Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Postscript to the Great Mississippi Flood
I forgot to mention one of the more disillusioning aspects of the story: How Hoover managed to bury the story.
After his investigators confirmed the abuses in the concentration camps (that was the actual term used), Hoover formed a Colored Advisory Commission made up of blacks and led by Robert Russa Moton, a very prominent black conservative leader. Their report also confirmed the allegations.
Hoover was relying on his successful handling of the crisis to win the presidency; he did NOT want any scandal to ruin his reputation as the “Great Humanitarian”. I’m not kidding, they actually called him that.
Hoover cut a deal with Moton to kill the story. Hoover would give Moton and his friends positions in government and give small plots of land to some sharecroppers. Moton jumped at the offer.
A funny thing happens when you sell your integrity to the devil. The devil bends you over and screws you in the ass. Hoover broke all his promises to Moton.
In 1932, Moton threw his support to FDR (who refused to desegregate the military in WWII, by the way). Many blacks left the Republican Party and never came back.
The white plantation owners lost their slaves, erm, um, “workers”, who left the poverty in the south to emigrate to Chicago and other northern cities. Greenville never regained its former prosperity.
Why am I flashing on Mayor Nagin and how he changed his tune about George Bush?
Ah, you smell the smoke too, eh?
Nagin, (who was a republican and a Bush supporter before he decided to run for Mayor) made sure that he met with the white business community before he met with the black ones. It would be interesting to trace the geneology of the companies that he met with. Just a quick look shows some of the same corporations that were involved in blowing the levee in 1927 are on the ‘committee’ that he formed.