memphis
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« on: November 25, 2012, 02:40:42 PM » |
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The hard swing in NE MS is part of the TN valley. Nowhere in America was improved as much by the New Deal. People out there had no phones or electricity before FDR. They were still getting malaria and diseases of malnutrition like rickets and pellagra. The TVA came in brought these folks up to a more modern way of life. And that's why whites were voting strongly Democratic in rural areas all around the Tennessee River for many decades. Amazing what "gifts" can do. It takes a long time for the collective memory of an experience like that to fade, but it finally has. It will be interesting to see if health care reform can generate similar results. It's a little bit more of an abstract concept than electricity. The rest of MS is just blacks having a higher birthrate than whites.
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