User:Crhees/sandbox

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Article Evaluation

 * Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?
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Potential Articles
Great Mississippi Flood of 1927: Has only one paragraph on African Americans even though 200,000 were affected.

Port Royal School:

Potential Sources
Books:

Barry, John M. Rising Tide: the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 And How It Changed America. Peter Smith Pub Inc, 2006.

Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Food of 1927 and How it Changed America

Journals:

Annotated Bibliography

 * 1) McCoyer, Michael. “‘Rough Mens’ in ‘the Toughest Places I Ever Seen’: The Construction and Ramifications of Black Masculine Identity in the Mississippi Delta's Levee Camps, 1900-1935.” International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 69, 2006, pp. 57–80. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27673022.
 * 2) This is a Journal Article that focuses on the history and influence of Mississippi Levee camps during the early 1900s. These camps allowed Black men to reform masculinity because of the dependency that society had on the work that these men did. However there was great sacrifice of moral and good behavior because of the atmosphere that these camps created. This article can be used to illustrate these camps changed the social structure of the south during the 1920's.
 * 3) Rivera, Jason David, and DeMond Shondell Miller. “Continually Neglected: Situating Natural Disasters in the African American Experience.” Journal of Black Studies, vol. 37, no. 4, 2007, pp. 502–522. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40034320.
 * 4) This Article explains why natural disasters tend to affect the lowest socioeconomic class, and cause social changes in the U.S. It specifically illustrates how the African American experience was woven into the events that happened during and after the Flood of 1927. This Article can be used to make the connection between African Americans and the environment that the flood created for them during the 1920's, specifically the fall of the white supremacist South.
 * 5) Jackreece, Telemate A. “The Florida Historical Quarterly.” The Florida Historical Quarterly, vol. 77, no. 1, 1998, pp. 118–120. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/30149113.
 * 6) This Article is a review of the book Rising tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, published by the Florida Historical Society.  It summarizes the books key points, including how the 1927 flood influenced economic, social, and political changes like the shift from the Republican to the Democratic party in the black population. This review is very important because it allows us determine whether to use this book as a source, and it provides information about the political changes that occurred during the Flood of 1927.
 * 7) Sarah-Jane (Saje) Mathieu. “The African American Great Migration Reconsidered.” OAH Magazine of History, vol. 23, no. 4, 2009, pp. 19–23. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40506010.
 * 8) This source is a Journal Article published by Oxford University Press for the Organization of American Historians. This article's main focus is centered on the Great Migration, specifically the causes and cultural shifts that took place during that time frame. The article is not exclusively focused on African Americans, but also targets the relationships they had with incoming foreigners and the white population. This article will be beneficial because it provides information about the great migration, which an important event that provides a general background to the social situation of the South, and how the Mississippi Flood of 1927 affected the migration patterns of African Americans.

(1st)Rough Draft for "The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927"
Attempts at Relief continued:

One of the biggest hardships with Hoovers relief camps, also known as "Tent Cities", was the attempt to instantly create urbanized communities out of peoples who had never experienced anything other than rural culture. These densely populated camps were in high demand of basic necessities such as water and sanitation, with very difficult means to get them. Hoover used the combination of bureaucratic resources and grass root forces to give the tent cities the opportunity to become self sufficient and sustaining. Hoover found ways to supply the cities through sources like the red cross, as well as instruct and provide training for their local leaders in reconstruction. The Mississippi Rehabilitation Corporation was also instituted by Hoover to create unity between the states affected by the flood and their communities within. The corporation distributed one million dollars in credit to these states to aid local banks who had suffered great losses.

Levee Camps
Levee camps were initiated in the South during the early 1900's to prevent overflow along the banks of the Mississippi. These camps were reliant on mainly Black workers from cotton plantations because of their cheap labor and strong work ethic. The circumstances of these camps created a desire for hyper masculinity among the workers who had been denied a patriarchal role and sense of duty or purpose beforehand. The "tough guy" persona was formed as black workers fought back against disciplinary violence from white bosses and received attention from women around the camps. A new branch of African American culture was created as songs and stories spread about the acts of black men within these camps and the newfound justification for their unusually rugged behavior. More Missing topics:

African American Political Party Shift

(1st)Rough Draft for "The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927"

Attempts at Relief continued:

One of the biggest hardships with Hoovers relief camps, also known as "Tent Cities", was the attempt to instantly create urbanized communities out of peoples who had never experienced anything other than rural culture. These densely populated camps were in high demand of basic necessities such as water and sanitation, with very difficult means to get them. Hoover used the combination of bureaucratic resources and grass root forces to give the tent cities the opportunity to become self sufficient and sustaining. Hoover found ways to supply the cities through sources like the red cross, as well as instruct and provide training for their local leaders in reconstruction. The Mississippi Rehabilitation Corporation was also instituted by Hoover to create unity between the states affected by the flood and their communities within. The corporation distributed one million dollars in credit to these states to aid local banks who had suffered great losses[1].

Herbert Hoover enhanced his reputation by his achievements in directing flood relief operations as Secretary of Commerce under President Calvin Coolidge. -Insert my edits--The next year Hoover easily won the Republican 1928 nomination for President, and the general election that year. In upstate Louisiana, anger among yeomen farmers directed at the New Orleans elite for its damage of downriver parishes aided Huey Long's election to the governorship in 1928. Hoover was much lauded initially for his masterful handling of the refugee camps - Later reports about the poor treatment of Blacks in those camps led him to make promises to the African-American community, which he broke. ---editAs a result, he lost the Black vote in the North in his re-election campaign in 1932. (In the South, African Americans were still overwhelmingly disenfranchised by state constitutions and practices, as they remained until after passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.) Several reports on the terrible situation in the refugee camps, including one by the Colored Advisory Commission headed by Robert Russa Moton, were kept out of the media at Hoover's request, with the pledge of further reforms for Blacks after the presidential election in 1928. His failure to deliver followed other disappointments by the Republican Party; Moton and other influential African Americans began to encourage Black Americans to align instead with the national Democrats.

Levee Camps

Levee camps were initiated in the South during the early 1900's to prevent overflow along the banks of the Mississippi. These camps were reliant on mainly Black workers from cotton plantations because of their cheap labor and strong work ethic. The circumstances of these camps created a desire for hyper masculinity among the workers who had been denied a patriarchal role and sense of duty or purpose beforehand. The "tough guy" persona was formed as black workers fought back against disciplinary violence from white bosses and received attention from women around the camps. A new branch of African American culture was created as songs and stories spread about the acts of black men within these camps and the newfound justification for their unusually rugged behavior[2].

Attempts at relief continued..
commonly known as tent cities. These densely populated camps demanded basic necessities such as water and sanitation facilities that were difficult to attain. Hoover used resources from his bureaucratic connections like the Red Cross to fuel the push for grass root forces among the camps. Difficulties arose during the process of making the refugee camps self sustaining due to inadequacy of the local leaders who had only experienced rural life, and were unprepared to manage the chaotic circumstances found within the camps. This led to Hoover putting increased supervision over the relief camps over time by government employees[1].

The refugee camps also dealt with extreme racial inequality[3]: Supplies and means of evacuation after the flood were given strictly to white citizens, before distributing the leftovers to Blacks. African Americans also did not receive supplies within the camps without providing the name of their white employer or voucher from a white person. At any time within the refugee camps black men were forced to complete work on the Levees. In an attempt to stop migration northward and to control black labor, African Americans were also not openly allowed to leave the camps.

Delta Levee Camps (1890's-1930's)
General Information:

Before 1879 levees were built by a combination of African American convicted criminals leased by penitentiary owners, slaves, and racially mixed immigrant laborers. These camps started in the early 1800's when the Delta area experienced an increase in flooding from the Mississippi.

On June 28th 1879 the United States Congress established the Mississippi River Commission in order to address increasing concern over the navigation and flood control of the Mississippi River. This Commission increased the number Levee Camps from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico to prevent overflow and maximize land availability along the Mississippi. The Levee Camp workforce primarily consisted of African American cotton plantation sharecroppers from the Delta area. These workers were optimal candidates because of their experience with mule driving on the plantations, work ethic, and they were the cheapest form of labor for contractors. Convicted prisoners also continued to build the levees until the early 1900s, specifically during floods because of the danger of the work. The laborers used mule powered machinery, scrapers, and wheelbarrows to construct the tightly packed slopes of dirt. The levee camp season occurred most often from late fall to early winter when the Mississippi water levels were lowest, however summers that experienced unusually low levels allowed the camps to continue. Approximately One third of the population of the camps consisted of mainly black women, who were employed as cooks or prostitutes for the workers. They also contained livestock including cows, horses, mules, and pigs to run machinery and provide sustenance for the workers. Due to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 control of the camps shifted from the government to individual contractors of the camps as effort was placed on flood relief.

Levee Contractors:

These camps were run with strong white supremacist ideals through the levee contractors who used their power to restrict black workers from becoming a self sustained working class. The contractors publicly beat, whipped, and humiliated the workers in order to strip them of their masculinity and sense of authority. They also encouraged and organized after hour activities such as gambling, prostitution, and drinking in order to degrade the image and authenticity of the workers and to prevent them from receiving their full wages. Many workers took out loans with the contractors at at 25% interest rate. The contractors also were purposely inconsistent with their pay periods to force the workers to take out more loans at the camp commissaries in order to be able to afford basic necessities.

Living conditions within the camps greatly varied between the races and were known to be dangerously unsanitary for the black workers who slept in tents, sometimes very close to the livestock. The camps experienced constant outbreaks of life threatening diseases like malaria and smallpox. Workers went through 12-16 hour work days and were forced to continue no matter the weather conditions, which were quite brutal during the winter.

"Hyper-Masculinity"/Regaining autonomy:

plantation life stripped them of authority over their own bodies and their families, the levee camp setting allowed the black workers to regain a sense of autonomy for themselves. The pleasures provided during the after hours of the camps gave them a sense of control, as well as the fact that the work they were completing in the camps was important and necessary. The men used their activities and oral communication to create a scene of ruggedness and danger within the camps. Workers claimed that only the toughest were able to survive due to harsh treatment from the commissaries, violence between themselves, and the activities that took place during the after hours.

Discrimination from Levee Contractors:

NAACP Investigation(1932):

Eventually rumors regarding discrimination and the inadequate living conditions caused the NAACP to complete an investigation on the camps. In December of 1932 Roy Wilkins and George Schuyler spent three weeks in the mississpi camps disguised as unskilled workers. Wilkins published an article "Mississippi River Slavery-1933" in the NAACP Crisis Magazine which described their experiences and concerns for the levee workers.


 * 1) Lohof, Bruce A. (1970). "Herbert Hoover, Spokesman of Humane Efficiency: The Mississippi Flood of 1927". American Quarterly. 22 (3): 690–700. doi:10.2307/2711620.

2. McCoyer, Michael (2006). ""Rough Mens" in "the Toughest Places I Ever Seen": The Construction and Ramifications of Black Masculine Identity in the Mississippi Delta's Levee Camps, 1900-1935". International Labor and Working-Class History (69): 57–80

3. Mizelle, Jr., Richard M. (2013). [www.jstor.org/stable/10.5323/jafriamerhist.98.4.0511. "Black Levee Camp Workers, The NAACP, And The Mississippi Control Flood Project, 1927-1933"] Check |url= value (help). The Journal of African American History. 98, no. 4: 511–530 – via JSTOR

4. Cowley, John. “Shack Bullies and Levee Contractors: Bluesmen as Ethnographers.” Journal of Folklore Research, vol. 28, no. 2/3, 1991, pp. 135–162. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3814501.

5. CARDON, NATHAN. “‘Less Than Mayhem’: Louisiana's Convict Lease, 1865-1901.” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association, vol. 58, no. 4, 2017, pp. 417–441. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26290931.

6.