The Evolution of the Mississippi Delta - From Exploited Labor and Mules to Mechanization and Agribusiness (Hardcover)

The Evolution of the Mississippi Delta: From Exploited Labor and Mules to Mechanization and Agribusiness reveals the Delta's diverse cultures, labor development, demographic populations, politics, socioeconomic conditions and transitions of the region since the American Civil War. Following the war, national and international demand for cotton fiber was high all along the Mississippi Yazoo Delta. The region's sharecropper system was created at that time, with economic and cultural impact, resulting in a fixed underclass of citizens. The wording of the Thirteenth Amendment left a loophole that resulted in the virtual continuation of slavery in the Yazoo Delta and other parts of the South. Federal relief programs offered by the New Deal helped the Delta elite strengthen its economic and political control over the region. World War II also affected the Delta region, with its influences causing a massive dislocation of labor, leading to social unrest, and the resistance of Delta elite to civil rights challenges of the 1960s and 1970s.

Since the American Civil War, the major shifts in the Mississippi Yazoo Delta on many levels have been experienced by a multitude of peoples, including Choctaw Indians, Blacks, Chinese and Italians, resulting in a rich history.