"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 digs through this loamy topsoil, revealing a microcosm of economic oppression in the US. He traverses the Delta, examining its bellwether efforts to combat income inequality, and introduces people 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
Eubanks delivers a powerful and insightful examination of how racism and economic instability have shaped life in the Mississippi Delta. He traces the enduring consequences of political decisions that have entrenched inequality across generations. At the same time, he brings attention to the resilience of local communities and the grassroots movements working toward meaningful change. The book offers a thoughtful framework for policy reform and community investment, underscoring the need to support those who have long sustained the region through their labor and lived experience."
""This is the book all of us Mississippi writers, dead and alive, need to read. It is indeed a strange but glorious sensation to see your literary and geographic lineage so beautifully and rigorously explored and valued as it's still being created." -Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy: An American Memoir
The South has produced some of America's most celebrated authors, and no state more so than Mississippi. Names as diverse as Faulkner, Welty, and Ward have created a literary legacy spanning decades and stretching across lines of class, gender, and race. One thing binds together these wide- ranging perspectives-the land itself. In A Place Like Mississippi, W. Ralph Eubanks explores those ties and the ways in which the Magnolia State has fostered such a bounty of expression.
The stories haven't always been easy to tell; even beautiful landscapes can't obscure a complicated history. The state's African American writers have long recounted the fight for equality, forming a lineage of powerful Black voices that continue to speak with urgency in our tumultuous times. Yet underlying those truths is also a deep affection for Mississippi's places.
With the love of a native son, Eubanks pays tribute to the inspiration that can come from the lay of the land, proving that a journey through one state's literary terrain can help us better understand America as a whole."
