In the tiny town of Avalon, MS, the elderly granddaughter of its most famous resident, legendary bluesman Mississippi John Hurt (1892-1966), is locked in a racially fraught battle with neighbors to preserve the legacy of her grandfather and the heritage of the Delta blues. As long-simmering tensions play out, the musician’s burial ground is illegally razed and, just a day after it was declared a national historic monument, his birthplace burns to the ground.

Amidst questions about the nature of the John Hurt Museum fire, Hurt’s family attempts to preserve the church where Hurt played, despite facing death threats and the obstruction of justice by local officials. The fight to preserve Hurt’s legacy is part of a larger struggle by black residents to restore the neglected gravesites of other revolutionary blues musicians who helped invent popular music. In Avalon and across the delta, ‘One Kind Favor’ aims to document an ongoing struggle against entrenched opposition to safeguard a vital chapter of black history and a foundational period for American arts and culture.