1927 | Human Rights, Social Justice
Human Rights, Social Justice
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Herbert C. Hoover supervises flood relief efforts in the lower Mississippi Valley beginning in April (see environment, 1926), but he exacerbates racial conflicts in the Delta by manipulating black leaders for his own political purposes while allowing plantation owners to use forced black labor on levee work and permitting New Orleans officials to sacrifice two neighboring parishes in order to protect city property (flood victims in those parishes are denied fair recompense, embittering black farmers and sharecroppers).
Former Mississippi governor Theodore G. Bilbo wins election to a second term, having failed in a bid 4 years ago and edited a political weekly since then to promote his increasingly racist views (see 1915). His second administration will be marked by corruption and scandal (see 1934).