Down-home blues legend Bobby Rush had heard the excuse. So too had Frank Beaty, who was inspired to do something about it.

A soapstone carving from East Africa from the late 1700s speaks to the era of slavery.

Photo by Nikki Boertman

The life and hard times of Bobby Rush fill the ''Blues Pavilion" of ''Soulful Journey'' at the National Civil Rights Museum.

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After giving a campus lecture during which he talked about the significance of blues music, Beaty -- CEO of an entertainment events company -- was approached by a young African-American girl.

"And she said to me that she didn't like the blues because it reminded her of slavery," he recalls. "That bothered me. I was one of those kids who used to sit and listen to old people talk and tell stories, and the thing that always struck me was the amount of dignity, the amount of courage and perseverance they had going through the kinds of things they had to face every day."

Out of that incident "Soulful Journey" was born. Produced by Las Vegas-based Beaty Four Entertainment, the African-American cultural exhibit opened today (Wednesday) at the National Civil Rights Museum, where it runs through July 22.

Aimed at the kind of kids Beaty has encountered, the goal is to enlighten African-American youth about the contributions of their forebears. In doing so, it addresses not only the historical struggles of black Americans but the creative wellsprings of music, art and literature that became a survival strategy for displaced people of the Afrodiaspora.

"They continued to move the culture forward," he says. "In my mind, this exhibit is the story of how African-Americans went from slaves on Gorée Island to the point of electing one of our own as president of the United States."

"Soulful Journey" is organized in three parts: 1) "Africa to America," which chronicles slavery; 2) "Free but not Equal," which covers Reconstruction to the present day; and 3) the "Blues Pavilion," a look at the life of one particular bluesman -- Beaty client, Bobby Rush.

Not that Mr. Rush should somehow be considered the sole fruition of this soulful journey. But as a living reminder of how the blues has factored into the black struggle, the decades-long journeyman, author of the funky R&B classic "Chicken Heads," and star of "The Road to Memphis" episode from Martin Scorsese's PBS series "The Blues" is a fitting ambassador.

"The music linked us together as a race," notes Jackson, Miss.-based Rush, who says he used his tour bus back in the day to take women and men to vote, and who remembers a Windy City speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that he attended alongside Albert King, John Lee Hooker and Howlin' Wolf. Rush will never forget that night, in part, because his station wagon was burned and flipped over while parking.

"When I went to the police station to report what happened, they called me the 'n' word and said, 'You got no business over here anyway.' There was nothing I could do about it. I couldn't even file for insurance purposes because they said I was someplace I should not have been. I wasn't in my place."

Rush then adds, "If it weren't for the blues, I don't know whether I could even cope with myself or situations around me. The blues takes you to some place better than the situation you was in. Back in the day when things were rough, we sung and danced in order to make it to the next day. You had nothing to hang on to but the blues."

Beaty says he decided to cap his exhibit with a tribute to Rush because, unlike B.B. King, Bobby Bland and others who rose to fame in the 1950s, Rush is still largely under-appreciated despite having been a blues mainstay for nearly as long.

Yet folks have been coming around. As recently as 2007, Rush performed in China for a UNESCO celebration of the Great Wall. Beaty turned the experience into a film, "Bobby Rush Live at the Great Wall of China," that will be featured as part of the Blues Pavilion. And last year, the Mississippi legislature declared Feb. 14, 2008 to be "Bobby Rush Day."

For Rush, being part of such an exhibit is both a matter of pride and a personal reminder of his connection to the past: "I'm so honored because my great-grandparents were slaves, you know? This is history and I want it to be known."

"Soulful Journey"

On display at the National Civil Rights Museum, 460 Mulberry, through July 22. For more information, call 521-9699 or go to civilrightsmuseum.org.