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2 - The Sunflower County Delta

from Part I - The Family in an Intemperate Community, State, and Nation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 April 2023

Mary D. Coleman
Mary D. Coleman
Affiliation:
Economic Mobility Pathways
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Summary

Born in rural Doddsville in Sunflower County, Eastland’s father, a prominent attorney, activist in the Democratic Party, and cotton planter moved his family from Sunflower County to Scott County (Forest, the county seat), in 1905, when James was just under a year old. The Eastlands traversed through both Scott and Sunflower counties during young James Eastland’s formative years. His great-grandpa, Hiram Eastland, had settled in Forest during the fifth decade of the 1800s. Senator James Oliver Eastland’s parents, Woods Eastland and Alma Austin put stakes in the ground in both Sunflower and Scott Counties. The Senator’s body was interred in February 1986 in Forest, in the segregated Eastern Cemetery. Eastland’s family and his actions as a politician intersected with and harmed the long-term prospects of his obscure black neighbors.

Keywords

Promise and PerilSenator EastlandMs Fannie Lou Hamer and enduring white supremacy
Type
Chapter
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Land, Promise, and Peril
Race and Stratification in the Rural South
 , pp. 25 - 42
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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