Cleveland is a city in Bolivar County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 11,199 as of the 2020 United States Census.

William Christopher Handy was an American composer and musician who referred to himself as the Father of the Blues. He was one of the most influential songwriters in the United States. One of many musicians who played the distinctively American blues music, Handy did not create the blues genre but was the one of the first to publish music in the blues form, thereby taking the blues from a regional music style with a limited audience to a new level of popularity.