In Parts of the South, Glorifying Slavery No Longer Pays the Bills

 Three women from Michigan peruse the exhibits at the Natchez Museum of African-American History and Culture on a spring afternoon.

The women are white, traveling with a national tour group for professional and academic retirees, and they’re in Natchez to learn more about its heritage and culture during its annual “Spring Pilgrimage.”

This museum, however, wasn’t on the official itinerary.  Few tourists visit the free museum, although there is a growing movement to promote African-American history in Natchez, a town of 15,590 that sits on the banks of the Mississippi River. But it’s a struggle. Since the 1930s, Natchez has built its tourism business on the Old Confederacy through the Spring Pilgrimage.

The Pilgrimage focuses on Natchez’s palatial antebellum homes and a bygone way of life. Women, volunteering as tour guides, still wear hoop skirts, and the horrors of slavery are seldom mentioned. This genteel moonlight-and-magnolia history has become a point of contention for people here who think it’s time Natchez turned away from its Old South lore.

“Younger people don’t care so much about the past or the old stories,” said David S. Dreyer, a local historian who volunteers at the museum. “There are so many stories that haven’t been told here, but people might not get that with just the Pilgrimage. We need to find a way to tell new stories.”...