Juke joint

[1] Plantation workers and sharecroppers needed a place to relax and socialize following a hard week, particularly since they were barred from most white establishments by Jim Crow laws.

Set up on the outskirts of town, often in ramshackle, abandoned buildings or private houses, juke joints offered food, drink, dancing, and gambling for weary workers.

[2] Owners made extra money selling groceries or moonshine to patrons, or providing cheap room and board.

[3][4] The origins of juke joints may be the community rooms that were occasionally built on plantations to provide a place for Black people to socialize during slavery.

[6] Paul Oliver writes that juke joints were "the last retreat, the final bastion for black people who want to get away from whites, and the pressures of the day.

[5] In 1934, anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston made the first formal attempt to describe the juke joint and its cultural role, writing that "the Negro jooks...are primitive rural counterparts of resort night clubs, where turpentine workers take their evening relaxation deep in the pine forests."

[14] Early figures of blues, including Robert Johnson, Son House, Charley Patton, and countless others, traveled the juke joint circuit, scraping out a living on tips and free meals.

While musicians played, patrons enjoyed dances with long heritages in some parts of the African American community, such as the slow drag.

[15] Run by Willie "Po' Monkey" Seaberry until his death in 2016,[16] the popular juke joint had been featured in national and international articles about the Delta.

[18] Juke joints are still a strong part of African American culture in Deep South locations such as the Mississippi Delta where blues is still the mainstay, although it is now more often featured by disc jockeys and on jukeboxes than by live bands.

In stark contrast to the streets outside, Florence's is dim, and smoke-filled with the music more of an accompaniment to the "various business" being conducted than the focus of the patrons' attention.

[20] The allure of juke joints has inspired many large-scale commercial establishments, including the House of Blues chain and the Ground Zero in Clarksdale, Mississippi.