His Mississippi Visit
By Marsha L. Barnes
guest columnist
My precious parents are the reason I grew up knowing about this week’s article topic. I was so blessed to have been raised in a home where historically significant events were discussed almost daily. Almost sixty years have passed since Robert F. Kennedy made his famous visit to our state. This visit marked a turning point in the life of someone already dedicated to the plight of the underprivileged. What Robert F. Kennedy (“Bobby”) saw during that famous Delta trip stayed with him for the remainder of his short life, a life cut short just one year later.
The stirring testimony of Yale Law School graduate Marian Wright at Bobby’s Senate Subcommittee on Poverty in l967 affected him so deeply that he made up his mind right then to visit this infamous stretch of Mississippi. Wright, who worked for Mississippi’s legal defense fund with the NAACP, shared things that were completely unimaginable and definitely unacceptable to the Kennedy brother, known for his progressive work toward humanitarian causes. Wright told the senators, “You don’t understand what is happening in this country. Come see for yourselves the intense poverty in Southern Black communities.” Bobby Kennedy and Senator Joseph Clark from Pennsylvania, along with others, took her up on the challenge.
After flying into Jackson, Mississippi, Kennedy attended a committee hearing with local civil rights leaders and activists. The group then drove to Greenville, Clarksdale, and several communities in between. Professor Ellen Meacham of the University of Mississippi described some of Kennedy’s interactions with a specific family in her book Delta Epiphany: Robert F. Kennedy in Mississippi, one of several he insisted on visiting during his tour:
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.
What the senators and others who accompanied them witnessed on this historic trip left an indelible impression on their lives. Even the members of the media, following along on the tour, were moved beyond description at the horrifying living conditions of these Mississippians, especially the children. Many described the conditions as worse than those they had witnessed in third-world countries. The media’s coverage of this event made national and international news and brought awareness to corners of the world that had no idea Americans were living in such dire conditions. According to Meacham, this visit was a major step not only in his invigorated push for a better national food aid policy but also in his decision, a year later, to run for President of the United States. Kennedy’s committee sent teams of doctors and psychologists back to Mississippi, who later spoke about the widespread malnutrition and hunger.
Mississippi senators, John Stennis and James Eastland, tried to block Kennedy’s attempts to improve the living conditions of their own state’s citizens. These two men even went so far as to deny that the extreme poverty portrayed by Kennedy’s recent visit and ensuing coverage was exaggerated. In a television interview, our own governor, Paul B. Johnson, went on record and said, “No one is starving in Mississippi.” In a Mississippi Today article, W. Ralph Eubanks commented on the impact Mississippi’s own Congressman Jamie Whitten had on these Delta residents:
When Mississippi was placed on a Department of Agriculture list in 1967 that would have surveyed hunger in the state, particularly in the Delta, he got Mississippi removed from the list, which prevented millions of dollars of food aid from coming to the state and, thus, made living conditions in the Delta worse. The domination of politicians like Whitten supported the protection of wealthy white rural farmers in the South and fueled the resistance to civil rights and anti-poverty projects that could have changed the fortunes of the poor in the Delta and across the country. He was critical of programs like food stamps and opposed lowering their cost – on the basis of their income, recipients of food stamps purchased a monthly allotment sufficient to feed their family – arguing that “when you start giving people something for nothing . . . I wonder if you don’t destroy character more than you might improve nutrition.” Never did Whitten acknowledge that farm subsidy checks for Delta planters were their own form of welfare, but only for the rich.
Today, the Mississippi Delta is still considered one of the poorest areas in one of the poorest states. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Tunica County, located in the northern tip of the Delta, had the largest drop in employment (almost 67%) in 2025 of any other county in the entire country! Access-to-health-care studies also put not only our state but, specifically, the Delta region at the top of the list for worst in the nation. Sadly, Mississippi has the highest rate of infant deaths in the nation, and the Mississippi Delta is the bullseye of this epidemic. When I think about some of the non-issues many of our present-day lawmakers worry about, especially those lawmakers who claim to love children, it makes me utterly disgusted. One would think that anyone who loves Mississippi would want to help some of the most vulnerable Mississippians. Not so.
The night Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed in 1968, he had just finished delivering a speech, one accepting victory in the California Democratic primary race. In that speech, Bobby mentioned his commitment to addressing hunger. That always struck me – that in the wealthiest nation on earth, in the modern era, someone was having to say, out loud, that he intended to do something about hunger. He never lived to have the chance. Sadly, we still face this beast today. The difference – few leaders say anything about it anymore. Think about that. So I posit this: lawmakers, visit poverty-stricken households in the Mississippi Delta today. Perhaps a Dickens-esque transformation will take place within your hearts and minds. Fingers crossed.
