mourning music

"During the disaster 700,000 people were displaced, including 330,000 African-Americans who were moved to 154 relief camps. Over 13,000 refugees near Greenville, Mississippi were gathered from area farms and evacuated to the crest of an unbroken levee, and stranded there for days without food or clean water, while boats arrived to evacuate white women and children. Many African-Americans were detained and forced to labor at gunpoint during flood relief efforts." -- Wikipedia entry on the floods of 1926-1927

Robert Russa Moton's report on the Treatment of Black Americans after the 1927 floods

Louisiana 1927

What has happened down here is the wind have changed
Clouds roll in from the north and it starts to rain.
Rained real hard, it rained for a real long time,
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline.

The river rose all day, the river rose all night.
Some people got lost in the flood,
Some people got away alright.
The river have busted through, clear down to Plaquemines --
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangelne.

Louisiana, Louisiana --
They're tryin' to wash us away,
They're tryin' to wash us away.
Louisiana, Louisiana --
They're tryin' to wash us away,
They're tryin' to wash us away.

President Coolidge came down in a railroad train
With a little fat man with a notepad in his hand.
The President say, "Little fat man, isn't it a shame? -
what the river has done to this poor crackers land."

Louisiana, Louisiana --
They're tryin' to wash us away,
They're tryin' to wash us away.
Louisiana, Louisiana --
They're tryin' to wash us away,
They're tryin' to wash us away,
They're tryin' to wash us away,
They're tryin' to wash us away.

-- Randy Newman

I Wish I Was in New Orleans

Well, I wish I was in New Orleans
I can see it in my dreams.
Arm-in-arm down Burgundy,
a bottle and my friends and me.

Hoist up a few tall cold ones
play some pool and listen to that
tenor saxophone calling me home.
And I can hear the band begin
"When the Saints Go Marching In."
By the whiskers on my chin
New Orleans, I'll be there.

I'll drink you under the table
be red nose, go for walks,
the old haunts, what I wants
is red beans and rice.
And wear the dress I like so well
and meet me at the old saloon.
Make sure there's a Dixie moon
New Orleans, I'll be there.

And deal the cards, roll the dice,
if it ain't that ol' Chuck E. Weiss
and Clayborn Avenue, me and you,
Sam Jones and all --
And I wish I was in New Orleans
I can see it in my dreams.
Arm-in-arm down Burgundy,
a bottle and my friends and me,
New Orleans, I'll be there.

-- Tom Waits