On the night of April 23, 1940, in Natchez, Miss., Walter Barnes and His Royal Creolians, a popular jazz orchestra from Chicago, continued to play to calm the crowd as the Rhythm Night Club burned. With the windows boarded up, this deadly fire took the lives of 209 people, including Barnes and several members of his band.
Karen L. Cox
Karen L. Cox is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte and earned her Ph.D. in history from the University of Southern Mississippi.
