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Nelson Street Blues The fabled former main street of Greenville’s black community has fallen on hard times. But some envision a road to recovery. t’s 2 o’clock in the afternoon and a drunk staggers, stumbles and scuffles across Nelson Street, not at all sure where he wants to go. Just ahead, there’s a liquor store. Next door is an abandoned building that’s turned into a neighborhood hangout of sorts. He chooses the hangout, and a yellow Ford Mustang with black stripes slows to allow him to lurch awkwardly across the street. A group of men – all of them drinking – chases him away.
B Y J O N H AY W O O D
That’s Nelson Street today, a place of ruins and remnants. There are a few stores, some churches, a club here and there. But mostly it’s a place of broken dreams and drunks and shuttered storefronts.
MI RI AM TAYL O R
Nelson Street has fallen on hard times, but once it was a hot spot of black entertainment, a sort of unofficial Main Street for Greenville’s African-American community.
THE HEYDAY In its heyday, Nelson Street was alive and brimming with revelers. It was main street for Greenville’s African-American community, a business and entertainment hub known throughout the South as a magnet for top bands and bluesmen. The street once boasted more than 100 businesses, according to former Greenville High School bandleader Roy Huddleston, a sort of unofficial Nelson Street historian who keeps a list of them on yellowed notebook paper. People swarmed to New Town Café, the Delta Store and the famous Flowing Fountain nightclub, where the music never seemed to stop. “You could walk along Nelson Street all night long,” says Johnnie Wright, former
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