BY Wyatt Emmerich
Driving up to Itta Bena recently, we cut
across Highway 12 to Belzoni and then up Highway 49 East past Swiftown.
This is deep Delta. The more I'm in it,
the more I realize how precious it is. Precious because of its uniqueness.
In a country of monotonous middle-class suburbia, the Delta stands out
as the most southern place on earth. Indecipherable and inscrutable,
different and strange.
That should not be surprising considering
this land was hacked out of a swamp as its pioneers dropped like flies
from malaria and yellow fever.
The incredibly rich land required legions
of slaves, creating a region of rich white planters and many more poor
black slaves. There was very little middle class.
The wealthy planters had money and time,
but were isolated from the mainstream America and surrounded by entire
villages of slaves or sharecroppers. To the planters, it must have
been like living in a foreign country.
Over time, the planter culture developed
its famous eccentricities of sophistication and excess, the vestiges of
which still exist today.
Driving through Belzoni (which for some
reason is pronounced Belzona) in our family van with two baby car seats,
we must have been a sight as we crept through the lively streets.
Just an hour from the heart of Mississippi
suburbia north Jackson it was as though we were in a foreign land.
Belzoni on a Sunday is a happening place.
People are out walking up and down the streets. Little Wimp's Barbecue
is doing a brisk business. You can sense the community. The
housing, though somewhat dilapidated, is functional. It seems a friendly
place to grow up.
We are headed to Itta Bena for the dedication
of the new family center building. My mother Celia was instrumental
in the renovation of this new 4,000-square-foot building. The family
center is designed to bring families together and build family bonds.
Itta Bena is a small town of 2,500 people
15 miles west of Greenwood. It sits adjacent to the beautiful Roebuck
Lake. There are beautiful homes along the lake with gazebos on the
shore and diving platforms on the water. You can picture the good times
on those perfect days when it's just warm enough to swim but not too hot
to be miserable.
Itta Bena is 75 percent black. Only
in the Delta will you find black towns. I'm sure Itta Bena has its share
of problems, but from an outsiders' perspective the town seems quaint and
charming.
The old downtown has a whole row of vacancies,
but newer businesses have sprung up elsewhere to take their place.
Many of the old downtown businesses have refurbished
and stayed. We saw the cute D & L's Restaurant in one of the
old brick buildings and wished we had a chance to sample what was surely
genuine downhome southern cooking.
The old racial geographic boundaries,
once the hallmark of southern towns, seemed blurred. Many of the blacks
lived in some of the nicer older homes. There were quite a few newer nicer
brick homes that were probably federally subsidized.
Across Highway 82, Mississippi Valley
State is clearly one of the reasons Itta Bena seems to be doing relatively
well. We drove around the campus and noted the beautiful new main
building right at the entrance.
Twenty-five years ago as a teenager I
remember seeing this campus and feeling like it was run down. Today,
it seems as nice as any other small Mississippi campus-public or private.
The turnout for the opening of Itta Bena
family center was good-about 70 or 80 people. Everybody had dressed
in their Sunday best. The Emmerichs were pretty much the only Anglos
there. It is clear that the new family center will mainly be used
by the African American community.
Let's face it: Mississippi is a
bi-cultural state. We co-exist side by side in a remarkably peaceful
manner. We often work together, but our social interactions are almost
entirely segregated. I don't think it's malicious. It's just
that birds of a feather flock together. This is true of blacks and whites
equally.
There was much singing and preaching and
dancing as part of the opening festivities. Whites have a lot to
learn from blacks about being warm and friendly and open and honest about
our feelings.
When you look at how the Protestants and
the Catholics are killing each other in Ireland, how the Jews and the Arabs
are killing each other in the Middle East, how the Sunni and the Shiite
Muslims are killing each other in Iran, it is truly amazing how well whites
and blacks get along in Mississippi. There is no other place on earth
where two cultures so different get along so peaceably, despite a rather
conflictual past.
Christ has a lot to do with that. There
was a lot of Christianity at that meeting. We forgot that Mississippi
whites and blacks have an immensely powerful common bond: strong,
strong Christianity. This may prove to be our saving grace.
Willie Perkins, local political leader,
made the keynote speech. He lambasted drug use and laziness and criminality.
He noted that one-quarter of young black men are either in jail or on parole
and said we must do better.
"Just like a runner in a relay, one generation
must pass the baton to the next," Perkins said. "But you cannot grab
the baton if you are full of crack. You cannot grab the baton if
your pants are so baggy they are falling down." His comments met
with great applause.
Listening to the speech, I realized that
a right-wing Republican would feel perfectly comfortable giving the same
speech to the Rankin County Republican party annual meeting.
Blacks do look more toward the government
as an agent of change. Whites prefer the free market. But both
cultures are amazingly similar in what they want the future to look like
for their children. We want our children to stay in school, to work
hard, to get a good job, to obey the law, to be kind and respectful of
God, to stay off drugs, to be a good spouse.
After spending the afternoon immersed
in our state's African American culture, I came away realizing how much
we have in common and what a great chance we have in Mississippi to show
the world how to do it right.
(Wyatt Emmerich is president of Emmerich Newspapers)