Blues and the Mississippi Flood of 1927 Part 8 Barbecue Bob and the Trouble with New Orleans

We deviate from the main thrust of our narrative to talk about the life and music of blues musician Robert Hicks aka BBQ Bob. Then we look at the curious case of New Orleans the richest city in the south. Where the city's bankers and businessmen in an effort to protect their own wealth and power sought to have a levee destroyed thereby flooding another community.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Eric Gaskell, and you're listening to the
Distorted History podcast and program. I can't give you many
nails and joy a blunder. Hey look, I'm Raisling. I'm

(00:23):
got the ra a long struggle for freedom. It really
is a revolution. So far in this series we have
seen the causes of the nineteen twenty seven Mississippi flood,
the moan when things got so bad that the rest

(00:44):
of the nation had to sit up and pay attention,
as well as how the nation started responding to this disaster.
It is then this response, helm by Herbert Hoover and
carried out by the Red Cross that will be the
main thrust of the rest of this series, in combination
with the blues music that came out of this in time.
That being said, though, this particular episode will deviate somewhat
from that main narrative, as we will see how the

(01:07):
city of New Orleans responded to this flood, or more specifically,
how the rich and powerful of New Orleans were willing
to sacrifice other communities to preserve the city and more importantly,
their wealth. Yet, before we get into that tailor, even
our coverage of blues musician Barbecue Bob and his contributions
to the flood blues First, like always, I want to
acknowledge my sources for this series, which include Richard m

(01:30):
Own Junior's Backwarter Bluesy Mississippi Flood of nineteen twenty seven
in the African American Imagination, John M. Berry's Rising Tide,
the Green Mississippi Flood of nineteen twenty seven and How
It Changed America, and Susan Scott Perishes The Flood Year
nineteen twenty seven eight Cultural History, and Mike Always. A
full list of these and any other sources like websites

(01:50):
that I used, will be available on this podcast Bluesky
and kofee pages. Plus, for anyone who doesn't want to
be bothered skipping through commercials, there is always an ad
free feet available to subscrib Arver's at Patreon dot com
slash Distorted History. And with all that being said, let's
begin now. Our subject today illustrates just how widespread the
news of the flood was and just how popular songs

(02:11):
about it had become. As our chosen performer this week
did not hail from the flooded region, and nor, unlike
Bessie Smith, did he even have any kind of first
hand contact with the flood and the people experiencing it
as barbecue. Bob, who was born Robert Hicks on the
eleventh of September nineteen oh two, had been born into
a sharecropping family in Walnut Grove, Georgia. Bob, his brother

(02:32):
Charlie Higgs, who were too becoming blues musician of Sombering
Down under the name of Laughing Charlie Lincoln, and their
neighbor and future bluesman in his own right, Curly Weaver,
would all learn how to play guitar from Curly's mother,
Savannah dipp Shepherd, who played guitar and piano in the church.
During these lessons, Savannah would teach the boys techniques more
commonly used by banjo players, including their use of openg tuning,

(02:54):
and a technique known as freling, where instead of plucking
the strings with their fingers, you hammered down on them
using your nails to get them to ring out. Thanks
at least in part of these lessons, he brothers's teams
would take to performing together at local fish fries and
country balls. Then, as they entered their twenties, the boys
would move to Atlanta, with Charlie going first. And purchasing
his first twelve string guitar with the money he earned

(03:16):
picking coun Robert would eventually follow his brother's example, both
in purchasing a twall string of his own and in
moving to Atlanta, where he would find work at a
place called Tidwells Barbecue, where he worked as a pitchef,
an occupation that would earn him the nickname Barbecue Bob.
Come nineteen twenty seven, Bob would catch the attention to
one Dan hornsby a town scout for Columbia Records. This

(03:38):
was a result of the runaway success of the quote
unquote race record business, as the record companies now looked
to expand beyond the classic blues singers like Bessie Smith
by creating these traveling recording units consisting of talent scouts
and recording engineers. These teams were then tasked with scouring
the South for untapped talent that they would then record
in some local spot where they set up their equipment,

(04:00):
a strategy that was first employed by OK Records before
being adopted in mass by the other labels. Now. Bomb's
debut in particular, would feature a song Barbecue Blues, which
became one of Columbia's best selling records that year. Over
the next three years then, from nineteen twenty seven to
nineteen thirty, Barbecue Bob would record some sixty plus additional tracks,

(04:21):
whose lyrics mostly focused on daily life and the hardship's
experienced living in the South. Bob's career in life unfortunately
would be tragically short, however, as you would die of
pn ammonia in October nineteen thirty one at just twenty
nine years old. Now Bob's music has been characterized as
being a part of the Piedmont blues style, which, much
like the Donta Blues was stayed for the Mississippi Donta

(04:43):
Worthy style originated was named for the Piedmont region, which
stretches from northern Georgia all the way up through the
Carolinas and into northern Virginia. That being said, it seems
that the Piedmont style was more morphous than some of
the other regional blues styles, and that it seems that
blues artists from the region just kind of give loved
into being in part of the Piedmont style more out
of geography than out of consistent similarities. To some extent,

(05:06):
then there is a tendency towards artists having their own
unique style that may form its own tradition within the
overall Piedmont Blues, a style which formed on the fringes
of society and which still remains there today. That being said,
the Piedmont style would go on to influencing lives of
Bob Dylan, The Grateful Dead, the Allman Brothers, and the
White Stripes. Now it seems like the generally accepted description

(05:28):
of the Piedmont style is that it's a more up
tempo and even at times happy form of the blues.
This comes in no small part from its influences, as
Epedmont style was seemingly heavily influenced by ragtime, gospel and
string band music. The Piedmont blues guitar style in particular,
is heavily influenced by ragtime, as it seems to almost
be mimicking ragtime piano. Just instead of two hands playing

(05:51):
a bounty rhythm, the guitar player uses their thumb to
play an alternating bassline on the lower strings, while their
fingers pick a syncopated melody on the higher strings, thereby
creating the kind of bouncy, jumping beat that is typical
rag time piano. Barbecue Bob in particular wood on his
troll string, stellar grand concert play bass lines with his thumb,
while also keeping a steady, driving rhythm that kept his

(06:13):
music danceable. It was likely this quality, as well as
his relatable lyrics and his deep, powerful baritone voice, that
made him attractive to the record buying public. Now, as
far as Barbecue Bob's contribution to the flood blues genre,
his Mississippi heavy blues and a lot of Ways feels
more like your prototypical blues song than a lot of
others that we have covered, as it seems to be,

(06:34):
more than anything else, concerned with a man looking for
a woman, a theme that could be placed virtually anywhere
at any time. I mean, songs about relationships are basically
your prototypical relatable song subject, as it's something that a
lot of people in general can relate to. The choice
then to set this song in the flood then illustrates
how pervasive the flood was, as it was seemingly a

(06:56):
choice to marry this widely relatable song style do something
that at the time large number of people could also
relate to, as a very large number of people were
affected by the flood and the country in general by
this point were very aware of it now and making
Mississippi Heavywooter Blues a flood song, Barbecue Bomb does try
to paint the scene, as he sings quote, nothing but

(07:16):
money wator is far as I could see, which, from
the accounts of the vast inland sea that was created
as a result of this fooding, seems like an apt
description of what someone in the flood zone would have seen.
Bob would also touch upon other aspects of this disaster,
like how pervasive it was and how it seemed to
be destroying communities, with some just opting to flee the
flooded region rather than trying to rebuild. As at the

(07:38):
end of the song, before dropping in his own name
so listeners wouldn't know who's performing, he sang quote Mississippi shaken,
Louisiana sinking, the whometowns of shrinken. Of course, the only
most common theme among people affected by the flood, and
which was then expressing these floods songs, was the sense
of laws. Barbecue Bob then, would of course touch on
this as well. As early in the song, he sings quote,

(07:59):
so I blew my house got washed away, which was
a common loss not just among flood victims, but among
the narrators of these blue songs, like Bessie Smith's poor
old Girl in her Backwitter Blues who lost her home
to the flood. In Barbecue Bob's song, though, there is
another seemingly more important loss, namely that of his woman,
as he sings, quote sitting here looking at all this mud,

(08:21):
and my girl got washed away that Mississippi flood, adding
later quote I was walking down the levee with my
head hanging low, looking for my sweet mama. But she
ain't here no more. It's the loss of this woman,
more so than the loss of a home or even
the widespread destruction, that becomes a dominant theme of the song,
as Bob sings quote, I hope she come back some day,
kind and true. Ain't no one satisfy her like sweet

(08:43):
Papa do. The thing is, though, the song seems to
be less about the flood or even the desire to
find this missing woman, and more about a search for
a woman, any woman, as Bob continues quote I need
some sweet mama, come shake that thing with me, adding
later that quote, God please you, buddy, whatter don't need
no what or cold. I need some sweet Mama to

(09:04):
send me daddy love. A line would suggest that the
whole daddy thing has been around a lot longer than
I ever thought, and that this song is more about
love and lost than about loss and the flood, which
for me again just seems to show how, for a
time at least, how all encompassing this flood and the
coverage of it was. The flood had just become a
kind of cultural touchstone to be used even by those

(09:26):
who are not truly affected by it. It was something
you could bring up and everyone would know what you
were talking about. The channel that had been created by

(09:59):
Jeans Buque and ads at the mouth of the Mississippi,
which allowed ocean going vessels to easily access the river,
had proven to be a massive boon to New Orleans,
by which I mean before Eads in his channel, some
sixty eight hundred tons of goods had been shipped annually
from Saint Louis to New Orleans to be sent ultimately
on to Europe. When he was done, though, that number
jumped from sixty eight hundred tons to four hundred and

(10:21):
fifty three thousand tons of goods thanks to aids clearing
the way, than New Orleans, which had been the ninth
largest port in the US, suddenly became the second, behind
only New York City. Now. New Orleans, even then was
a unique city as it was home to whites, Blacks, French, Spanish, Caguns,
and Creoles. It was the birthplace of jazz and poker,
and most importantly for this part of our story, and

(10:43):
was the wealthiest city in the South. As such, it
had the largest and most powerful banks in the region
and had financial ties to places like New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, London,
and Paris. These outside investments, though while beneficial to the
local economy, were also a burdens should something happened to
shake the confidence of the investors and they pulled their
money out, something like say, the threat of a major

(11:06):
flood drowning the city and all the various goods passing
through there. Now, Engineer James Kemper, unlike those who were
running the Mississippi River Commission, had been alarmed by the
nineteen twenty two flood, as the scope of that flood
and how close To Orleans had come to disaster had
convinced Kemper. Then, in contrast, to the popular levees. Only
theory then had come to dominate the Mississippi River Commission

(11:26):
and its policies. New Orleans needed a spellway, which is
just another term for an outlet, something which the Commission
saw as counterproductive and useless, by which Kemper believed had
been proven necessary by the levee failure at Poidris. As
you see, during the nineteen twenty two flooded very much.
Luckily New Orleans was about to be overwhelmed and totally
Levey and Poydras failed, after which the water level Sunning

(11:49):
lowered dramatically. It was clear to Kemper then that given
the woods someplace else to go was crucial to the
survival of New Orleans and a flood, and so he
began working to get a spellway constructed, a project in
which he was notably backed by one Jim Thompson, who
owned not one, but two of New Orleans major newspapers.
Thompson was also the son in law to the Speaker
of the House, the brother in law to a senator,

(12:11):
and he also had a niece who was married to
yet another senator, which is all to say that Thompson
was well connected. He then reached out to union leaders
he headed the Cotton Exchange, and presidents of all the
banks in New Orleans, and together they formed the Safe
River Committee. Thompson then, through his various personal connections and
this new Safe River Committee, pushed for the construction of
a spillway, but the Army Corps of Engineers refused, as

(12:35):
they claimed that the city wouldn't need to be worried
if they had actually built their infrastructure up to the
Mississippi River Commission standards. The Army Corps of Engineers then
was alleging that the only reason why the city wanted
this spellway was so that they didn't have to spend
the millions of dollars necessary to upgrade their infrastructure and
could instead pass those costs off on the federal government. Still,

(12:55):
despite this pushback, Congress would create a Spillway board to
consider this proposal, but they would not come to New
Orleans until nineteen twenty seven, at which point it was
already too late. The flood was happening and the water
was on its way to potentially drown the city. Although
you would not know the etrusc but the danger that
New Orleans faced if you relianed sold the only cities
papers for your news. Because New Orleans papers, which were

(13:17):
controlled by the Samen and controlled these cities banks, kept
the true thunder the city quiet so as to not
alarm the outside financial institutions that had invested in the city.
As such institutions would not invest in a city that
faced such natural disasters. These bankers said, did not want
their city to suffer the same fate as Galveston, which
went from a major port to just a seaside resort

(13:39):
after the nineteen hundred hurricane, as investors pulled out of
the city and instead sunk their cash into nearby Houston,
which was seen as a much safer investment. As such,
these wealthy bankers made sure that their papers did not
talk about the flood so as to keep the residents
of New Orleans from panicking, which would have alarmed investors
like how, for example, on the eighth Evapel when none

(13:59):
of these these papers reported on the fact that the
flood was hitting record heights up river, nor was there
any coverage of how and response to these record heights
the local Red Cross chapter was constructing two hundred boats
or setting up forty one relief shelters. Indeed, the ninth
of April saw the headline quote river warning not alarming,
Lebbys can care for stage expected to exceed nineteen twenty

(14:20):
two level in start. Contrast to the paper's proclamation, though,
was the opinion of Isaac Klein, the head of the
Weather Bureau office in New Orleans. The man who had
famously survived the nineteen hundred hurricane in Galveston, and who
claimed to have saved lives by raising the alarm of
that impending disaster, was looking to do so again now.
To be a clear client actually hadn't raised the alarm
in Galveston, but that was a moment and a decision

(14:42):
that haunted him, and he was seemingly determined to not
make that same mistake again. So, following the destruction of Galston,
upon being stationed in New Orleans that very same year,
Klein would raise the alarm of a flood over the
objections of his superiors in Washington, and in doing so
he actually saved lives. He had then raised the alarming
again in nineteen fifteen, warning of an incoming hurricane, and

(15:03):
one again save lives, an act which likely in some
small way is his conscience for his failure in Galveston,
but also made him a bit of a local hero
in New Orleans. As a result. When Kline then began
issuing flood bulletins in April nineteen twenty seven, his warnings
likely would have carried weight had the city's papers actually
published them. Instead, the rich owners of these papers saw

(15:23):
to it that these warnings were suppressed. Clined, then, upon
realizing what was happening, warned that quote, you are jeopardizing
lives of men, women and children. You may control of
the press, but we have the males, the telegraph, the telephone,
the radio, and you cannot suppress the distribution of flood warning.
We are going to see to it that the people
behind the levees are warned that they are threatened with
great danger. Now this is not the first time these

(15:45):
papers had squashed the truth. For example, in nineteen twenty four,
of the city's papers had kept it quiet that a
Greek sailor was being treated for the bubonic plague in
one of the cities hospitals. The thing was a fud
is a much harder thing to hide than a singular
person being treated for the play. As the people of
New Orleans weren't blind, and they weren't stupid. They could
see the rising river with their own eyes, and so

(16:06):
they began leaving the city in mass, heading either for
higher ground in places like Natchez, Mississippi, or simply just
heading further away from the Mississippi River itself in the
hopes of avoiding the flood. Kliin meanwhile, was less worried
about the city of New Orleans than he was about
the surrounding communities, and also relied upon the city for
their news, as they were at far more risk than
those in the city. Kliinb then did not want these

(16:28):
cities papers given the people in these urrounding communities a
false sense of security might the people of Galveston had
been given prior to the nineteen hundred hurricane, which had
essentially flooded the entire island that Galveston sent upon. Unlike Clin,
though these cities, bankers weren't worried about these safety of
the residents of New Orleans, and they cared even less
about the people living in the communities around the city
and elsewhere along the Mississippi. Their main concern, after all,

(16:51):
was that their investor's money would stop flowing into the
city and ultimately into their pockets if they thought it
was too risky of an investment. Ploster was also the
worried that if the fear of the flood became great enough,
there would be a run on the banks. In fact,
there were already hunches of thousands of dollars being withdrawn
from the banks on a daily basis as people fled
the city. Should this increase, then the smaller banks were

(17:12):
potentially at risk of collapse. It was then these threats
of the city's economy and their personal wealth that led
these cities rich and powerful, specifically the city's bankers to
meet behind closed doors to talk about the flooding and
what to do about it. Specifically, they talked about how
the surest way to preserve the city was by dynamiting
a levee elsewhere, a proposal that had been suggested following

(17:34):
the previous Mississippi flood. As again, the failure of a
levee served the same purpose as a now lead, as
it gave the what are some place to go? These
bankers were then openly talking amongst themselves concerning the prospect
of sacrificing another community to save their city, and more importantly,
their banks and their wealth. It was decided then that
the next step would be contacting these cities. Mayor Arthur O'Keeffe, who,

(17:58):
knowing where the true power in the city lay, pretty
much just agreed to do whatever the bankers recommended. Mayor
o'keef then went to the Mississippi River Commission to discuss
within the possibility of dynamiting a levee elsewhere a lonely
river so as to give the Fudwaters an outlet and
thereby saved New Orleans. The Commission, though faintly, refused to
discuss such a plan unless the War Department approved such

(18:18):
an idea. The State of Louisiana formally made the request,
and the City of New Orleans itself officially agreed to
absolve the Commission of liability and damages, while also making
arrangements to compensate the victims of their proposed levee destruction,
as what they were talking about doing here was destroying
some other community to save their own. Now, to be clear,
all this so far was taking place before in the

(18:40):
collapse of the Mounds Landing levee. As such, that disaster
only served to wrap a panic in the city further
convincing the rich and powerful in town that they needed
to take drastic measures, namely sacrificing other towns and other
people's homes and livelihoods to save their own wealth and power. Therefore,
they progressed to the next step in seeing their plan
carried out, which was getting the approved the War Department. Now,

(19:01):
both the Secretary Awards Way Davis and the Chief of
Army Engineers, General Edgar Chadwin were resistant to such a
radical and destructive proposition, but the New Orleans represented as
war persistent. Davison finally agreed to look quote sympathetically on
their proposal, provided that the Governor Louisiana gave him a
formal request to dynamite the levy and written documentation that

(19:22):
the federal government was absolved of any responsibility for the
consequences of this action. You then begin to see the
pattern here of no one wanted to take responsibility for
dynamoey a levy and destroying a town or towns. They
wanted to pass the bank and make sure that someone
else had to approve it. In addition to not being
held financially responsible for the consequences, the rich and powerful

(19:43):
of New Orleans and had to turn their attention to
the Governor of Louisiana, or mL Simpson, who was decidedly
not on board with their plan. As you see, Simpson
had the crazy idea that the government should protect people
in the way he saw destroying a levy, and by extension,
the communities that levy was protecting was exact opposite of
that idea. Plus, the governor's election was only a few

(20:04):
months away, and futding rural communities to save a city
wasn't a great political idea in a state that was
primarily rural communities. The governor's reluctance would only be reinforced
by Isaac Klein's statement the following day that the city
of New Orleans would only be endangered as long as
all the levees above the city held, a scenario which he,
along with many others, were convinced following the Mountains landing collapse,

(20:27):
was highly unlikely. The levees were bound to fail on
their own, and so there was no need to purposely dynamite,
want and destroy a community that might have otherwise been safe. Indeed,
the very same day that client issued this statement, the
Pine Buff Levy in Arkansas and the glasgock Levee above
Baton Rouge both gave way. Yet despite this, the bankers
and businessmen of New Orleans remained steadfast. Not to prevent

(20:50):
panic in the city, something that directly threatened their wealth
and power, they had to be proactive, so they tried
to get Klent on their side, but he just hung
up on them. However, they were insistent, as he argued
that the cities very future was at risk, claiming that
if people became too terrified all the prospect of the flood,
even if Klein's predictions that it wouldn't reach them were true,

(21:10):
New Orleans would still be finished. Yet, they argued, with
Klin's support for their plan, they could still save it.
It is here, then, that I believe we see the
impact of the Galveston storm on Cline as again, despite
what he claimed, he had not raised the alarm and
saved lives, and had subsequently seen the once hopeful future
of Galveston fade away following the disaster. So Incline, likely

(21:31):
due to his determination to not make the same mistake again,
would despite his own doubts, acquiesque as he replied, quote,
you may go to Governor Simpson and tell him that
I say there is another rise in the river on
the way here, and that if the levee is going
to be able to relieve these situation, it should be
opened at once. In doing so, Kleine purposely left out
his own belief that such a move was unnecessary. It

(21:53):
was then, thanks in no small part of this statement
from Clime, that Governor Simpson agreed to dynamite the levee,
provided that he law was furnished with a written statement
signed by engineers that dynamiting a levy was absolutely necessary,
a statement that had to be completely bereft of any
kind of equivocating language. There could be no ifs in there.
It had to say this had to be done period.

(22:15):
The governor also required legal opinion stating that he actually
had the authority to do this, and finally, he needed
a written promise from New Orleans that they would compensate
the victims for their losses. To this end, Governor Simpson
met with Mayor o'keefen fifty of the wealthiest men in
New Orleans in the boardroom of the Canal Bank, men
who clearly not only controlled the city but also the

(22:35):
entire state. Also in attendance at this meeting were two
representatives from Saint Bernard and Plackamin's parishes, the two communities
that would be wiped out by the proposed levied destruction.
These representatives were John Diamond and Simon Leopold, a pair
of wealthy, prominent men who were not really representative of
the people who actually lived in those areas. The two, though,
did attempt to argue that it would make more sense

(22:57):
to destroying levy above the city than below it where
their communities lay, which would seemingly make sense, as you
would think you would want to drain the wood away
before it reached the city. The thing was, the communities
of river from New Orleans were far more developed than
the Saint Bernard and Placamen's parishes, and thus it would
be far more expensive to compensate the residents of those communities,
and since this was all about preserving the wealth of

(23:19):
the rich and powerful of New Orleans, such a move
would have been counterproductive anyway, This protest from the so
called representatives seems to have primarily been for show, as
he really didn't put out much of a fight or
protest in any other way outside of asking for a
written guarantee that the city of New Orleans would pay
for the damages that resulted from this plan. Mean men
in the room then responded with this resolution. First, they

(23:41):
would quote pludgress ALFs to the people the parishes of
Plaquamen's in Saint Bernard to use our good offices and
seeing that they are reimbursed by proper governmental agencies the
losses which they may sustain as a result of this
emergency work. They also offered to create a five man
commission to overseeing the site all reparation issues, made up
of two men appointed by the governor, two men appointed

(24:02):
by the New Orleans Council, with the lake Born Levy
Board appointing the fifth and final member, which essentially meant
that the people of the parishes that were being destroyed
would only be guaranteed a single vote on this board,
while the city that was doing this to them was
guaranteed too. And finally, these rich bankers and businessmen offered
to creating one hundred and fifty thousand dollars fund to
care for those affected by this planned action, an amount

(24:25):
that notably came to less than twenty bucks for each
person in these parishes who were about to lose their
homes and their livelihoods, which is all to say that
this looked to be a terrible deal for the two parishes,
And yet the men who were supposedly there representing them
readily agreed. As the reality was they had more in
common with the fifty plus other men in this room,
most of whom were presidents of banks and rich businessmen,

(24:47):
than they did with the people they were supposedly representing.
For example, Rabia Town and Saint Bernard, which sat on
the borders of New Orleans, had streets paved with cross shelves,
and also relied upon cisterns for drinking water, which was
a dangerous practice considering that such cisterns were breeding grounds
for mosquitoes. The town was also the home of the
largest sugar refinery in the world in the largest avatar

(25:07):
in the South, meaning it had to smell blood, death,
and sugar at all times, which is all to say
that the people who lived and worked in this town
had little to nothing in common with the men who
were deciding their fate. Indeed, all this was being negotiated
and decided upon primarily by unelected wealthy bankers and businessmen,
as the only actual public officials in the room were
the governor, the mayor, two members of the levee board,

(25:30):
and two city councilmen, and to be clear, what they
were deciding to do was make refugees out of the
ten thousand residents of these Saint Benard and Placamin's parishes. Now,
the people of Saint Benard had clearly been monitoring the
situation in New Orleans and suspected that they were a
likely target to be sacrificed to protect the city and
its wealth. As a result, they'd placed some five hundred
armed guards on the levee to prevent anyone from destroying

(25:52):
it and their community. They were then predictably outraged when
word came down from the city that they were officially
planning on destroying the levee and, by extension, their homes
and community. At the same time, though, was also readily
apparent that there was little they could do to actually
stop it, as the Louisiana National Guard was swiftly deployed
to their little communities, with one of the commanders making
the situation clear as they declared that quote, if it

(26:15):
is necessary to cut the leveant portas the cut will
be made by a corps of engineers backed by the
whole state militia or even United States soldiers, and we
were broken. No interference whatsoever from the citizens of these parishes.
The most of residents of these parishes could do then
was to try and make sure that New Orleans actually
paid them for what they were about to do to then,
and they sent actual representatives to the city to demand

(26:37):
a legally binding pledge of reparations, dismissing out of hand
the proposed and holy inadequate one hundred and fifty thousand
dollars fund. In response, James Butler Junior, the president of
the can Now Bank, one of the city's most powerful
banks in the largest bank in the southern United States,
who was also one of the main voices behind the
Levey destruction plan from the very beginning, proposed a fund

(26:58):
of two million dollars. This money would then be loaned
to those affected by this plan and would be made
available to them instantly, so they did not have to
wait for their claims to be settled. Instead, they would
simply paid back the money they borrowed once the claims
were settled. Any city would pay the interest, as the
banks were insistent that the city cover any losses that
resulted from this plan, despite it being primarily their idea.

(27:20):
The representatives from the affected parishes would agree to accept
this deal, provided that the five man commission overseeing the
settlement process that was said to have only one representative
from the affected communities would be replaced by a nine
man commission with two appointees from the governor, three from
the city, and four coming from the affected parishes. With
this deal in place, and since they really had no

(27:41):
other choice, the people all these parishes then reluctantly began
the process of leaving their homes in anticipation of the
planned destruction of the levee. Ten thousand residents were then
forced from their homes as trucks were loaded with everything
that could be moved. Meanwhile, airplanes flew overhead, both documenting
the situation and also looking for anyone who had no
followed the order to evacuate. As all this was happening,

(28:03):
as all these people were packing up their belongings and
saying goodbye to their homes, their livelihoods, and their communities,
the well to do from New Orleans and the media
were showing up not to help, but to simply watch
the explosion. On the levee and the destruction it wrought.
The first explosion, though, was a bit disappointing, as it
did little more than create a six foot wide and
ten foot deep ditch in the levee, a far cry

(28:25):
from the catastrophic collapse they were anticipating, and the two
subsequent explosions failed to accomplish much more, thereby requiring workers
with picks and shovels to step in and expand the ditch. Eventually,
they did manage to get the water flowing, but there
was no dramatic, exciting moment of destruction, and so the
rich Cawkers who came to see a show left disappointed.
Mean while, the very next day the Glascock Levee gave

(28:47):
way on its own, instantly easily pressure on the levees
protecting New Orleans, which means had they waited just one
more day and would have been clear that the destruction
all these two parishes was completely unnecessary. Indeed, in the
coming week, levies holding back the Washda and Black River
also filled, thereby ensuring that all that would never even
reached the Mississippi. So they had needlessly flooded and destroyed

(29:10):
these two parishes displacing some ten thousand people in the process,
and in doing so, they also destroyed seventy percent of
the region's muskrat population. As you see, even if the
muskrats survived being drowned outright, they were then driven out
of their natural habitats where they were safe and knew
how to survive. Pluses also forced these nocturnal creatures to
room about during the daytime as they looked for shelter

(29:32):
and places to hide, all of which eventually led to
many of their deaths, which, in addition to being a
devastating environmental blow, was also catastrophic to the local trapping
and fur industry. They damaged onto the furnestry and all
the people who worked, and it would have then been
another sizable bell of the city of New Orleans and
its bankers would have to pay in addition to making
sure that all the residents all these two parishes were

(29:53):
taken care of, if that is they actually intended to do,
as the mayor of the city council and the heads
of every major banking business in the city had promised
to do publicly. The wealthy of Nuans, though upon being
asked to pay the bill for the destruction that they
created began to balk at the cost. Now, the warning
sides about how New Orleans treated its names were already there,

(30:15):
as a paper from New Iberia Louisiana would make note
to thank thee quote noble and unselfish manner in which
our sister towns had responded to our appeal and distress
and rush trucks and men and cowboys with their amounts
to plunge headlong into the great rescue work. As when
the floodwaters had come for New Iberia, their neighboring towns
had all rushed to their aid. The same, though, could

(30:35):
not be said of the biggest city in the region,
as the paper would go on to note that quote
what a contrast to were on metropolis, boasting the greatest
population on the South, conspicuous by her failure to respond,
not a single truck which bore the named New Orleans,
all these small communities around them and come to their aid.
And yet the second largest part of the nation and
the wealthiest city in the South apparently couldn't be bothered

(30:57):
helping its neighbors. Now the people all the affected parishes
had attempted to protect themselves from the city going back
on its promises through the creation of the Reparations Commission,
as they were supposed to be the ones who handled
the claims of the refugees the city had made to then,
and the major that in addition to the three representatives
from New Orleans and the two men selected by the
states governor, there would be four people there representing the

(31:20):
affected towns, a setup that should have guaranteed that the
Reparations Commission was fair in its handling of the refugees
and their claims, which was exactly the problem. So James
Bother Junior, the president of the Canal Bank, the largest
bank in the southern United States and one of the
main men behind the spine from the very beginning, just
basically worked around the Commission as he instead worked through

(31:41):
the Orleans Levee Board and decided how things would be
handled with his own personally selected cadre of other rich
and powerful men from the city. Now, to be fair
of the city, its bankers and rich businessmen had done
as they had promised when it came to taking care
of the people from the towns they had needlessly destroyed
by giving them the food and fairy supplies they needed
to survive. Yet as weeks went on, these men, who

(32:01):
had sacrificed the homes and livelihoods of others to preserve
their own wealth, began to balk at the cost of
providing for these people whose lives they had ruined. So
in mid May, with the community still said to be
under winter for several more months, these bankers and businessmen
nun to latterly decided they were going to dedoct the
cost of food, supplies in housing from the refugees damaged claims.

(32:21):
Speaking of to gain reparations, the refugees had to file
a claim, and so Butler would call upon the cities
leading Attorney j. Blank Monroe to wole on seat claims,
knowing that Monroe, relative of both presidents James Monrou and
James Polk, who also had close ties with the very
conservative Whitney Bank, would not be inclined to side with
the refugees. Basically, then Monroe and an assistant all by

(32:44):
themselves and not the Reparations Commission, would decide whether to
reject or settle a claim. The only time then that
the Commission was ever able to get involved was if
a refugee tried the challenge Monroe's decision and even then
the Commission largely based their decisions upon Monroe's findings. Meanwhile,
the refugees, especially the poor and working class people these towns,
were denied any kind of legal representation in these cases,

(33:07):
as Monroe and his allies then to have any lawyer
who offered to represent the flood victims disbarred. Indeed, when
several attorneys offered to do the work for the refugees
pro bono, the lawyers for the rich and powerful had
the State Bar Association declayer offering legal aid to the
refugees unethical, and thus it was caused for disbarment. Then,
on top of that, in violation of their own promises,

(33:30):
the Reparation Commissions Board started requiring that all payments be
made in full, which meant that a refugee could not
make an initial claim just so they could have some
money to get started, and then, upon finding that their
losses were greater than initially believed, file a second claim
to make up the difference. A change in policy then
meant that those who could not afford to win until
the flood is receeded to see the full extent of

(33:50):
their losses had to make a smaller claim that could
be proven at the time and then accept that was
all they were going to get, regardless of how bad
things ultimately proved to be, which was the case for
most of the refugees from these small, poor communities. Yet,
even with these limitations, within a few weeks of blowing
up the levee, despite their own estimates of six million
dollars worth of claims, the New Orleans businessmen and bankers

(34:13):
who had insisted on the destruction of these towns were
faced with some thirty million dollars worth of claims. As such,
they then sought every path they could find to reduce
and or deny these claims. While doing so, they also
cut off food payments for black refugees who livelihoods were
based upon gathering moss to be sold from mattress, filling
work that they could not do at this time, as
the places where they would usually harvest the moss were

(34:35):
still under water and or covered in mud. Yet still
the board decided to cut off their aid, declaring that quote,
as long as we continued to feed you, you were
not going to work. Not everyone, though, was so helpless
in the face of these bullying tactics, as some had
lawyers and even political connections of their own, which brings
us back to Governor Simpson, who hadn't fully been in
favor of dynamiting the levee in the first place, and

(34:57):
now how to deal with the offset victims of this plan.
So he asked for a meeting with the New Orleans
Reparations Commission, hoping to resolve some of these issues, and indeed,
the commission actually agreed with the victim's complaints. However, the
problem was the Commission didn't actually have any power as
a worrying line upon the cities banks to lonely victim's money,
and the cities banks answered to Butler, plus honestly weren't

(35:19):
that interested in helping in the first place. Nothing then
came of this meeting, and so the governor next called
the state legislature into a special session to pass a
constitutional amendment to give the Reparations Commission the power to
compensate the victims of this artificial crevasse fairly. This, though,
soon devolved into an intense legislative battle as he rich
businessmen and bankers from New Orleans exercised their power and

(35:41):
influence on these states politicians until they ultimately succeeded in
buying off the last major legislator who fought them by
agreeing to pay the fur company he represented one point
five million dollars, all the while leaving the individual fur
hrapperds who had their livelihoods destroyed by the flood out
in the cold. Meanwhile, with the capture this final piece
in New Orleans, bankers and businessmen quickly had their version

(36:04):
of the bill passed, and which point the legislature immediately adjourned,
seeking to avoid any kind of backlash. Meanwhile, as all
this was playing out, the city's major newspapers, which were
owned by the rich merchants and bankers, all made sure
to push the lie that the city wasn't only nobly
honoring its pledge to the victims of the artificial levy destruction,
but we're doing so above and beyond what the law

(36:25):
actually required. Yet, despite this narrative, in the end, Jane
Blackman Ware would straight up reject some thirty five million
dollars worth of claims outright thereby not even allowing them
to be filed or considered. As for the tutal those
he actually allowed to be filed and considered, that came
to roughly twelve point five million dollars, of which he
would agree to pay about three point nine million to

(36:47):
settle those claims. Yet he still wasn't done, as Monroe
then immediately deducted from that three point nine million nearly
a million dollars to pay for the housing and feeding
of the people they had displaced. As for the remaining
two point nine million dollars, the vast majority of that
money would be paid to big claimants like the aforementioned
Fur Company and the Louisiana Southern Railroad, which then left

(37:08):
just eight thousand dollars for the twenty eight hundred remaining claimants,
meaning that the people who lost their homes in their
livelihoods of the completely needless levee dynamiting received on average
two hundred and eighty four dollars, while some one thousand
claimants received absolutely nothing. So for all the claims and
written promises made by the Wali and New Orleans to
make sure that no harm came to the people the

(37:30):
towns they were destroying to protect their own financial interests,
they ultimately did tremendous financial harm, and yet not a
single one of them ever made a voluntary payment of
any sort to any of the victims. Meanwhile, all this
was ultimately pointless as it did not actually save New Orleans.
As you see, not only did they not have to
blow up the levee flooding those two parishes, as other

(37:50):
levees further upriver failed regardless, but the city itself wasn't
actually saved now they weren't flooded, as again the other
levees failed, and the city itself was reserved bought. All
that wealth and prominence that they were hoping to maintain
and grow that soon began to fade as the city
that had been among the wealthies in the country soon
began to go into a serious decline, with its banks,

(38:12):
which had been central in orchestrating this entire plan, being
among the first of fall you see, As it turns out,
the city and its financial institutions were undone by financial
and social conservatism. Basically, these same infaults that led to
the plan to dynamite the levey, destroying other communities to
preserve the wealth of the cities elite ultimately proved to
be their downfall, as an economic study of New Orleans

(38:34):
decline would conclude that a quote narrow circle of wealth holders,
the bankers and rich businessmen had formed a quote close
society whose aims are to preserve their wealth rather than
incur risks in an effort to expand it. The city's
wealthy then were so desperate to hold onto what they
had that, as a result, they quote reduced opportunities for
the city to continue to grow. Essentially, then, with New

(38:56):
Orleans rich hoarding money just to maintain their status, the
city and its economy began to decay, even as other
cities in the South grew and prospered. So in the end,
everything they did, from destroying the levy and funning the
parishes to refuse to provide relief to those whose communities
they ruined us all for Not that, then, is the
story not so much of how the nineteen twenty seven
flood led to the decline of New Orleans, but how

(39:18):
greed and self centinists first destroyed other towns and then
doomed their own city. Meanwhile, next time, all Herbert Hoover
and the Red Cross would be held by the mainstream
white press for their efforts overseeing and carrying out their
relief efforts. That was not the whole story, far from it,
in fact, and to tell that story we will focus
on Greenville, Mississippi, in particular, as black men there were

(39:39):
virtually turned into slaves, but for now that will have
to remain a story for another time. Thank you for
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(40:00):
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(40:22):
you for listening and until next time,