Must Read Black Voices Article: 1927 Hurricane!

[journalist3072]

On Black Voices, they have a VERY interesting article about a hurricane in 1927, very similar to Katrina.

And the same racial divisions we see today as a result of Katrina, happened then as well.

-Snip-

"These events went down not in Louisiana in the past week, but in Mississippi in 1927. Swollen by heavy rains, the river began bursting through levees, built despite protests, that they would only amplify the water's destructive capacity -- between Illinois and the Gulf. The Republican official in charge, Herbert Hoover in this case -- took a virtually hands-off approach and the Red Cross refugee sites became models of Southern race relations with blacks being forced to do laundry for the National Guardsmen and literally leased out to help rebuild the flooded plantations of the Delta. The levees were repaired, though; as soon as the waters receded enough for black men to be gathered at gunpoint and forced onto labor gangs. (One black man refused to join the gang and was killed by a policeman.)"

entire article at: http://blackvoices.aol.com/black_news/canvas_directory_headlines_features/feature_article?id=20050906072209990001

[fortyfeetunder]

1. GOP baby, you haven't changed...

Not one iota.

I hope this is a lesson for the Black folks who want to vote GOP in the upcoming elections.

[journalist3072]

2. Exactly right! And as an African-American myself..

It really bothers me that so many of my fellow African-Americans vote against their own best interest. I have some of them right in my own family; they have been single issue voters (read: abortion).

The Republican Party doesn't want to educate our children, or give them health care. They don't want to support affirmative action, which is a corrective program to right past and current wrongs.

Yet at election time, they infiltrate our churches and convince some of us that it is more important that people aren't allowed to have abortions, that it is to give our people jobs.

[fortyfeetunder]

3. If they don't get a clue in 2006 or 2008 elections...

they deserve exactly what they get...or don't get...

[tx_dem41]

4. Minor point but this wasn't a hurricane but a flood.

There is a great book about it:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0684840022/qid=1126106446/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-7966564-5690253?v=glance&s=books

[Zensea]

5. Also two novels about this flood

"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
&
"Wild Palms" by Faulkner

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

6. Louisiana 1927.

It's probably been posted here a nearly infinite number of times, but it bears repeating:

Louisiana 1927
By Randy Newman

What has happened down here is the wind have changed
Clouds roll in from the north and it start to rain
Rained real hard and rained for a real long time
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline

The river rose all day
The river rose all night
Some people got lost in the flood
Some people got away alright
The river have busted through cleard down to Plaquemines
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangelne

CHORUS
Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tyrin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away
Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away

President Coolidge came down in a railroad train
With a little fat man with a note-pad in his hand
The President say, "Little fat man isn't it a shame
what the river have done
To this poor crackers land."

CHORUS

[meganmonkey]

7. Wow - That's a great article.

A lot of poignant quotes, but the last sentences ripped apart my heart.

"This is not Mississippi in 1927. It is America seventy-eight years later. But I swear to God, its getting harder and harder to tell the difference."

:cry:

[DinahMoeHum]

8. That flood gave rise to Huey Long in 1928 and FDR in 1932. . .

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0902-32.htm

(snip)
In 1927, the Democratic Party had died and was awaiting burial. As depression approached, the coma-Dems, like Franklin Roosevelt, called for balancing the budget.

Then, as the waters rose, one politician finally said, roughly, "Screw this! They're lying! The President's lying! The rich fat cats that are drowning you will do it again and again and again. They lead you into imperialist wars for profit, they take away your schools and your hope and when you complain, they blame Blacks and Jews and immigrants. Then they push your kids under. I say, Kick'm in the ass and take your rightful share!"

Huey Long laid out a plan: a progressive income tax, real money for education, public works to rebuild Louisiana and America, an end to wars for empire, and an end to financial oligarchy. The waters receded, the anger did not, and Huey "Kingfish" Long was elected Governor of Louisiana in 1928.
(snip)
(snip)
In other words, Huey Long founded the modern Democratic Party. Franklin Roosevelt and the party establishment, scared senseless of Long's ineluctable march to the White House, adopted his program, called it the New Deal, and later The New Frontier and the Great Society. America and the party prospered.

America could use a Democratic Party again and there's a rumor it's alive -- somewhere.
(snip)

much more...


:kick:

(snip)

[GreenPartyVoter]

9. Do NOT let America forget again

------------------------------------------------------
Save the Gulf:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=106&topic_id=22507&mesg_id=22507

Then save the nation!
http://timeforachange.bluelemur.com/electionreform.htm