Po' Monkey's Juke Joint — Merigold, Mississippi

Po' Monkey's, operated by Willie 'Po' Monkey' Seaberry on a plantation road outside Merigold in Bolivar County, Mississippi, was widely regarded as the last true rural juke joint in the Mississippi Delta — a corrugated tin-roofed shack set in the cotton fields, decorated with stuffed monkeys and tinsel, open on Thursday nights for a clientele of field workers, farmers, and increasingly, visitors from around the world who had read about it in music magazines and travel features. Seaberry died in September 2016 and Po' Monkey's closed with him, ending an era that had lasted since the 1960s.

The juke joint tradition — small, informal establishments where African American communities gathered to dance, drink, and hear live music — was the primary venue system for blues musicians throughout the twentieth century in the rural South. Most juke joints were temporary, burning down or closing as their proprietors aged, and by the early twenty-first century Po' Monkey's had become both the most famous surviving example and an emblem of the tradition's fragility. Seaberry himself was a charismatic host who maintained the Thursday-night schedule with remarkable consistency, and the club attracted documentary filmmakers, music journalists, and musicians from around the world alongside its regular local crowd.

The former site of Po' Monkey's is on a plantation road approximately five miles outside Merigold, in an area of flat cotton fields characteristic of the Bolivar County Delta. A Mississippi Blues Trail marker identifies the site. The building, which Seaberry had decorated over decades with an accumulation of stuffed animals, Christmas lights, and personal memorabilia, has been preserved in its original location though the club no longer operates. Merigold is between Cleveland and Shelby on Highway 61.