1927 The Great Flood

>In 1927, weeks of spring rain sent the Mississippi River rampaging from
>Cairo, Illinois, to New Orleans, flooding dozens of towns, killing
>hundreds, and leaving a million homeless. In Greenville, Mississippi,
>efforts to contain the river pitted a black majority against an
>aristocratic plantation family, the Percys -- and the Percys against
>themselves.
>January 1: In Cairo, Illinois, the first of multiple crests breach flood
>stage on the Mississippi River. The river appears to be on the verge of
>flooding, but the Mississippi River Commission still insists the levees
>will hold.
>March: Huge swells on the Mississippi River move downstream and reach the
>Delta. Heavy rains fall on the Delta throughout March and continue into
>April. Some white residents of Greenville, especially women and children,
>flee the area and head north.
>March and April: LeRoy Percy and other plantation owners send their farm
>hands to raise the height of Washington County levees. Other African
>Americans in the area are pressed into work gangs to heighten and fortify
>the levees Police round up African Americans in town at gun point and send
>them to the levee. Convicts are also pressed into action, and altogether a
>gang of 30,000 men work to save the
>levee.
>April 15, Good Friday: Rains pelt Washington County, and Greenville
>receives 8.12 inches. The storm covers several hundred square miles, and
>counties along the Mississippi receive anywhere from 6 to 15 inches of
>rainfall. LeRoy Percy and other town leaders gather at the home of Seguine
>Allen, chief engineer of the Mississippi Levee Board in Greenville, to
>discuss whether the levee will hold.
>April 16: The Great Flood of 1927 begins. Just 30 miles south of Cairo,
>Illinois, a1,200-foot length of government levee collapses and 175,000
>acres are flooded. In some places the river is
>carrying 3 million cubic feet of water a second -- an unprecedented volume.
>April: Communities on both sides of the river know that if the levee breaks

>on one side, the other side will be spared. Each side of the river fears
>sabotage, and sets up levee patrols to prevent intruders from dynamiting
>their levee. The patrols are prepared to shoot to kill.
>April 21: At 8:00 am, twelve miles up river from Greenville at Mounds
>Landing, despite the efforts of African American work crews who have been
>laboring day and night, the levee bursts. With a force greater than Niagara

>Falls, water gushes through a crevasse three quarters of a mile wide. When
>the levee collapses, many of the African Americans working at the Mounds
>Landing site are swept away with the river.
>April 22: The Great Flood overruns Greenville, Mississippi. Downtown
>Greenville is covered in 10 feet of water. For 60 miles to the east and 90
>miles to the south of the Mounds Landing break, the Delta becomes a
>turbulent, churning inland sea, leaving tens of thousands of people
>stranded on rooftops and clinging to trees. LeRoy Percy appoints his son,
>Will Percy, to head the Flood Relief Committee. Will is 42 years old.
>April 23: Searching for marooned people in Washington County, rescue boats
>follow power lines to farms and houses in the countryside, bringing back
>whomever they find to the high ground on the crown of the Greenville levee.

>Over 10,000 refugees, mostly African Americans, crowd onto the narrow
>eight-foot-wide crown with their salvaged possessions and livestock. With
>the arrival of the refugees, Greenville's population almost doubles.
>April 25: The situation in Greenville is dire. Thirteen thousand African
>Americans are stranded on the levee with nothing but blankets and makeshift

>tents for shelter. There is no food for them. The city's water supply is
>contaminated. The railway has been washed away, and sanitation is
>non-existent. An outbreak of cholera or typhoid is imminent.
>Will Percy decides that the only honorable and decent course of action is
>to evacuate the refugees to safer ground down river and arranges for barges

>to pick up and transport the refugees. Many people are reluctant to abandon

>Greenville, despite the fact that their homes have been submerged. The
>planters, in particular, oppose Will's plan, fearing that if the African
>American refugees leave, they will never return, and there will be no labor

>to work the crops. LeRoy, placing his business interests above his family's

>tradition of aiding those less fortunate, betrays his son and secretly
>sides with the planters. Boats with room for all the refugees arrive, but
>only 33 white women and children are allowed to board. The African American

>refugees are left behind, trapped on the levee. Later, Will Percy will
>write that he was "astounded and horrified" by this turn of events.
>April: To justify his relief committee's failure to evacuate the refugees,
>Will Percy convinces the Red Cross to make Greenville a distribution
>center, with the African Americans providing the labor. Red Cross relief
>provisions arrive in Greenville, but the best provisions go to the whites
>in town. Only African Americans wearing tags around their necks marked
>"laborer" receive rations. National Guard is called in to
>patrol the refugee camps in Greenville. Word filters out of the camps that
>guardsmen are robbing, assaulting, raping and even murdering African
>Americans held on the levee.
>April 26: Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, placed in charge of flood
>relief by President Calvin Coolidge, visits Greenville and approves the
>flood relief committee's plans.
>April 29: The torrent has moved south. With the river almost at the levee
>tops, New Orleans dynamites the Poydras levee, creating a 1500-foot break
>at an estimated cost of $2 million, to direct the flood waters away from
>the city and its half million inhabitants. Movie cameras are on
>hand to record the momentous scene. The New York Times reports that many
>people refuse to quit the area to be flooded by the levee break. One woman
>living in a lighthouse "says she won't quit her post unless Uncle Sam comes

>to take her away."
>May: Slowly word of the abuses in the refugee camps reaches the Northern
>press. Once the situation in the refugee camps hits the national press,
>Herbert Hoover initiates an investigation of the reports. His investigators

>confirm numerous instances of abuse, but Hoover chooses to suppress the
>report. Hoover, known as "the Great Humanitarian," has his eyes set on the
>presidency. He has ridden a wave of good publicity from his flood relief
>efforts, and is determined to maintain his positive image. Hoover forms a
>Colored Advisory
>Commission of influential African American conservatives, led by Robert
>Russa Moton, to further investigate the camps. The commission confirms the
>initial findings. In exchange for keeping the report quiet, Hoover promises

>that if he wins the election, he will support the advancement of African
>Americans, including possible agrarian land reform. Moton agrees, and
>Hoover is never called to account for the treatment of African Americans in

>Washington County.
>June and July: As the flood waters recede, Greenville faces the task of
>digging the town out the mud. Again, the white leadership of the town
>resorts to conscripting African Americans at gun point. African American
>community leaders are outraged and refuse to
>recruit more workers. The Percys convince Hoover to visit Greenville and
>appeal to the workers, but his speech is a failure and the shortage of
>workers persists.
>July 7: James Gooden, a well respected African American in the Greenville
>community, is shot in the back by a white policeman for refusing to return
>for a day shift after working all night on the clean-up. Word of his death
>spreads quickly and work stops. Tensions rise, and both blacks and whites
>arm themselves with guns and other weapons. Greenville is at a standoff.
>Will Percy calls a reconciliation meeting of the African American community

>at a local church, but places the blame on them for the death of their
>neighbor.
>August 31: Will Percy resigns from the Greenville Flood Relief Committee
>and leaves for a trip to Japan the very next day.
>Late summer: Thousands of African Americans pack up their belongings and
>leave Washington County. Most head north and within a year, fifty percent
>of the Delta's African American population will have migrated from the
>region. Once "the Queen of the South," Greenville will never recover the
>prosperity it once enjoyed before the flood.
>1928 After Hoover is elected president, he turns his back on Robert Moton,
>the Colored
>Advisory Commission, and his earlier promises. Burned badly by Hoover, in
>the next election Moton and the African American community shift their
>support from the Republicans to the Democratic party and Franklin Delano
>Roosevelt.

Posted by Miriam V.
>