Name the street

Nine candidates, one street. One dollar, one point. Voting closes 30 November 2026.

Issaquena Avenue is getting a second name. Nine people are on the ballot, all of them born in Clarksdale, raised in Clarksdale, or bound to it by a decisive moment. Voting is by payment: pay what you want, from $1 to $50, and every dollar is one point.

Street renaming — vote for Muddy Waters

Street renaming — vote for Ike Turner

Street renaming — vote for Sam Cooke

Street renaming — vote for Son House

Street renaming — vote for Big Jack Johnson

Street renaming — vote for John Lee Hooker

Street renaming — vote for Bessie Smith

Street renaming — vote for Charley Patton

Street renaming — vote for W. C. Handy

Section

The candidates

Son House — preacher turned bluesman, and the man who taught Muddy Waters the slide.
Muddy Waters — recorded by Alan Lomax at Stovall Farms in 1941, then went north and plugged in.
John Lee Hooker — born in the Delta, one stamping foot and one chord, forever.
Charley Patton — the founder, from Dockery Farms a few miles up the road.
Big Jack Johnson — Clarksdale born and Clarksdale buried, one of the Jelly Roll Kings.
Sam Cooke — born on Seventh Street in 1931, and gone far too soon.
Ike Turner — bought his first instruments at Levine's, cut « Rocket 88 » at twenty.
Bessie Smith — the Empress of the Blues died here in 1937.
W. C. Handy — heard the future at Tutwiler station and wrote it down.