Images of the Mississippi Delta

DeParle, American Dream Chapter 2:

The Plantation: Mississppi, 1840-1960

Images of the Mississippi Delta

• “The history of the Delta has only one theme: the need for cheap and abundant (in the case, black) labor.” --DeParle, p. 26

Images of the Mississippi Delta

• “To picture Hattie Mae’s childhood, you have to picture the Mississippi Delta--endless, empty, mud-puddle flat, and stretching to the earth’s very edge.” --DeParle, p. 22

Images of the Mississippi Delta“The Eastland property runs about three miles west from the Sunflower

River and three north and south.” DeParle, p. 22

Images of the Mississippi Delta

• Across the river sat the crossroads “town” of Doddsville (1940 pop.262).” DeParle, p.22.

• In 1923, Doddsville flourished with a hotel and rooming house, two good Chinese groceries, two drug stores with licensed pharmacist, a dress shop, and a cafe. Doddsville also claimed four doctors, five passenger trains a day, a school, two churches, a woman’s club, and in later years a garden club with about 35 members. http://www.rootsweb.com/~mssunflo/Doddsville.html

Images of the Mississippi Delta

• “There were mules in the fields.” --DeParle, p. 22

Images of the Mississippi Delta“Tenants did without electricity or running water. Some shacks barely had walls.”

DeParle, p. 22(from the Making Sense of Evidence series on History Matters: The U.S. Survey on the

Web, located at http://historymatters.gmu.edu)

Images of the Mississippi Delta

• “ At nine, she [Hattie Mae] was old enough to pick cotton at twelve, she could “chop,” or weed it.”

--DeParle, p. 31

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Images of the Mississippi Delta

• “James Eastland took over the plantation from his father , Woods, in 1934, and he ran it with unchecked power; the police were barred from crossing the bridge onto the property.”--DeParle, pp. 22-23

Images of the Mississippi Delta

• “I assert that the Negro race is an inferior race. I say quite frankly that I am proud of the white race. . . .It has ruled the world. . . .It is responsible for all the progress on earth.”--Senator Jim Eastland (DeParle, p.32)

Images of the Mississippi Delta

• “ . . . The cigar-chomping Dixiecrat senator who boasted that he had a special suit pocket where civil rights bills went to die.”

--Senator Jim Eastland (DeParle, p.28)

Images of the Mississippi Delta• Fannie Lou Hamer, 1917-1970• black orator, educator, and farmer

from Ruleville• began working in the cotton fields at

age six• was fired from her job in retaliation

for trying to register, received phone threats, and was nearly a victim of gunshots fired into a friend's home

• Field secretary for SNCC and vice-chairperson of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

• challenged the legitimacy of the all-white Regular delegation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City

• "you can pray until you faint. But unless you get up and try to do something, God is not going to put it in your lap!”

• http://www.africawithin.com/bios/fannie_hamer.htm Also see

• http://www.fembio.org/women/fannie-lou-hamer.shtml

Images of the Mississippi DeltaDoddsville, Mississippi, 2005 (pop. 108, housing units 40)

•Doddsville has a New Town Hall located at 3077A Highway 49, Doddsville, MS and a Community Center located at 133 Eastland Street. http://www.rootsweb.com/~mssunflo/Doddsville.html

Images of the Mississippi DeltaThe Mayor, Torey Bell Sr. (front row, far right) with

community officials

Questions about Chapter 2

1. DeParle writes (p. 29) that the social problems of northern ghettos had roots in the Jim Crow South.” To what problems is he referring? How are they linked to the Jim Crow South?

2. This chapter has multiple lessons about ‘dependency’. Describe three of them.