When It's Darkness on the Delta: How America's Richest Soil Became Its Poorest Land -- W. Ralph Eubanks, Hardcover
For readers of The Sum of Us and South to America, an essential new look at the roots of American inequality--and the seeds of its transformation Once the powerhouse of a fledgling country's economy, the Mississippi Delta has been consigned to a narrative of destitution. It is often faulted for the sins of the South, portrayed as a regional backwater that willfully cleaved itself from the modern world. But buried beneath the weight of good ol' boy politics and white-washed histories lies the Delta's true story. Mississippi native and award-winning writer W. Ralph Eubanks unearths the region's buried history, revealing a microcosm of economic oppression in the US. He traverses the Delta, examining its bellwether efforts to combat income inequality through vivid portraits of key figures like
- Theodore G. Bilbo and William Whittington, segregationist congressmen who sabotaged federal reparations for former sharecroppers in the 1940s and '50s
- Gloria Carter Dickerson, founder of the Emmett Till Academy, whose parents were instrumental in desegregating schools in Drew, MS, where Till was murdered
- Calvin Head, a community organizer who runs a farming co-op in Mileston, who revived the legacy of his hometown, the only Black resettlement community in Mississippi
Author: W. Ralph Eubanks
Publisher: Beacon Press
Published: 1/13/2026
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.95 lbs
Size: 9.11" H x 6.11" L x 1.01" W
ISBN: 9780807045329
