Woodville, in Wilkinson County, Mississippi, is the birthplace of two famous Americans – Jefferson Davis (1808–89), President of the Confederacy, and Lester Young (1909–1959), saxophonist. Apart from their place of birth, they seem to have had only one thing in common, namely that they both served time in jail. In the year in which Lester Young was born, Woodville and its environs boasted a population of 2,500, with blacks outnumbering whites by almost two to one. Racial segregation was rigidly enforced, disputes might be settled with a bullet, and lynchings were not unknown. At around the time of Lester’s birth, on 27 August 1909, a local election was held, during which the National Guard were called in to quell a riot. In other words, just another quiet, hospitable Southern town.