'This is history that needs to be remembered and preserved.'
On Farish Street in Jackson, Mississippi, amid boarded-up storefronts that were once grocery stores, restaurants, and bookshops, just one building shows signs of life. Flanked by a long-closed beauty shop and a cross street, its crimson-and-white awnings flutter above windows protected by metal grills. A fluorescent “OPEN” sign flickers behind the glass, alongside rows of mustard and ketchup tubs.
Yet, in the 1950s and ‘60s, this tiny restaurant played a key role in the civil rights movement. Leaders and activists crowded within these wood-paneled walls to discuss strategy and plan actions, including the 1961 Freedom Rides, in which buses of black and white college students traveled across the South to protest against segregation.
The menu hasn’t changed since then, and the Big Apple Inn is still one of the few places in Jackson to serve hot tamales, a nod to the family’s Mexican heritage. But the pig ears—now tenderized via the more streamlined method of pressure-cooking for two hours—are the most popular menu item. Each ear is slapped into a slider bun; slathered with mustard, slaw, and homemade chili sauce; and priced at $1.10 apiece.
Lee’s grandfather was also “very involved in the civil rights movement.” He rarely spoke about it, Lee tells me, but regular customers from the time recount stories of Harold Lee giving out free food and helping to bail people out when they were arrested for civil rights activities. “Back then it was just an issue of survival, rather than an important period in history,” says Lee.
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