has swept across Mississippi Delta for numerous years. It is defined as the circumstances or condition in which an individual or community lacks the fundamental needs for a minimum standard of well being.
One of the constant barriers in most rural communities is poverty. Though there have been many attempts to reduce the level of poverty, it is still an underlying issue in rural areas like the Mississippi Delta. Poverty disturbs communities by destroying the residents’ ability to support capital improvements, maintain an efficient education system, improve their health, and lessening environmental issues. Michael Harrington implied that poverty is a vicious cycle that will never come to an end. In The Other America, he argued that poverty has created a subculture of its own; it is more than just a state of mind. Poverty is a horrific phase that can continue without proper interventions, such as shelters, fundraisers, educational and job programs. It limits an individual’s ability to go anywhere or do anything, causing him or her to remain in that stage of torment. Consequently, one of the most poverty-stricken areas in Dixie is the Mississippi Delta. The Mississippi Delta has became one of the most impoverished regions in America due to various manifestations of poverty such as slavery, lack of education, politics, decline in health, and insufficient …show more content…
agriculture. The region is known to be the poorest area and the poorest state in America. Even though slavery did not begin in the Mississippi Delta, it became home to many slaves. Nevertheless, the desire for wealth led many whites and their slaves to the Mississippi Delta looking for land, aiming to remove all pre-existing Indian tribes. Briefly, the northern part of Mississippi, known as the Mississippi Delta, was under the control of the Choctaw Indians. From 1820-1884, the Indians were moved by three series of treaties. The three series of agreements were the Treaty of Doak’s Stand, Treaty of Fort Adam, and the Treaty of Fort Confederation. Substantially, one of the most emphasized treaties to remove the Indians was the Treaty of Doak’s Stand of 1820. The Treaty of Doak’s Stand of 1820 ceded approximately 5,000,000 acres of the Indians’ territories, which now makes up Washington County, Bolivar, Coahoma, Tunica County, Issaquena, and Sunflower. By 1850s, white settlements had made their moves, and the Mississippi Delta became the most productive area in Mississippi due to the growth of cotton. Years before the Civil War, slaves made up the majority of the population in the Delta. However, by January 1866 after the Civil War, slavery came to an end leaving many without the proper resources to relocate, so they settled in the Delta. The Civil War and Emancipation Proclamation brought significant modifications to the Mississippi Delta such as challenging the supremacy of the plantation owner idea of African Americans in the Mississippi Delta and their ability to create a new vision for free slaves. Many free southerners saw that the Mississippi Delta was a frontier of opportunity if the undeveloped region was cleared. African Americans were aiming for land ownership during Reconstruction and declare their political rights in the Mississippi Delta. Even with the restriction of political rights at the end of Reconstruction, African Americans continued coming into the Delta through the end of the century in hopes of gaining greater economic opportunity there than elsewhere.
The region became disastrous because the free black southerners lacked the primary resources to develop a better lifestyle such as transportation, education, security, and monetary funds. By the end of the 1890s and early 1900s, the Mississippi Delta population of African Americans increased dramatically. For instance, according to the Census Bureau, Coahoma County had roughly 5,085 freed people with only approximately 1,521 Caucasians. As time progressed by the 1920s, many Africans Americans started to move toward the North for better job opportunities, in an effort to drift away from discrimination, racial segregation and the laws of Jim Crow. Most southern Caucasians were afraid that the migration of African Americans would cause a major decline in black labor, so agriculture would no longer prosper in the Mississippi Delta. Due to the migration of African Americans, the Mississippi Delta drove deeper into poverty because the land was unattended causing the livestock to die, and technology was limited. The movement of thousands of African Americans is known as the Great Migration. Not only did the Great Migration increase the poverty level, but other events caused the Mississippi Delta to fall deeper into poverty. Other events like the Mississippi flood of 1927, it left many residents of the Mississippi Delta homeless and displaced through the destruction of livestock and crops. The water from the disaster left roughly 16.6 million acres, about 162,000 homes under water, and leaving almost 500 people dead. Without livestock many residents were jobless. Agriculture was also a major financial resource for the Delta. These two events alone had a negative impact on the Mississippi Delta causing many citizens to lose their livelihood. In the 1920s, the government provided no assistance to African Americans, so many left individually or in small groups to seek better help and security for their families. From the 1930s to the 1960s, not all African Americans migrated up North, so the Delta land remained predominantly black while Caucasians shifted to other areas. Caucasians moved because some felt threatened while others sought separation from blacks. Chapter one, “The Origins of the Mississippi Delta: The Impoverished Region via Metrics and Optics, 1964-1975” will begin with a full discussion on the geography and the origins of the Mississippi Delta. Secondly, it will aim at the two types of perspectives of poverty and target the most impoverished areas in the Mississippi Delta such as Coahoma, Leflore County, Sunflower County, Tunica and Washington County. Then, this chapter will show how the government provided special assistance to the residents to decrease the level of poverty in the Delta during 1964 to1975 and explain how poverty has impinged on the citizens of these selected areas. Chapter one will correspondingly give a brief overview on how the government provided programs to fought against hunger, education, housing, and healthcare. Lastly, the chapter will include the laws that brought about changes in the Mississippi Delta, and how these laws made a difference if any. Chapter 2 and 3, “Enduring Reality: Contributing Factors that have Giving Rise to and Sustaining Poverty in the Mississippi Delta” will explain the different factors that have driven the Mississippi Delta into poverty between the years 1976-2000. It will explain the decline in population from the early 1970s to the early 21st century and what caused a major decline in the population in the Mississippi Delta. Henceforth, these two chapters will give a concise description of segregation, the issue with job opportunities, and how poverty is still a continuous problem throughout the Mississippi Delta. Nevertheless, chapter three will illustrate the lack of education and bad health in the Mississippi Delta and how many residents were more focused on achieving a better life through working than gaining an education. Chapter four, “Another Century of Persistent Poverty” will describe poverty today in the Delta, how people remain victims of poverty and tell whether the government is still working hard to eradicate new feasible solutions to fight against poverty. Poverty in the Mississippi Delta had always been extensive among all ethnic groups even before the Great Depression, but many governmental programs were established to help to lessen poverty as a whole.
Poverty does not target a particular race, but poverty population is dynamic and diverse. Unfortunately, poverty in the Delta is particularly dominant among African Americans. Poverty is well known in black communities due to intergenerational poverty. Intergenerational poverty is refers to the poverty induced by the socially and economically challenged background of a person’s parents. African Americans were left behind treated like second-class citizens, so they never developed job-related skills or education to overcome the viciousness of poverty which had a major impact on future generations. Most citizens who lived in poverty desired income to provide for their families and themselves, afford a decent home, receive affordable healthcare, and watch their child attend college to seek a better life. Living under the influence of poverty, families have problem with making ends meet on a day-to-day
basis.