Rowen Oak
This would be a fraught time to visit Oxford, Miss., even if the world wasn’t currently in the grips of a deadly pandemic. Mississippi is one of the country’s poorest states amid a historic economic crisis. At the same time, the United States is in the middle of a turbulent reckoning with its white-supremacist roots and the legacy of slavery. But while Mississippi has more Black residents per capita than any other state in the union, its white leaders have long been hostile to the idea that it should denounce and turn away from a past pocked by slavery, secession, segregation and lynchings. At the very least, the state has been reluctant to let go of the symbols of that time.
These fights — over the past and the present and the complicated entanglement between the two — are not new, not in the country or in the Magnolia State. But lately, things have been a bit different. In June, after a pressure campaign that included college football players threatening not to play in the state, legislators voted to take down the state flag — the last one in the U.S. that still contained the Confederate battle emblem — and replace it with a new one. Then, last month, the University of Mississippi removed a Confederate monument from the center of its Oxford campus. It had been the target of student activists for years.
But a dark history still looms over the town. In the center of The Square — the heart of Oxford’s food scene and cultural life — stands a tall Confederate statue. Erected in 1907, it honors “the patriotism of the Confederate soldiers of Lafayette County” and says, “They gave their lives in a just and holy cause.” A county board voted unanimously in July to keep the statue in place.
Stay
Scallops at City Grocery
The idea of staying in a hotel right now feels a little dicey, and getting to stay the weekend in a house or a nice condo near the action is more fun anyway. We opted for a townhome a mile or two from The Square because it had a pool. But a search on your preferred short-term rental platform will yield plenty of options. Depending on what you’re willing to spend, there are beautiful older homes available within walking distance of the campus and The Square, or condos and apartments right in the center of town. There’s not an ocean here, and you’re not looking for a resort. What you want is easy access to the restaurants, bars, shops and bookstores. Those are in and around The Square.
Timing is a significant factor, of course. Our trip was in July, before students had returned to campus. Who knows what the next few months will look like, but in a normal year, a college town in the fall — particularly if it’s a school with a major football program — is a frequently busy, loud and drunken place. This might be just what you’re looking for — just remember it means higher prices for the aforementioned rentals. If you want a quieter visit, students are mostly gone in the summer, but the weather is usually something like “boiling swamp.” Maybe think about the spring.
Do
Before you even get to Oxford, there are a couple of en-route destinations that can add to your trip. If you’re coming from Nashville and don’t mind adding a bit of time to the drive, you can take a slightly longer route that brings you through Tupelo, the birthplace of Elvis Presley. From there you could go straight on to Oxford, but you shouldn’t. The small town of Holly Springs, just 30 minutes to the north, is the birthplace of journalistic and civil rights icon Ida B. Wells. We stopped by her childhood home, which has been turned into a small museum. The Ida B. Wells-Barnett Museum at the Spires Bolling House wasn’t open due to the pandemic, but it was still worth the visit. We grabbed hamburgers in Holly Springs’ own little town square before hitting the road again. Did I mention how hot it is in Mississippi in July?
As I said before, if you go to Oxford, just about everything you need to do is in or around The Square. On our first night in town we did a lap to get our bearings before heading to City Grocery for dinner. John Currence’s award-winning fine-dining destination is located right on The Square and was part of the town center’s revival in the early ’90s. We ate outside on a second-story balcony, seeking refuge from possible virus exposure in the sweltering but fresh air. Inside, however, is a nice bar and a comfortable setting, and several people told us it was their favorite happy-hour spot. The menu is not short on tempting options, but when I asked our server to help me decide between the pan-roasted chicken and the pan-roasted scallops, he said “scallops” without letting me finish the question. He wasn’t wrong. Currence also owns several other restaurants that came highly recommended, including Big Bad Breakfast and Snackbar, whose chef Vishwesh Bhatt won a James Beard Award in 2019.
On Saturday, with a full day to work with, we made the rounds for real. Oxford has a rich literary culture that stretches back a century and continues to this day — and if you’re a reader, there are a couple stops you have to make. First is the home of William Faulkner, known as Rowen Oak, which the Nobel Prize laureate purchased with his wife Estelle in 1930. It is little more than a block off of The Square and also closed for the time being due to COVID-19. But a walk around the property was still a lovely way to spend a morning, imagining what it must have been like to write so well and drink so much. Faulkner is also buried in Oxford and referenced in various places around town. From there we went to the famous Square Books, a monument to the unique charm and importance of the independent bookstore. Here I should note that the business owners and residents of Oxford seemed to be taking this pandemic situation much more seriously than many people elsewhere. Masks were required everywhere we went, and compliance was high. Square Books was allowing only four people inside at a time, to allow for safe browsing. The bookstore has four locations on The Square: its main shop, where author events are regularly held; a lifestyle store; a children’s store; and a store dedicated to rare books. Beside the main shop, only the last was open, and it’s an absolute treat for a book collector. As you can imagine, there is a lot of Faulkner.
Elsewhere on and around The Square is a mix of options for shopping, eating and drinking. If you’ve ever spent time in an SEC town, you know the type of shops I’m talking about. The ones that outfit frat brothers and sorority sisters and provide all types of merchandise branded with school colors. But it’s not just that. There’s the independent record store End of All Music and the reportedly grimy but cleverly named Library Sports Bar.
Of course, it’s also worth a visit to the Ole Miss campus, if only to catch a glimpse of The Grove, the university’s famous tailgating destination, where well-heeled fans of the regrettably named Rebels — there’s that history again — are known to set up camp with fine china and chandeliers.
