John King: They'll Take Small Victories in Struggling Mississippi County

[Louisiana1976]

FAYETTE, Mississippi (CNN) -- The odds are against Brenda T. Buck, and she knows it. So she counts on what she calls the Sandwich Philosophy: "Take it one bite at a time."

Buck is the county administrator in Jefferson County, a rural area in southwest Mississippi dotted with small churches, modest homes and markers noting a Civil War skirmish.

"It is a great small town, and everybody knows everybody," Buck says.

If you look through the statistics, three things jump out:

• The Census Bureau lists the population of Jefferson County as 86 percent African American, the highest percentage of any county in the United States.

• It is the fourth-poorest county in the United States, with a median income of $15,037.

• The unemployment rate in August was 18.6 percent, the highest of Mississippi's 82 counties.

"It has not always been this way," says Angelia Shelvy, a single mother of three who is among the unemployed. "I think we are forgotten."

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more...http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/09/25/king.sotu.mississippi/index.html

[Submariner]

1. With racist crackers like Haley Barbour and Trent Lott representing them

it is no wonder they are doing so badly. There should be a documentary showing this kind of travesty and SHAME Barbour, Lott, and the rest of the ignorant crackers in Mississippi.