Since the Declaration of Independence, the Mississippi River has been embedded in American culture as an environmental symbol of freedom, journey, and discovery. It was on the Mississippi River that Lewis and Clark traveled westward, scouting the terrain of the United States newly acquired territory apart of the Louisiana Purchase, witnessing firsthand the land that had yet to be seen any European colonial power. Likewise, the Mississippi River has been the catalyst in American folklore, popular culture, and personification of beauty, for it was on the Mississippi River that Mark Twain’s timeless fictional character, Huckleberry Finn, embarked on a coming-of-age odyssey. However while the Mississippi River is entrenched with the United States identity, the Mississippi River also serves as a harrowing symbol of our history.
Following the end of de jure slavery in 1865, African Americans who presided along the Mississippi River endured a form of de facto slavery, where African Americans were subjugated to the harsh nature of Jim Crow segregation, unregulated race-related violence, and unfulfilled promises following the Civil War. The Mississippi River Flood of 1927 further supplanted the racial hierarchy of the South and proved that the freedom achieved after the emancipation of slavery did not equate to equality. As the flood ravaged through homes, schools, and buildings, African American residents no longer owed any allegiance to the South, further prompting the “Great Migration”, when roughly six million African Americans migrated from the Deep South to find solace in the North between 1915 and 1970.
For context, the 1927 Mississippi Flood remains one of the worst natural disasters in American history, and the total losses the exact total of damage is an estimated $73,541,040 in crops, 7,878 houses and 2,997 barns destroyed, $399,841 in damages to schools, $16,702,380 in damages to railroads, the death of 250 citizens, and the displacement of 700,000 Southern residents, provided by the 1928 CQ report. During the flood’s peak and shortly following the final levee break at McCrea, Louisiana, southern African Americans who had previously worked as plantation labors, sharecroppers, and families, who had their homes succumbed to the wrath of the flood, were designated to refugee camps scattered across counties along the Mississippi River. However, while the refugee camps were perceived as a respectable humanitarian effort on the behalf of Herbert Hoover, the camps quickly reinforced the racial hierarchy of the South, where African Americans who had sought refuge were forced into labor, held at gun point, and branded by white overseers, whereas their white refugee-counterparts received comfortable accommodation.
The “levee camps”, as they had become known, further demonstrated the South’s atrocious nature of legalized segregation through the Jim Crow laws, systematic racism that failed to protect southern African Americans, and exploitative labor practices that persisted since the emancipation of slavery. However, with the destruction of African American homes, schools, and hospitals, and the pessimistic state of race-relations in the South enhanced by the horrific conditions of the levee camps, southern African American’s began expanding northward apart of the “Great Migration”: the period of American history when six million southern African Americans migrated from the South destined to acquire economic, social, and political freedom in the North. As the Great Migration paved the path for many African American’s to escape the antagonistic nature of the South, the Mississippi River Flood of 1927 emphasized the looming threat of an increase in African American migrants. For the Delta landlords who inhabited the Mississippi region most devastated by the flood, the catastrophic nature of 1927 Mississippi Flood suggested the migration of African American sharecroppers and laborers was imminent, thereby resulting in a lack of low-cost clean-up crews and land without laborers.[1]
In turn, under the guidance of Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, the National Red Cross took responsibility in organizing orderly and sanitary relief camps to house flood refugees. Through the National Red Cross’ campaign, 154 relief camps were established to shelter approximately 608,000 people who had lost their homes in the flood and were left with few options of nourishment, lodging, and medical care.[2] However, of the 608,000 refugees, 555,000 of the refugees were black agricultural laborers, sharecroppers and families who were largely administered by Southern whites and National Guard soldiers, who had been granted the authority to take extensive measures in controlling the refugees through armed-force.[3] With the lack of oversight from Hoover, the National Guard soldiers dictated the whereabouts of the refuges, disabling them to leave the premise of the camps, and, in some instances, forced African American laborers to wear the listing of the planters they had previously worked for.[4] In essence, the levee camps turned into the epitome southern repression, segregation, and racial abuse, for the black men, women, and children refugees were conscripted to the confines of the camp, the workers who attempted to leave were returned and beaten, and flood aid was withheld from black workers, on the grounds that “rations would ‘spoil’ black workers and weaken the control planters had in the ‘old system’”.[5]
While the horrendous examples of racial persecution, exploitation, and disenfranchisement came to personify the southern “relief” camps, the levee camp at Greenville, Mississippi emphasized the discriminatory practices at the hands of southern planter, William Percy. Assigned by the Mayor of Greenville to be chairman of the Greenville Flood Relief Committee and the local Red Cross, William Alexander Percy had made a luxurious name in the state of Mississippi for his impeccable writing ability and display of heroics in World War I.[6] As mentioned above, following the flooding of Greenville, William Percy was assigned to oversee the measure of establishing a refugee camp near the Mounds Landing levee, that had previously erupted on April 21st. Percy, with the help of Herbert Hoover, began collecting supplies of food, clothes, tents, and various necessities to provide for 50,000 people, designating the bulk of the work for black refugees presiding in the camps to move the supplies.[7] According to John M. Barry in his book Rising Tide, the appointing of William Percy would forever haunt Herbert Hoover, for Percy would begin to abuse the power and trust he was granted in officiating the Greenville relief camps.
Upon arrival to the Greenville relief camp, the African American residents who had lost their homes, livelihood, and personal belongings were subjected to intensified racial prejudice. Tents had arrived, but sleeping cots were limited, resulting in black refugees having to sleep on the wet ground, which led to the contraction of various diseases, such as pneumonia.[8] Furthermore, the African American refugees were not granted the use of utensils and seating arrangements in the white dining quarters, having to resort eating with their hands, squatting over their dinner plates, and being treated like “domesticated animals.”[9] However, the atrocities at the relief camps continued to worsen over the course of the flood. Under Percy’s authority, the Red Cross and National Guardsmen were allowed to deny rations to African American men who did not unload and store the Red Cross supplies, installed a system that the black women refugees without a male family member would have to get signed off by a white person for any donated materials, and led a campaign to force labor on the African American refugees with a wage set at a dollar a day.[10] Furthermore, the “relief” camps had become analogous to prison and concentration camps, for the black men, women, and children were denied the agency to leave the premises of the camp, even if the opportunity had arisen to relocate in the North.
Percy had also executed in order that forced the African American population in Greenville to relocate to the levee camp, even if their property had not been damaged in the flood, while Greenville whites whose homes had not been destroyed were permitted to reside in their homes.[11] The order executed by Percy had even sanctioned “bounty hunters” of sorts to round up the remaining African Americans residents of Greenville who had not yet been relocated to the levee camps. On one such occurrence, Salvador Signa, a white resident of Greenville who, under Percy’s order, evacuated African American’s residents with permission to use firearms to maintain control.[12] Comparable to the constraints of slavery and later the sadistic treatment of the Jewish population during World War II and to present day, with the mass incarceration of African Americans, the levee camp at Greenville was a symbol of the Southern hatred toward black.
However, although the conditions for African American refugees at the Greenville relief camp were particularly morose, teetering on the edge of legalized slavery through forced removal of African Americans, unsanitary living quarters, and the mistreatment of men, women, and children on the basis of race, the widespread media coverage of the levee camps captured the atrocious nature for the public, thereby turning the national attention towards race-relations in the South.
In general, African American press across the country began to catch wind of the inhumane conditions attributed to the relief camps and, as early as the levee break at Mounds Landing near Greenville, Mississippi, various African American newspaper journals and media outlets captured the horrors endured by the African Americans presiding in the counties along the Mississippi River in the wake of the flood. Prior to the 1927 Mississippi River Flood, media coverage of the harsh nature of the South’s segregation, persecution, and discriminatory practices was, for the most part, unexamined. Although the success of the Civil War accomplished the emancipation of slavery, thereby granting southern blacks the agency to explore a broader range of freedom, the South was not held to the moral standard of treating African Americans as equals. Furthermore, the majority of the publicity surrounding the plight of southern African Americans post-Civil War, where lynching’s, voting restrictions, and limited economic opportunities persisted to emphasize the racial hierarchy of the South, remained largely inconsistent by the most respected newspaper journals.
However, the devastating nature of the 1927 Mississippi River Flood altered the public’s perception of race-relations in America and the South, through the new wave of African American journalism authorized to capture the floods effects on southern blacks. Shortly after being elected to coordinate the Red Cross relief program, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, who at the time was in consideration for the democratic bid for the upcoming 1928 presidential election, had been enthralled in a public relations nightmare. News outbreaks covering the atrocities of the levee camps began to surface and spread throughout the nation. In an effort to console the negative media coverage and ghastly rumors of the mistreatment of African American refugees, Hoover organized the Colored Advisory Commission, which comprised of 16 prominent black men and 2 black women, with Robert Russa Moton at the helm, to investigate the nature of levee camps and clear Hoover of any wrong-doing.[13] However, Hoover’s attempt to dodge negative publicity was unsuccessful, for multiple news outlets, the NAACP, and the Colored Advisory Commission brought in-depth coverage of the African American levee camps to the public’s attention.
On June 11th, 1927, the Chicago Defender publicized the atrocious nature endured by African American flood survivors in the constraints of the levee camps, reporting that “those who found outside work and wanted to stay in the relief camps would receive no rations and have to put up a month’s savings” and “black single mothers and their children received rations only if they were attached to a man with a job in the camp, whether they know him or not.”[14] Three days later, on June 14th, the Colored Advisory Committee wrote a preliminary draft report that provided evidence that black refugees “could not secure supplies without an order from a white person...black men were beaten by the soldiers and made to work under guns...black women and girls were raped by these soldiers.”[15] Walter White, the president of the NAACP at the time, conducted his own investigation into the levee camps, discovering planters paid little to no wages and indebted black workers with food, clothing, and other nationally donated items, under the condition that the black workers would have to reimburse the planters with future work.[16] Furthermore, the Memphis Commercial Appeal reported that seven major incidents of lynching to African Americans occurred between May and mid-July of 1927 in Arkansas and Mississippi, including the harrowing lynching of John Carter for allegedly attacking a white woman and her daughter, which resulted in Carter being hung, riddled with bullets, paraded through the towns business district at the end of an automobile, and eventually getting burned on a funeral pyre.[17] In the years following slavery and reconstruction, national attention was limited towards the violence, bitterness, and prejudice endured by southern African Americans, and media coverage of occurrences, such as lynching’s, exploitative labor practices, and underfunded segregated schools was scarce. However, by the end of July, it had become evident that the levee camps were orchestrated to console African American sharecroppers, laborers, and families, and the facilitation of the camps at the hands of the Red Cross and National Guard were analogous to modern-day slavery. Furthermore, William Percy, a once respected World War I veteran and recognized poet, had been exposed for his encouragement of abuse towards African Americans in the refugee camps and was held responsible for the mistreatment of black refugees. On the 1st day of September, William Percy fled from Greenville to escape the constant criticisms and potential indictment of his inhumane practices, finding refuge in Japan.
Although the fight for Civil Rights would not be achieved for another three decades, the publicity of the levee camps during the 1927 Mississippi River Flood would later influence the vast-media coverage attributed to the Civil Rights Movement to acquire voting rights, the desegregation of public buildings, and end the tirade of violence endured by southern blacks. In conclusion, among the 154 refugee camps, there were countless records of abuse, forced labor, violations, brutality, and imprisonment. While the abuse of power and intensified nature of persecution, discrimination, and exploitation of southern blacks escalated in the wake of the 1927 Mississippi River Flood, the media coverage by leading African American press resulted in the widespread respect of African American journalism. Historian William Howard brilliantly captures the 1927 Mississippi River Flood’s impact on African American journalism, stating “one of the few benefits of the 1927 flood was that it sparked interest in the South and drew the world’s attention it” and the black press prospered in publishing an expansive number of news articles that “portrayed the special plight of black flood victims and sought to show the world that their suffering stemmed not only from natural catastrophe but from the Southern social system and its labor practices as well.”[18] Furthermore, following the harrowing aftermath of the 1927 Mississippi Flood, the African American migration North reached its grandest total. By the end of the 1920’s 872,000 African Americans migrated North and Chicago, a popular migration spot, saw an increase of 109,458 African American residents in 1920 to 233,903 by 1930.[19] Overall, the social impact of the 1927 Mississippi River Flood enlightened the public’s perception on the inhumane race-relations in the South, increased the number of African Americans northern pilgrimage amidst the “Great Migration”, and influenced the media coverage of the South’s mistreatment of African Americans.
[1] William Howard. “Richard Wright’s Flood Stories and the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927; Social and Historical Backgrounds.” The Southern Literary Journal. 1984: p.51. [2] Robyn Spencer. “Contested Terrain: The Mississippi Flood of 1927 and the Struggle to Control Black Labor.” The Journal of Negro History. 1994: p. 172 [3] Ibid. [4] Ibid. [5] Richard Hornbeck and Suresh Naidu. “When the Levee Breaks: Black Migration and Economic Development in the American South.” American Economic Review. 2014: p. 966. [6] John M. Barry. Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America. Simon and Schuster Inc.: New York City, New York. p. 293 [7] Ibid, 310. [8] Ibid, p.312. [9] Ibid. [10] Robyn Spencer. “Contested Terrain: The Mississippi Flood of 1927 and the Struggle to Control Black Labor.” The Journal of Negro History. 1994: p. 172 [11] John M. Barry. Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America. Simon and Schuster Inc.: New York City, New York. p. 314. [12] Ibid. [13] Ibid, p.322. [14] James Edward Ford III. “Down by the Riverside: Race, Class, and the Drive for Citizenship.” Novel: A Forum on Fiction. 2013: p. 419. [15] Ibid, p.330. [16] Ibid. [17] William Howard. “Richard Wright’s Flood Stories and the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927; Social and Historical Backgrounds.” The Southern Literary Journal. 1984: p.53. [18] Ibid, p.45. [19] John M. Barry. Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America. Simon and Schuster Inc.: New York City, New York. p.417.
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