What's the status of Biloxi, MS these days?

[Sequoia]

Any recovery? Is Keesler AFB open?

I'm reading "Category 5 The Story of Hurricane Camille" which I remember seeing on the news as a kid. Same time Woodstock was going on and they had all that rain.

I'm reading this and my jaw dropped when I found out that until 1968 blacks were NOT ALLOWED on the 26 mile beach coast of Mississippi. In Biloxi, one man, Dr. Gilbert Mason, decided to protest by doing a "wade in". No one showed up, but on 4/24/60 125 showed up and so did several hundred whites. Next few nights drive-by shootins, etc. took place. Two blacks were killed, one was nearly decapitated and his body dumped in front of the Jefferson Davis mansion! Camille was called the white man's hurricane because no one bothered to find out what went on in the black neighborhoods. In 1974 I was in Biloxi and saw places that still had not been cleaned up from that hurricane.

[jobycom]

1. Camille was in 69, so after the era you're describing

Mississippi's Gulf Coast is a little more progressive than the rest of the state, but the ban on blacks on the beach doesn't surprise me. I was born in 65, so I don't know firsthand the events you describe. I lived through Camille (I was four), and through desegregation. I moved away from the Coast in 85, but visit frequently, as my parents and siblings and most of my friends still live there.

The Coast, as with the rest of Mississippi and the South, was more divided over the race issue than the rest of the nation believes, but as with America now, the conservatives usually won by bullying everyone else into silence. My parents were for desegregation and bussing, and my school was integrated. Amongst the kids at my elementary school in the 70s, the majority would disapprove of blatant racists, although there was some racism in everyone, I suppose. The topic was discussed, all the way through my high school year. In my senior year (83) a woman I dated won runner-up in a pagent partially on her answer to the question "How do you feel about the Confederate flag as the symbol of schools and colleges in Mississippi?" She disapproved, and got a lot of applause for it. Our school, btw, had the rebel flag as its symbol.

My point is that in the early 70s the race issue was volatile in Biloxi, with the edge being given to the racists, but with a lot of dissent. It isn't surprising to me to hear that black neighborhoods were ignored after Camille.

Now, after Katrina, Biloxi is still a mess. Not sure on Keesler (my father-in-law was at Keesler while you were there), but there is a lot of commerce and life returning. The casinos can now be land based, and several have reopened. Most of the rest will be reopened soon, including the Beau Rivage, which is the jewel of the casinos. Highway 90 is reopened, and they have begun plans to rebuild the bridge over Biloxi Bay. They have started to rebuild the Bay St. Louis Bay already. So there is much progress. They are debating making sweeping changes, like moving the train tracks farther north, and maybe even moving Highway 90 a couple blocks off the beach.

The geography has changed. Since the first half-mile or so of the Coast was wiped almost clean of houses and stores and even roads and utilities, the rebuilding is slow. I think it is still held up by insurance claims and by debate over rebuilding requirements. Inland has a different problem. While insurance companies still rip off their customers on the beach, refusing many claims, much of the inland damage was clearly wind, and so money has been distributed. So houses are being re-built, businesses are reopening, and there is a bit of money coming in to help with it. A couple miles inland, especially around Orange Grove and I-10, businesses are having trouble finding enough employees to work, because there are so many jobs. These are usually construction and service jobs, though.

Having said all that, and painted a picture of progress, things are still bad. People are still living in cars. There is not enough housing, though it's improving. Debris removal in some places is non-existent. The actual beach still looks like a war zone, although I have not been down there in a couple of months, so it may be improving. There is a higher-than-reported suicide rate (Several of my friends have had neighbors kill themselves) and a higher-than-average stress-related death toll. Many people feel that they lost everything, and that they will never get it back. FEMA and insurance companies are playing waiting games, stalling as long as possible to reduce their pay-outs.

Anyway, that's a summary. I went back home just this Easter weekend, but didn't get over to Biloxi, so my observations may be a little dated.

[Sequoia]

2. Thank you.

On edit: I swiped this from another DUer:

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/04/17/katrina-song/

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. Ask merh, who lives around there

She's not happy.

[Shell Beau]

4. It could certainly be better that is for sure. But progress is being

made slowly but surely. And yes, Mississippi has a dark past, as do a lot of states, and we are still trying to overcome many of those type things. We have come a long way, and still a long way to go. This is true, though, for the whole country.