Robert Johnson's gravesite

There are three claimed burial sites for Robert Johnson in Leflore County, Mississippi. The coordinates here correspond to Little Zion Missionary Baptist Church on Money Road, north of Greenwood, which is now the most widely accepted location and the site of the official Mississippi Blues Trail marker. The case for Little Zion rests on two key pieces of evidence: undertaker Paul McDonald's records named 'Zion Church' in Leflore County as Johnson's burial place, and in 2000 a woman named Rosie Eskridge came forward to say that her late husband Tom had dug Johnson's grave at this specific church.

Johnson's death certificate, dated August 1938, listed burial at 'Zion Church' in Leflore County -- a frustratingly vague designation given that the county had at least three churches with 'Zion' in the name. For decades, Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Morgan City held popular consensus, but Little Zion's eyewitness corroboration eventually shifted scholarly opinion. In 2002, historian Stephen LaVere erected a grave marker at Little Zion. The Mississippi Blues Trail plaque installed in 2007 notes that Johnson 'is thought to be buried in this graveyard' -- preserving the appropriate historical hedge that has always surrounded Johnson's story.

The headstone at Little Zion is located at the rear of the cemetery near a large tree, accessible via a gravel driveway off Money Road. For blues pilgrims, the setting -- flat Delta farmland, a small rural church, a grave that may or may not be the right one -- is entirely in keeping with the mystery that has surrounded Johnson since the first people noticed how extraordinary he was.