Delta Epiphany: Robert F. Kennedy in Mississippi

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. 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.

About the Author :
Ellen B. Meacham, Taylor, Mississippi, 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.

Review :
A natural storyteller, Meacham weaves all these narratives, along with necessary contextual background about Mississippi, race relations, poverty, and food policy, as well as RFK biography, into a satisfying whole.--Aniko Bodroghkozy, University of Virginia "Journal of Southern History, Volume LXXXV, No. 2, February 2019" Delta Epiphany is a well-researched and exceptionally well-written book. Meacham situates Kennedy's visit to Mississippi in its local context without losing sight of the larger picture.--Andrew Harrison Baker, Auburn University "Journal of Mississippi History" In Delta Epiphany, with great detail and compassion, Ellen Meacham tells the story of Kennedy's visit to the Mississippi Delta, examining the forces that shaped the lives of the children he met, and how the national attention Kennedy's trip received would bring issues of hunger and poverty into the forefront of political discussions in the United States for years to come.--Melanie Lee Dragger "The Literary South"