When the Mississippi Delta became a killing sea

PBS documentary retraces 'Fatal Flood' of 1927

Flood victims gather on the banks of the Mississippi. The Flood of 1927 left 246 people dead and 700,000 displaced

In this story: 'Fatal Flood' A massive sea RELATED STORIES, SITES

By Jamie Allen
CNN

(CNN) -- When Chana Gazit used to tell people that she was working on a documentary for PBS on the Flood of 1927, she used to get a common response: What flood of 1927?

Gazit, in fact, gave the same response when she first heard mention of it. The Flood of 1927 has been relegated to the netherworld of back-shelf history, the stumper file of trivia shows.

AUDIO Randy Newman's "Louisiana 1927" 310K WAV sound

Public consciousness about the disaster, like those long-ago floodwaters, may be about to rise. "Fatal Flood," a documentary by Gazit, airs Monday at 9 p.m. EDT on PBS stations nationwide.

"It's really extraordinary that the greatest flood of the century -- massive and devastating -- just disappeared from history," says Gazit. The flood -- when the Mississippi River, fattened from a series of torrential rains across the northern regions of the United States, burst its man-made levees -- turned 27,000 square miles of the Mississippi Delta and surrounding areas into an open sea. It left 246 people dead, and 700,000 displaced.

Among the refugees seeking shelter was a high number of African-Americans who called Greenville, Mississippi, home, "by far the most benign place for African-Americans" in early 20th century South, according to Gazit.

The flood changed that. Many African-Americans in Greenville were forced at gunpoint to shore up levees and work on relief efforts. One man, a prominent African-American citizen, was murdered by a white policeman when he refused to work a second shift as Greenville dug itself out of the flood's muddy remains.

Many more refugees were subjected to camps where allegations of rape and murder by white authorities were common.

In the aftermath of the flood, African-American citizens picked up and left behind the people and the place that betrayed them. The flood is one the events that prompted the African-American migration to Chicago, Illinois, and other points northward. And all the while, Herbert Hoover, then secretary of the United States Department of Commerce, used the event to boost his public appeal -- touring the flood-ravaged region, sending back reports via newsreels and photographs. He was elected president the following year.

"It's really almost Shakespearean in its drama," says Gazit. "It is a real turning point, certainly for the area. And it has pretty profound national implications as well. So it's even more puzzling as to why it escaped consciousness."

'Fatal Flood'

Though the events have escaped major discussion in history classes, it was the focus of "Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America," an acclaimed 1997 book by John M. Barry.

W.A. Percy and his father LeRoy Percy (Photo courtesy Mississippi Department of Archives and History)

Gazit's documentary, part of PBS' "American Experience" series, is based partly on the book, partly on her team's own research.

Gazit, who was raised in Brooklyn, New York, and was graduated from University of Buffalo 50 years after the flood, says the film adds "another layer onto race relations in this country."

"What was fascinating to me, growing up in the Northeast, (was that) Mississippi in that time period ... was almost a foreign country," she says. "It's a time and place that no longer exist, but yet was very strong and entrenched and vital."

Gazit focuses on the Percy family, which made a fortune in cotton plantations that used sharecropper labor. A politically astute white family, father LeRoy and son Will both had a reputation for fighting for African-American rights -- LeRoy, in fact, helped deny the Ku Klux Klan from setting up in Greenville.

But after the flood, it was LeRoy Percy who could have used his influence to help African-Americans find shelter, but denied the responsibility. And Will Percy, in reaction to the shooting of black citizen James Gooden, told some African-Americans the murder was their fault.

"It was an unbelievable story," Gazit says.

A massive sea

Gazit has also created documentaries for PBS on the Three Mile Island disaster and is currently working on a film that follows the development of the birth-control pill. She says when she began research on "Fatal Flood" with husband David Steward, who co-directed and edited, she was pleasantly surprised by the amount of material she found.

A Red Cross boxcar provides relief to flood victims (Photo courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Vicksburg)

"You know, this was 1927," she says. "I owe my images to one man, and that man is Herbert Hoover.

"He understood, very early on, the potential of this as a public relations event for him to advance his presidential ambitions," says Gazit. "He was very savvy about that, which meant everywhere he went he dragged around newsreel cameramen and photographers."

Gazit's research turned up startling images.

"The delta turned into a sea -- just this massive area, turned into a sea as far as your eye can reach," says Gazit. "And there's this incredible footage of Herbert Hoover, who's visiting the disaster area. He's on a boat and it takes your eye a minute to understand what's going on because the boat is passing through the tops of trees."

Likewise, Gazit admits "Fatal Flood" can only skim the surface of the epic disaster and its social and political ramifications in the hour time-slot it was given. But at least it's a start, for most casual historians, need to be reminded of the Flood of 1927, she says.

"It was a pleasure to take on the challenge," she says. "With each film I make, I have to become a mini-expert on that particular subject, and so it's a lifetime of learning."

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