The Transformation of Plantation Politics: Black Politics, Concentrated Poverty, and Social Capital in the Mississippi Delta

Extract

The Transformation of Plantation Politics: Black Politics, Concentrated Poverty, and Social Capital in the Mississippi Delta. By Sharon D. Wright Austin. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. 247p. $65.00.

The title of Sharon Wright Austin's new book is intended to be ironic. As the author persuasively demonstrates, there has been no transformation of politics in the Mississippi Delta, and the area's wealthy white elite continues to dominate politics there. The lack of significant change is disappointing, as the Delta's poverty rate is more than three times the national average, and four counties in the area have higher infant mortality rates than some Third World countries.