It tells the story of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 which left 700,000 people homeless in Louisiana and Mississippi. As a result of the living conditions caused by the flood, Black citizens were compelled to leave Washington County, of which Greenville was the county seat, to seek better lives in the North. MORE: 4,500 added to flood zones in Lafayette Parish. And the American people did not accept this. The federal government did not pay a single penny for the clothing, food or shelter of any one of those 700,000 people. "They worked hard, but the levee broke at 3 o'clock in the morning," Leblanc recalled. Their squalid living conditions and work requirements were first reported through the Associated Negro Press and by the end of May had spread to the White press. It was the only dry ground. The highest areas of Greenville were covered by only a few feet of water, however, the lower areas were inundated from eight feet to over rooftops. They're tryin' to wash us away. Each institution contributes the digital items and the descriptive text for their collections. "Especially when one realized that this water was coming from the Mississippi River. That their way of life is disappearing. It was a strictly political power play. Once again, housing had to be found for tens of thousands of refugees who had no relatives to stay with. Thousands of tenant farmer shacks had simply disappeared. Those who were less experienced immediately began fleeing the area by train and continued to do so until the tracks became unusable. PHOTOS: Flood damage at Lafayette Parish schools, USA's infamous 'Tornado Alley' may be shifting east. The river have busted through clear down to Plaquemines. The east and south were protected, or so most people believed, by a railroad embankment. Most of the refugees went to stay with relatives. By the end of May, sixty thousand refugees were either in southern Louisiana camps or receiving Red Cross aid elsewhere. Evangeline Parish is mentioned in the Randy Newman song "Louisiana 1927", in which he described the Great Mississippi Flood which covered it with six feet of water. Each changed both the physical and political face of the region and played a role in national affairs. After investigations, the committee presented a harsh report to Hoover, but he failed to take any action. "The Methodist Church did not operate a troop again until the organization of the present Troop 12 in July 1934, under the leadership of the Rev. While her mother did laundry, boiling clothes in a black pot in the yard, the children played in the yard "when we noticed water running down the road ditches," she said. There is a passage in your book where you described what it looked like when the river--the Mississippi River--finally subsided back into its banks, and I wonder if you could just read part of that for us. Martin Parish line on May 19; Breaux Bridge and St. Martinville in St. Martin Parish two days later; then New Iberia and Jeanerette in Iberia Parish; and Franklin and Morgan City in St. Mary Parish. A major result of the 1927 flood, which had an impact in eleven states, was the National Flood Control Act of 1928 passed by the U. S. Congress. Mr. Barry, thank you very much. In particular, the narrator lays out the widespread nature of the destruction ("river had busted through clear down to Plaquemines") and the volume of water the flood produced ("six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline"). With a little fat man with a note-pad in his hand. 25.71% reported speaking French or Cajun French at home, the highest percentage of any Louisiana parish.[13]. The parish was created out of lands formerly belonging to St. Landry Parish in 1910. That flood dumped as much as 30 feet of water on land from Illinois and Missouri down to the Gulf of Mexico. Overview. See our upcoming events and sign up to attend. About 81 percent of St. Landry Parish was inundated, while about 67 percent of the land in Iberia and St. Martin parishes going under water. Example: Yes, I would like to receive emails from 64 Parishes. Few had time to save personal belongings. Examples of the French family names are Fontenot, Brignac, Ardoin, Bordelon, Vidrine, Courville, Gaspard, LaFleur, Chataignier, Dupre, Berza, Manuel, Ratelle, Fuselier, Landreneau, Andrepont, Guillory, Soileau, LeBas, and Gobert, among others. Refugees had to file a claim to receive compensation under a complicated system that divided payments into various categories, provided that no partial payments could be made, and without legal representation. Louisiana, Louisiana. By the end of January, major tributaries such as the Ohio River were overflowing their banks. Mr. BARRY: That's correct. And they didn't write about it. They reneged on all their promises, written promises; they controlled the state Supreme Court, so the lawsuits against them went nowhere. The Red Cross and local relief organizations set up tent cities and makeshift housing in Marksville, Mansura, Baton Rouge, Opelousas, Crowley, New Iberia, and elsewhere. Smith's song "was the spark for it . Courtesy Mississippi Department of Archives and History, accession no. She writes about life after the waters left and gives a glimpse of her everyday life. Many black tenant farmers, driven from their land by the flood, moved north to cities like Chicago and Detroit, Bradshaw wrote. As the water rose on the levee, it was the levee guards duty to fill sandbags and place them on top of the levee in order to stay ahead of the water height. Steamboats carried many of the white wives and young children away to Vicksburg or Memphis. And in fact, he managed to deliver aid without airplanes faster than aid has gotten to New Orleans in the Gulf Coast today. Year: 1974 2:54 210 Views Playlists: #1 The easy, fast & fun way to learn how to sing: 30DaySinger.com Mr. BARRY: Well, it's a good question. Even at the age of 8 years, I could imagine the expanse of water that would reach from the Mississippi to where we were 60 miles away.". It was the only dry ground. "Louisiana 1927" is on the brilliant 1974 album Good Old Boys that tells a narrative of people in the south who feel like the rest of the country is laughing at them. The prelude to the flood began in August 1926, when rainstorms began to swell streams in eastern Kansas, northwestern Iowa, and part of Illinois, all of which fed into the Mississippi River. And in fact, he managed to deliver aid without airplanes faster than aid has gotten to New Orleans in the Gulf Coast today. Some people got lost in the flood; some people got away all right. Louisiana, Louisiana. Privacy Policy. They're tryin' to wash us away. Popa Ed Lenzs hedges was clipped to form an arch over the walk way to his front door. Aunt Ruby lost her fruit and nut trees, purple plums, peaches and apples along with an English walnut tree which was an oddity of this particular section of the country. It rained in torrents and almost without intermission for nearly 48 hours. Thousands were left homeless for weeks, even months.. Username * Password * Request new password; Evangeline Oak during the 1927 flood. Both calamities caused widespread dislocation of Black people, the first adding to a migration to the major urban cities of the north, the second to cities such as Houston and Atlanta. Newman's version starts out with piano solo, but builds into including a whole orchestra. WERTHEIMER: When you think about the scope and scale of the 1927 flood, I wonder why it is that it hasn't passed into the sort of legend that most schoolchildren remember, like--as they do the Chicago fire or the San Francisco earthquake. I said there were almost 700,000 people being fed by the Red Cross. Ranking Tables for Counties: 1990 and 2000", Louisiana's Technical and Community Colleges, "Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Evangeline_Parish,_Louisiana&oldid=1140935995, Bayou Chicot Elementary School (Grades PK-8) (Ville Platte), Chataignier Elementary School (Grades PK-8) (Chataignier), James Stephens Montessori School (Grades PK-6) (Ville Platte), Mamou Elementary School (Grades PK-4) (Mamou), Vidrine Elementary School (Grades PK-8) (Ville Platte), Ville Platte Elementary School (Grades PK-4) (Ville Platte), W. W. Stewart Elementary (Grades PK-4) (Basile), Basile High School (Grades 512) (Basile), Pine Prairie High School (Grades 912) (Pine Prairie), Ville Platte High School (Grades 512) (Ville Platte), Evangeline Central School (Grades 412) (Ville Platte), Sacred Heart School (Grades K-12) (Ville Platte), Christian Heritage Academy (Grade K) (Ville Platte). They started to evacuate the city and they evacuated the whites, but the planners got together and decided that if they evacuated the black sharecroppers, the labor force for much of the Mississippi delta would disappear and would never return, and so they decided to keep them on the top of the levee and formed a camp for them for--stretched about 11 miles; thousands of people, many animals, and these people became almost slave labor. Im holding to my pants.. And another reason, frankly, may be a certain intellectual prejudice. The Pentagon says an additional 10,000 National Guard troops will be going there and to Mississippi. Also touched upon is the callous response of the federal government, depicted here via a fictional visit from President Calvin Coolidge and "a little fat man," where Coolidge's reaction to the devastation is a detached statement that, "isn't it a shame what the river has done to this poor cracker's land. In December, heavy rains in Oklahoma, Arkansas, and northern Louisiana filled the Arkansas and Red Rivers. Islandora advanced search. The Great Flood of 1927 unleashed a spring season of catastrophic events along the banks of the Mississippi River. The cost of the damage has been estimated to be between $246 million and $1 billion, $4.2-$17. And they didn't write about it. Jackson was the pharmacist, Edwin H. Myrick,in the 1981 report,recalled. Evangeline Parish (French: Paroisse d'vangline) is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. . Hundreds of sturdy barns, cotton gins, warehouses and farmhouses had been swept away. The flood caused more than $400 million in losses; 92,431 businesses were damaged and 162,017 homes flooded. As of the 2020 census, the population was 32,350. My father, J.D. Area code. 40.0% were of French, French Canadian or Cajun ancestry and 9.1% identified as having American ancestry. Readers may wish to read a previous Mississippi History Now article on the Mississippi River: "Making the Mississippi Over Again: The Development of River Control in Mississippi," by Greg O'Brien. Nearly one million people were left homeless. The Evangeline Oak during the 1927 flood. One-Year subscription (4 issues) : $20.00 . 90 years ago, the Great Flood of 1927 changed Louisiana Families and farm animals sought refuge on rooftops, raised railroad beds and levees. That's one of the reasons. 46, Flood refugees in Yazoo City, Mississippi, on May 13, 1927. Lafayette served as host to around 26,000refugees in Red Cross centers established in May of 1927, Mouton reported in 1983. The racial makeup of the parish was 70.42% White, 28.57% Black or African American, 0.23% Native American, 0.14% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 0.18% from other races, and 0.46% from two or more races. Mr. BARRY: Yeah, that's correct, and the idea is very comparable to simply pulling the plug out of the bathtub. When it arrived, the Red Cross passed out tents, saw that kitchens and sanitary facilities were built, and organized the large camp which would grow north along the levee for seven miles. Other towns in the area also were not spared. Both caused disruptions of life in southern Louisiana for thousands of people that arguably could be outranked only by the destruction caused during the Civil War. The Flood of 1927 was described by US Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover as the greatest peace-time calamity in the history of the country. It inundated 16,570,627 acres (about 26,000 square miles) in 170 counties and parishes in seven states, driving an estimated 931,159 people from their homes. Nell went through pouring rain to the garden club. SinceHurricane Katrina inundated New Orleans and the parishes to its south, there have been inevitable comparisons between the two disasters. Some people got away alright. Photograph of map by Princella W. Nowell. "With one mighty rush the water engulfed a hotel building, ripping it from its foundation and tossing it aside to strike residences adjoining," the report continued. The threat continued to worsen, however, and state government officials believed the levees would inevitably break. What has happened down here, is the winds have changed Clouds roll in from the north and it started to rain It rained real hard, and it rained for a real long time Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline The river rose all day, the river rose all night Some people got lost in the flood, some people got away alright The river had busted . And that was because of the elite, aristocratic planter class, who did feel a certain noblesse oblige toward their sharecroppers, but they didn't let that interfere with a fairly ruthless sense of dollars. "We stretched those bags from Grayling Lane down South Grand to Oxen Dam," he recalled. The president say, "little fat man isn't it a shame. Barry, John M. Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America. Copyright 2023 Mississippi Historical Society Your purchase helps support NPR programming. The enormous size of the crevasse at Mound Landing is shown in this 1928 map prepared by the Mississippi Levee District. WERTHEIMER: That's Aaron Neville singing Randy Newman's song, "Louisiana 1927.". They felt that it was wrong, and looking at this, I think, created a real change in the way Americans as a people viewed the role of the government's responsibility toward individuals. Lucy Somerville [Howorth], The Mississippi Flood of 1927 published in June 1927 edition of Womens Press.
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