The Mississippi Delta has been my home since I was about 2 years old.
My parents, Troy and Ester Mae Catchings, always taught us to do the correct thing. I was born in Abbeville. Troy Sr. and Ester Mae Catchings were terrific parents. They did some serious parenting back then. They taught all seven of us to be respectful and to be the best that we could be. Oh, yes! We were regulars in church and Sunday School.
We were taught the importance of working hard. Picking and chopping cotton were the main sources of income for the Catchings family and many, many other Delta families.
Discipline was quickly used from the time we were children. Discipline was expected back then.
I recall when a bus load of cotton choppers, including my mother, were on an old school bus coming back from a hard day of working in a cotton field in the hot sun. A vehicle carrying a small group of white teenagers threw a watermelon through the open window in the bus. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
Did this act of mischief come as a total shock? No! No! No! After all we were not only in the South, but in the southern state of Mississippi.
Things were very, very bad for black folks in those days. I will not rehash the many evil and hateful things.
Why is this being written decades later? What happened in the past is now part of history.
The state of Mississippi has been and still is being looked at in a negative way.
Many in this generation have no idea how bad things really were in Mississippi.
For decades and to some degree even today, Mississippi has been looked at as one the of the poorest states in the United States.
A local community agency, Coahoma Opportunities, Inc., was established in 1965 to fight poverty. Adult education, job training and the local Head Start program are some the federally funded programs that have made a big difference in the lives of thousands.
I thought I knew something about how bad poverty was in Coahoma County and Mississippi. After all, I did serve as an employee of COI for more than 20 years.
Well, I knew less about the high degree of poverty than I thought.
A new book on poverty in Mississippi has just been released. It is entitled, “Delta Epiphany: Robert F Kennedy in Mississippi” written by Ellen B. Meacham. It is a book that will make people realize just how bad it was.
This book is the most detailed book on poverty and the people involved in the effort to improve the lives of all Mississippians, regardless of race, creed and color, that I have ever seen.
I was blessed to be in the right place at the right time when Kennedy came to Mississippi in April 1967.
At the time, I was employed at COI and just happened to have attended the rally to welcome Robert F. Kennedy to Clarksdale. The gathering was at the Coahoma Opportunities, Inc. Neighborhood Center on State Street. It was a hot and humid day. People were shoulder to shoulder.
Kennedy was only able to spend a little time there. But his speech was powerful and direct.
Some of his staff and security had to hurry him along because they were behind schedule to get to the Memphis airport. They made it on time.
And because I liked having my camera with me, I was able to get the photo of local farmer Andrew Carr greeting Kennedy with a big handshake on the back of a pickup truck. That photo is featured on page 165 of Meacham’s book.
Many locals, including Andrew and Oscar Carr, Brenda Luckett, Dr. Aaron Henry, Bennie Gooden and Reuben Smith, are also featured in the book.
Troy Catchings is a photographer with The Clarksdale Press Register. He can be reached by calling 662-627-2201 or emailing tcatchings@pressregister.com.
