In Clarksdale, Mississippi I spoke to this man who told me that the jobs are gone and the youth has gone wild. He is retired and calls the Delta home.
“I’ve lived here about 55 years,” he told me. When asked to explain the area he stated, “I done saw the whole town change, there used to be plenty of jobs and everything, mostly all the jobs done left – it’s sad, but that’s the way it is – and people done changed too, the crime rate wasn’t as high as it is now and a lot of killings been going on here and back in the day, it wasn’t like that, people had love for one another.”
As for the biggest crimes in the Delta, he told me shootings and assaults. He then said, “You know, kids are raising their self. There’s no discipline in the homes. The average grandmother now is maybe 34-35 years old – when I was coming up the average grandmother was about 70 something.”