Backwater Blues

"A well-written account of the devastating 1927 Mississippi River flood.  A nuanced and profound treatment of the blues.  A work of lasting importance."—CHOICE

"Mizelle’s book is the freshest and most engaging in the sections that deal intensively with blues artists and lyrics."—American Historical Review

"Mizelle brings a fresh perspective to a well-researched topic."—Journal of American History

"Mizelle’s use of blues as both a mode of analysis and a source of alternative experiential evidence is compelling."—American Literature

"Very timely and can be used in introductory environmental justice and environmental studies courses, particularly for those teaching on the connection between race, class, marginality and environmental hazards."—Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences

"A brief yet wide-ranging volume that raises several interesting ideas meriting further consideration from historians."—The Journal of Southern History

"Backwater Blues is a meaningful contribution to American and African American cultural and environmental history. By combining traditional archival materials with Blues and literary interpretations of the events, Mizelle offers a highly original account of African Americans and the 1927 flood disaster in the Mississippi Delta."—The Journal of African American Literature 

The Mississippi River flood of 1927 was the most destructive river flood in U.S. history, reshaping the social and cultural landscape as well as the physical environment. Often remembered as an event that altered flood control policy and elevated the stature of powerful politicians, Richard M. Mizelle Jr. examines the place of the flood within African American cultural memory and the profound ways it influenced migration patterns in the United States.

In Backwater Blues, Mizelle analyzes the disaster through the lenses of race and charity, blues music, and mobility and labor. The book’s title comes from Bessie Smith’s “Backwater Blues,” perhaps the best-known song about the flood. Mizelle notes that the devastation produced the richest groundswell of blues recordings following any environmental catastrophe in U.S. history, with more than fifty songs by countless singers evoking the disruptive force of the flood and the precariousness of the levees originally constructed to protect citizens. Backwater Blues reveals larger relationships between social and environmental history. According to Mizelle, musicians, Harlem Renaissance artists, fraternal organizations, and Creole migrants all shared a sense of vulnerability in the face of both the Mississippi River and a white supremacist society. As a result, the Mississippi flood of 1927 was not just an environmental crisis but a racial event.

Challenging long-standing ideas of African American environmental complacency, Mizelle offers insights into the broader dynamics of human interactions with nature as well as ways in which nature is mediated through the social and political dynamics of race.Includes discography.