Kate Browne, my wife, built the third in her series of Cocoons in Greenwood, Mississippi, during two weeks in July. The sculpture sits in a park on the banks of the Yazoo, which flows through downtown Greenwood, on the opposite side of the river from where bales of Delta cotton were once loaded onto riverboats for shipment. Cotton Row, as the strip was once know, now principally houses the offices of the Viking corporation (as in makers of all things kitchen). Keesler Bridge, in the background of some of these pictures, used to pivot on its center column to allow riverboats to past. Behind the bridge sits the Leflore Country Courthouse.
Greenwood was the site of intense Civil Rights activity in the early '60s, and in 1966, during the Meredith March (aka, the March Against Fear), where Stokely Carmichael chose to deliver his infamous Black Power speech.
Kids and adults from all over town eagerly pitched in to create this Cocoon. Kate will be posting images of the build and describing the process at her blog in the coming weeks. You can also get info there on her two earlier Cocoons, in Mexico City and upstate New York.
