McComb is not a polished destination, and that is part of the point. This small city in southwest Mississippi grew around the Illinois Central railroad, then became one of the harder places in the state to do civil-rights work in the 1960s. The history here is local, direct, and sometimes uncomfortable.
Start downtown at the McComb City Railroad Depot Museum, where the city still faces the tracks that made it. Nearby, the Bo Diddley Blues Trail Marker and Summit Street Blues Trail Marker tell a second story: McComb as a stop on the Black music circuit between Jackson and New Orleans.
The Black History Gallery is the reason to slow down rather than just leave the interstate. It keeps the memory of Pike County's Black schools, churches, artists, soldiers, and civil-rights workers in a modest house museum. If you need fresh air afterward, Percy Quin State Park is a short drive southwest, with pine woods and Lake Tangipahoa.