Ellen Meacham's book is superb.
At its heart is the day in April 1967 in Mississippi when
Robert Kennedy saw American children malnourished to a degree that would have been
thought impossible in our nation. The book is beautifully written, and Meacham tells the
story in a depth not previously reached. She also nests it in a history and politics of
racism and feudalism that explain how this American tragedy could happen and how it
resulted in a national commitment to do better. I was there that day with Robert Kennedy
and I can testify firsthand. This is a must-read. --Peter Edelman, Carmack Waterhouse
Professor of Law and Public Policy at Georgetown University Law Center and author
of Not a Crime to Be Poor: The Criminalization of Poverty in America
Ellen Meacham uses her superb talents as a historian and writer to record a transcendent
but often overlooked (and sometimes forgotten) event in our state's conflicted history. It
was the visit of Senator Robert Kennedy to Mississippi in the spring of 1967 to confront
the grim face of hunger in the Mississippi Delta. It represented an epiphany for him but,
even more compellingly, for so many of us white Mississippians who were around at the
time. --William F. Winter, former governor of Mississippi
Delta Epiphany: Robert F. Kennedy in Mississippi
by Ellen B. Meacham
In April 1967, a year before his run for president, Senator Robert F. Kennedy knelt in a
crumbling shack in Mississippi trying to coax a response from a listless child. The toddler sat
picking at dried rice and beans spilled over the dirt floor as Kennedy, former US attorney general
and brother to a president, touched the boy's distended stomach and stroked his face and hair.
After several minutes with little response, the senator walked out the back door, wiping away
tears.
In Delta Epiphany: Robert F. Kennedy in Mississippi, Ellen B. Meacham tells the story of
Kennedy's visit to the Delta, while also examining the forces of history, economics, and politics
that shaped the lives of the children he met in Mississippi in 1967 and the decades that followed.
- more -
The book includes thirty-seven powerful photographs, a dozen published here for the first time.
Kennedy's visit to the Mississippi Delta as part of a Senate subcommittee investigation of
poverty programs lasted only a few hours, but Kennedy, the people he encountered, Mississippi,
and the nation felt the impact of that journey for much longer. His visit and its aftermath
crystallized many of the domestic issues that later moved Kennedy toward his candidacy for the
presidency. Upon his return to Washington, Kennedy immediately began seeking ways to help
the children he met on his visit; however, his efforts were frustrated by institutional obstacles and
blocked by powerful men who were indifferent and, at times, hostile to the plight of poor black
children.
Sadly, we know what happened to Kennedy, but this book also introduces us to three of the
children he met on his visit, including the baby on the floor, and finishes their stories. Kennedy
talked about what he had seen in Mississippi for the remaining fourteen months of his life. His
vision for America was shaped by the plight of the hungry children he encountered there.
Ellen B. Meacham has been a journalist for more than twenty years, and her work has appeared
in the New York Times and many other places. Currently, she teaches journalism at the
University of Mississippi. Meacham worked as a news reporter in north Mississippi and at the
Charleston, South Carolina, Post and Courier. In 2005, she was named an American Press
Institute fellow and served her fellowship at the Baton Rouge Advocate.
In February 2012, she moderated a panel discussion with journalists and activists who made the
trip with Kennedy, including Marian Wright Edelman, for the Overby Center for Southern
Journalism and Politics.
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi (April 16,
2018)
ISBN-13: 978-1496817457
