Phillips County

Now, on the same token, You have some of the other water systems that are completely aged, and the city or the water district or the water company do not have the funding to update it.

The four people there in Phillips County and Helena, West Helena, They've had to been under boil water orders for several different weeks.

There's been some other smaller cities and towns here in the listening area that have experienced the same thing.

And that is why I ultimately decided to vote for that because there is definitely a need here.

Well, it sounds stupid, and it's time to just make it Helena, uh, a- and leave it to, to that a- and hope, uh, to start, uh, because that part of the state is in desperate need of development dollars and everything else.

But there is an excellent harbor system right there on the Mississippi River, and they could probably, uh, invest a refinery in Phillips County.

Uh, that would bring a huge, huge, huge tax ratable to the folks in that area, uh, help them with, uh, their city government with getting better and newer fire equipment and everything else.

And they've got the harbor right there where they can, uh, easily use the Mississippi River to get barges of crude in to refine and, uh, ship out refined products.

But that collided with my real world experience after college when I moved to the Mississippi Delta on the Arkansas side and became a teacher.

So I was in Phillips County, Arkansas, fourth poorest county in the country.

And I came face to face with all the issues that generational poverty generates.

Everything from food deserts to disinvestment in education to population decline.

Even less is known about his early life, but as a young man he played the harmonica, an instrument which had become popular in America during the Civil War.

By the early 1930s, Miller was playing with Robert Johnson and Phillips County native Robert Nighthawk.

These men and others were establishing a reputation around Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and beyond.

Their music would become known as the Delta blues, and it continues to influence popular music and is listened to worldwide.

They also hired a lawyer to sue planters who did not give Black tenant cotton farmers their fair share of the profits.

The group grew in membership in the Arkansas Delta region, including near the town of Elaine in Phillips County.

But white landowners would not allow this challenge to their power.

Armed white militias came to a church where the union was holding a meeting.

The Black attendees were also armed.

Gunfire broke out.

In response, white posses and federal troops unleashed a wave of terror across Phillips County.

Hundreds of Black residents were arrested.

So this whole idea that black people are not progressive, that black people don't want progressive things in 1919.

The people that was at the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America at a church in Phillips County, Arkansas.

According to the article, many of the farmers were also sharecroppers and they were sharecroppers who worked on white owned plantations in the area.

And this was a meeting to help them figure out how they could organize to demand more fair payment for their crops.

So what happens next? I'm glad you asked.

Knowing, the article says, knowing that black union organizing often attracted opposition, black men stood as armed guards around the church.

while the Phillips County meeting took place.

So let's talk about defense, because we often say we have to build up our own institutions.

Success for me personally is to see significant reductions in disparities in health, right? As an example, we have one of the highest premature death rates in the country.

In Phillips County alone, over 20,000 years of potential life lost or lost every single year in that given county.

um what would it look like if we were to be able to significantly reduce premature death in the state by 10 right to me that that's years of life back that we're giving to to families with their loved ones it's years of life back that we're giving to people to contribute meaningfully to their communities right And so it's not just about reducing premature death, but also ensuring that folks are living meaningful lives.

Right.