At Chicago's version of the Cotton Club, by one account, Al Capone had radio stations play his music. On April 23, 1940, Barnes's band was playing the Rhythm Club in Natchez when fire broke out. The only usable exit opened inward, windows were boarded, a back door was bolted, and the walls were hung with dry Spanish moss. Barnes and nine of his twelve musicians died, among more than two hundred people.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Natchez Museum of African American History and Culture — steps away
  A museum in the old 1904 post office on Main Street, opened in 1991, covering slavery, Reconstruction and the Natchez civil rights movement.
• William Johnson House — steps away
  The brick home and shop block of a free Black barber and diarist in Natchez, who enslaved others himself and was shot by a neighbor in 1851.
• Fort Rosalie — 0.5 mi
  The bluff where the French built Fort Rosalie in 1716 and the Natchez attacked it in 1729, now a free Natchez National Historical Park site beside the southern end of the Natchez Trace.
• Vidalia Landing Riverfront — 1.0 mi
  A riverwalk on the Mississippi at Vidalia, built on the site of the old town that moved west in 1938 when the river was cut off.

More markers nearby

• Commercial Bank Building — steps away
• Andrew Marschalk — steps away
• Trinity Episcopal Church — 0.2 mi
• Holy Family Catholic Church — 0.4 mi