"Poverty and progress in the Mississippi Delta" - your thoughts?

[Phil75230]

Originally Posted by 3a's

We lived in the Delta and have moved away primarily for children’s' education. The Delta is set in its ways and needs to move a little faster to come up with the rest of the nation. With this being said, it does not want to do this! When we moved, people said it would take 3 generations for us to be a 'true' part of the community. I would not mind me giving away my life but I am not willing to give my children’s' life away. The schools did not provide a positive reinforcement for doing right; it was more of what family lineage you came from. Someone once told me a 'joke' "They put up with me so there is a different bloodline in the city". Unless, the Delta is willing to change which it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks-it will not. The Democrat vs. Republican or the North vs. the South mentality needs to change and put it in the past for the Delta to rise and it needs to move on.
If you really want to change Greenville, I would suggest that you talk to someone about getting a government grant to pursue a community garden for the area. This could help take part of the problems with obesity and federal aid-helping people get back to the roots of learning to live off the land which the Delta is best known for. Good luck!!!!

STRONGLY Agree with this, though I'm a Louisiana Delta native now living in Dallas - although I disagree the north-south bit. It's not so much "north vs south" these days as it is "tradition and convention vs independent though and nonconformity". I didn't interact with the black community much there (due to an unspoken but obviously present rule of social segregation), but I get the feeling the blacks have just as strong a faith in conventional thinking and traditional definitions of "normality", "common sense", and "respectworthy person" as the whites do.

Yes, there's obviously that certain fraction of underprivileged that won't care one way or another - but those that do care, the role models with the grit and drive, find there are no jobs available there. So they move elsewhere.

Even were there NO racial issues in the Delta, i.e. the region were the role model for the "I'd like to buy the world a Coke" theme song from the 1970s, the Delta would still face the same challenges that other remote rural farming areas do. Look no further than the Great Plains farm region (especially the places "where the buffalo (formerly) roamed". That's a SOLIDLY middle class area that's overwhelmingly white. Yet they're losing their youth as fast as the Delta is. Also, even though there's not much farming to speak of in the next regions I mention, the same applies for equally remote, very poor areas that are overwhelmingly white (E. Kentucky, most of West Virginia, C. Pennsylvania. Northern New England, esp. N. Maine, is also a pretty miserable place). So the Delta's problems are by no means exclusively caused by race. Geographic remoteness is just as big a factor.

The only thing I can think of that can come even close to being plausible is to capitalize on the region's majority black population and the incredible beauty of the region's oxbow lakes. IOW, market the areas as a choice destination for middle and upper-middle class black retirees compelled to take on a challenge during their older years by making a difference in their adopted community. If nothing else, at least it'll expose natives to new ideas and give local businesses at least a little boost in their profit. It makes more sense than trying to attract white retirees from Texas and Georgia and Michigan.