Aerial.America.S03E06.Mississippi
Aerial.America.S03E06.Mississippi
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00American writer William Faulkner once said,
00:05to understand the world, you have to understand a place like Mississippi.
00:10But that's easier said than done, unless you discover it from the air.
00:16Soar over its vast, fertile delta, ancient trails, and sunlit Gulf Coast.
00:23But also the devastation wrought by its surging floods,
00:27and terrifying tornadoes that can level entire towns.
00:32It's here where America's great river deposited the planet's richest soil
00:38that once grew the cotton that clothed the world,
00:41but that gave rise to centuries of struggle and the birth of the blues.
00:46It was in a small Mississippi church where a young girl named Oprah
00:50first discovered her talent to entertain.
00:54In centuries past, dancers here celebrated the Great Sun King.
00:59Now, pot rotters celebrate the King of Rock and Roll.
01:04On Mississippi soil, civil rights leaders were born,
01:08and Civil War defeats are still mourned.
01:12But that's just part of this southern state's story.
01:15It's also where 21st century soldiers mobilize to be deployed around the world.
01:21And America's future in space is just one launch away.
01:26All this in a place called Mississippi.
01:52The Slow but Powerful Rhythms that Define Mississippi
01:56begin with the river that gives the state its name.
02:00Called Father of Waters by the Native American Nojibwe tribe,
02:04the Mississippi rolls some 2,350 miles in a single day.
02:10The Mississippi River is one of the largest rivers in the world.
02:15Called Father of Waters by the Native American Nojibwe tribe,
02:18the Mississippi rolls some 2,350 miles through the heartland of America.
02:25Virtually every raindrop that falls between the Appalachian Mountains
02:29and the Continental Divide eventually finds its way down this mythic waterway.
02:36The river's course, in most places, marks Mississippi's western border.
02:41It moves goods, deposits fertile soil, and has played a strategic role in history.
02:48But when the big muddy overflows its banks, it ravages crops, homes, and lives.
02:55In 2011, the Mississippi broke all records when the surge rose higher than 57 feet.
03:02The flood swept inland more than 60 miles, swamping golf courses and houses.
03:09It's the farmers that bear the brunt.
03:12This year, Mississippi farms had more than $250 million in losses.
03:19But it could get a whole lot worse.
03:22When the river floods, water seeps through the levees and even tops over them.
03:27But if these man-made barriers give way, millions could be affected.
03:33Luckily for now, Mississippi's levees are holding.
03:37Whenever water rises, livestock head for high ground.
03:41Wild animals, like this American alligator, can be swept away by floodwaters.
03:46Some have even been known to wash into people's living rooms.
03:51But high water doesn't touch these colonies of herons and egrets.
03:56In the treetops of this forested floodplain, they're right at home.
04:01From the air, it's possible to get a rare view of these nesting birds,
04:06but they're usually only spotted standing solitary in shallow waters.
04:11For people, flooding inflicts tremendous losses.
04:16The water can take weeks to recede.
04:19But for the 12,000 years that humans have occupied this land,
04:23they have accepted the river's dangers in exchange for its gifts.
04:30Centuries before Europeans arrived, Mississippi's original inhabitants,
04:36the Natchez people, built this earthen structure.
04:40Attracted by the river, fertile soil, and warm climate,
04:44they settled here in what's now southwestern Mississippi.
04:48Skilled at agriculture, their population swelled.
04:52This giant earthen structure covers eight acres,
04:57called Emerald Mound.
04:59It's one of the largest Native American ceremonial mounds in the country.
05:06People from surrounding villages gathered here
05:09and ascended the mound to participate in important ceremonies.
05:13By the late 1600s, the Natchez abandoned the site and moved closer to the river.
05:19Just a few miles away, they established a new community,
05:23the Grand Village of the Natchez.
05:26Here at an annual powwow, Native Americans from all over the country
05:30gather for a weekend of crafts, games, and dancing.
05:36Houses like this one once dotted Grand Village,
05:40along with the home of the tribe's chief, who was called Great Son.
05:45It was Plains Indians who first gathered in ceremonial circles for warrior dances.
05:52Today, flag-bearing war veterans are leading members
05:56of the Ponca, Choctaw, Oto, and Omaha tribes.
06:02Their steps aren't choreographed.
06:05Dancers let the drums and the spirit move them.
06:10Grand Village grew to become the prosperous frontier port of Natchez.
06:18Today, residents take their daily exercise past the once notorious Natchez Wharf.
06:24In the 19th century, boatmen disembarked here
06:27to spend their pay in the saloons and brothels of the Dockside area.
06:31According to Mark Twain, this street was the place where the Natchez people
06:37According to Mark Twain, this street was once overrun
06:40with drinking, carousing, fisticuffing, and killing.
06:44But this little trading port has another more surprising history.
06:50At one point, more than half of the millionaires in America
06:54lived in this small city on the bluffs of the Mississippi.
06:58That's because by the mid-1800s, the cotton gin and slavery had made the South rich,
07:04and Natchez had become a primary cotton hub and slave market,
07:08making the town wealthier per capita than any other in the nation.
07:15In 1862, during the Civil War, Natchez surrendered to Union forces
07:21and remained largely undamaged.
07:25Five hundred antebellum structures survive here,
07:28more than in any other town in the South.
07:32Some, like Dunlea Historic Inn, stand as a monument to the days when cotton was king,
07:38but others look more like relics of a lost civilization.
07:48Discovering Mississippi from the air, it can seem like a place where time stands still,
07:55especially here at Longwood.
07:58In 1860, a wealthy cotton planter named Dr. Hallard Nutt
08:03had plans for an opulent 32-room mansion.
08:08It was designed in the shape of an octagon, a popular trend at the time.
08:14But the next year, when the Civil War broke out,
08:17the workers dropped their tools and fled, leaving their job only half done.
08:23To this day, the interior of this grand house has never been completed.
08:31But that didn't stop producers from using it as the home
08:34of the dangerous and powerful Vampire King of Mississippi
08:38in the television series True Blood.
08:42Longwood, Mississippi
08:49Just a few miles from Longwood lies the starting point of one of America's great scenic highways.
08:56This is the Natchez Trace.
09:01It heads northeast out of Natchez and runs for 444 miles through the heart of Mississippi,
09:09before continuing on up to Nashville, Tennessee.
09:15The Trace started as a path made by migrating bison and was later used by Native American traders.
09:22In the 19th century, rivermen from Ohio used the Trace to return home by foot
09:27after delivering their goods to Natchez.
09:31Flush with their profits, sewn into deerskin bags,
09:34these travelers were easy prey for a colorful array of thieves and outlaws
09:39that plied their trade all along the Trace.
09:43The most notorious of these were the Harp Brothers,
09:46who have been called America's first serial killers.
09:51They were said to have brutally killed more than 40 people.
09:55One of the brothers was finally beheaded,
09:58and his skull mounted on a stake and left on the Trace.
10:03Those days are long gone.
10:06Today, development is the biggest threat on this two-lane roadway.
10:11It's one reason the National Park Service has banned billboards
10:14and works to ensure that the forests all along the Trace remain intact.
10:20Forests that look much like they have for centuries.
10:24But across much of Mississippi, cutting down trees is a billion-dollar business.
10:30Most of the state's commercially grown forests, like these,
10:33contain longleaf pine, which is used to make newsprint, furniture, and lumber.
10:41Logging in Mississippi has been big business for more than a century.
10:46But recently, economic woes have resulted in huge layoffs for the state's timber workers.
10:54And now, the trees themselves are under attack
10:58from an invasive vine.
11:02From high above, this Mississippi landscape may look at first like plush velvet,
11:07but closer up, it's not such a pretty picture.
11:11These trees and hillsides are covered in kudzu,
11:15otherwise known as the vine that ate the South.
11:20Imported from Japan and originally promoted as cattle fodder and ground cover,
11:24it's now considered a scourge, smothering trees, even knocking down power lines.
11:32Kudzu can grow a foot per day and now covers millions of acres across the South.
11:38But there is one way to combat this species.
11:44Smoke rises over a pine forest in southern Mississippi.
11:48This fire has been lit on purpose long before Europeans arrived.
11:53Native Americans set Mississippi forests ablaze to clear land for hunting.
11:59Today, prescribed burns remove competing undergrowth,
12:03destroy harmful insects and diseases, and make it easier for loggers to cut their trees.
12:09Fires like these must be carefully managed.
12:12The slightest shift in wind can cause these flames to spread out of control.
12:18But in 2011, it wasn't a prescribed burn,
12:21but a terrifying force of nature that destroyed much of this Mississippi town in just a matter of minutes.
12:30At 3.44 p.m. on April 27, 2011,
12:34an E5 tornado, the most extreme category recordable,
12:38tore through Monroe County, Mississippi, near the Alabama border.
12:42In this rural land, it's more likely that a tornado will just hit farmland or forest.
12:49But this twister, touching down for almost three miles,
12:52screamed down a main highway and tore right through this town called Smithville.
13:00Its path of destruction was three-quarters of a mile wide.
13:04Its winds reached 205 miles per hour,
13:08reached 205 miles per hour.
13:11Seventeen people were killed here, in a town of just 900.
13:17Relief workers arrived within hours,
13:19setting up camp in the parking lot of this shredded, piggly-wiggly supermarket.
13:25Although this was the first E5 to hit Mississippi in 45 years,
13:29tornadoes are frequent occurrences in the state.
13:33Two of the five deadliest twisters in U.S. history struck in Mississippi.
13:39In Smithville, families seek what they can salvage.
13:44Half of the town's houses are simply gone.
13:49The high school gym was ripped apart.
13:53The tombstones of Civil War soldiers were toppled and broken.
13:58North of Smithville, great pines snapped like toothpicks,
14:02as the twister raced out of town just as fast as it had arrived.
14:08Mississippians are experienced survivors.
14:12They've seen it all.
14:13Storms, floods, poverty, and war.
14:20In the city of Jackson sits the state capitol,
14:22the political center of modern Mississippi.
14:27Jackson is Mississippi's only city with more than 100,000 residents.
14:32Established in 1821,
14:34it was named for the hugely popular hero of the Battle of New Orleans,
14:38before he was elected president.
14:43But it's the old state capitol that remains the symbol of the great conflict
14:47that lies at the heart of Mississippi memory.
14:53On January 9, 1861,
14:55Mississippi declared itself the second state to secede from the Union.
15:01Partisans still argue the causes of the war,
15:05but the Mississippi Ordinance of Secession clearly defined the state's motivation.
15:11It was read aloud from this second-story balcony.
15:15Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery,
15:20the greatest material interest of the world.
15:24After it was read, celebrations rang out on the streets below,
15:28but not for long.
15:31Civil War battles soon raged all over the state,
15:34and the cities of Port Gibson, Jackson, and Vicksburg
15:38became key battlegrounds in what's known as the Vicksburg Campaign.
15:44By 1863, Confederate forces at Vicksburg
15:47were still in control of the lower Mississippi River,
15:50which is why President Lincoln told his advisors,
15:53Vicksburg is the key.
15:55The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket.
16:02On April 30, General Ulysses Grant and his Army of the Tennessee
16:06crossed the river from Louisiana and began the invasion of Mississippi.
16:14When they reached Port Gibson, the general and his men
16:16might have wondered at the gold hand pointing to heaven.
16:20This newer version still caps the spire of the First Presbyterian Church.
16:25The Union troops quickly overcame the Confederate forces here,
16:29but Grant spared most of Port Gibson itself,
16:33reportedly calling the town too beautiful to burn.
16:36Still today, many of its houses look just as they did more than a century ago.
16:44The victory at Port Gibson enabled the Union Army to continue on toward Jackson.
16:49Grant hoped to destroy key railroad lines and neutralize the capital.
16:54On May 13, a Confederate general sent to protect Jackson arrived in the city by train.
17:00After reviewing his inadequate defenses against the approaching enemy,
17:04he wired his superior, I am too late.
17:08The next day, the Confederates evacuated Jackson as Grant's troops marched in.
17:15They set most of the city ablaze, but spared the deserted governor's mansion
17:19so it could serve as a hospital and raise the stars and stripes over the old state capital.
17:29With Jackson burning, Grant was now ready to march on Vicksburg.
17:36Three days later, as Union forces moved west,
17:39they met Confederate resistance here on the banks of the Big Black River.
17:44Overwhelmed by northern numbers, the Southerners retreated over a bridge that stood near this one.
17:52Many of them were captured or drowned trying to swim the river.
17:56Confederate commanders set fire to the bridge,
18:00which helped buy the survivors time to reach Vicksburg and prepare for the coming assault.
18:06The legacy of that campaign still permeates the city.
18:10Lincoln's phrase that Vicksburg was the key to the south is now used as a tourism campaign.
18:17When Grant finally reached the city, he ordered a series of immediate attacks,
18:22but his forces were repulsed, suffering heavy losses.
18:26Grant decided that cutting off supplies and laying siege to the city was the best hope for victory.
18:36Day and night, Union forces shelled Vicksburg.
18:41The courthouse was a favorite target, but more for its symbolic rather than strategic value.
18:51Most of the key battlegrounds lay here, in what's now the Vicksburg National Military Park,
18:57which commemorates the siege and defense of the city.
19:01While Southern troops fought bravely, their efforts could not replenish dwindling supplies of food and water.
19:08After 47 days, with Vicksburg's defenders facing starvation,
19:13Confederate General John C. Pemberton surrendered to Ulysses Grant,
19:18here, under an oak tree, which was later cut down to make souvenirs.
19:23The Confederates marched out on July 4, 1863, one day after Robert E. Lee's defeat at Gettysburg.
19:31In a letter to his wife, a Confederate soldier wrote,
19:35News reached here that Vicksburg has gone up the spout.
19:38If it has, we had just as well quit and give up the Confederacy.
19:44Indeed, the entire Mississippi River, from Cairo, Illinois to the Gulf of Mexico, was now under Union control.
19:54Although the war dragged on for another 20 months,
19:57the Federal victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg marked the turning point of this bloody conflict.
20:06The defeat of the Confederacy was a crushing blow to the South, economically, culturally, and psychologically.
20:14Following the July 4 defeat, Vicksburg did not reinstate Independence Day celebrations for more than 80 years,
20:21until 1945.
20:24Nevertheless, the South continues to take pride in its military history,
20:29and to this day contributes a disproportionate number of soldiers to wars fought by the United States.
20:36Soldiers like these, preparing to board their Black Hawk,
20:40and the pilots that fly this C-130 Hercules aircraft.
20:45It's just a day in the life here at Mississippi's Camp Shelby,
20:48the largest state-run field training site in the United States.
20:54First opened to prepare soldiers for World War I, it has expanded to cover more than 134,000 acres.
21:03Throughout the year, Camp Shelby prepares more than 100,000 Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force troops for overseas deployment.
21:13In the midst of the camp, sitting quietly in the Mississippi sun,
21:17are two mock Middle Eastern villages, complete with buildings designed to look like mosques.
21:23Here, soldiers heading overseas can train in what the Guard believes are more realistic settings.
21:31Troops deploy from Camp Shelby, prepared to fight wars in distant regions of the world.
21:43But soldiers aren't Mississippi's only native sons and daughters to leave their mark on history.
21:50One of the most loved entertainers in America started her remarkable journey in the rural town of Kosciuszko,
21:57just off the Natchez Trace Parkway, northeast of Jackson.
22:03Fifty years ago, this white-clabbered community center was a church.
22:07Inside, a precocious three-year-old named Oprah Winfrey was encouraged to stand and recite Bible passages to the congregation.
22:18Oprah remembers,
22:19"'And all the sisters sitting in the front row would turn to my grandmother and say,
22:23"'Hattie Mae, this child is gifted.'"
22:30I heard that enough, and I started to believe it.
22:34Oprah spent her first six years on her grandmother's farm, just down the road.
22:41Some of her family members are buried in this cemetery.
22:46From Kosciuszko, the Natchez Trace continues on into the Northeast Hills region.
22:53Here, Mississippi's flatlands give way to gentle rises, preparing to meet the foothills of Tennessee.
23:03Some say that it's the unique blend of cultures in this region,
23:06from African American to Appalachian hillbilly, that produces creative genius.
23:11Visitors to Tupelo would have to agree.
23:16On a January dawn in 1935, inside this two-room White House,
23:21twin boys were born to Vernon and Gladys Presley.
23:26The first was stillborn.
23:28The surviving boy was named Elvis.
23:31The home is just 450 square feet, with no indoor plumbing.
23:37There's a sofa at Graceland, longer than this entire house.
23:42Despite the home's modesty, the Presleys were unable to make the payments.
23:46Elvis and his parents moved from home to home for years.
23:52Family and faith, though, stayed constant.
23:55This simple White Assembly of God church, where the Presleys often worshipped,
23:59was moved here, next to the birthplace.
24:02And it was inside these walls that gospel music first entranced the young Elvis.
24:11But when Mrs. Presley brought Elvis here to Tupelo Hardware
24:14to get him a guitar for his 11th birthday,
24:17what the boy really wanted was a rifle.
24:20Fortunately, mother prevailed.
24:27The people of Tupelo, of course, relished their link to the king.
24:32Every spring, townspeople here combine their love of rock and roll
24:36and their infatuation with cars in the annual Blue Suede Cruise.
24:42They may look like matchbox cars from the air,
24:44but they're not the real deal.
24:47They may look like matchbox cars from the air,
24:50but they are full-scale classics and hot rods
24:53gathered in the parking lot of the Tupelo Automobile Museum.
24:58It's a car lover's paradise.
25:01The long line of beauties moves out on Saturday morning
25:04to parade through downtown Tupelo.
25:08Drivers can be eligible for prizes
25:10as long as they get their entry card stamped at seven sites around town,
25:14including Elvis' birthplace.
25:19After the parade, cruisers can find rare parts at the swap meet
25:25or rock out to the fabulous hubcaps.
25:36An hour's drive due west from Tupelo,
25:38the spotlight shifts from rock and roll royalty to lions of literature.
25:44This is Oxford, Mississippi,
25:46on the day of the annual Double Decker Arts Festival.
25:50Named for the double-decker bus the city imported from England in 1994
25:54to honor its connection to the other Oxford.
25:58The Oxford Town Square, dominated by the Lafayette County Courthouse,
26:02embodies the complexity of Mississippi culture and history.
26:07On one side of the courthouse stands a plaque
26:09commemorating the just and holy cause of the Confederacy.
26:13On the other side stands Square Books,
26:16one of the most beloved independent bookstores in the country.
26:20Shelves are filled with the works of Mississippi writers,
26:23Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, and Richard Wright.
26:28Novelist Richard Ford observed that his home state produced so many writers
26:32because it is so complicated it takes that many to interpret it.
26:38In Oxford, the town favorite is Nobel Prize winning novelist William Faulkner.
26:44Tucked within this grove of oak and cedar trees is Rowan Oak,
26:48the antebellum house where Faulkner lived for 40 years.
26:53Here he wrote the classics Sanctuary, Light in August,
26:56Absalom, Absalom, and Go Down Moses.
27:00His plot outline for The Fable remains penciled on his study wall.
27:04Faulkner said that his own little postage stamp of native soil was worth writing about
27:09and that he would never live long enough to exhaust it.
27:14Just about anywhere you go in Mississippi, there are stories to tell.
27:19Like that of Rodney, which was transformed from a bustling port city to a ghost town,
27:25just because the mighty Mississippi changed its course.
27:29And then there are these ghostly columns
27:31that look like the ruins of a Greek temple.
27:35This once elegant mansion was the centerpiece of the 2,600 acre Windsor Plantation.
27:41It had 25 rooms and a dairy in its basement.
27:45Windsor survived the Civil War but was brought down by a stray cigarette at an afternoon party.
27:52But there's one story in Mississippi that thousands still hold dear.
27:56And it's why diehard fans of the University of Mississippi
27:59consider their football stadium a place of worship.
28:03Some Ole Miss loyalists will claim that divine intervention was at play
28:07at the 1983 Egg Bowl, the annual collision between the Ole Miss Rebels
28:12and the Mississippi State Bulldogs.
28:15Ole Miss had overcome an early deficit to gain a one-point lead by the fourth quarter.
28:20But with just seven games to play,
28:22Ole Miss had overcome an early deficit to gain a one-point lead by the fourth quarter.
28:25But with just seconds remaining, the visiting Bulldogs lined up on the 10-yard line,
28:29ready to kick a field goal to victory.
28:32The kick was made, perfectly aimed between the goal posts.
28:37But just as the ball began to sail through,
28:40a gust of wind picked it up and tossed it back outside the posts.
28:46Rebel pandemonium ensued.
28:49A newspaper reporter called it the immaculate deflection.
28:53Students at Ole Miss know how to celebrate a victory.
28:56Here at Sigma Nu Spring Party, Woodstock is the theme.
29:00And tie-dye is everywhere.
29:03But it wasn't always peace and love at the University of Mississippi.
29:09In the center of campus, a monument depicts a young man striding purposefully toward a doorway.
29:15It's a tribute to James Meredith,
29:17the young African-American Air Force veteran who became, in 1962,
29:22the first black student to attend the University of Mississippi.
29:28It took U.S. Marshals to control the violent riots that followed.
29:35Two people were killed and hundreds arrested.
29:40But Ole Miss was forever changed.
29:45Since then, students have developed a strong commitment to justice.
29:51One of them was a 26-year-old who earned his law degree from Ole Miss in 1981.
29:57Then, inspired by the injustices he witnessed in the state's courtrooms,
30:01he began to write legal thrillers.
30:04His name was John Grisham.
30:08The books have gone on to become international bestsellers.
30:11But Grisham himself didn't go far.
30:15He lives on this estate outside of Oxford for part of the year.
30:21An avid sports fan, he built a baseball diamond on the property for local Little League teams.
30:28Here in Oxford, Mississippi's authors take the fame.
30:33But west of the hills, on the other side of the Yazoo River,
30:36lies a place that gave birth to an entirely different art form.
30:41The legendary Delta Blues.
30:46It all started here, where some of the most fertile soil in the world stretches on for mile after mile.
30:54It's known as the Mississippi Delta region.
30:57But one thing it is not, technically speaking, is a delta.
31:02The Mississippi River Delta lies 300 miles to the south in Louisiana,
31:07where the Mississippi River flows into the Gulf of Mexico.
31:11But the Mississippi Delta region lies far from the Gulf,
31:15framed to the west by the Mississippi and to the east by the Yazoo River.
31:20It's what's called an alluvial plain,
31:23an area created by the fertile sediment deposited by eons of river flooding.
31:29The delta is flat, hot, and wet.
31:33But for more than two centuries, those working its rich soil have been oppressively poor.
31:38Delta culture is deeply influenced by this history of struggle,
31:43but also grounded in an abiding love for the land.
31:49The late writer and delta native Willie Morris wrote,
31:52this incredible delta land consumed and shaped me.
31:56I love it beyond all measure, and I fear it too.
32:00It is what I am, and always will be, till I die.
32:09The delta's greatest asset is its lowly topsoil that extends down as far as 350 feet,
32:16which is why Mississippi's number one industry is agriculture, in all its varied forms.
32:23And that includes fish.
32:26This grid of giant ponds supplies 55% of catfish consumed in the U.S.,
32:32from famous southern fried catfish to frozen products that ship out across the nation.
32:40In recent years, though, competition from Asian fish farmers is crowding Mississippians out of the U.S. market.
32:47In addition, the price of fish feed has risen.
32:51Many aqua farmers are draining their ponds so they can grow and sell corn and soy,
32:56instead of buying it to feed their fish.
33:00Today, all kinds of crops are grown in the delta, but none has shaped this land like cotton.
33:12On this spring day, one delta field is being prepped for planting.
33:16It's a tricky season for cotton farmers.
33:19They want to get their seeds into the ground early in the year, when it's still moist.
33:25But a sudden spring chill could stop those seeds from sprouting.
33:29Cotton is always a gamble here in the delta,
33:32but for two centuries, it's been one Mississippi farmers have been willing to take.
33:37In the early 1800s, worldwide demand for cotton skyrocketed.
33:43The black delta soil was perfect for the crop, and slave labor made Mississippi plantation owners rich.
33:50By 1850, cotton accounted for half of all U.S. exports.
33:55Without cotton, there likely would never have been a Civil War,
33:59and the history of Mississippi would have run a far different course.
34:03Today, if no longer king, cotton is still an important crop.
34:08Mississippi ranks second to Texas in cotton production,
34:12and 80% of the state's crop is grown right here in the delta.
34:17But as soon as the seeds go into the ground, they're attacked by weeds.
34:22The best way to tackle these pests is from the air.
34:26When spraying herbicides, crop dusters fly at only 8 to 12 feet above the ground.
34:33That's a dangerous occupation at 140 miles per hour.
34:40But for many crop dusting pilots like this one, there's no greater job in the world.
34:47Most of the cotton in the delta has been genetically modified
34:53so that the herbicide will kill the weeds, but not the cotton.
34:57But it can also kill other plants, insects, and birds.
35:03Farmers get no easy answers.
35:06Despite mechanization, the work is still physically demanding,
35:10and between the weather and the weeds, it's always a game of chance.
35:17Long before today's crop dusters and tractors,
35:21Mississippi's fields were all tended by hand,
35:25first by slaves, and then by dirt-cheap labor.
35:29These shacks once housed sharecroppers.
35:33They'd work the land for a share of the profits,
35:37but landowners saw to it that they'd always owe more than they earned.
35:41The system began to dissolve in the 1960s
35:44as machines began to take over the work of farming.
35:47But today, Delta County still rank among the poorest in the nation.
35:53At the Shackup Inn, located on a former plantation outside of Clarksdale,
35:58authentic sharecropper cabins have been updated
36:01with indoor plumbing, air conditioning, and coffee makers.
36:05They house tourists seeking the blues experience, or a game of golf.
36:12For blues pilgrims, Clarksdale is Mecca.
36:16Just outside town, Highway 61 crosses over Highway 49.
36:21Legend has it that it was at this crossroads
36:24that Delta bluesman Robert Johnson made a deal with the devil,
36:28selling his soul in exchange for supernatural guitar skills.
36:33The blues grew a reputation for being the devil's music.
36:38The idea was that it must be bad for it to sound so good.
36:44In the first half of the 20th century, Clarksdale was the big town of the Delta,
36:49where folks went to spend money and have a good time.
36:53Juke joints filled the town.
36:55Many, like Red's Lounge, still operate to this day.
37:00Sharecroppers pass through shabby storefronts like this one
37:04to hear a new music.
37:06An earthy blend of African rhythms, spiritual hymns,
37:10and the field hollers of hard labor.
37:13It grew out of the darkest reaches of life,
37:15but was always balanced by a wry humor.
37:19Much of Clarksdale's heritage is housed here,
37:22at the Delta Blues Museum, located in the old freight depot.
37:27It celebrates the musicians who are closely associated with the town.
37:31Charlie Patton, Son House, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters,
37:35John Lee Hooker, Sam Cooke, and Ike Turner.
37:41Some blues musicians never left the Delta.
37:44Others, like Muddy Waters, did.
37:47It's said he boarded a bus right here at this station
37:50and joined the six million other black southerners in the Great Migration North.
37:55I'm going to pack my suitcase, Muddy sang, and make my getaway.
38:00The exposure Muddy Waters' music found in Chicago
38:03launched the Delta Blues into the mainstream.
38:08It's influenced musicians around the world.
38:12But it's Clarksdale that remains ground zero for the blues.
38:18That's also the name of this blues club,
38:20co-owned by actor and Mississippi native Morgan Freeman.
38:25Ground zero sometimes books national acts,
38:28but in the Delta, there's always plenty of local talent.
38:36In 1967, native singer-songwriter Bobby Gentry sang of this river,
38:41the Tallahatchie, in the hugely popular ballad, Ode to Billy Joe.
38:46In the song, Billy Joe McAllister jumps off the Tallahatchie Bridge,
38:52but the real tragedy of the Tallahatchie took place 12 years earlier.
38:57In the summer of 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till traveled from Chicago
39:03to visit his mother's family here, in the tiny town of Money, Mississippi.
39:09This decrepit vine-covered building was then the busy Bryant Grocery.
39:14On August 24, 1955, after the young Emmett went inside to buy bubblegum,
39:20the store's owner, a white woman, quickly left.
39:24Some believe she was upset because Emmett had either whistled at her
39:27or touched her hand or waist.
39:30A week later, Emmett Till's mangled body came to the surface of the Tallahatchie.
39:36The woman's husband and brother-in-law had taken Emmett from his bed
39:39in the middle of the night.
39:42The two men were tried for murder here, at the Tallahatchie County Courthouse,
39:47but they were acquitted after just one hour of jury deliberation.
39:53The next year, in a paid interview for Look magazine,
39:56the two men admitted killing the Chicago teenager.
40:00The national outrage that followed marked a defining moment
40:03in the rising civil rights movement.
40:06When you live in Mississippi, wrote Willie Morris,
40:09you cannot escape race because it is in its deepest convoluted being
40:16and in the very soil.
40:22Mississippi has a higher proportion of African Americans than any other state,
40:27and racial relationships have changed dramatically since 1955.
40:32Prosecutors in the state have reinvestigated 22 civil rights era deaths,
40:37leading to 16 convictions, including one for the murder of Medgar Evers,
40:43an activist who had investigated the death of Emmett Till
40:46and aided James Meredith's struggle.
40:52Change doesn't come quickly, though.
40:55Morgan Freeman, who lives on this estate outside Charleston,
40:58made an unusual offer in 1997.
41:01The actor said that he'd pay for a prom for Charleston High School
41:05if black and white students could attend together.
41:11It wasn't until 2008, 11 years later,
41:14that the school finally accepted Freeman's offer
41:17and held its first integrated prom.
41:22The past is never far away in Mississippi,
41:25but the state is embracing the future in sometimes surprising ways.
41:30Mississippi may be losing jobs in the farming and forestry sectors,
41:34but the state's automotive industry is growing.
41:37It's added 5,000 jobs in the last decade,
41:40including 3,300 at this Nissan plant in Canton.
41:45In 2003, a Quest minivan became the first automobile
41:49to roll off a Mississippi assembly line.
41:52Stretching over 14,000 acres,
41:54the Nissan facility is like a small city,
41:57with a medical clinic and bank.
42:00In the main building, which is 7 tenths of a mile long,
42:04plant workers produce up to 400,000 vehicles each year.
42:09Moving further south toward the coast,
42:12the past recedes even more.
42:15The view in Hancock County is downright futuristic.
42:20In 1961, NASA announced that it had chosen this Mississippi site
42:24to build a facility to test rocket engines
42:27for the Apollo lunar landing program.
42:30Locals were fond of saying,
42:32if you want to go to the moon,
42:34you first have to go through Hancock County, Mississippi.
42:38The site, now called the Stennis Space Center,
42:41was chosen for its access to the Gulf via the Pearl River,
42:44and because the vast surrounding forestland
42:46could act as a sound buffer.
42:49From the Saturn V rockets that boosted astronauts toward the moon
42:53through all the years of space shuttle flights,
42:55the engines that provided the exhilarating liftoff
42:58were tested here.
43:01Now, for the first time since the 60s,
43:04a new test stand is being built at Stennis.
43:072,000 tons of steel encase an enormous chamber.
43:11Inside, NASA will test its next generation of rocket engines,
43:15which may someday carry humans into deep space.
43:20In 2005, these towering test stands survived the howling winds
43:25of one of the worst storms on record in the United States,
43:28Hurricane Katrina.
43:30But more than 90% of the structures
43:33that used to line Mississippi's once pristine coast
43:36weren't so lucky.
43:39Natural forces have always battered Mississippi's 44-mile-long Gulf Coast,
43:44wedged between Alabama and Louisiana.
43:49Eight miles off the mainland lies Cat Island,
43:52a barrier island created by colliding Gulf of Mexico currents.
43:56The island reportedly got its name from resident raccoons
44:00that French explorers mistook for cats.
44:04While most Gulf islands are primarily sand,
44:07Cat Island's beaches are backed by forests of pine and oak.
44:12The marshes here are home to alligators and migrating birds.
44:17During World War II, Cat Island was the site of the U.S. Army's
44:20classified War Dogs program,
44:23which experimented with training canines for combat.
44:28Nearby lie two barrier islands, East Ship and West Ship.
44:33They were once a single island
44:35until the force of Hurricane Camille in 1969
44:38sliced the land mass in two.
44:41On West Ship stands the 19th century fort used by Union forces
44:45to stage the capture of New Orleans in 1862.
44:49Soon after the war, Fort Massachusetts was abent.
44:54Frequent storms have made it hard to maintain the fort.
45:00But nothing compares with the most recent streak of bad luck
45:03here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
45:06Within five years, the region suffered one of the most devastating storms on record,
45:11Hurricane Katrina,
45:13and the biggest accidental oil spill in history,
45:17the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon.
45:20Those events, plus an economic recession and cheap foreign imports,
45:24have pummeled Mississippi's fishing industry,
45:27second only to Louisiana in the Gulf states.
45:31Still, the boats head out into the sound.
45:35The Captain Wick trawls for shrimp in these brackish waters.
45:40Even in the best of times,
45:42shrimping is a tough and precarious way of life.
45:45But it's a business that is still handed down from generation to generation
45:49in Mississippian families.
45:56Despite the blows suffered by the fishing and tourist industries
45:59following the 2010 oil spill,
46:01the state's residents express strong support
46:04for continued offshore oil exploration and drilling.
46:09This giant drilling rig is being built on the banks of the Mississippi River.
46:14The three unfinished tower-like structures are actually the rig's legs.
46:20When in place, they will anchor the huge floating platform to the ocean floor.
46:29The completed rig will be pushed and slid into the Mississippi
46:32and then towed downriver to its final destination in the Gulf.
46:46Offshore has another meaning in Mississippi unrelated to oil.
46:52The state legalized gambling casinos on the Mississippi River and the coast in 1990
46:58in an effort to jolt a stagnant economy.
47:03The initiative was a notable success.
47:08New floating casinos soon gave the state
47:11one of the largest gambling industries in the nation.
47:18But that boom ended on August 29, 2005
47:22when Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Mississippi.
47:27The coastal town of Waveland, 50 miles northeast of New Orleans,
47:31has been called the epicenter of the storm.
47:35In New Orleans, the devastation was mostly caused by catastrophic levee failures.
47:40But here, Katrina made a direct hit as a Category 3 storm.
47:46Even now, foundations remain bare from the assault.
47:50125-mile-per-hour winds and a 30-foot storm surge raged across the coast,
47:56killing 238 people and obliterating 95% of buildings on the shoreline.
48:04Katrina rampaged north through the state,
48:07her hurricane-force winds and tornadoes knocking out power
48:10to nearly a third of Mississippi's residents.
48:1470,000 homes were destroyed.
48:20Shock eventually gave way to rebuilding.
48:24Mississippi's restoration has been called a model for disaster recovery.
48:29The state channeled $5 billion in federal funds
48:32to housing, infrastructure, and economic development.
48:36This new Bay St. Louis bridge replaced the old one destroyed by Katrina.
48:42Just 20 months after the storm,
48:44the new bridge was completed, 55 feet taller this time,
48:48in the hope that it will withstand the next great surge.
48:53When the roadway reopened, coastal communities were reconnected.
48:58And once again, freight trains carrying the Gulf Coast's paper and petroleum products
49:03are rolling out across the nation.
49:07Standing in the median of highway traffic,
49:11Standing in the median of Highway 90,
49:14the Biloxi Lighthouse could hardly be a more fitting symbol
49:18for this Gulf Coast community, or Mississippi in general.
49:22The cast-iron structure has withstood more than a century and a half of hurricanes,
49:27frequently damaged but never destroyed,
49:30linked to the past but standing resiliently to meet the future.
49:37Mississippi.
49:41Land of warmth and hospitality.
49:45Coexisting with a sometimes tortured history.
49:50Deeply connected to the land, yet striving toward new sources of prosperity.
49:57W. Ralph Eubanks wrote that Mississippi inhabits and haunts me.
50:03Its music and rhythms, both the joyful and the melancholy,
50:08have followed me my entire life,
50:12even when I tried to run away from them.
50:17Mississippi inspires a passionate connection in those who claim her as their own.
50:33www.mississippi.com