Mississippi, but not completely Katrina, related

I debated including this. At first when I heard the story I did not know where Belzoni was (mid state towards the MS river) but the abject poverty there is much like that we found closer to the coast and in the end I figured it was more important for people to hear the story than to not include it since Katrina did not cause it. It is not an indictment of just MS or just the South, since there is no doubt that the same report could be made in thousands and thousands of locations around the country or the world. Sure things are getting better, but the effort is FAR from done.

From NPR:

"Our story starts with those historic hearings -- and ends in Belzoni, Miss. It's the seat of Humphreys County, still one of the poorest counties in one of the poorest states in the United States. The median household income is around $20,000, and about one-third of the residents receive food stamps.

It's also one of the places where, nearly 40 years ago, Clayton and his guide, Kenneth Dean -- then a young civil rights activist -- went to chronicle the people who were "still hungry in America."

We return to Belzoni, with Kenneth Dean as our guide as well. Not surprisingly, the Mississippi Delta town continues to struggle with poverty."

Also highly recommended is the "Teacher's tale". It is an "essay" by a Belzoni HS teacher. It not only tells of the academic struggles but also the racial divide that still exists.

"No one in Belzoni, white or black, would claim to be a racist, but there are essentially two different societies in Belzoni. There is the white society, the society of the Varsity restaurant and Guaranty Bank and the annual World Catfish Festival, and there is the black society, the society of the Humphreys County School District and Little Wimps Barbecue and Fisk Street. Individuals pass between these worlds, and yet they remain divided."

And later:

"Ultimately, my students are cheated: They work hard, and their teachers work hard, but there is no compensation for an upbringing in an environment that is, to put it politely, starving for literacy. There is not a single bookstore in Humphreys County.

Poverty breeds illiteracy. Belzoni is poor, and so it is illiterate. This is not meant as a pejorative: What my students lack in academic ability is, at least in my eyes, compensated by a spark and a creativity that I have never seen before in my life."

Definitely worth a read!

It is a sad reminder that poverty, whether racially based or not, is still well entrenched in many parts of the US and that this poverty has a much greater burden on minorities. (and to think this is still true 47 years after Black Like Me was written. We have a long ways to go to have equal opportunities for all.)