Perspective: While the situation was triggered by torrential rains and the flooding of the Pearl River, which then overwhelmed the city’s main water plant, the system was broken even before the recent flooding.
Mississippi is the nation’s poorest state, and Jackson is an impoverished city. In the midst of this crisis, Gov. Tate Reeves has tried to shift the blame to the city’s leadership, stating that “water is not free,” and floating a proposal toin Jackson. But the water crisis is about more than a lack of funds. There are many areas of Mississippi where the water and sewer systems are well-maintained, so such crises do not occur.
The leader of the Rosedale protests was Johnnie Todd, later elected the town’s first Black mayor. Todd worked at the Tufts-Delta Health Center, a federally funded War on Poverty project in Bolivar County. As part of its mission to improve the health of poor residents, the center established an environmental division to examine living conditions throughout the county.
The negative health implications of the water and sewage situation forced James and his team to come up with creative solutions. Unable to build a sewage system because of a lack of funds, they tore down the old sunshine privies and built sanitary ones in their place. To deal with the water crisis, James developed a simple drilling system to bring clean water to the rural poor.
Eventually the Rosedale government met with Black boycott leaders, reassuring them that the city had applied for federal funding for sewage improvements. But activists were not convinced, and they reminded officials that the city had received federal funds in the past but never spent them on the Black sections of town.
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