DIY History | Transcribe | Nile Kinnick Collection | Nile Kinnick diary of service in the U.S. Naval Reserve Air Corps, December 3, 1941-February 25, 1942

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Nile Kinnick diary of service in the U.S. Naval Reserve Air Corps, December 3, 1941-February 25, 1942

Page 099

took out immediately on #61 for Vicksburg. It didn't take us long to get out of Tenn. into Mississippi. The latter state in short order left these impressions on me - flat, unfenced, land worn out and crop weary, livestock along the road all the time and almost as many colored folk. Have never seen so many Negroes before in my life. We passed through town after town in which the number of colored people we saw far exceeded the whites. Here again we saw a countryside covered with small unpainted shacks in which the colored folks live. Not so frequently we would see a duplex affair in which the colored family lived on one side & the domesticated animals on the other. On first blush, seems rather humorous, but in reality what a serious social problem it is - and probably getting worse. I have never seen such poverty in the country before - in the city, yes - but not out on the land. The colored folks literally banked the highway in a constant moving throng to and from the small

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took out immediately on #61 for Vicksburg. It didn't take us long to get out of Tenn. into Mississippi. The latter state in short order left these impressions on me - flat, unfenced, land worn out and crop weary, livestock along the road all the time and almost as many colored folk. Have never seen so many Negroes before in my life. We passed through town after town in which the number of colored people we saw far exceeded the whites. Here again we saw a countryside covered with small unpainted shacks in which the colored folks live. Not so frequently we would see a duplex affair in which the colored family lived on one side & the domesticated animals on the other. On first blush, seems rather humorous, but in reality what a serious social problem it is - and probably getting worse. I have never seen such poverty in the country before - in the city, yes - but not out on the land. The colored folks literally banked the highway in a constant moving throng to and from the small