American History Tellers - The Great Mississippi Flood | Master of Emergencies | 3

Episode Date: May 25, 2022

Herbert Hoover’s management of the flood relief garnered widespread praise and put him in position to secure the Republican nomination for President. But the African-American press told a different story, one of rampant racial abuse in Red Cross camps throughout the flood zone.In Greenville, Mississippi, the exploitation of Black workers was especially persistent. In the summer, tensions rose to new heights, and soon, a fatal shooting would tear the battered town apart.Listen ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App. https://wondery.app.link/historytellersPlease support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's May 1927, just weeks after the Mississippi River breached its levees and flooded thousands of square miles in the Deep South. You're a reporter for the Chicago Defender, and you've traveled to Greenville, Mississippi to investigate conditions in the flood zone. You've heard rumors about how bad things have gotten. But as you weave your way through a crowded Red Cross camp, you're stunned by how squalid it really is. The flood victims, nearly all of them black, are living in filthy canvas tents pitched along the narrow muddy crown of the levee. Some don't even have tents and just sleep on the ground. You approach a man huddled over a small campfire, waiting for a pot of water to boil.

A little boy sits beside him. Excuse me, sir. I'm a reporter. I was hoping I could ask you some questions. I don't know. I work for the Chicago Defender. We've got black readers all over the country, and I'm sure they'd be interested in what's happening here in Greenville. Without taking his eyes off you, he addresses the little boy. Get back in the tent, son. The boy obediently stands and retreats into a nearby tent. You take a seat beside the man on the ground. He has dark circles under his eyes, and his threadbare clothes are caked in mud. Tell me, is there plenty of food coming in for the camp? The man looks at you with a wry smile. Yes, there's plenty of food.

I should know. It's my job to unload the rations. Doesn't mean I always get to eat them. What do you mean? We get whatever's left over. Once they make sure the white families downtown get fed. And there's this new rule. The man looks over his shoulder, his eyes darting across

the camp. What is that? The man in charge of this camp? His name is Will Percy. He has total authority here, and his new rule is that you can't get rations if you don't work. Folks are calling it the worker's starve order. You shake your head and pull out your notepad, writing down the name Will Percy. What was that? The worker points to where a black man is hunched over the ground, clutching his stomach. A white National Guardsman is walking away from him. Looks like that guard hit him with his rifle button. Tell your readers about that. Why would he do that? Could be anything. Maybe he was trying to get more rations, or maybe he was trying to go where he wasn't supposed to. The man holds out his shirt and points to the numbered tag on his chest.

See this tag? All the black folks have one. It's how they keep track of us, so they know which plantation to return us to when the cotton fields dry out. But that sounds like slavery. Sure does, doesn't it? You write down a few more details in your notepad, then get to your feet. Thanks for your time. I promise you, I'm going to make sure people know what's happening here. Now I'd better go check on that man. You start walking toward the man who lies hunched on the ground.

But before you can reach him, he gets up and staggers off, fear and pain etched on his face. You're shocked by the virtual slavery you're witnessing. It completely contradicts the feel-good stories white-owned newspapers are pumping out about Herbert Hoover and the Red Cross. You hope that by exposing the truth, you can help victims of this flood get better treatment. the feel-good stories white-owned newspapers are pumping out about Herbert Hoover and the Red Cross. You hope that by exposing the truth, you can help victims of this flood get better treatment. Maybe some chance at rebuilding their lives.

From the team behind American History Tellers comes a new book, The Hidden History of the White House. Each chapter will bring you inside the fierce power struggles, intimate moments, and shocking scandals that shaped our nation. From the War of 1812 to Watergate. Follow Kill List wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Kill List and more Exhibit C true crime shows like Morbid early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers. Our history, your story. In May 1927, Black reporters began investigating conditions in Red Cross camps in the aftermath of the Great Mississippi Flood.

Black newspapers compared the abuses to imprisonment and slavery, challenging narratives in the mainstream press and threatening the reputations of men in power. In Greenville, Mississippi, the head of the local Red Cross branch was Will Percy, a lawyer and son of a wealthy planter. Giving in to pressure from plantation owners, Will turned the Red Cross relief camp into a virtual prison, detaining Black laborers and forcing them to work against their will. At the national level, Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover oversaw the federal government response, and he expected to turn his efforts into a successful

presidential campaign. So as news spread of discrimination and abuse in Red Cross camps like Greenville's, Hoover was intent on suppressing the controversy before it stained his reputation and blocked his ambitions. This is Episode 3, Master of Emergencies. In the spring of 1927, Herbert Hoover's leadership over flood relief in seven states propelled him into the national spotlight. The next presidential election was just a year and a half away, and Hoover was convinced he could garner the Republican nomination. In May, he confided to a close friend, I shall be the nominee, probably. It is nearly inevitable. But throughout that month, a growing drumbeat of criticism threatened Hoover's meticulously crafted public

image. Major black newspapers began reporting stories of abuse in the Red Cross camps where many of the flood victims had sought refuge. Readers were shocked by reports of black men and women held in the camps at gunpoint. On May 7th, the Chicago Defender, an influential black newspaper, published an expose describing how black men in the camps were being beaten and forced to work. The Defender declared, The ugly specter of race hate has reared its head above the angry waters in the flood area. Soon, leading social activists and members of the NAACP were questioning conditions in the camps too, including the one in Greenville. An anonymous black minister in Greenville wrote to President

Calvin Coolidge, insisting, All of this mean and brutish treatment of the colored people is nothing but downright slavery. The famous social worker and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Adams urged Hoover to appoint a committee to examine these charges. And Hoover grew increasingly worried that a scandal was indeed brewing. Then, in mid-May, NAACP official Walter White traveled to the flood zone to investigate the camps for himself. He, too, was shocked by the conditions he discovered, reporting what he observed in a scathing article for The Nation. In it, White described how the camps trapped black workers

by banning labor agents and helping plantation owners retrieve their sharecroppers. He reported, A number of Negroes told me that they would rather be drowned in the flood than be forced to go back to the plantation from which they had come. White sent his findings to Hoover, and soon his investigation was picked up by the New York Times. Hoover had overseen the creation of the camps, and he personally approved the plan to put local communities in charge of them. Any negative press about the camps could jeopardize his presidential ambitions. Because to win the Republican nomination,

Hoover needed the support of black Southerners, who still held sway at Republican nominating conventions. Southern states made up one-third of the delegates, and since most white Southerners were Democrats, many Republican delegates were Black. On May 28, Hoover formed a Colored Advisory Commission to investigate the Red Cross camps and compile a report. Hoover asked Dr. Robert Russa Moten to lead the commission. Moten was one of the most powerful Black men in America.

He was a protege of the famous educator and intellectual Booker T. Washington, and he had succeeded Washington as head of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Moten was a shrewd choice. He believed in working with white leaders, not against them. And he had won the trust of major white politicians and philanthropists. He sat on boards with Andrew Carnegie, William Howard Taft, and John D. Rockefeller Jr., and was a skilled fundraiser. But other Black activists, including NAACP co-founder W.E.B. Du Bois, criticized Moten's willingness to accommodate rather than confront. But it was Moten who was selected to lead the commission, and he asked 16 prominent Black men and two women to

join him. The members included officials at the Tuskegee Institute, leaders of other Black colleges, and the head of the Associated Negro Press, a news syndicate for Black newspapers. All believed in a more cautious approach to challenging racism. Mainstream newspapers applauded the creation of the Colored Advisory Commission and Hoover's efforts to address charges of abuse. The move helped Hoover remain a top contender for the Republican nomination. The Oakland Tribune declared, In personal fitness for the presidency, there is no other American, even remotely, in Mr. Hoover's class. But in late May, the Mississippi River began rising again. Heavy rainfall had continued upriver throughout the spring.

The water rose six feet in Cairo, Illinois, just when in Greenville, half the town was finally free of water. But there were still several thousand feet of gaps in the levee. Town leaders were terrified the river would soon overflow its banks and flood the town again. So on May 31, Greenville Mayor John Cannon, Will Percy, and Will's father Leroy announced a town meeting,

urging both white and black people to attend. A city councilman called for volunteers to seal the gaps. The workers would need to do the labor for free because city funds had been drained paying for sandbags and other materials. He declared that if not enough men volunteered, the town would conscript

workers instead. John McMiller was a black Greenville resident who ran a local burial association. At the meeting, he stood to speak, declaring, The guns are the problem. All the white folks carry guns. If you put the guns away, we'll have a thousand colored men on the levee in the morning. A newspaper publisher named Levi Chappelle rose in agreement with MacMiller. He declared, we feel that the system of conscription is bad, and if you will let us work out a plan, I think we will get better results. The town leaders agreed to let the black community organize themselves. Several hundred people immediately got up and left to debate the

issue at a nearby church. It was a choice between taking charge of their own labor or being forced to work once again at gunpoint. Imagine it's May 31st, 1927. You and several hundred members of Greenville's Black community are meeting in a church to discuss what to do about the gaps in the levee and the risk of more flooding. You're standing at the front of the church, trying to encourage your neighbors to volunteer to repair the levee. All right, everyone, listen up. They need a thousand men down there to get the job done. I say we answer the call. Let's show A man sitting in the first pew rises to speak.

Like you, he's a community leader and business owner. He runs a small grocery that was nearly destroyed in the flood. You're hoping he's going to second your words, but instead he shakes his head. Have you forgotten what happened last time? I won't go back to the levee and work at gunpoint like a slave. I understand how you feel. But the river doesn't care whether it drowns white people or black people. And we all know that it's black neighborhoods that are most at risk if the gaps aren't closed.

We're the ones who live in the bottom lands, not rich white folks like the Percys. But the grocer won't back down. I won't go back to doing their bidding. Black men in this town have done far too much already. That's true, they have. But that work would be washed away in an instant if the town floods again. And this time, we won't be saving white folks. We'll be saving ourselves. And how do you know they won't turn their guns on us again? None of us like the way things have gone. Too many of us have suffered under their hand. They've denied us our freedom and the dignity to choose when and how we work. I say we reclaim that dignity.

The grocer looks over his shoulder as the church erupts in applause. He turns back to you and nods. Fine. The whites will see to it that us black men work, no matter what. We may as well do it on our own terms. Then it's settled. We'll form a committee to recruit volunteers.

As the meeting breaks up, you sweep your gaze across the room and smile. Finally, it looks like your community is coming together, taking back control of their lives. On May 31st, John McMiller and other local Black leaders created a general colored committee to handle dealings with the Percys and the Red Cross. They immediately distributed handbills throughout town, asking for volunteers to help repair the levy. 1,000 Black workers heeded the call. During the first week of June, the volunteers worked in the heat 24 hours a day to fill sandbags and seal the levee, and work was completed just as the waters began rising again, but this time the levee held.

On June 7th, both black and white Greenville residents celebrated their victory over the river at a local theater with music and comedy performances. But the celebrations didn't last. The floodwaters were receding, but Greenville was encased in a deep layer of mud that needed to be dug out. Buildings were infested with rattlesnakes, and dead crawfish lined the streets. The stench of decay was overwhelming. And black workers were exhausted after eight days of backbreaking labor on the levee. But police, once again, began forcing black men into work gangs to dig out the town. The water was too shallow to travel by boat, so the workers were forced to wade through

waist-deep water and mud, tugging supplies behind them. Will Percy later wrote, We were tired out. It was a wretched period. And then in early June, the Chicago Defender published news of Will Percy's rule that black men would not receive rations unless they worked, calling it a work-or-starve order. The Defender claimed that Will's prejudice against black people was as bitter as gall. Even as the floodwaters receded, the political and social pressure was mounting on both sides. And soon, tensions between white and black Greenville would explode into violence. the grocery store. Or maybe you're with your secret lover. Or maybe you're robbing a bank. Based on the real-life false alarm that terrified Hawaii in 2018, Incoming, a brand-new fiction podcast exclusively on Wondery Plus, follows the journey of a variety of characters as they

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of camps in the flood zone. They were shocked by the harrowing conditions they discovered. On June 14, the commission met with Herbert Hoover and handed him a preliminary report of their findings. The members documented how black men were beaten by guardsmen and forced to work against their will. They also reported isolated incidents of rape and murder in the camps. May and June saw a wave of racial violence throughout the flood zone, both in and out of the relief camps. In Little Rock, Arkansas, a white mob tied a black man to a car, dragged him through town, then set him on fire. In Lake Providence, Louisiana, the town mayor shot and killed a black insurance agent

after he refused to go to work on the local levee. In Louisville, Mississippi, a mob attacked two black men accused of killing a white farmer and burned them at the stake. Press coverage of the surge in violence put Hoover under even more pressure to address his critics. And after reading the Colored Advisories Commission's draft report, Hoover promised to respond to their recommendations and make changes in the camps. He also hinted that Black people would be rewarded if he won the presidency. Though he kept his assurances vague, he told one member of the commission

that something substantial could be accomplished if he secured the White House. Commission leader Dr. Robert Russell Moten hoped that the flood recovery could be the start of economic renewal in the Deep South. He believed that Hoover would help Black Southerners in the long term and was determined to stay in his good graces. So Moten watered down the commission's report before releasing it to the press. The published report recommended minor changes, but left out descriptions of the worst abuses. It proposed that the Red Cross introduce recreational activities and construct screen structures with tables and seats for serving food. Nothing was said about the systemic exploitation of Black workers.

And that exploitation never ceased. Back in Greenville, hostility between Black and white residents was reaching a fever pitch. Black men were still being forced to work, more than two months after the flood inundated the town. Tensions boiled over on July 7th when white police officers fanned out through black neighborhoods to search for men to work again on the levees, which were still being shored up. An officer named James Mosley pulled up to a house where a black man named James Gooden was sitting on his porch. Mosley ordered Gooden into his truck, but Gooden refused. He told the police officer that he had just come home from working all night on the levee and wouldn't work a double shift.

Gooden retreated into his house, but Mosley followed him, pulled his gun, and shot him. Neighbors carried Gooden to the local hospital, where he soon died. The news of Gooden's death sparked outrage in the black community. Gooden was a respected figure, a man known both to black and white residents, including the Percys. And in response to the killing, black laborers stopped work, refusing to unload supplies or dig any more white-owned businesses out of the mud. White residents grew paranoid, fearing retaliation. One man recalled,

We prepared for a race riot here. We thought the blacks were going to uprise. Everyone was buying guns. Hoping to ease tensions, police arrested Officer Mosley. And Will Percy was determined to act too. But a black associate advised him to stand down, warning him that black residents blamed Will for Gooden's death. But Will ignored the advice. He decided to call a meeting at a local black church. As head of Greenville's Special Flood Relief Committee,

Will Percy had struggled to lead his community through crisis. Months after the flood, the entire county still lacked adequate food and medical supplies. The local black population detested him, blaming Will for the policies that kept black workers laboring at gunpoint, and white elites, including his own father, undermined his authority at every turn. Will was painfully aware that the town viewed his leadership as weak and ineffective. Now, faced with this latest crisis, he was determined to save face, and he would have to do it without consulting his powerful and politically savvy father, Leroy,

who was out of town. On the night of July 8th, Will walked into an empty stone Baptist church. Black men and women began to silently file in soon after. The pastor read from scripture, then introduced Will. He walked up to the pulpit, and all at once his pent-up anger and bitterness exploded. In a furious speech, he laid the blame for the death of James Gooden on black residents themselves. He declared, Because of your sinful, shameful laziness, because you refused to work on your own behalf unless you were paid, one of your race has been killed. You sit before me sour and full of hatred, as if you had the right to blame anybody or judge anybody. I am not the murderer. That foolish young policeman is not the murderer. The murderer is you. Your hands are dripping with blood. It had only been five years since Will's father, Leroy Percy,

ran the Ku Klux Klan out of town, winning the trust and respect of black residents. But now his son was attacking the very community his father had sworn to protect, a community that had worked day in and day out to rebuild the flooded town. Will's angry diatribe shattered any remaining bonds between the Percys and Greenville's black residents. The next day, when Will called for volunteers to work on the levee, only four men appeared. He had lost any remaining authority, and he finally came to terms with his failure to lead Greenville through the crisis.

Within two months, Will would resign from his position, leave town, and retreat into his true passion, writing poetry. By late July 1927, the floodwaters had receded throughout the Mississippi Valley, and Hoover's flood committee began to shut down several Red Cross camps. The flood had left some 700,000 Americans homeless. As many as 1,000 people had died, hundreds of thousands of animals were killed, and an entire crop was lost. The task of rebuilding would be enormous.

More than 160,000 homes were flooded, and another 40,000 buildings destroyed. The flood cost more than $100 million in damage, more than $1.5 billion in today's money. Hoover made plans to help struggling farmers access credit for supplies and livestock, but the loans would come from private sources, not the federal government. When it came to flood relief, Hoover was forced to act largely on his own. A belief in small government pervaded Washington, and despite a record surplus in the U.S. Treasury, officials refused to spend a single dollar in direct aid to flood victims. And despite demands from flooded states, President Calvin Coolidge refused to summon legislators back to Washington.

Congress was out of session, and Coolidge was spending the summer fishing in South Dakota's Black Hills. Editorials across the country attacked the government's hands-off policy. One Kentucky newspaper declared, either Coolidge has the coldest heart in America or the dullest imagination. off policy. One Kentucky newspaper declared, And then on July 8th, the same day that Will Percy raged against his town from the pulpit, the Colored Advisory Commission presented a second report to Hoover, summarizing their findings from the investigation into the Red Cross camps. This report was much harsher in its criticism than the first. Robert Moten only made three copies. He had no plans to release it. He was prepared to silence criticism of the relief

camps, still hoping that in return, Hoover would reward Black Americans at large. Imagine it's July 9, 1927, and you're walking down a hallway at the Red Cross headquarters in Washington, D.C. You're a member of the Colored Advisory Commission, and for the past several weeks, you've split your time between Washington and the flood zone, investigating abuses in Red Cross camps. Today, you're meeting with Commission Chair Robert Moten in his temporary office to discuss your latest report. You know he was presenting your findings earlier today to Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, and you're anxious to hear how the meeting went. Come in.

Good afternoon, Dr. Moten. Moten puts down his pen, and you pull up a chair across from it. Well, how was your private meeting with Secretary Hoover? It went very well. You look like the cat that ate the canary. Does that mean Hoover is making concrete plans to address our findings? Or that we can finally go public? People need to know what's happening in these camps.

No, the report won't be made public. It's not the time. This commission needs to play the long game. This isn't a game. There are tens of thousands of people counting on us to look out for them. I am looking out for them. Secretary Hoover has just told me his plans to completely transform the economy of the Mississippi Delta. It's everything we could have hoped for and more. Well, what did he say? Between you and me.

He's proposing a resettlement program to help 7,000 black farmers buy small land holdings. They'll own their own property and plant their own crops. It's the end of tenant farming and sharecropping. This is going to revolutionize people's lives. He sits back, looking very self-satisfied. You see, have you ever heard of anything so ambitious? No, I haven't. And to be honest, it sounds too good to be true. How do you know Hoover can be trusted? That he's not just dangling a carrot to keep us quiet? He's just as excited about this as I am. Look, we both know that Hoover could very well become the next president of the United States.

And when he does, he'll have the power to implement this plan. All we have to do is stick by him and not rock the boat. I don't know. I just can't help but feel like we're neglecting our duty. That we still need to tell people about the deplorable conditions in some of these camps. It will be worth it in the end. White planters have been hoarding wealth in the Delta for far too long. Black families have been denied their fair share of some of the most fertile soil in the world. We're going to change all of that.

Well, I must say, doctor, I have my doubts, but you seem convinced. I hope your faith is well placed. You nod and smile, sensing that no matter what you say, Moten is going to stand by Hoover. You're intrigued by this talk of land resettlement,

but you have a gnawing feeling that you're betraying the victims of the flood. On July 9, 1927, Hoover met with Robert Moten and proposed a revolutionary plan for Black people in the Mississippi Delta. He wanted to help thousands of poor farmers buy the land they labored on. Hoover proposed a Land Resettlement Corporation, which would finance loans for land, animals, and farm equipment. The money for loans would come from leftover Red Cross funds. He hoped to break up plantation land into smaller holdings that would plant more diverse crops, ending the region's reliance on cotton. Moten was thrilled. He believed that if Hoover was elected president, thousands of black Southerners could be lifted out of poverty. He was prepared to do whatever it took to make it happen, even if it meant censoring his own commission's investigations.

But Moten couldn't contain his excitement. He began hinting about the resettlement plan in speeches. In August, he spoke before the National Negro Business League and said, I am not at liberty to give you details, but you will hear about it soon. The Red Cross Fund will doubtless be the instrument for doing something for the Negro more significant than anything since emancipation. In the audience at that speech was acting Red Cross chairman James Fieser. Fieser was shocked by what he heard, because he had already flatly refused to support Hoover's land resettlement plan with any Red Cross

funds. Afterward, he wrote an angry letter to Hoover, reminding the Secretary that it was impossible for the Red Cross to undertake such a program. Hoover didn't mind the controversy, because with the Colored Advisory Commission's report buried, his road to the White House was opening up. On August 2nd, President Coolidge announced that he would not run again. As newspapers continued to lavish praise on Hoover, calling him the great humanitarian, his nomination began to look all the more likely. He would stop at nothing to protect his shot at the presidency. I'm Tristan Redman, and as a journalist, I've never believed in ghosts. But when I discovered that my wife's great-grandmother was murdered in the house next door to where I grew up, I started wondering about the inexplicable things that happened

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Check out Exhibit C in the Wondery app for all your true crime listening. In the late summer and fall of 1927, more Red Cross camps shut down across the lower Mississippi Valley. But not for everyone, and not on equal terms. In Vicksburg, the white camp remained open seven weeks longer than the black camp. Meanwhile, black laborers were sent back to work in fields still covered by a foot of water. County Red Cross officials throughout the flood zone gave white planters tools, clothes, and animal feed to distribute to their black tenant farmers. Some did, but others charged their tenants for the supplies they had received for free.

Robert Moten continued to write Hoover about the ongoing discrimination, but Hoover denied there were any systemic problems. It would appear Moten's commission lacked teeth, and in November, W.E.B. Du Bois questioned Moten's credibility in the NAACP's magazine, The Crisis. Du Bois wrote, We have grave suspicion that Moten's commission will be sorely tempted to whitewash the whole situation, to pat Mr. Hoover loudly on the back, and to make no real effort to investigate the desperate and evil conditions of that section of our country. Du Bois accused Moten of spineless surrender to the administration and flattery for the guilty Red Cross. It was a searing attack, and fearing damage to his own reputation, Moten convinced Hoover to let the Colored Advisory Commission do another series of inspections. So on December 12,

the Commission met with Hoover and a half-dozen Red Cross officials in Washington to present their final report. Moten himself missed the meeting after getting into an automobile accident, and in his absence, his colleagues were blunt. They had discovered brazen abuse and racial exploitation in and around multiple camps. The report spoke of landlords who stole supplies and tenants who were whipped for trying to leave plantations. The harsh details were difficult to ignore. The report was far more damaging than Hoover expected, and he was furious. On December 17th, he met with Moten privately and said that the report had disappointed him. He demanded that Moten rewrite

it. Moten caved to the pressure, shelved the report, and instead issued a press release praising the Red Cross. Moten was determined to realize Hoover's land resettlement plan, and over the next few months, he did everything he could to shield Hoover from scandal and help secure his nomination to the Republican ticket. But meanwhile, residents in the Mississippi Delta continued to struggle. In March 1928, nearly a year after the flood began, 12,000 people in Washington County were still being fed by the Red Cross. No crops had been planted, and the economic outlook was grim. Residents faced an uphill battle to rebuild their lives, and many grappled with impossible choices. Imagine it's March 1928 in Washington County, Mississippi. You're a tenant farmer, and you're

working on the edge of your landlord's plantation. You've been sawing wood all afternoon, the first step in starting to finally rebuild your house. It was destroyed last year in the flood, forcing you to live in a tent. You're slowly getting back on your feet. As you pause to wipe the sweat from your brow, you see your wife, Rose, walking toward you, carrying a basket of laundry. Rose, there you are. Give me a hand with this, will you? If you could just hold the other end of that lumber in place. Hold on a minute. I didn't realize you were planning on doing all this today. No better time to start.

If I work fast, I'm hoping I can get most of this house built before the summer heat kicks in. Rose drops her laundry basket and shakes her head. That's if we stay that long. I think it's time we leave Mississippi. We can head north. Start over. I wrote to my Uncle Howard. You know, the one who left for Detroit a few years back.

He says we can stay with him as long as we need. Detroit? What would I even do there? The only life I know is here in the Delta. They have good jobs there. You can learn a new trade. Maybe work on automobiles. But I'm a farmer. I've been working my fingers to the bone for ten years,

trying to finally earn enough to buy a plot. I've dreamed of farming my own land my whole life. I thought that was your dream, too. Rose gave you a sympathetic smile. It was, but not anymore. We have to be realistic. Even if you manage to rebuild the house, there's no money left to plant a crop this year. And then where will we be? You angrily drop a half-sawn plank of wood to the ground. How can I even think about crops when we don't even have a roof over our heads?

Besides, you know how the landlord keeps hoarding all the supplies. That's just it. We'll never have a fair shot as long as we stay here. Let's put the trials of the last year behind us. Try our chances somewhere else. You stare at the pile of lumber you've been cutting to size, evidence of a life you fought so hard to rebuild. All you've ever known here in the Delta is a life of struggle, and deep down you know your wife is right. It is time for a change. Detroit, huh? How did we even get there? Uncle Howard can wire us some money. You can pay him back after you get a new job. Your wife smiles at you.

And for the first time in what feels like months, you smile back. The constant fighting to claim one little piece of this land has worn you down. Now you're starting to think you'd be better off with a new dream. By the spring of 1928, half of Washington County's Black population had moved away, never to return. All across the floodplain, in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana, tens of thousands of Black residents boarded trains and fled north to build new lives in cities like Chicago and Detroit. It was the exodus that planters like Leroy Percy had feared and done everything in their power to prevent. In all the years that planters fought to keep their workers in the Delta, they had also waged war against the river by supporting the construction of the levees.

The Great Mississippi Flood ended the debate on whether levees alone could control the river. It could not. It was clear to everyone that the levees-only policy had failed. So in May 1928, President Coolidge signed the Flood Control Act into law. Hoover helped craft a bill which appropriated $300 million of federal money to restructure the levee system and to create emergency outlets and spillways. With the act's passage, the federal government took full responsibility for managing the Mississippi River. A month later, the Republican National Convention was held in

Kansas City, Missouri. Robert Moten remained a steadfast supporter of Hoover and led a contingent of black delegates. Hoover won the nomination on the first ballot. And as the general election got underway, Hoover capitalized on his leadership of flood relief. His campaign distributed a film titled Master of Emergencies, which touted his work in the Delta. But Black activists and writers had not forgotten the abuses in the Red Cross camps. In the lead-up to Election Day, several influential Black newspapers endorsed Hoover's opponent, Catholic Democrat Al Smith. The Chicago defender declared, Strange as it may seem, the Democrats are more favorable to the political and social aspirations of the black man than are the Republicans. But when Americans went to the polls in November,

Hoover easily won, sweeping 40 states. But he lost 15% of the black vote, compared to the Republican share of black voters in the previous election. It was the start of a historic shift of black Americans moving their allegiance from Republican to Democrat. Theirs weren't the only allegiance that shifted. Once in office, Hoover turned his back on Moten. His resettlement plan was abandoned, and his administration provided no help to black farmers who wanted to buy their own land. Four years later, Moten refused to endorse Hoover for re-election. But the damage had been done.

The city of Greenville was forever changed by the flood. What was once known as the Queen City of the Delta never recovered its former prosperity. In 1929, Leroy Percy died of a heart attack. His son Will returned to Greenville from his travels and tried to again improve conditions for local Black people. He fought police brutality and helped tenants buy their own land. And when the river flooded again in 1937, Will stopped white officials from calling out the National Guard,

remembering the violence inflicted a decade earlier. But the fragile trust that once existed between the Percys and Greenville's Black residents was never fully repaired. Across America, ripples from the Great Mississippi Flood would be felt for years. It transformed ideas about the federal government's responsibility for the Mississippi River and for disaster relief in general. It helped put a man in the White House who was soon tasked with steering the nation through an unprecedented economic depression. And it accelerated the Great Migration, prompting thousands of Black Southerners to move north and effectively ending the sharecropping economy on which wealthy white

plantation owners had depended for generations. The swollen river that broke its levees in 1927 didn't just flood the Mississippi Delta. The entire country was left changed. Because ultimately, as the waters receded, it revealed racial fault lines that had long existed, but were carved deeper by the flood. From Wondery, this is Episode 3 of The Great Mississippi Flood from American History Tellers. On the next episode, I'll be speaking with Susan Scott Parrish, author of The Flood Year 1927, A Cultural History. We'll talk about how the entire nation experienced the flood through coverage in the media and the lasting cultural impact of the disaster.

If you like American History Tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. If you'd like to learn more about the flood, we recommend Rising Tide, The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America by John M. Berry. American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsey Graham, for Airship. Audio editing by Molly Bach.

Sound design by Derek Behrens. Music by Lindsey Graham. Voice acting by Ace Anderson and Cat Peoples. This episode is written by Ellie Stanton. Edited by Dorian Marina. Our senior producer is Andy Herman. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer Beckman and Marshall Louis for Wondery. In a quiet suburb, a community is shattered by the death of a beloved wife and mother.

But this tragic loss of life quickly turns into something even darker. Her husband had tried to hire a hitman on the dark web to kill her. And she wasn't the only target. Because buried in the depths of the internet is The Kill List, a cache of chilling documents containing names, photos, addresses, and specific instructions for people's murders. This podcast is the true story of how I ended up in a race against time to warn those whose lives were in danger. And it turns out, convincing a total stranger someone wants them dead is not easy. Follow Kill List on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Kill List and more Exhibit C true crime shows like Morbid

early and ad- free right now by joining wandering plus check out exhibit c in the wandering app for all your true crime listening