The Delta in Diaspora

The word Diaspora (from the Ancient Greek word for "a scattering of seeds") describes what happens when people or ethnic populations leave their homeland and  disperse to other regions.  The word has long been applied to the Jews who left the holy land for exile and to Africans who were forced by slavery to leave their homes, but Diasporas are not always created by force, since people may migrate to find better jobs, greater freedom, or new opportunities of other sorts.  Delta heritage exists in Diaspora. The Mississippi Delta, both in terms of its people and its culture, exists in many places, ranging from Detroit, Flint, and Ypsilanti in Michgan to Gary, Indiana, Chicago, Illinois, Oakland, California, New York City, and parts of almost every large northern, western and eastern city.  When Muddy Waters said that Chicago is the biggest city in the Mississippi Delta, he was only partly kidding.  When Robert Johnson sang Oh, baby, don't you want to go? Back to the land of California, to my sweet home Chicago he was singing about “up South,” the Delta in Diaspora. 

The Delta Diaspora developed for many reasons.  Starting right before World War I, African Americans began moving north seeking greater liberty than Jim Crow segregation allowed in the Delta.  Highway 61, which took on the nickname of Freedom Road,  led people first to Clarksdale, then Memphis, and on towards St. Louis or Chicago.  The Illinois Central provided faster and more direct access to Chicago.  The spread of the boll weavil drove some cotton farmers to look for industrial employment, and WW I provided for economic expansion.  The flood of 1927, which eliminated any hope of a crop that year, caused many more to leave the Delta rather than face two full years of debt peonage by remaining in the plantation system.  By World War II, the automobile (now war machinery) plants and steel mills of the north were enticing many more, encouraged by glowing stories in The Chicago Defender of the freedoms and econmic well-being that the north provided.  The successful debute of the mechanical cotton picker in 1942 meant that cotton was finally mechanized, “liberating” or “terminating” more field hands who could seek better employment in metropolitan areas.

While the greatest number who left the south were African Americans, many of the Delta’s Chinese, Jews, and other wihites also left, mainly in search of employment and the benefits of urban life.  Today, the Jewish temples of the Delta struggle to remain intact, while Chinese return from California and New York to tend their ancestors graves in Greenville, Cleveland and Clarksdale.    

Nobody knows exactly how many people left the cotton fields of the south for urban America, but estimates range up to seven million.  In the process, urban areas that had been almost entirely white became increasingly black as the black population that had been almost entirely rural became increasingly urban.  The migrants carried their culture along with them, transforming the foodways, family life, work patterns, musical tastes, and speech of America.  The migrant’s culture was also changed during the process.  Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf played acoustic guitar while they lived in the Delta.  The street scenes and bars of noisey Chicago required amplification, and the country Blues became electric Chicago Blues.

You don’t have to look far to find the Mississippi Delta in urban America.  Many African Americans in Chicago or Detroit still think of the Delta as “home” and many return periodically for family homecomings and reunions.  Many Delta towns have alumni associations in northern cities.  Occasionally, those who left in their youth return to the Delta in older age, reclaiming family land and homes as they retire to the quieter life of small town America, and in a small way, bring the Diaspora to a close.