SINNERS And The Deep History Of The Mississippi Delta (Some Sunday Context)

This Day in Esoteric Political History

Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia

History

4.6 • 982 Ratings

🗓️ 11 May 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

SINNERS is the hit movie of the year so far, and Ryan Coogler's epic has a lot of people looking into the history of the Mississippi Delta in the first decades of the 20th century. There aren't real vampires, but from the music to the cultural mix, the region's history deserves a deeper look.

Today, as part of our "Some Sunday Context" series, we're bringing you an episode from a few years ago about the 1927 Mississppi Flood. Almost 80 years before Katrina, the "great flood" reshaped the geography, politics, and economics of the entire region.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie were joined by Wright Thompson of ESPN and The Atlantic.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, this is Kelly Carter Jackson. Welcome to our Some Sunday's contact series, where we offer
0:09.7	conversations that may help us get some historical perspective on what's happening today.
0:14.6	Okay, so I want to preface by saying, I'm a big skiddy cat, like huge, And I hate horror films. I hate them. But I've seen
0:25.0	Ryan Cougler sinners twice. Y'all, it's got everything from the soulful music of the blues
0:31.5	to the lived experiences of black folks in the Delta, and yes, vampires.
0:44.1	But it's a film that stayed with me long after I watched it, and not in the way I expected where I sleep with all the lights on and triple check my closets.
0:47.0	So we figured since Sinners has everyone talking about the Mississippi Delta in the early
0:53.0	1900s, a place full of beauty and
0:56.3	power and deep-rooted complexity. We wanted to remind you of a conversation we've had. We've done
1:02.2	a number of episodes about the region and that air, and we thought we'd bring you one of our
1:06.9	favorites with one of our favorite guests, Wright Thompson, about the Great Flood of 1927.
1:13.3	This episode was from a few years ago, but it's got everything.
1:17.2	Leveys breaking, conspiracies about who blew them up, tent cities, forced labor, and the river
1:23.0	itself as this terrifying, unstoppable force. If sinners left you wanting to know more about the real history that shaped the Delta,
1:31.6	this episode is a great place to start.
1:34.2	So take a listen and we'll be back with the new episode on Tuesday.
1:38.1	Take care of y'all.
1:42.3	Hello and welcome to This Day in Esoteric Political History from Radiotopia. My name is Jody Avergan.
1:49.7	This day, April 21st, 1927, a district-level army engineer sent a wire message to the head of the
1:58.2	Army Corps of Engineers that read this, quote,
2:07.2	Levy broke at Mounds, Mississippi, 8 a.m., crevice will overflow the entire Mississippi Delta.
2:12.3	Of course, this note about the levee breach at Mounds, Mississippi, meant that it was already too late.
	...

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