November 8, 2025 • 47 mins
While much of the mainstream white press has nothing but praise for the relief efforts being led by presidential hopeful Herbert Hoover there is an ugly reality just underneath the surface. Nowhere is that reality uglier than in Greenville Mississippi. Yet before we get into the virtual return of slavery in the city we first look at the history of Greenville and why what happens there is both surprising and inevitable.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Aric Gaskell, and you're listening to the
Distorted History podcast and program. I didn't give you many names.
And joy a blacker. Look, I'm Raisling. I'm got the bara.
(00:27):
A long struggle for freedom, it really is a revolution.
As we continue our examination on the nineteen twenty seven
Mississippi Foot and its impact on America and the blues
in particular, we've seen how Bessie Smith's Backwater Blues became
(00:48):
a pretty massive hit. Notably, though, there was also a
bit of a transition going on when it came to
these dyland blues that people were looking for. As well.
Classic blues singers like ma Arnie, Bessie Smith and Ethel
Waters were still popular, the time was beginning to change,
as by the late twenties, quote unquote, down home or
country blueshi was starting to become more popular, a style
(01:08):
which on like the classic blues, had featured female vocalist
who had often gotten their start on the vaudeville circuit,
future predominantly men like Blind Liman, Jefferson, Lonnie Johnson and
Charlie Penton, a shift that wasn't part at least influenced
by a record industry that felt that the image of
a black oral country musician was more marketable and easier
for When America to accept than the quote unquotes like
City Black. Now we have touched on the lives of
(01:31):
both Blind Limon Jefferson and Lonnie Johnson so far in
this series, and so this month we will turn our
attention to the legend that is Charlie Penton. Yet, before
I get into a story in the truth about what
was happening to the black refugees in the Red Cross camps, first,
like always, I want to acknowledge my sources for this series,
which include Richard M. Mizzel Junior's Backward or Blues, The
(01:52):
Mississippi Flood of nineteen twenty seven in the African American Imagination,
John M. Berry's Rising Time, The Great Mississippi flo Flood
of nineteen twenty seven and How It Changed America, and
Susan Scott Parrish's The Flundier nineteen twenty seven a Cultural
History Plus. For this episode, in particular, I also referenced
ted Gio as Delta Blues, the Life and Times of
(02:13):
the Mississippi Masters who revolutionized American music, and like always
a full list of these and any other sources like
websites that I used will be available on this podcast,
Blue Sky and kofe pages. Plus for anyone who doesn't
want to be bothered skipping through commercials, there is always
an a free feet available to subscribers at patreon dot com.
Slash Distorted History. And with all that being said, let's begin.
(02:36):
Charlie Padden had been born in Hines County, Mississippi, somewhere
between eighteen eighty seven and eighteen ninety one to parents
William Patton and Sarah Garrett. The pair would have twelve
children together in all but seven of those would die
in infancy. Now, Charlie's father, William must fairly well off,
but the standards of African Americans living in the Delta,
by which I mean he ran a store, owned his
(02:57):
own land, and even had his own sharecroppers. William was
also notably quite a big man, reportedly weighing around three
hundred and fifty pounds. Charlie, meanwhile, was described as having
quite a frail build. This star contrast between Charlie patt
and the man who raised him, as well as Charlie's
musical proclivities, would then serve as a partial basis for
rumors at Charlie's roal father was one Henderson Chapman. Now
(03:21):
this wasn't some random rumor either, as Henderson had reportedly
courted Charlie's mother at some point, and Henderson's son Sam
was said to have resembled Charlie quite a bit. Plus, Henderson,
who was a grandson of a white planter and an
enslaved woman, was also the head of a prominent musical family,
as his children, after being taught how to play a
variety instruments by himself and his wife Eliza, went on
(03:43):
to become notable members of groups at the Mississippi Sheiks,
the Mississippi Black Snakes, and the Mississippi mud Steppers. People
then speculated this potential connection was to choose source of
Charlie's musical gifts. That being said, Henderson never claimed Charlie
as his son, and he even pointedly refus to even
acknologeny comments that suggested such a connection. Regardless of his parentage.
(04:05):
Charlie Patten was said to have stood five foot seven
inches tall if he pulled himself up to his full height,
which he rarely did. Charlie also bore a noticeable scar
on his forehead was missing several teeth and walked with
a lip as he dragged his left foot behind him,
a condition that was the result of an old gunshot wound.
Which is all to say that Charlie Patten at first
(04:25):
glance wasn't exactly an imposing figure or someone you would
likely pay all that much attention to. Yet hidden within
this unassuming shawl was a powerful baritone voice that was
second to none. This dichonomy was frequently noted, it seems,
as musician Brooker Miller would relate of how quote to
(04:56):
which Charlie would correct the man by informing him that
he only weighed one hundred and thirty five pounds. Patten's voice,
in contrast, was both deep and powerful, or as guitarist
Johnny Mack would put it, quote there was, after all,
a reason why his contemporaries named Charlie old Winemouth. Again,
though it wasn't just the volume of his voice either,
(05:18):
as there was a coursest to it that Helen Wolf,
who idolized Padden, would compare to that of a lion,
while bluesman Sam Chapman would describe him like those very
mouthy In the years and decades to come, then Charlie Patton,
hennedy of coarse Graveley voice would come to be identified
(05:39):
with the bunt of blues itself. Now, it wasn't just
Charlie's voice that belied his lungs, but also the way
that he acted and carried himself as Charlie Pant was
often described as being a bed Ford in his manner
compared to other Southern Black men at the time, which
is to say that he was a proud man who
was not shy as seeing his own praises, and he
was also not one to shy away from an argument. Indeed,
(06:00):
Pan was one of the first black musicians to, within
his music take shots at white people in his community,
which strongly suggested if he was willing to have such
comments recorded, he quite likely wasn't shy about saying them
in person. This kind of defined, self assuredness led some
to believe that Charlie Pan had to be from the North,
as such tendencies were usually beaten, oftentimes literally out of
(06:21):
the African Americans born and raised indult Span had fairly
red skin, he might have potentially passed for some other race. Indeed,
Charlie was in fact part Native American. The thing was
though per the laws of the South, Charlie Pan was
a black man period, so really was nothing more than
Charlie having a defined personality, as the reality was the
(06:44):
condition of being black in the South wasn't monolithic, and
so not everyone had the same experience or reacted in
those conditions in the same way. Regardless. Pan's assertiveness, cockiness,
or whatever you want to call it would also manifest
and his performances as Charlie had a flashy, showy stop
performing where he strut around the stage and do things
like play the guitar from in between his legs or
(07:04):
behind the back of his head. Activities at fellow Townsman's
son House would call calling on, which were a part
of each tradition that would live on through the years,
all the way down through Jimmy Hendrix, who would adopt
some of these tricks thanks to his time only so
called Chitlin circuit. Additionally, Charlie, throughout his performances was also
said to have an ongoing batter between himself and the crowd,
(07:25):
as he just seemed to have fun and news these
times as an opportunity to express himself and experience a
kind of freedom typically unknown among black men of the
South at the time. Penn's confidence in himself then manifested
in writing a letter or having someone else write a
letter on his behalf to HC. Spear, the owner of
a music store in Jackson, Mississippi, boasting of his skills
as a blues musician. Now this swasn't some random letter
(07:48):
blowing his own perfobial horn, as Spear wasn't just the
owner of a music store. He was also a talent
scout of sorts for a number of labels like Paramount,
Victor and Okay. Indeed, Spear throughout the mid twenties into
the thirties would quote unquote discover the lucks of Skip James,
Tommy Johnson, Willie Brown, Sunhouse, and Robert Johnson. In doing so,
Spear was instrumental in defining the sound of the Mississippi Delta.
(08:12):
To be clear, though Spear was no altruist, he was
a businessman who recognized the potential profits in selling black music.
As on a good Saturday he was able to sell
somewhere between three to six hundred records, with close to
eighty percent of them being produced by black musicians. Spear
then was simply basing his activities on the money that
was being put into his cash register. Further incentivizing Spear's
(08:34):
quest for new acts was the money paid to him
by record labels to find new talent. As a part
of the starch for talent, Spear would develop a list
of criteria that he believed a musician needed to be
successful and thus worth his time to begin with. While
guitars did not need to be virtuoso's, they did need
a certain level proficiency in their instrument. In a similar vein,
(08:54):
the exact style of singing was less important than whether
or not they could be expressive in doing so. Spear
was also convinced that the blues stylings found in the
Mississippi Delta were the ones best suited for creating successful recordings.
As such, he wasn't all that interested in trying to
record musicians from places like Georgia and North Carolina More
than anything else, though, Spear was convinced that the key
(09:15):
to success was originality, as unlike the Lomaxes, who were
especially interested in documenting traditional folk songs for the Smithsonian,
Spear wanted his artists to write their own songs because
novelty sold as after all, it was harder to convince
a customer to purchase yet another version of a song
that had been recorded already, potentially by multiple artists, then
(09:35):
it was to sell them on a brand new song
that they had never heard before. Spear, then, wherever he went,
always took the opportunity to scour the area for new
potential talent. Then, when he found some of the fault
the labels might be interested in, Spear often did some
test recordings himself so he could have something to send
to them. In doing so, Spear was very detail oriented
(09:55):
as he put his subjects in what he considered to
be the best room he could find for recording. We
would then set up the microphone just right, and if necessary,
he'd even provide them with a better guitar. Spear, you see,
wanted to do everything within his power to make these
recordings successful, as it ultimately meant money in his own pockets.
To that end, he even sometimes interceded on behalf of
his blues musicians with the local police. Indeed, on at
(10:18):
least one occasion, he paid guitarist Tommy Johnson's bail to
get him out of jail. The flip side of this
corn was revealed However, when Johnson bolted for Louisiana, as
Spear used his connections to have the musician brought back
in handcuffs. As for Charlie Patton, upon receiving his letter,
Spear made the journey out of the Docker replantation. Spear
then made his way through the collection of Armis Shatson
(10:39):
halfs a dotted the Telgitation, after first passon to d White,
foreman for the residence of Charlie Patton. Upon reaching his destination,
Spear found a man whose air of self importance belied
to humble surroundings, but fit the nature of the letter
he had received. Indeed, Charlie Patton would declare upon meeting
Spear that he was the equal of any other Delta bluesman,
(11:00):
and he was willing to prove it, although he would
suggest that some whiskey might assist in his performance. Spear,
though had not brought any that day, and so despite
this lack of proper motivation, Charlie would soon prove to
Spear that he was everything he looked for in a
recording subject. And then some indeed Patten might have been
the best guitarist at Spirit ever encountered. Plus the way
(11:22):
in which he married his guitar and vocals together in
a way in which they seemed to finish the other's phrases,
was like nothing he had ever encountered, and the fact
that was only further enhanced by the fact that, unlike
other bluesmen who tended to sing higher than the notes
that were playing on the guitar, Panen's unique voice fit
within the structure of what he was playing. Upon hearing
Charlie play, Spear immediately began making plans to record this
(11:43):
man so he could sell his talents to the record labels.
To do so, Spear first had to make some demo
recordings of Patten to send to the labels to try
and peque their interest. Now apparently the largest record company
of the day, Victor had no interest in Charlie Patton. Paramount,
on the other hand, largely based upon spears recommendation, decided
to make a deal for this newfound talent. The label
(12:05):
then said the trained takeover pan to severally seven hundred
and fifty or so miles to Richmond, Indiana, where he
was to be recorded in Enginet Records patents daily recorded
using microphones, as opposed to the horns that had been
used for earlier recordings. Microphones, as you might expect, then
produced better quality recordings. That being said, the technology was
(12:26):
still very new and so away from the advice the quality,
which was especially an issue when dealing with musicians who
had never been recorded before in their lives and were
used to moving around as a performed live. Then there
was the issue that records at the time could only
contain a few minutes of music at most. To account
(12:46):
for this limitation, the recording engineer set up a red
morning light that they would turn on as a performer
started to run short on time, a situation that for
some resulted in any sped up and hurried final verse
or chorus as the performer rushed to get their song
done in the allotted time, while others, upon seeing the
red light turn on, immediately stopped, misunderstanding what it meant.
(13:07):
Also adding to the difficulty of these early recordings of
these subjects who were totally unfamiliar with this process was
the fact that many of these musicians were used to
feeding off the energy of the crowd when they were
performing first. Some then they just could not replicate the
magic in the recording booth. Charlie pen Memal further complicated
this process by choosing to perform songs using three different
(13:28):
tunings during his initial recording session. Plaus As it turns out,
he wasn't alone in being in the studio at that time,
as he ended up splitting time with another performer who
had been brought into record for Paramount. Yet, despite all
these hurdles, Paton would still manage to produce an unprecedented
fourteen songs during this singular session, which in and of
itself was unheard of by other artists, as was the
(13:50):
fact that they were all apparently high quality songs for
which they put the record company into a musition. They
had any other choice but to put a good song
on both sides of a single, which they typically did
not do. As you see, their policy was to have
a top quality song on one side to get people to
buy the single, and then just dump a lesser quality
song on the B side. The problem with Pan, though,
(14:11):
was he didn't really give them any thoroughway songs, and
so the label was forced to put two quality songs
on a single. Meanwhile, Pan's highly successful debut recording session
also kind of signaled the beginning of the legend of
the Delta blues as prior to Pan, the Delta apparently
wasn't seen as being a particularly notable or special locale
defined blues musicians. His output in Spears's Ear for Town, though,
(14:34):
would help to create such a legacy. For our purposes, though,
we are going to focus on a song that was
not recorded as a part of this initial session. Indeed,
Charlie Pan's High Water Everywhere wasn't recorded until two years
after the flood in nineteen twenty nine. That being said,
it does seem to be very much about this specific flood,
and may even be about Charlie Pan's own experiences during
(14:54):
that disaster, a song that paramounts Execs, upon hearing it
for themselves, considered it to be Pat's best work and
rushed to release it quickly. Now it's a longer piece
recorded in two sections due to the limitations of the
records of the day. The first part is more high
energy with a faster tempo, as he also slaps the
guitars soundboard while he's playing to Annie, driving rhythm to
(15:15):
the piece, while also possibly stopping his feet to provide
his own rhythm section. All the while he seemingly focuses
on just the vast, all encompassing nature of the flood
and his attempts to escape. Part Tune, meanwhile, is more
laid back and almost more personal in nature, as it's
more focused on personal tragedies rather than Levy's breaking and
all towns being flooded. Indeed, Pan starts he sung off
(15:37):
singing about the backwarder driving him down the line, as
the flooding had apparently driven him from wherever he had
been staying at the top. It soon, though, became apparent
that this is in some isolated incident, as he sings, quote,
American populism has always been a complex phenomenon containing an
ugly Then it goes on to illustrate the all encompassing,
as he sings quote against them, the venice often included
(16:00):
not only an enemy above, but also an enemy below.
Looking to escape the flood, considers going to Rosedale. But quote, Indeed,
as we've seen, this flood was everywhere, as a virtual
inland sea was created from all the water spelling out
of the Mississippi and over the lands all around it,
water which was immensely destructive, as wherever the flood waters
(16:21):
had run through many of these shacks where the tenant
farmers had lived had been washed away, and the same
was true for many barns, warehouses, and congens. Now some
more sturdily blt structures had fared slightly better, but many
of the structures that were left standing by the flood
were still severely damaged and in need of repairs. Plus,
the floodwaters claimed the lives of approximately half the animals
(16:42):
in the region, which was a massive bloat of farmers,
as this included their chickens, hogs, mules, horses, and cattle.
Then there was the human cost. Now we have no
accurate measure of how many lives were lost because, as
we will see, the Red Cross wasn't terribly interested in
counting black lives, and nor were those in charge particles
interested in getting an accurate count of lives lost, because
(17:03):
they wanted to make themselves look good by claiming to
have saved the day. Getting accurate counts of death, then
what a muddle the pristine picture they were looking to create,
Which is why looking at alternative sources like these blues
songs is so valuable, as they can give you a
better feeling for what the people who were ignored by
the official numbers were actually experiencing Charlie Pennon, then, after
(17:23):
presenting the all encompassing scope of the disaster, brought it
home and made it even more personal in Part two,
as he sang, quote, it seems so that it was
already too late because quote, with no rescue coming, there
was apparently no hope for these people. As Panton brings
(17:45):
the full horror of the flood to bear when he
sings quote everything and apparently everyone had been swect away
to just yet such stories for America is the more
official counting of the flood. As following the initial disaster,
(18:08):
the attention shifted to the successful rescue and rebuilding operations
that were being conducted under the leadership of Herbert Hoover. Now,
Hoover was incredibly ambitious as a result, after being appointed
the head of the government's relief efforts, he made sure
to positioned himself as the main character in this tale
for most Americans as he actively spent sixty in the
next seventy two days in the affected area, which men
(18:30):
he regularly appeared on the front pages of newspapers nationwide.
While doing so, Hoover also took advantage of new technology
as he was also regularly heard on radios across the
country speaking about this crisis, and even appearing on newsreels
as well. In doing so, Hoover was further cementing his
reputation as a great humanitarian and the great engineer, titles
(18:50):
he had earned for his work during the First World War,
after being appointed by then President Woodrow Wilson to be
the country's food Administrator, a role which granted Hoover the
power to cont controlled the up pricing and distribution of
food for the entire country for the duration of the conflict. Then,
after the war was over, Hoover went on to oversee
the European relief program that fed millions on the war
(19:11):
ravaged continent. In doing so, he had famously withheld food
shipments to Poland phone the execution of thirty seven Jews
by Polish soldiers, with the implication being that shipments would
only resume once measures were taken to prevent any further
such incidents. Now, Hoover in particular saw as two titles
of great humanitarian and great engineer as being the same thing,
(19:32):
as in his way of thinking and viewing the world,
engineers were just naturally morally superior, as it was an
engineer's job to eliminate waste and ineffectiveness, which was to
the benefit of the entire world, because he believed waste
in all of its forms was inherently harmful. Therefore, by
eliminating it and making everything run smoothly and efficiently, they
were benefiting humanity by making all of life better. From
(19:55):
Hoover's point of view, than the proper and rational allocation
of resources and goods was a too much, if not all,
of society's olls. Indeed, he saw the quote as the
cause of much evil as quote. As such, Hoover identified
(20:17):
the quote as being the main source of many of
social and economic problems. Therefore, he called for the quote,
even going so far at one point to bully the
steel industry three public relations campaign to accept the eight
hour workday. Now has previously mentioned, Hoover was also incredibly ambitious.
(20:39):
So while throughout the course of the disaster, President Coolidge
was regularly criticized for doing nothing, Hoover, on the other hand,
essentially faced no criticism for his role in directing the
relief efforts, which was great for Hoover because this disaster
in the press's favorable coverage of his leadership in response
was effectively positioning him to run to become the next
president of the United States. Yet even this was not
(21:02):
enough for the ever ambitious Hoover, who actively looked to
embellish his own success. For example, he would claim once
that quote. Indeed, at another time he would put the
(21:25):
number for those who had died since he took over
at exactly three, which was not even remotely true, as
even the official counts at some eighty three deaths taking
place after he personally took control of the relief efforts,
and as we've touched upon, those official counts are generally
held to be massive underestimates of the actual number of
people who died. Now, this is not to see that
Hoover was responsible for those deaths, as there was little
(21:49):
that could have realistically been done at that point, and
he didnt assuredly help to say many lives that otherwise
would have been lost. However, this blain and obvious lie
illustrates Hoover's need to be seen as the great hero,
so beyond even what he was actually doing. In fact,
the chairman of the Red Cross would even warn Over
against making such obvious false claims because they believed it
would hurt the credibility of the Red Cross. Hoover, however,
(22:12):
did not care, and indeed the media never bothered to
call him out on his lies. Now, in addition to
the rescue efforts, part of Hoover's plan was to re
engineer the South. Part of his vision then included breaking
the dunts dependence on coun by having them grow other crops.
To that end, Hoover sent home economists to the various
Red Cross camps so as to teach the refugees skills
(22:33):
like making soap, canning vegetables, and raising paltry, which was
in addition to lessons on waste to bathe, how to
use a toothbrush, and how to treat gunnorrhea. Additionally, these
home economists also gave the refugees vegetable seeds so they
could grow gardens when they were able to return to
their homes. And of which sounds particularly harriful or wrongheaded.
The problem was for as much as Hoover saw himself
(22:54):
as being objective and scientific in his approach, he would
time and time again reject anything that did not fit
in with his predetermined biases, like, for example, his bias
and not believing in direct aid as He instead trusted
that the countries's quote unquote strong men, the rich in
the country's big businesses, would see it as their civic
duty to come together and help those in need. In
(23:16):
that saying, Vein to fund his plans to rebuild the South,
he wanted to create a private, non profit reconstruction corporation
that would loan money to the refugees so they could
rebuild and plant crops, loans that would still have to
be paid back with interest, just at lower rates and
banks would normally charge as this way, the refugees wouldn't
be receiving a dreaded handout, but instead they would be
(23:38):
pulling themselves off by their own bootstraps and incurring debt
in the process. Because that's better. Somehow to create the
reconstruction corporations which would make these loans, who were needed
bankers and businessmen from across the country to buy stock
in these various state centric organizations, as each effected state
would have its own corporation. Shockingly, though, the greedy bankers
(23:58):
and big businesses had no ina just in donating money
to this cause. As a result, most of these relief
corporations never met their quotas. Over though, despite only creating
thirteen million dollars in credit, which fell far short of
his initial plans, as that came out to be about
twenty bucks for every person affected by the flood, he
still declared this arousing success, luckily because he declared everything
(24:20):
he did concerning the flood a massive success for publicity purposes,
and because admitting otherwise would mean challenging one of his
predetermined biases. Meanwhile, actual people were suffering, as many a
refugee left the Red Cross camps with basically nothing. Their homes,
their lives, and their crops had all been destroyed. In
sharecroppers in particular, would receive nothing from the Red Cross,
(24:41):
as they didn't only property where they lived and worked.
Whatever aid was offered went to the landowners, who were
expected to provide for these sharecroppers, but who often did not.
In Arkansas, for example, refugees left camp with an average
of twenty seven dollars to rebuild their lives with and
no hope of any aid coming from the government, despite
the treasury ending in the year with a record surplus
of six hundred and thirty five million dollars. Now, as
(25:04):
a need for actual relief became clear, members of both
parties started calling upon President Coolidge to call free special
session of Congress so they might do something. Coolidge, however,
refused to do so, a move that the Near Times applauded,
as they and several other papers around the country believed
that private capital was more than sufficient and seeing to
the needs of those whose entire lives had been destroyed
(25:26):
by this disaster in blame, disregard of all evidence to
the contrary. Indeed, in addition to falling far short of
their fundraising goals, Hoover's private relief corporations really ever made
any actual loans because it required collateral, something which people
who had lost everything to the flood by definition did
not have. That being said, not all papers were so blind,
(25:48):
as there was a growing movement for the federal government
to assume the responsibility of aiding its citizens, especially in
such a time of need. The government, though, or to
be precisely, men in charge of it, like Coolidgen Hoover,
did not seem particularly interested in assuming such a responsibility.
This movement then just kind of faded away as Hoover
simply declared that his efforts in rescuing and rebuilding the
(26:10):
South were successful. Plaus to just drive his point home
even further, Hoover would write responses to every paper that
happened critical of his efforts, in which he lied as
he claimed that every victim of the flood had been
taken care of. He even went so far as to
claim that he had personally sat in all meetings where
the refugees received substantial loans to readbilm with, even though
no such meetings ever happened. Yet, despite reality not matching up,
(26:34):
Hoover maintained control of the narrative. He had saved the day,
But that wasn't exactly the whole story. Following the failure
(27:05):
in the Mississippi River commissioned levees, some three hundred and
thirty thousand people had been rescued from various places like trees,
small patches of dry ground, and rooftops, basically anything in
any place they had found to grab onto in their
attempts to escape the deadly waters. Once the's rescues were done,
it fell to the Red Cross to care for all
the people who had been made refugees by the flood.
(27:26):
To that end, the organization operated some one hundred and
fifty four relief camps in seven states, three hundred and
twenty five thousand individuals. Roughly half of these six hundred
and thirty seven thousand who were forced from their homes
were then placed into these camps. Now, poor African Americans
were the most likely to be affected, as their homes
were more likely to be built in low lying areas
(27:46):
near the river and because they did not have the
ability to flee. This was because since many were sharecroppers,
they weren't exactly flush with cash, and because the plantation
owners would not allow them to leave as he feared
losing their labor. Plus, as we will see, they were
the ones who would be tasked with they clean up
and rebuilding efforts, with many being forced to do so. Now,
(28:06):
Herbert Hoover's policy, as again he was overseeing all these
efforts and working hand in hand with the Red Cross,
was that locals best understood local problems. Therefore, the Red
Cross should not interfere with local customs, which meant the
Red Cross camps would enforce Jim Crow laws and policies,
and they also should allow the locals to decide how
resources should be best distributed. This was both to protect
(28:30):
national leadership like Hoover, as they could then just pass
the buck and blame local authorities for any problems. And
because Hoover and the Red Cross leadership favored a more
conservative approach to disaster relief, in that they wanted things
to remain as they were, meaning the wealthy would remain wealthy,
the poor would remain poor, and African Americans would remain
(28:50):
firmly at the bottom of the social letter. The thing was,
while this was intended to protect Hoover and the national
leadership from blowback, it also guaranteed that controversy would around
among these camps should anyone from the outside actually taking
look at them, With Greenville, Mississippi, becoming ground zero for
this issue. After this policy of local rule put one
(29:10):
William Alexander Percy, the son of former US Senator and
influential banker Leroy Percy, in charge of the Red Cross
camp in the city. Now, to understand Greenville and what
happened there, we have to start with William's father, le
Roy Percy. Lee Roy Ucy was a planter, a lawyer,
and a former US senator, which meant he was quite
wealthy and highly connected both politically and financially. For example,
(29:33):
he personally knew the likes of Teddy Roosevelt and William
Howard Taft. Indeed, he was done to go hunting with
Teddy and was also friends with three Supreme Court judges. Meanwhile,
as the director of the Federal Reserve Bank, Lee Roy
also had tuzed to both the Carnagian Rockefeller foundations. Lee
Roy Percy then was among the elite of the elite. Unsurprisingly, then,
(29:54):
he saw society as something that should have a rich
elite and a sizeable poor population. However, he also believed
that society had to be ruled by code of honor,
in which the wealthy were to take care of the
poor to at least some degree. Now, one of LeRoy's
main concerns for his homeland was ensuring that the rich
Delta farmland had enough flavor to work it and produce cotton,
(30:15):
an issue he tried to solve by bringing in Italian immigrants.
In fact, at one point he even went so far
as to actually visit Italy to hire labor agents who
would recruit workers, a scheme that eventually brought several thousand
Italians to the Delta region. This Leroy hoped would free
the South from having to depend upon African Americans and
their labor. The newly arrived Italian immigrants, however, very quickly
(30:38):
realized that they were being taken advantage of due to
the sharecropping system that was explicitly designed to leave them
in permanent debt, a realization that led to the publication
of a pamphlet that was distributed in both New Orleans
and Italy that warned Italians not to go to the
Mississippi Delta as all they would find there was quote
slavery and fever. The immigrants Beanhill would also an attempting
(31:00):
to vocalize their discontent, would be met with the exact
same treatment that kept African Americans trapped in the system.
For example, three Italian immigrants would be lynched in hand
the Louisiana, while another five would be lynched in Tallula,
and in nineteen oh one, two were murdered just outside
of Greenville. Now, to be fair, Levery Percy was not
the type of man to employ such violent tactics himself. Instead,
(31:22):
when some Italian tenants attempted to leave his plantation, Lever
reached out to other planters in the region to tell
them not to take on the men in question, while
at the same time he also dispatched his manager to
intimidate the farmers into returning to his plantation, things that
would actually get bad Eno off that Following yet another
violent incident in nineteen oh seven, the Italian government demanded
(31:44):
an investigation into what was happening, a demand that the
governor of Mississippi would respond to by blaming the victims,
who he described as quote very dirty, low cast in
addition to being quote very mouthy, all of which, in
the governor's mind, apparently, when combined with the fact that
their employers were quote discontented with their work, justify whatever
(32:04):
happened to them. This, of course, did not satisfy the
Italian government, and so the Italian ambassador to the United States,
Baron at Mondode's planches, made the trip to Greenville personally
to see for himself what was going on now. Leroy
Percy was obviously far smarter than a governor of Mississippi asked.
Rather than blaming the victims, he gave the ambassador a
carefully gawnted tour of his plantation, which included showing off
(32:28):
its modern congent, the offices of the doctor who was
on call and look after the needs of the tenants,
and the space he had set aside to the immigrant
farmers could hold Catholic services. Then, after showing off how
while he was treating his Italian tenants, Leroy wined and
died the ambassador at the fancy Mirror restaurant after their
evening together. As the Ambassador moved to leave, he shook
LeRoy's hand, telling him, quote, mister Percy, I assure you
(32:51):
will send you Italian You will not only make good farmers,
but will make good first class American citizens. It certainly
looked in like Percy had pulled it off. He had
cecily put one over the Italian ambassador and put an
end to all the talk of investigating the mistreatment of
Italian immigrants. The thing was, that was what Doessplants wanted
him to think, as despite Percy's carefully got it toward
(33:12):
the plantation, the ambassador had seen the true ugly reality
that was hidden underneath the facade that Percy tried to present.
He had seen the shacks that house the majority of
these sharecroppers, and he had stopped and ghandi taste of
the nearly undrinkable order that they had to survive upon desplants. Then,
after putting on a pleasant face for Leroy, Percy reported
back to his government quote, the Italian immigrant at Sunnyside
(33:35):
is a human production machine. He is better off than
the black man, more perfect than any black man, but
like the black man, still a machine. He and by extension,
the Italian government then demanded that the Justice Apartment investigate
this situation. Specifically, they wanted Mary Grace Quackenbrose to conduct it.
Mary uc was an heiress who had then founded the
(33:55):
People's Law Firm in New York City so as to
protect immigrants, so obviously this was a cause that she
was familiar with and passionate about. Plus, Mary had been
hired as the first female US attorney after she, at
her own personal risk, exposed and provided the US Justice
Department with evidence of the virtual slave like conditions of
the Turbantine and Timber camps in Florida. Mary then was
(34:17):
the perfect person to conduct such an investigation. As such,
Leroy was very much on guard when Mary quackenbros. Came
to town, and so he attempted using the same velvet
glove style tactics that he had employed with the Ambassador.
Mary then, much like the ambassador before her, during the
dinner party with Leroy played nice and very much pretended
to not be a threat. The reality was, though Mary
(34:39):
was not easily fooled. Indeed, by the time she attended
Percy's dinner party, she had already had an undercover agent
placed on his plantation. Now this agent would eventually be
arrested for trespassing, but that did not stop Mary. Indeed,
she personally went to the plantation to sleep in a
sharecropper shack. The live screens on windows and doors which
guaranteed that the occupants of these shack were constantly on
(35:00):
to assault from mosquitoes, and she also dractedly seen workers
that the woods did would there was soul full of
iron that it was teamed dread Sinsing then that Mary
was a threat, leevery looked to respond, but he was
not the kind of man to do so overtly. Instead,
as she put pressure on Percy, Mary would discover that
her hotel room had been broken into, and that all
the various notes and documents that she kept there had
(35:21):
been stolen. Those notes and documents, though wouldn't miraculously be
recovered and returned to her by one of Percy's allies,
with the implication being that Percy wasn't absolute control down there,
something which was further enforced by the fact that while
Mary was looking into Percy's treatment of his tenant, farmers,
President Teddy Roosevelt just happened to be a week long
guest at Percy's plantation. Yet, despite all this, Mary was
(35:45):
not intimidated. Instead, she attempted to use the press against Percy. This, however, failed. Meanwhile,
Percy got in the early president as he explained that
Teddy that he did not see himself as truly at
odds with Mary Quackettbros. She was just not fully informed.
According to Leroy, Mary always looked too quote, remove poverty
wherever she finds it. The thing was, according to Percy,
(36:07):
and doing so she found to question quote whether the
poverty is due to unjust treatment or oppression, or is
the result of necessary conditions and environment. It was then,
thanks to this connection to the President, that the case
against Lee Roy Percy was more or less dropped as
Mary was reassigned. Her report though would be sent onto
the Italian government, which responded by posting warnings against people
(36:29):
immigrating to the Delta. Meanwhile, Austria responded to this news
by simply forbidding his people from going there completely. Now,
the problem was, for as bad as Percy was, there
were also far greater evils arising at this time. As
you see, while Percy, for all his greed in the
way he took advantage of poor African Americans and just
in general so them as being inherently less, then he
(36:51):
was not the same kind of virulent hate field racist
that was rising up at the time. For example, one
idea gaining popularity at this time was quote education ruins
the Negro, to which Percy would respond quote, I did
know that any man is rendered worse by having his
intelligence quickened, his mental horizon waddened. Leroing then supported black
(37:11):
education because it was the moral thing to do and
because it benefited the South as a whole, as it
meant the region could develop and become more industrialized. He
also at times attempted to putty stop to the most
naked croul and obvious abuses of African Americans. For example,
during the at the time record flood of nineteen twelve,
a number of black convicts had been ordered to lay
(37:32):
down atop a levee as ways from the rising river
regularly crashed against the earthen wall constantly sprang them with
water as their bodies were effectively used as sandbags to
hold the river back, a blamely dehumanizing act which the
New York Times donably applauded, calling such a move quote brilliant. Lero, though,
would make sure that such acts would not happen again
(37:53):
where he held Sway. Furthermore, he encouraged banks to offer
mortgages to African Americans, and he even made sure that
black sas were hired by the Greenville government. As a result,
all of Greenville's meilmen were black, there were black policemen,
and there was even a black Justice of the Peace,
all of which was happening during a time when the
South was becoming an ugliar and even more racist plays. Indeed,
(38:14):
at the same time he was ensuring that African Americans
were given loans and were receiving government jobs, other towns
in the region were proudly declaring that they were now
quote unquote and word free after having driven African Americans
out of their communities through violence, intimidation, property destruction, and murder.
In fact, Mississippi Governor James K. Vardman did not even
(38:35):
blank at the rising of violence, as he once stated
that quote, if it is necessary, every Negro in the
state will be lynched. It will be done to maintain
what supremacy. Horrified by Vardman in the movement he represented,
Percy attempted to prevent his nineteen twelve Senate campaign as
he condemned Vardman for using race to quote inflame the
passion and hatred of his audience, hoping out of it
(38:56):
to gain a few Partrait votes. To Leroy, then Vardman
was I'll be using people's prejudices to excite them and
use that to get elected. Indeed, during one raley against Vardman,
when he was interrupted by Varmint supporters, Percy called them
cattle and rednecks. Language that Varnmin and his supporters and braces.
They started wearing red ties and declaring proudly quote, we
(39:17):
are the low brow, we are the rednecks. Vardman then
rode this racist fueled passion all the way to victory,
as did many others across the South at this time.
As a part of this regressive racist wave, you also
see the rise of the second version of the klu
Klux Klan starting around nineteen fifteen, a rise and was
fueled by racism and the fear of immigrants, fears dooked
(39:38):
in part by Woodjoe Wilson and his actions during the
First World War as his administration demanded one hundred percent Americanism,
an effort and bodied by the American Protective League, which
I did a series on a few years back, but
may revisit as a recently got a hands on another
book on the subject. In short, the members of the
League and other similar groups that were around at the
time actively spied on their neighbors, who they se expected
(40:00):
of disloyalty. These groups and joined forces with the government
to prosecute some two thousand people, more than a few
of whom were union members. As crushing such organizations became
one of the calls of these groups and their government allies,
all of which was supplotted by publications like the Washington
Post and the Salt Lake City Tribune, which declared, quote,
free speech has been carried to the point where it
(40:22):
is an absolute menace, obviously indicating that in their opinion,
it was perfectly fine to silence people. Also feeling this
movement was the fear of a changing world. As remember
the kind of people who embraced such a movement are
all terribly afraid of everything. In this case, technology and
culture were changing rapidly all of a sudden. They had cars, rados,
(40:42):
and movies, and there were also national brands and change
stores that never existed before. The very identity of the
nation seemed to be changing as well, because there are
now more people living in cities than ever before. Indeed,
nineteen twenty was the first time in the nation's history
than more than half of its population lived in cities. Meanwhile,
evolution was being taught in schools, and where dresses used
(41:02):
to cover a women's ankles, there were now skirts that
exposed the need. This moral decay would also be illustrated
by the flappers and the jazz music that they danced to,
which was seen as lowten sexual. Plus, all these technological changes,
like cars, gave people more freedom and more mobility, which
made a liston encounters easier. This was overwhelming for some,
(41:23):
and so for a non insignificant amount of individuals who
had grown up in previous decades, the America of the
mid to late nineteen teens and twenties seemed like a
completely different country than the one they had grown up in.
The clan then had combined the patriotism on Wilson's World
War One propaganic campaign with the increasing fear of immigrants
that partially grown out of that campaign, which in turn
(41:44):
was combined with the rise of Christian fundamentalism that was
also combined with a rising disdain from the forces of change,
like the intellectuals and the elites who lived in the cities.
John and Berry would summarize their message succently in his
book Rising Tide as he wrote, quote the Clan star
it was change. Technology and culture was changing, leaving the
country different than the ones some remembered it was and
(42:07):
from the sphere. Barry writes that the quote clan enforced
a populist conformity, a conformity driven by the fact that,
according to Barry, quote American populism has always been a
complex phenomenon containing an ugly element, an element of exclusivity
and divisiveness, and it's always had in us against them.
The ven is often included not only an enemy above,
(42:28):
but also an enemy below, which is why they targeted
the intellectuals and the elites, as well as the marginalized
groups like the immigrants and the African Americans. The clan
that was promising in return to the way things used
to be, or at least away they and their supporters
imagine it as being Part of This campaign included a
quote unquote cleansing of American culture as a targeted movies, literature,
(42:50):
and music. They also promised to defend women, but not
by giving them rights or freedoms or anything like that,
but by having their husbands protect them, ignoring the obvious
issues of abusive marriages and the like. When the clan
came to Greenville, then Leroy Percy was determined to keep
them out of his city. The clan meanwhile, recognized if
they were going to take control of Greenville, they were
(43:12):
going to have to unsee Percy, who was very much
at the center of power in the city. Their battle
then seemed to kick off in earnest when the Klan
held a rally in the Greenville Courthouse, a gathering that
Leroy Percy majure had an audience packed with people who
opposed the clan. It was then, with these preparations in place,
that he interrupted their rally as he took the stage,
ridiculing their arguments the clan's representatives and attacked Percy for
(43:36):
being business partners with a Jewish man, which Percy responded
to by saying that yes, his Jewish partner needed to
be tawny lesson from time to time about how to
conduct business. After all, his partner had loaned out one
hundred and fifty thousand dollars to various members of the
community and less than half the going interest rate. And yes,
Percy also admitted that he was married to a Catholic
(43:58):
woman due to her parents emigrating to the region from France,
and Yessi further admitted that the dreaded Catholics had begun
infiltrating the local government, as in the short span of
just ten years they had gone members of their faith
serving the high office of a constable on the police force. Then,
in the wake of the sarcastic jabs, an ally of
percys from the crowd proposed that the citizens of Washington County, Mississippi,
(44:22):
where Greenville was located, should formally condemn the clan for
its quote in pertinent assumption of the right to judge
the private life of American citizens, as the organization's motivations
and goals were entirely un American. A resolution that the
crowd wildly approved of. That being said, the clan had
already started making inroads into Washington County, as they had
(44:43):
been quietly running candidates in the county already who were
not openly clan members until they revealed their true nature
once getting into office. For example, the county prosecutor, after
being elected, was revealed to be the local Exalted Cyclops,
an actual title within the clan, which just continues to
show you they are the dumbest of all possible people. Yet,
(45:04):
now that they were trying to take over the county openly,
Leroy Percy was able to hold the Klan off, albeit narrowly.
That all being said, in no way what I call
him an ally. As an addition to everything he did
prior to this, during the start of the flooding in
nineteen twenty seven, Leroy was one of those ordering the
African American sharecroppers working on his plantation to now go
(45:24):
work on the levies. Indeed, one seems that Leroy was
able to see African Americans as people, albeit ones who
were inferior to him, something which could not be said
of everyone. His main motivation in trying to protect the
black people living in and around Greenville was fear of
losing their labor. Leroy Ucie understood that they relying upon
African American labor and if they drove them off through
(45:47):
sheer cruelty, even rich white men like himself would suffer.
It was in this underlying motivation that would be at
the root of the outrages and the virtual return of
slavery conditions in Greenville. However, while Leroy was argably the
true cause of what was going to take place in Greenville,
and would be a son, William, who would actually be
in charge when those policies were created and put into place,
(46:08):
as he was the head of the local Red Cross. However,
that story and how it was exposed to the rest
of the country will have to for now remain a
story for another time. Thank you for listening to Distorted History.
If you would like to help out, please rate and
review the podcasts and tell your friends if you think
(46:29):
they'll be interested. If you would like ad free in
early episodes, I set up such a feed over at
patreon dot com slash Distorted History. By paying ten bucks
a month, you will gain access to the special ad
free feed available on Spotify or likely through your podcast app,
as long as it uses an RSS feed. I will
continue to post sources on koffee and Twitter though, as
(46:49):
it's just a convenient place to go to access that
information regardless. Once again, thank you for listening and until
next time, Isla
My name is Aric Gaskell, and you're listening to the
Distorted History podcast and program. I didn't give you many names.
And joy a blacker. Look, I'm Raisling. I'm got the bara.
(00:27):
A long struggle for freedom, it really is a revolution.
As we continue our examination on the nineteen twenty seven
Mississippi Foot and its impact on America and the blues
in particular, we've seen how Bessie Smith's Backwater Blues became
(00:48):
a pretty massive hit. Notably, though, there was also a
bit of a transition going on when it came to
these dyland blues that people were looking for. As well.
Classic blues singers like ma Arnie, Bessie Smith and Ethel
Waters were still popular, the time was beginning to change,
as by the late twenties, quote unquote, down home or
country blueshi was starting to become more popular, a style
(01:08):
which on like the classic blues, had featured female vocalist
who had often gotten their start on the vaudeville circuit,
future predominantly men like Blind Liman, Jefferson, Lonnie Johnson and
Charlie Penton, a shift that wasn't part at least influenced
by a record industry that felt that the image of
a black oral country musician was more marketable and easier
for When America to accept than the quote unquotes like
City Black. Now we have touched on the lives of
(01:31):
both Blind Limon Jefferson and Lonnie Johnson so far in
this series, and so this month we will turn our
attention to the legend that is Charlie Penton. Yet, before
I get into a story in the truth about what
was happening to the black refugees in the Red Cross camps, first,
like always, I want to acknowledge my sources for this series,
which include Richard M. Mizzel Junior's Backward or Blues, The
(01:52):
Mississippi Flood of nineteen twenty seven in the African American Imagination,
John M. Berry's Rising Time, The Great Mississippi flo Flood
of nineteen twenty seven and How It Changed America, and
Susan Scott Parrish's The Flundier nineteen twenty seven a Cultural
History Plus. For this episode, in particular, I also referenced
ted Gio as Delta Blues, the Life and Times of
(02:13):
the Mississippi Masters who revolutionized American music, and like always
a full list of these and any other sources like
websites that I used will be available on this podcast,
Blue Sky and kofe pages. Plus for anyone who doesn't
want to be bothered skipping through commercials, there is always
an a free feet available to subscribers at patreon dot com.
Slash Distorted History. And with all that being said, let's begin.
(02:36):
Charlie Padden had been born in Hines County, Mississippi, somewhere
between eighteen eighty seven and eighteen ninety one to parents
William Patton and Sarah Garrett. The pair would have twelve
children together in all but seven of those would die
in infancy. Now, Charlie's father, William must fairly well off,
but the standards of African Americans living in the Delta,
by which I mean he ran a store, owned his
(02:57):
own land, and even had his own sharecroppers. William was
also notably quite a big man, reportedly weighing around three
hundred and fifty pounds. Charlie, meanwhile, was described as having
quite a frail build. This star contrast between Charlie patt
and the man who raised him, as well as Charlie's
musical proclivities, would then serve as a partial basis for
rumors at Charlie's roal father was one Henderson Chapman. Now
(03:21):
this wasn't some random rumor either, as Henderson had reportedly
courted Charlie's mother at some point, and Henderson's son Sam
was said to have resembled Charlie quite a bit. Plus, Henderson,
who was a grandson of a white planter and an
enslaved woman, was also the head of a prominent musical family,
as his children, after being taught how to play a
variety instruments by himself and his wife Eliza, went on
(03:43):
to become notable members of groups at the Mississippi Sheiks,
the Mississippi Black Snakes, and the Mississippi mud Steppers. People
then speculated this potential connection was to choose source of
Charlie's musical gifts. That being said, Henderson never claimed Charlie
as his son, and he even pointedly refus to even
acknologeny comments that suggested such a connection. Regardless of his parentage.
(04:05):
Charlie Patten was said to have stood five foot seven
inches tall if he pulled himself up to his full height,
which he rarely did. Charlie also bore a noticeable scar
on his forehead was missing several teeth and walked with
a lip as he dragged his left foot behind him,
a condition that was the result of an old gunshot wound.
Which is all to say that Charlie Patten at first
(04:25):
glance wasn't exactly an imposing figure or someone you would
likely pay all that much attention to. Yet hidden within
this unassuming shawl was a powerful baritone voice that was
second to none. This dichonomy was frequently noted, it seems,
as musician Brooker Miller would relate of how quote to
(04:56):
which Charlie would correct the man by informing him that
he only weighed one hundred and thirty five pounds. Patten's voice,
in contrast, was both deep and powerful, or as guitarist
Johnny Mack would put it, quote there was, after all,
a reason why his contemporaries named Charlie old Winemouth. Again,
though it wasn't just the volume of his voice either,
(05:18):
as there was a coursest to it that Helen Wolf,
who idolized Padden, would compare to that of a lion,
while bluesman Sam Chapman would describe him like those very
mouthy In the years and decades to come, then Charlie Patton,
hennedy of coarse Graveley voice would come to be identified
(05:39):
with the bunt of blues itself. Now, it wasn't just
Charlie's voice that belied his lungs, but also the way
that he acted and carried himself as Charlie Pant was
often described as being a bed Ford in his manner
compared to other Southern Black men at the time, which
is to say that he was a proud man who
was not shy as seeing his own praises, and he
was also not one to shy away from an argument. Indeed,
(06:00):
Pan was one of the first black musicians to, within
his music take shots at white people in his community,
which strongly suggested if he was willing to have such
comments recorded, he quite likely wasn't shy about saying them
in person. This kind of defined, self assuredness led some
to believe that Charlie Pan had to be from the North,
as such tendencies were usually beaten, oftentimes literally out of
(06:21):
the African Americans born and raised indult Span had fairly
red skin, he might have potentially passed for some other race. Indeed,
Charlie was in fact part Native American. The thing was
though per the laws of the South, Charlie Pan was
a black man period, so really was nothing more than
Charlie having a defined personality, as the reality was the
(06:44):
condition of being black in the South wasn't monolithic, and
so not everyone had the same experience or reacted in
those conditions in the same way. Regardless. Pan's assertiveness, cockiness,
or whatever you want to call it would also manifest
and his performances as Charlie had a flashy, showy stop
performing where he strut around the stage and do things
like play the guitar from in between his legs or
(07:04):
behind the back of his head. Activities at fellow Townsman's
son House would call calling on, which were a part
of each tradition that would live on through the years,
all the way down through Jimmy Hendrix, who would adopt
some of these tricks thanks to his time only so
called Chitlin circuit. Additionally, Charlie, throughout his performances was also
said to have an ongoing batter between himself and the crowd,
(07:25):
as he just seemed to have fun and news these
times as an opportunity to express himself and experience a
kind of freedom typically unknown among black men of the
South at the time. Penn's confidence in himself then manifested
in writing a letter or having someone else write a
letter on his behalf to HC. Spear, the owner of
a music store in Jackson, Mississippi, boasting of his skills
as a blues musician. Now this swasn't some random letter
(07:48):
blowing his own perfobial horn, as Spear wasn't just the
owner of a music store. He was also a talent
scout of sorts for a number of labels like Paramount,
Victor and Okay. Indeed, Spear throughout the mid twenties into
the thirties would quote unquote discover the lucks of Skip James,
Tommy Johnson, Willie Brown, Sunhouse, and Robert Johnson. In doing so,
Spear was instrumental in defining the sound of the Mississippi Delta.
(08:12):
To be clear, though Spear was no altruist, he was
a businessman who recognized the potential profits in selling black music.
As on a good Saturday he was able to sell
somewhere between three to six hundred records, with close to
eighty percent of them being produced by black musicians. Spear
then was simply basing his activities on the money that
was being put into his cash register. Further incentivizing Spear's
(08:34):
quest for new acts was the money paid to him
by record labels to find new talent. As a part
of the starch for talent, Spear would develop a list
of criteria that he believed a musician needed to be
successful and thus worth his time to begin with. While
guitars did not need to be virtuoso's, they did need
a certain level proficiency in their instrument. In a similar vein,
(08:54):
the exact style of singing was less important than whether
or not they could be expressive in doing so. Spear
was also convinced that the blues stylings found in the
Mississippi Delta were the ones best suited for creating successful recordings.
As such, he wasn't all that interested in trying to
record musicians from places like Georgia and North Carolina More
than anything else, though, Spear was convinced that the key
(09:15):
to success was originality, as unlike the Lomaxes, who were
especially interested in documenting traditional folk songs for the Smithsonian,
Spear wanted his artists to write their own songs because
novelty sold as after all, it was harder to convince
a customer to purchase yet another version of a song
that had been recorded already, potentially by multiple artists, then
(09:35):
it was to sell them on a brand new song
that they had never heard before. Spear, then, wherever he went,
always took the opportunity to scour the area for new
potential talent. Then, when he found some of the fault
the labels might be interested in, Spear often did some
test recordings himself so he could have something to send
to them. In doing so, Spear was very detail oriented
(09:55):
as he put his subjects in what he considered to
be the best room he could find for recording. We
would then set up the microphone just right, and if necessary,
he'd even provide them with a better guitar. Spear, you see,
wanted to do everything within his power to make these
recordings successful, as it ultimately meant money in his own pockets.
To that end, he even sometimes interceded on behalf of
his blues musicians with the local police. Indeed, on at
(10:18):
least one occasion, he paid guitarist Tommy Johnson's bail to
get him out of jail. The flip side of this
corn was revealed However, when Johnson bolted for Louisiana, as
Spear used his connections to have the musician brought back
in handcuffs. As for Charlie Patton, upon receiving his letter,
Spear made the journey out of the Docker replantation. Spear
then made his way through the collection of Armis Shatson
(10:39):
halfs a dotted the Telgitation, after first passon to d White,
foreman for the residence of Charlie Patton. Upon reaching his destination,
Spear found a man whose air of self importance belied
to humble surroundings, but fit the nature of the letter
he had received. Indeed, Charlie Patton would declare upon meeting
Spear that he was the equal of any other Delta bluesman,
(11:00):
and he was willing to prove it, although he would
suggest that some whiskey might assist in his performance. Spear,
though had not brought any that day, and so despite
this lack of proper motivation, Charlie would soon prove to
Spear that he was everything he looked for in a
recording subject. And then some indeed Patten might have been
the best guitarist at Spirit ever encountered. Plus the way
(11:22):
in which he married his guitar and vocals together in
a way in which they seemed to finish the other's phrases,
was like nothing he had ever encountered, and the fact
that was only further enhanced by the fact that, unlike
other bluesmen who tended to sing higher than the notes
that were playing on the guitar, Panen's unique voice fit
within the structure of what he was playing. Upon hearing
Charlie play, Spear immediately began making plans to record this
(11:43):
man so he could sell his talents to the record labels.
To do so, Spear first had to make some demo
recordings of Patten to send to the labels to try
and peque their interest. Now apparently the largest record company
of the day, Victor had no interest in Charlie Patton. Paramount,
on the other hand, largely based upon spears recommendation, decided
to make a deal for this newfound talent. The label
(12:05):
then said the trained takeover pan to severally seven hundred
and fifty or so miles to Richmond, Indiana, where he
was to be recorded in Enginet Records patents daily recorded
using microphones, as opposed to the horns that had been
used for earlier recordings. Microphones, as you might expect, then
produced better quality recordings. That being said, the technology was
(12:26):
still very new and so away from the advice the quality,
which was especially an issue when dealing with musicians who
had never been recorded before in their lives and were
used to moving around as a performed live. Then there
was the issue that records at the time could only
contain a few minutes of music at most. To account
(12:46):
for this limitation, the recording engineer set up a red
morning light that they would turn on as a performer
started to run short on time, a situation that for
some resulted in any sped up and hurried final verse
or chorus as the performer rushed to get their song
done in the allotted time, while others, upon seeing the
red light turn on, immediately stopped, misunderstanding what it meant.
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Also adding to the difficulty of these early recordings of
these subjects who were totally unfamiliar with this process was
the fact that many of these musicians were used to
feeding off the energy of the crowd when they were
performing first. Some then they just could not replicate the
magic in the recording booth. Charlie pen Memal further complicated
this process by choosing to perform songs using three different
(13:28):
tunings during his initial recording session. Plaus As it turns out,
he wasn't alone in being in the studio at that time,
as he ended up splitting time with another performer who
had been brought into record for Paramount. Yet, despite all
these hurdles, Paton would still manage to produce an unprecedented
fourteen songs during this singular session, which in and of
itself was unheard of by other artists, as was the
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fact that they were all apparently high quality songs for
which they put the record company into a musition. They
had any other choice but to put a good song
on both sides of a single, which they typically did
not do. As you see, their policy was to have
a top quality song on one side to get people to
buy the single, and then just dump a lesser quality
song on the B side. The problem with Pan, though,
(14:11):
was he didn't really give them any thoroughway songs, and
so the label was forced to put two quality songs
on a single. Meanwhile, Pan's highly successful debut recording session
also kind of signaled the beginning of the legend of
the Delta blues as prior to Pan, the Delta apparently
wasn't seen as being a particularly notable or special locale
defined blues musicians. His output in Spears's Ear for Town, though,
(14:34):
would help to create such a legacy. For our purposes, though,
we are going to focus on a song that was
not recorded as a part of this initial session. Indeed,
Charlie Pan's High Water Everywhere wasn't recorded until two years
after the flood in nineteen twenty nine. That being said,
it does seem to be very much about this specific flood,
and may even be about Charlie Pan's own experiences during
(14:54):
that disaster, a song that paramounts Execs, upon hearing it
for themselves, considered it to be Pat's best work and
rushed to release it quickly. Now it's a longer piece
recorded in two sections due to the limitations of the
records of the day. The first part is more high
energy with a faster tempo, as he also slaps the
guitars soundboard while he's playing to Annie, driving rhythm to
(15:15):
the piece, while also possibly stopping his feet to provide
his own rhythm section. All the while he seemingly focuses
on just the vast, all encompassing nature of the flood
and his attempts to escape. Part Tune, meanwhile, is more
laid back and almost more personal in nature, as it's
more focused on personal tragedies rather than Levy's breaking and
all towns being flooded. Indeed, Pan starts he sung off
(15:37):
singing about the backwarder driving him down the line, as
the flooding had apparently driven him from wherever he had
been staying at the top. It soon, though, became apparent
that this is in some isolated incident, as he sings, quote,
American populism has always been a complex phenomenon containing an
ugly Then it goes on to illustrate the all encompassing,
as he sings quote against them, the venice often included
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not only an enemy above, but also an enemy below.
Looking to escape the flood, considers going to Rosedale. But quote, Indeed,
as we've seen, this flood was everywhere, as a virtual
inland sea was created from all the water spelling out
of the Mississippi and over the lands all around it,
water which was immensely destructive, as wherever the flood waters
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had run through many of these shacks where the tenant
farmers had lived had been washed away, and the same
was true for many barns, warehouses, and congens. Now some
more sturdily blt structures had fared slightly better, but many
of the structures that were left standing by the flood
were still severely damaged and in need of repairs. Plus,
the floodwaters claimed the lives of approximately half the animals
(16:42):
in the region, which was a massive bloat of farmers,
as this included their chickens, hogs, mules, horses, and cattle.
Then there was the human cost. Now we have no
accurate measure of how many lives were lost because, as
we will see, the Red Cross wasn't terribly interested in
counting black lives, and nor were those in charge particles
interested in getting an accurate count of lives lost, because
(17:03):
they wanted to make themselves look good by claiming to
have saved the day. Getting accurate counts of death, then
what a muddle the pristine picture they were looking to create,
Which is why looking at alternative sources like these blues
songs is so valuable, as they can give you a
better feeling for what the people who were ignored by
the official numbers were actually experiencing Charlie Pennon, then, after
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presenting the all encompassing scope of the disaster, brought it
home and made it even more personal in Part two,
as he sang, quote, it seems so that it was
already too late because quote, with no rescue coming, there
was apparently no hope for these people. As Panton brings
(17:45):
the full horror of the flood to bear when he
sings quote everything and apparently everyone had been swect away
to just yet such stories for America is the more
official counting of the flood. As following the initial disaster,
(18:08):
the attention shifted to the successful rescue and rebuilding operations
that were being conducted under the leadership of Herbert Hoover. Now,
Hoover was incredibly ambitious as a result, after being appointed
the head of the government's relief efforts, he made sure
to positioned himself as the main character in this tale
for most Americans as he actively spent sixty in the
next seventy two days in the affected area, which men
(18:30):
he regularly appeared on the front pages of newspapers nationwide.
While doing so, Hoover also took advantage of new technology
as he was also regularly heard on radios across the
country speaking about this crisis, and even appearing on newsreels
as well. In doing so, Hoover was further cementing his
reputation as a great humanitarian and the great engineer, titles
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he had earned for his work during the First World War,
after being appointed by then President Woodrow Wilson to be
the country's food Administrator, a role which granted Hoover the
power to cont controlled the up pricing and distribution of
food for the entire country for the duration of the conflict. Then,
after the war was over, Hoover went on to oversee
the European relief program that fed millions on the war
(19:11):
ravaged continent. In doing so, he had famously withheld food
shipments to Poland phone the execution of thirty seven Jews
by Polish soldiers, with the implication being that shipments would
only resume once measures were taken to prevent any further
such incidents. Now, Hoover in particular saw as two titles
of great humanitarian and great engineer as being the same thing,
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as in his way of thinking and viewing the world,
engineers were just naturally morally superior, as it was an
engineer's job to eliminate waste and ineffectiveness, which was to
the benefit of the entire world, because he believed waste
in all of its forms was inherently harmful. Therefore, by
eliminating it and making everything run smoothly and efficiently, they
were benefiting humanity by making all of life better. From
(19:55):
Hoover's point of view, than the proper and rational allocation
of resources and goods was a too much, if not all,
of society's olls. Indeed, he saw the quote as the
cause of much evil as quote. As such, Hoover identified
(20:17):
the quote as being the main source of many of
social and economic problems. Therefore, he called for the quote,
even going so far at one point to bully the
steel industry three public relations campaign to accept the eight
hour workday. Now has previously mentioned, Hoover was also incredibly ambitious.
(20:39):
So while throughout the course of the disaster, President Coolidge
was regularly criticized for doing nothing, Hoover, on the other hand,
essentially faced no criticism for his role in directing the
relief efforts, which was great for Hoover because this disaster
in the press's favorable coverage of his leadership in response
was effectively positioning him to run to become the next
president of the United States. Yet even this was not
(21:02):
enough for the ever ambitious Hoover, who actively looked to
embellish his own success. For example, he would claim once
that quote. Indeed, at another time he would put the
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number for those who had died since he took over
at exactly three, which was not even remotely true, as
even the official counts at some eighty three deaths taking
place after he personally took control of the relief efforts,
and as we've touched upon, those official counts are generally
held to be massive underestimates of the actual number of
people who died. Now, this is not to see that
Hoover was responsible for those deaths, as there was little
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that could have realistically been done at that point, and
he didnt assuredly help to say many lives that otherwise
would have been lost. However, this blain and obvious lie
illustrates Hoover's need to be seen as the great hero,
so beyond even what he was actually doing. In fact,
the chairman of the Red Cross would even warn Over
against making such obvious false claims because they believed it
would hurt the credibility of the Red Cross. Hoover, however,
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did not care, and indeed the media never bothered to
call him out on his lies. Now, in addition to
the rescue efforts, part of Hoover's plan was to re
engineer the South. Part of his vision then included breaking
the dunts dependence on coun by having them grow other crops.
To that end, Hoover sent home economists to the various
Red Cross camps so as to teach the refugees skills
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like making soap, canning vegetables, and raising paltry, which was
in addition to lessons on waste to bathe, how to
use a toothbrush, and how to treat gunnorrhea. Additionally, these
home economists also gave the refugees vegetable seeds so they
could grow gardens when they were able to return to
their homes. And of which sounds particularly harriful or wrongheaded.
The problem was for as much as Hoover saw himself
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as being objective and scientific in his approach, he would
time and time again reject anything that did not fit
in with his predetermined biases, like, for example, his bias
and not believing in direct aid as He instead trusted
that the countries's quote unquote strong men, the rich in
the country's big businesses, would see it as their civic
duty to come together and help those in need. In
(23:16):
that saying, Vein to fund his plans to rebuild the South,
he wanted to create a private, non profit reconstruction corporation
that would loan money to the refugees so they could
rebuild and plant crops, loans that would still have to
be paid back with interest, just at lower rates and
banks would normally charge as this way, the refugees wouldn't
be receiving a dreaded handout, but instead they would be
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pulling themselves off by their own bootstraps and incurring debt
in the process. Because that's better. Somehow to create the
reconstruction corporations which would make these loans, who were needed
bankers and businessmen from across the country to buy stock
in these various state centric organizations, as each effected state
would have its own corporation. Shockingly, though, the greedy bankers
(23:58):
and big businesses had no ina just in donating money
to this cause. As a result, most of these relief
corporations never met their quotas. Over though, despite only creating
thirteen million dollars in credit, which fell far short of
his initial plans, as that came out to be about
twenty bucks for every person affected by the flood, he
still declared this arousing success, luckily because he declared everything
(24:20):
he did concerning the flood a massive success for publicity purposes,
and because admitting otherwise would mean challenging one of his
predetermined biases. Meanwhile, actual people were suffering, as many a
refugee left the Red Cross camps with basically nothing. Their homes,
their lives, and their crops had all been destroyed. In
sharecroppers in particular, would receive nothing from the Red Cross,
(24:41):
as they didn't only property where they lived and worked.
Whatever aid was offered went to the landowners, who were
expected to provide for these sharecroppers, but who often did not.
In Arkansas, for example, refugees left camp with an average
of twenty seven dollars to rebuild their lives with and
no hope of any aid coming from the government, despite
the treasury ending in the year with a record surplus
of six hundred and thirty five million dollars. Now, as
(25:04):
a need for actual relief became clear, members of both
parties started calling upon President Coolidge to call free special
session of Congress so they might do something. Coolidge, however,
refused to do so, a move that the Near Times applauded,
as they and several other papers around the country believed
that private capital was more than sufficient and seeing to
the needs of those whose entire lives had been destroyed
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by this disaster in blame, disregard of all evidence to
the contrary. Indeed, in addition to falling far short of
their fundraising goals, Hoover's private relief corporations really ever made
any actual loans because it required collateral, something which people
who had lost everything to the flood by definition did
not have. That being said, not all papers were so blind,
(25:48):
as there was a growing movement for the federal government
to assume the responsibility of aiding its citizens, especially in
such a time of need. The government, though, or to
be precisely, men in charge of it, like Coolidgen Hoover,
did not seem particularly interested in assuming such a responsibility.
This movement then just kind of faded away as Hoover
simply declared that his efforts in rescuing and rebuilding the
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South were successful. Plaus to just drive his point home
even further, Hoover would write responses to every paper that
happened critical of his efforts, in which he lied as
he claimed that every victim of the flood had been
taken care of. He even went so far as to
claim that he had personally sat in all meetings where
the refugees received substantial loans to readbilm with, even though
no such meetings ever happened. Yet, despite reality not matching up,
(26:34):
Hoover maintained control of the narrative. He had saved the day,
But that wasn't exactly the whole story. Following the failure
(27:05):
in the Mississippi River commissioned levees, some three hundred and
thirty thousand people had been rescued from various places like trees,
small patches of dry ground, and rooftops, basically anything in
any place they had found to grab onto in their
attempts to escape the deadly waters. Once the's rescues were done,
it fell to the Red Cross to care for all
the people who had been made refugees by the flood.
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To that end, the organization operated some one hundred and
fifty four relief camps in seven states, three hundred and
twenty five thousand individuals. Roughly half of these six hundred
and thirty seven thousand who were forced from their homes
were then placed into these camps. Now, poor African Americans
were the most likely to be affected, as their homes
were more likely to be built in low lying areas
(27:46):
near the river and because they did not have the
ability to flee. This was because since many were sharecroppers,
they weren't exactly flush with cash, and because the plantation
owners would not allow them to leave as he feared
losing their labor. Plus, as we will see, they were
the ones who would be tasked with they clean up
and rebuilding efforts, with many being forced to do so. Now,
(28:06):
Herbert Hoover's policy, as again he was overseeing all these
efforts and working hand in hand with the Red Cross,
was that locals best understood local problems. Therefore, the Red
Cross should not interfere with local customs, which meant the
Red Cross camps would enforce Jim Crow laws and policies,
and they also should allow the locals to decide how
resources should be best distributed. This was both to protect
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national leadership like Hoover, as they could then just pass
the buck and blame local authorities for any problems. And
because Hoover and the Red Cross leadership favored a more
conservative approach to disaster relief, in that they wanted things
to remain as they were, meaning the wealthy would remain wealthy,
the poor would remain poor, and African Americans would remain
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firmly at the bottom of the social letter. The thing was,
while this was intended to protect Hoover and the national
leadership from blowback, it also guaranteed that controversy would around
among these camps should anyone from the outside actually taking
look at them, With Greenville, Mississippi, becoming ground zero for
this issue. After this policy of local rule put one
(29:10):
William Alexander Percy, the son of former US Senator and
influential banker Leroy Percy, in charge of the Red Cross
camp in the city. Now, to understand Greenville and what
happened there, we have to start with William's father, le
Roy Percy. Lee Roy Ucy was a planter, a lawyer,
and a former US senator, which meant he was quite
wealthy and highly connected both politically and financially. For example,
(29:33):
he personally knew the likes of Teddy Roosevelt and William
Howard Taft. Indeed, he was done to go hunting with
Teddy and was also friends with three Supreme Court judges. Meanwhile,
as the director of the Federal Reserve Bank, Lee Roy
also had tuzed to both the Carnagian Rockefeller foundations. Lee
Roy Percy then was among the elite of the elite. Unsurprisingly, then,
(29:54):
he saw society as something that should have a rich
elite and a sizeable poor population. However, he also believed
that society had to be ruled by code of honor,
in which the wealthy were to take care of the
poor to at least some degree. Now, one of LeRoy's
main concerns for his homeland was ensuring that the rich
Delta farmland had enough flavor to work it and produce cotton,
(30:15):
an issue he tried to solve by bringing in Italian immigrants.
In fact, at one point he even went so far
as to actually visit Italy to hire labor agents who
would recruit workers, a scheme that eventually brought several thousand
Italians to the Delta region. This Leroy hoped would free
the South from having to depend upon African Americans and
their labor. The newly arrived Italian immigrants, however, very quickly
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realized that they were being taken advantage of due to
the sharecropping system that was explicitly designed to leave them
in permanent debt, a realization that led to the publication
of a pamphlet that was distributed in both New Orleans
and Italy that warned Italians not to go to the
Mississippi Delta as all they would find there was quote
slavery and fever. The immigrants Beanhill would also an attempting
(31:00):
to vocalize their discontent, would be met with the exact
same treatment that kept African Americans trapped in the system.
For example, three Italian immigrants would be lynched in hand
the Louisiana, while another five would be lynched in Tallula,
and in nineteen oh one, two were murdered just outside
of Greenville. Now, to be fair, Levery Percy was not
the type of man to employ such violent tactics himself. Instead,
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when some Italian tenants attempted to leave his plantation, Lever
reached out to other planters in the region to tell
them not to take on the men in question, while
at the same time he also dispatched his manager to
intimidate the farmers into returning to his plantation, things that
would actually get bad Eno off that Following yet another
violent incident in nineteen oh seven, the Italian government demanded
(31:44):
an investigation into what was happening, a demand that the
governor of Mississippi would respond to by blaming the victims,
who he described as quote very dirty, low cast in
addition to being quote very mouthy, all of which, in
the governor's mind, apparently, when combined with the fact that
their employers were quote discontented with their work, justify whatever
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happened to them. This, of course, did not satisfy the
Italian government, and so the Italian ambassador to the United States,
Baron at Mondode's planches, made the trip to Greenville personally
to see for himself what was going on now. Leroy
Percy was obviously far smarter than a governor of Mississippi asked.
Rather than blaming the victims, he gave the ambassador a
carefully gawnted tour of his plantation, which included showing off
(32:28):
its modern congent, the offices of the doctor who was
on call and look after the needs of the tenants,
and the space he had set aside to the immigrant
farmers could hold Catholic services. Then, after showing off how
while he was treating his Italian tenants, Leroy wined and
died the ambassador at the fancy Mirror restaurant after their
evening together. As the Ambassador moved to leave, he shook
LeRoy's hand, telling him, quote, mister Percy, I assure you
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will send you Italian You will not only make good farmers,
but will make good first class American citizens. It certainly
looked in like Percy had pulled it off. He had
cecily put one over the Italian ambassador and put an
end to all the talk of investigating the mistreatment of
Italian immigrants. The thing was, that was what Doessplants wanted
him to think, as despite Percy's carefully got it toward
(33:12):
the plantation, the ambassador had seen the true ugly reality
that was hidden underneath the facade that Percy tried to present.
He had seen the shacks that house the majority of
these sharecroppers, and he had stopped and ghandi taste of
the nearly undrinkable order that they had to survive upon desplants. Then,
after putting on a pleasant face for Leroy, Percy reported
back to his government quote, the Italian immigrant at Sunnyside
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is a human production machine. He is better off than
the black man, more perfect than any black man, but
like the black man, still a machine. He and by extension,
the Italian government then demanded that the Justice Apartment investigate
this situation. Specifically, they wanted Mary Grace Quackenbrose to conduct it.
Mary uc was an heiress who had then founded the
(33:55):
People's Law Firm in New York City so as to
protect immigrants, so obviously this was a cause that she
was familiar with and passionate about. Plus, Mary had been
hired as the first female US attorney after she, at
her own personal risk, exposed and provided the US Justice
Department with evidence of the virtual slave like conditions of
the Turbantine and Timber camps in Florida. Mary then was
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the perfect person to conduct such an investigation. As such,
Leroy was very much on guard when Mary quackenbros. Came
to town, and so he attempted using the same velvet
glove style tactics that he had employed with the Ambassador.
Mary then, much like the ambassador before her, during the
dinner party with Leroy played nice and very much pretended
to not be a threat. The reality was, though Mary
(34:39):
was not easily fooled. Indeed, by the time she attended
Percy's dinner party, she had already had an undercover agent
placed on his plantation. Now this agent would eventually be
arrested for trespassing, but that did not stop Mary. Indeed,
she personally went to the plantation to sleep in a
sharecropper shack. The live screens on windows and doors which
guaranteed that the occupants of these shack were constantly on
(35:00):
to assault from mosquitoes, and she also dractedly seen workers
that the woods did would there was soul full of
iron that it was teamed dread Sinsing then that Mary
was a threat, leevery looked to respond, but he was
not the kind of man to do so overtly. Instead,
as she put pressure on Percy, Mary would discover that
her hotel room had been broken into, and that all
the various notes and documents that she kept there had
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been stolen. Those notes and documents, though wouldn't miraculously be
recovered and returned to her by one of Percy's allies,
with the implication being that Percy wasn't absolute control down there,
something which was further enforced by the fact that while
Mary was looking into Percy's treatment of his tenant, farmers,
President Teddy Roosevelt just happened to be a week long
guest at Percy's plantation. Yet, despite all this, Mary was
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not intimidated. Instead, she attempted to use the press against Percy. This, however, failed. Meanwhile,
Percy got in the early president as he explained that
Teddy that he did not see himself as truly at
odds with Mary Quackettbros. She was just not fully informed.
According to Leroy, Mary always looked too quote, remove poverty
wherever she finds it. The thing was, according to Percy,
(36:07):
and doing so she found to question quote whether the
poverty is due to unjust treatment or oppression, or is
the result of necessary conditions and environment. It was then,
thanks to this connection to the President, that the case
against Lee Roy Percy was more or less dropped as
Mary was reassigned. Her report though would be sent onto
the Italian government, which responded by posting warnings against people
(36:29):
immigrating to the Delta. Meanwhile, Austria responded to this news
by simply forbidding his people from going there completely. Now,
the problem was, for as bad as Percy was, there
were also far greater evils arising at this time. As
you see, while Percy, for all his greed in the
way he took advantage of poor African Americans and just
in general so them as being inherently less, then he
(36:51):
was not the same kind of virulent hate field racist
that was rising up at the time. For example, one
idea gaining popularity at this time was quote education ruins
the Negro, to which Percy would respond quote, I did
know that any man is rendered worse by having his
intelligence quickened, his mental horizon waddened. Leroing then supported black
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education because it was the moral thing to do and
because it benefited the South as a whole, as it
meant the region could develop and become more industrialized. He
also at times attempted to putty stop to the most
naked croul and obvious abuses of African Americans. For example,
during the at the time record flood of nineteen twelve,
a number of black convicts had been ordered to lay
(37:32):
down atop a levee as ways from the rising river
regularly crashed against the earthen wall constantly sprang them with
water as their bodies were effectively used as sandbags to
hold the river back, a blamely dehumanizing act which the
New York Times donably applauded, calling such a move quote brilliant. Lero, though,
would make sure that such acts would not happen again
(37:53):
where he held Sway. Furthermore, he encouraged banks to offer
mortgages to African Americans, and he even made sure that
black sas were hired by the Greenville government. As a result,
all of Greenville's meilmen were black, there were black policemen,
and there was even a black Justice of the Peace,
all of which was happening during a time when the
South was becoming an ugliar and even more racist plays. Indeed,
(38:14):
at the same time he was ensuring that African Americans
were given loans and were receiving government jobs, other towns
in the region were proudly declaring that they were now
quote unquote and word free after having driven African Americans
out of their communities through violence, intimidation, property destruction, and murder.
In fact, Mississippi Governor James K. Vardman did not even
(38:35):
blank at the rising of violence, as he once stated
that quote, if it is necessary, every Negro in the
state will be lynched. It will be done to maintain
what supremacy. Horrified by Vardman in the movement he represented,
Percy attempted to prevent his nineteen twelve Senate campaign as
he condemned Vardman for using race to quote inflame the
passion and hatred of his audience, hoping out of it
(38:56):
to gain a few Partrait votes. To Leroy, then Vardman
was I'll be using people's prejudices to excite them and
use that to get elected. Indeed, during one raley against Vardman,
when he was interrupted by Varmint supporters, Percy called them
cattle and rednecks. Language that Varnmin and his supporters and braces.
They started wearing red ties and declaring proudly quote, we
(39:17):
are the low brow, we are the rednecks. Vardman then
rode this racist fueled passion all the way to victory,
as did many others across the South at this time.
As a part of this regressive racist wave, you also
see the rise of the second version of the klu
Klux Klan starting around nineteen fifteen, a rise and was
fueled by racism and the fear of immigrants, fears dooked
(39:38):
in part by Woodjoe Wilson and his actions during the
First World War as his administration demanded one hundred percent Americanism,
an effort and bodied by the American Protective League, which
I did a series on a few years back, but
may revisit as a recently got a hands on another
book on the subject. In short, the members of the
League and other similar groups that were around at the
time actively spied on their neighbors, who they se expected
(40:00):
of disloyalty. These groups and joined forces with the government
to prosecute some two thousand people, more than a few
of whom were union members. As crushing such organizations became
one of the calls of these groups and their government allies,
all of which was supplotted by publications like the Washington
Post and the Salt Lake City Tribune, which declared, quote,
free speech has been carried to the point where it
(40:22):
is an absolute menace, obviously indicating that in their opinion,
it was perfectly fine to silence people. Also feeling this
movement was the fear of a changing world. As remember
the kind of people who embraced such a movement are
all terribly afraid of everything. In this case, technology and
culture were changing rapidly all of a sudden. They had cars, rados,
(40:42):
and movies, and there were also national brands and change
stores that never existed before. The very identity of the
nation seemed to be changing as well, because there are
now more people living in cities than ever before. Indeed,
nineteen twenty was the first time in the nation's history
than more than half of its population lived in cities. Meanwhile,
evolution was being taught in schools, and where dresses used
(41:02):
to cover a women's ankles, there were now skirts that
exposed the need. This moral decay would also be illustrated
by the flappers and the jazz music that they danced to,
which was seen as lowten sexual. Plus, all these technological changes,
like cars, gave people more freedom and more mobility, which
made a liston encounters easier. This was overwhelming for some,
(41:23):
and so for a non insignificant amount of individuals who
had grown up in previous decades, the America of the
mid to late nineteen teens and twenties seemed like a
completely different country than the one they had grown up in.
The clan then had combined the patriotism on Wilson's World
War One propaganic campaign with the increasing fear of immigrants
that partially grown out of that campaign, which in turn
(41:44):
was combined with the rise of Christian fundamentalism that was
also combined with a rising disdain from the forces of change,
like the intellectuals and the elites who lived in the cities.
John and Berry would summarize their message succently in his
book Rising Tide as he wrote, quote the Clan star
it was change. Technology and culture was changing, leaving the
country different than the ones some remembered it was and
(42:07):
from the sphere. Barry writes that the quote clan enforced
a populist conformity, a conformity driven by the fact that,
according to Barry, quote American populism has always been a
complex phenomenon containing an ugly element, an element of exclusivity
and divisiveness, and it's always had in us against them.
The ven is often included not only an enemy above,
(42:28):
but also an enemy below, which is why they targeted
the intellectuals and the elites, as well as the marginalized
groups like the immigrants and the African Americans. The clan
that was promising in return to the way things used
to be, or at least away they and their supporters
imagine it as being Part of This campaign included a
quote unquote cleansing of American culture as a targeted movies, literature,
(42:50):
and music. They also promised to defend women, but not
by giving them rights or freedoms or anything like that,
but by having their husbands protect them, ignoring the obvious
issues of abusive marriages and the like. When the clan
came to Greenville, then Leroy Percy was determined to keep
them out of his city. The clan meanwhile, recognized if
they were going to take control of Greenville, they were
(43:12):
going to have to unsee Percy, who was very much
at the center of power in the city. Their battle
then seemed to kick off in earnest when the Klan
held a rally in the Greenville Courthouse, a gathering that
Leroy Percy majure had an audience packed with people who
opposed the clan. It was then, with these preparations in place,
that he interrupted their rally as he took the stage,
ridiculing their arguments the clan's representatives and attacked Percy for
(43:36):
being business partners with a Jewish man, which Percy responded
to by saying that yes, his Jewish partner needed to
be tawny lesson from time to time about how to
conduct business. After all, his partner had loaned out one
hundred and fifty thousand dollars to various members of the
community and less than half the going interest rate. And yes,
Percy also admitted that he was married to a Catholic
(43:58):
woman due to her parents emigrating to the region from France,
and Yessi further admitted that the dreaded Catholics had begun
infiltrating the local government, as in the short span of
just ten years they had gone members of their faith
serving the high office of a constable on the police force. Then,
in the wake of the sarcastic jabs, an ally of
percys from the crowd proposed that the citizens of Washington County, Mississippi,
(44:22):
where Greenville was located, should formally condemn the clan for
its quote in pertinent assumption of the right to judge
the private life of American citizens, as the organization's motivations
and goals were entirely un American. A resolution that the
crowd wildly approved of. That being said, the clan had
already started making inroads into Washington County, as they had
(44:43):
been quietly running candidates in the county already who were
not openly clan members until they revealed their true nature
once getting into office. For example, the county prosecutor, after
being elected, was revealed to be the local Exalted Cyclops,
an actual title within the clan, which just continues to
show you they are the dumbest of all possible people. Yet,
(45:04):
now that they were trying to take over the county openly,
Leroy Percy was able to hold the Klan off, albeit narrowly.
That all being said, in no way what I call
him an ally. As an addition to everything he did
prior to this, during the start of the flooding in
nineteen twenty seven, Leroy was one of those ordering the
African American sharecroppers working on his plantation to now go
(45:24):
work on the levies. Indeed, one seems that Leroy was
able to see African Americans as people, albeit ones who
were inferior to him, something which could not be said
of everyone. His main motivation in trying to protect the
black people living in and around Greenville was fear of
losing their labor. Leroy Ucie understood that they relying upon
African American labor and if they drove them off through
(45:47):
sheer cruelty, even rich white men like himself would suffer.
It was in this underlying motivation that would be at
the root of the outrages and the virtual return of
slavery conditions in Greenville. However, while Leroy was argably the
true cause of what was going to take place in Greenville,
and would be a son, William, who would actually be
in charge when those policies were created and put into place,
(46:08):
as he was the head of the local Red Cross. However,
that story and how it was exposed to the rest
of the country will have to for now remain a
story for another time. Thank you for listening to Distorted History.
If you would like to help out, please rate and
review the podcasts and tell your friends if you think
(46:29):
they'll be interested. If you would like ad free in
early episodes, I set up such a feed over at
patreon dot com slash Distorted History. By paying ten bucks
a month, you will gain access to the special ad
free feed available on Spotify or likely through your podcast app,
as long as it uses an RSS feed. I will
continue to post sources on koffee and Twitter though, as
(46:49):
it's just a convenient place to go to access that
information regardless. Once again, thank you for listening and until
next time, Isla
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