Mechanization, which had promised efficiency, left a hollowed-out economy in its wake. The Delta became a region of ghost towns, its main streets lined with shuttered businesses, its schools underfunded, its hospitals far out of reach for most residents. The white residents who stayed through the early 1970s began to leave too, driven by economic stagnation and the specter of integration.
Image: 1970s cotton picker with operators cabin
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Government projects came and went, offering promises of revival but rarely delivering. A factory here, a new school there—but poor planning and entrenched inequality meant little progress was made. The Delta’s wounds ran deep.
Image: Lange, Dorothea, photographer. Mississippi Delta Negro children. Mississippi United States, 1936. July. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017763019
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