Mississippi's Pint-Sized Potato Producers

Winston County, Mississippi sits nestled amidst an unprepossessing, flat, auburn pine-tree-lined landscape.  Its main attractions, after the Choctaw Indian mound allegedly used continuously from the time of Christ until after white contact, include the oldest continuously operated water mill in the US, still grinding corn six days a week, a private collection of antique fire engines belonging to the local industrialist made good, and a chamber of commerce built in 1851, situated on Louisville’s Main Street, which according to a local brochure, offers a “home town atmosphere, friendly faces & welcoming smiles.”

Louisville’s population of 7,000 has been dropping over the past ten years, but circulation of the local newspaper, the Winston County Journal (slogan: “What’s 113 years old but new every week?”), continues to rise.  The paper’s publisher Joseph McCain is optimistic about its future.  “Newspapers all over the country are having trouble, because young people just get their news for free, over the Internet,” he says.  “But we’re blessed with an older population that keeps growing, so our subscriptions are up!”

Options for work in Louisville include lumber, conveyors for the catfish industry, a brick-building factory, industrial work gloves, a chemical plant, and a seatbelt factory that moved its operations to Mexico a few years ago.  Dorothy Jean Harper worked in quality control at the seatbelt factory for nineteen years.  Since the factory moved to Mexico and she retired, however, she has invested her prodigious energies into singing with the church choir and running the Winston County Self-Help Cooperative instead. 

The group meets three to four times a week at the Mount Moriah Baptist Church.  They sit in folding metal chairs—actually, ‘sit’ is a misnomer.  They writhe.  They batter each other across the table.  The older girls practice elegant and elaborate disaffection; the younger boys make faces at one another.  When one leans back on two chair legs Dorothy Jean scolds him.  “Show some respect!” she says.  (Respect is a big message in these parts.  Dorothy Jean wants the kids to learn respect for their parents, each other, and most of all, the church). When she gives the signal that it’s time to go out to the garden, they fairly fly out.

The garden consists of two different plots that, combined, cover perhaps an acre of land.  What covers the land?  Peas, cucumbers, squash, broccoli, string and butterbeans in the summer; kale, collards, cabbages, rutabagas (pronounced ‘rutabackus’), mustard greens, and turnips in winter.  Each of these is planted and nurtured lovingly by Dorothy Jean and her Louisville lambs.  Dorothy Jean enumerates the benefits: “The children get some exercise, and they learn to work. They make some money, grow some food, and learn about cooking and the nutritional value that can come from the land.” 
The group’s avowed purpose is “to get our children and community involved in motivational activities,” says Dorothy Jean.  To this end, they have taken field trips to the Georgia-Pacific Plywood and Particleboard Plant and to Arkansas.  “If we’re good Ms. Harper gonna take us to California next year!” says Jaqual Johnson. 

Louisville’s former mayor owned the town’s nursery, so seeds were donated to the group.  78-year-old Mr. Hudson, the retired principal of Louisville High and himself an avid gardener, contributes his time and more seeds.  There are no farmer’s markets in the area, but the community is small enough that all produce will be sold amongst neighbors.  “That little spot,” says Mr. Hudson, pointing at a square of greens, “will net me $100 tomorrow.  My son makes $3000-$4000 a year growing okra.”

At one point four-year-old little Malaishia Savior pulls up a too-small turnip green, and an older girl scolds her.  Mr. Hudson, ever the principal, scopes an opportunity for a moral lesson.  “Listen here, children,” he booms, his pastor’s voice and knobby index finger an irresistible attraction.  “She didn’t make a mistake—she pulled up that plant because everyone else was pullin’ up plants.  See, it’s all a learning process.  Let’s give Malaishia a hand for having learned a lesson today!”  Everyone claps.  “Now Malaishia, learn to stand still.”

The kids continue pulling up plants, but after awhile they’re brought together for another lesson.  “Y’all know what a fungus is?” asks Mr. Hudson.  “Mushroom!” yell the kids, in unison.  “Y’all know what this thing is?” he asks, pointing at an insect flitting its wings on a leaf.  “It’s a cabbage looper,” answers one, rapid-fire, “going through metamorphosis,” follows another.  “What are the life stages of an insect?” asks Mr. Hudson.  The kids call out.  “Eggs!”  “Larva!” “Pupa!”  “Adult!” 

The town’s newspaperman, Joseph McCain (who is also the newspaper’s publisher, editor, journalist and photographer), has come to take a picture of the group for the paper, so we all pose in front of the 4-H Garden Spot sign before the vegetables.  “No hand signs, people,” admonishes Dorothy Jean, “and you, pull your pants up!”  There is intermittent giggling as we pose, and the children all want to see themselves on the digital camera screen.  Later, we sit down with little bags of USDA-logo pretzels left over from the first annual youth agricultural and training conference that took place at Mount Moriah over the weekend.  Over half the kids—and Dorothy Jean—are wearing the T-shirt.  The conversation turns to food.  “I like my collards with hot sauce,” says Daymon Crowder.  “I’ll drown them in hot sauce.”  “I put hot sauce on my popcorn!” says Dylan Nicholson.  “I like cornbread with my mustards and collards,” says Malexius Triplett.  “I like fast food,” says Britnay Foster. 

Behind us, a smattering of local parents and grandparents hang out. “The parents here are so supportive,” says Dorothy Jean.  “All it takes is a phone call and they’re here.”  The women discuss cornbread recipes—“you put sugar in yours?”  “Yeah, but I do mine with white cornmeal rather’n yellow.”  The men carry in bundles of greens tied with twine.

I’ve brought the Washington State Renewing the Countryside book for the group to peruse.  All kinds of behinds see the air as the kids crowd over the book, flipping pages.  They pause over a full-page color picture of vegetables growing in rows.  “What greens those are?” they ask, curious.    

The next day I’m working on the story in the local Mud Jug coffeeshop when Mary, the owner, approaches with a slice of homemade carrot cake. It’s the store’s 45th anniversary, and people have been coming through all morning (prompted by the local radio reporter, who squats the front stoop, speaking into a microphone) for a chance to win a half-carat Antwerp diamond in a raffle they enter by eating ‘carat’ cake.  “I’ve never heard of that project till today!” she says.  “But maybe my church would be up for something like that too.” 

Dorothy Jean may think she’s just teaching a group of kids how to plant vegetables, but her acts have ramifications that extend far beyond the borders of the church plot.  She can’t say whether her good fight combats the neon gauntlet of fast-food chains, the new Wal-Mart that have sprung up on Louisville’s perimeter, the too-baggy jeans worn in school, or the ‘general’ discipline problem.  “All we’re trying to do is make them feel like everybody’s somebody,” she says.

In October and November 2006, I meandered circuitously between San Francisco to Miami under the auspices of Minnesota-based nonprofit Renewing the Countryside, interviewing farmers, ecologists, musicians and activists for a book on youth revitalizing rural landscapes all across America.  Hero-bosses Jan Joannides and Brett Olsen have allowed me to post my interviews here, but look for them in the Youth Renewing the Countryside book, due out in the spring of 2008.