Katrina Storm Anniversary; Sad Parallels to Mississippi River Flood of 1927

“You will have to see the mass of disfranchised, frightened Negroes in the Mississippi Delta to understand what it is to be without freedom.”

Dr. Clinton C. Battle addressing an NAACP Delta freedom rally in 1958.
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Four years ago this Saturday, Hurricane Katrina hit the city of New Orleans with devastating force. Who could forget watching the televised images of the poorest residents fighting for their lives while their iconic city drowned and our leaders failed to act? President Bush's short-term failures compounded the suffering along the Gulf Coast in those fateful days. But it was not the first time that government failed to react, leaving Mississippi African Americans to fend for themselves following a catastrophe of this magnitude.


(Photo from Ludwig von Mises Institute, Austria)


STORIES OF WIDESPREAD CATASTROPHE AND INACTION on the part of government harken back to the spring of 1927, when the powerful Mississippi River flooded 2.7 million acres across the Delta leaving countless tragedies behind. Louisiana journalist John M. Barry provided an incredible glimpse into the numerous levels of catastrophe in his book, Rising Tide.

Barry also left a wake of surprised and angered white people in the Delta when he reported facts apparently new to his readers, that a long-respected and wealthy Greenville family had not lived up to their expectations during the worst of times.

And even they were not alone. Though the Red Cross provided food, its distribution was placed under planter control, hence keeping food away from those in most need. Donated supplies were stockpiled by distributors who later profited from their sales of the donated food to blacks.

Black convicts were treated brutally and often used as human sandbags to stop levees from breaking.

There was indiscriminate murder.

James Gooden had worked all night piling heavy sandbags as fast as he could on the levee. When ordered to return the next morning by a Greenville police officer, Gooden was exhausted and refused. A scuffle followed and Gooden was shot and killed by the officer.

To calm the black community, the officer was arrested, and supposedly would be held for trial. County prosecutor Ray Toombs was a reputed Exalted Cyclops of the local Klan, though, and few blacks believed a trial would ever occur.

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More coming TODAY in Post 9 of's Susan Blog Book, Who Killed Emmett Till?

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Hear Podcast Interview with author Susan Klopfer conducted by journalist Ronald Herd II http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2009/08/we-all-be-radio-specialsusan-klopfer.html