© 2026 Blue Ridge Public Radio
Blue Ridge Mountains banner background
Your source for information and inspiration in Western North Carolina.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

A 20 Year Experiment In Cooperative Farming In The Mississippi Delta

In the new book, Robert Hunt Ferguson explores interracial farming in rural Mississippi during the Depression and Jim Crow era
University of Georgia Press
In the new book, Robert Hunt Ferguson explores interracial farming in rural Mississippi during the Depression and Jim Crow era
In the new book, Robert Hunt Ferguson explores interracial farming in rural Mississippi during the Depression and Jim Crow era
Credit University of Georgia Press
In the new book, Robert Hunt Ferguson explores interracial farming in rural Mississippi during the Depression and Jim Crow era

An interracial farmer’s co-op built upon the principles of cooperative communalism existed for 20 years in rural Mississippi.Scholar Robert Hunt Ferguson explores this socio-economic experiment in his book “Remaking the Rural South: Interracialism, Christian Socialism and Cooperative Farming in Jim Crow Mississippi” (The University of Georgia Press 2018).Ferguson is a professor of history at Western Carolina University.

 

 A conversation with author and Scholar Robert Hunt Ferguson about his book 'Remaking the Rural South: Interracialism, Christian Socialism and Cooperative Farming in Jim Crow Mississippi'.

He talks with host FrankStasioabout the unlikely collaboration between former slaves, sharecroppers, religious leaders and labor unionists. They explore how this community survived the depression and abject racism of the time.

 

Copyright 2018 North Carolina Public Radio

Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
Dana is an award-winning producer who began as a personality at Rock 92. Once she started creating content for morning shows, she developed a love for producing. Dana has written and produced for local and syndicated commercial radio for over a decade. WUNC is her debut into public radio and she’s excited to tell deeper, richer stories.