Win, Mississippi and Alabama remain slave states with the Baptist church as 'Massa'. Rural Louisiana isn't far behind.
Some may view this as hyperbole but I don't. Driving through towns in the region, I was struck by the small, tin-roofed cottages, and the centerpiece of each town, new, ornate and big, was the Baptist churches.
It reminded me of plantation layouts.
At the time, I was studying Fannie Lou Hamer, who led the Mississippi Freedom delegation to the DNC in the mid-60s. It was an interesting thing, as I went through her archived personal effects... from her sharecropper background and all...she was receiving regular mailings from two sources.... the Black Panthers and Jim & Tammy Faye Bakker.
Return visits to Mississippi Delta country and to Alabama, in the late 90s, plus keeping track of legislative stuff, confirms the unreal level of influence that church wields there.
NPR hasn't a chance. |
