Analysis Of When The Levee Breaks

192 Words1 Page

"When the Levee Breaks" was originally recorded by the blues musical duo Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie. In the first half of 1927, the Great Mississippi Flood ravaged the state of Mississippi and surrounding areas. It destroyed many homes and devastated the agricultural economy of the Mississippi Basin. Many people were forced to flee to the cities of the Midwest in search of work, contributing to the "Great Migration" of African Americans in the first half of the 20th century. During the flood and the years after it subsided, it became the subject of numerous Delta blues songs, including "When the Levee Breaks", hence the lyrics, "I works on the levee, mama both night and day, I works so hard, to keep the water away" and "It's a mean

Show More
Related

  • 'Rising Tide' Chronicles Flow of Changes

    1072 Words  | 3 Pages

    John M. Barry's Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, takes us back 70 years to a society that most of us would hardly recognize.

    Read More

  • The Artificial River Summary

    773 Words  | 2 Pages

    Author and historian, Carol Sheriff, completed the award winning book The Artificial River, which chronicles the construction of the Erie Canal from 1817 to 1862, in 1996. In this book, Sheriff writes in a manner that makes the events, changes, and feelings surrounding the Erie Canal’s construction accessible to the general public. Terms she uses within the work are fully explained, and much of her content is first hand information gathered from ordinary people who lived near the Canal. This book covers a range of issues including reform, religious and workers’ rights, the environment, and the market revolution. Sheriff’s primary aim in this piece is to illustrate how the construction of the Erie Canal affected the peoples’ views on these issues.

    Read More

  • Donald Worster's Levees Analysis

    630 Words  | 2 Pages

    Rather than working with nature through multi-tiered flood control with spillways and reservoirs, levees disallowed the river to naturally flood, deteriorated the natural ecosystem, and ultimately weakened the city’s defenses against the hurricane (Kelman). Culture and society further interacted, as beliefs in man’s power over nature and racial discrimination promoted levee expansion and racial segregation, creating a city of racially differentiated risk (Spreyer 4). As a result, inundation mostly impacted the lower land neighborhoods that housed poor people of color. Society and nature interfaced in the application of levees that contained nature’s forces. Ultimately, nature won out: the hurricane overpowered the levees and breached the Industrial Canal, disproportionally flooding the mostly black, low-elevation neighborhoods of New Orleans (Campanella

    Read More

  • How Did The Hoover Dam Affect The Three Gorges Dam

    367 Words  | 1 Pages

    Mississippi was also managed in New Orleans to limit flooding. This was done through levies that were at first naturally built by the river’s mud flows during floods. Later the levies were built higher and higher to keep the flooding Mississippi into the New Orleans area. But the levies were often ineffective in managing, or led to, more flooding. Kelman explains this when they write “With the development in the Mississippi Valley ongoing and artificial banks confining more runoff inside the channel, the river set new high-water marks” (Pg 702).

    Read More

  • Analysis of Dave Egger's Zeitoun

    874 Words  | 2 Pages

    When The Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. Dir. Spike Lee. HBO, 2006. Documentary.

    Read More

  • Racism In Anne Moody's 'We Shall Overcome'

    1709 Words  | 4 Pages

    “We Shall Overcome” was a popular song of comfort and strength during the civil rights movement; it was a rallying cry for many black people who had experienced the racial injustices of the south. The song instilled hope that one day they would “overcome” the overt and institutional racism preventing them from possessing the same rights as white citizens. Anne Moody describes several instances when this song helped uplift her through the low points of her life as a black woman growing up in Mississippi in the 1950s and early 1960s. By the end of her autobiography “Coming Of Age In Mississippi” (1968), she saw a stream of excessive and unending violence perpetrated by white people and the crippling effects of poverty on the black people of

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Blame It On The Blues By Angela Davis

    561 Words  | 2 Pages

    It highlights the luxurious lifestyle of the rich man and about the rich man’s lack of knowledge regarding the struggles of the poor man. “Washwoman’s Blues” is a parallel song, also performed by smith, speaks about the financial environments of many African American women. These are social protests because “Poor Man’s Blues” openly indicts and upper classes for the increasing manipulation and poverty of the poor and “Washwoman’s Blue” critiques the oppressive conditions that most African-American women were forced to work. Bessie smith wrote and recorded many songs that invoked the black experience in America, notably “Blackwater Blues”, “Workhouse Blues”, and “Send Me to The Lectric Chair” all were subtle protests against the treatment of blacks. They touched on topics ranging from black imprisonment to the disregarding of African Americans and

    Read More

  • Hurricane Katrina Levee Essay

    1016 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the Army Corps of Engineers own text on their site “Ongoing vigilance is needed to ensure that levee infrastructure will perform properly during a flood event,” and yet after all the years of the structures presence there had never been a mention of the levees inability to withstand a level 3 or greater hurricane (Levee Inspection) (11 Facts About Hurricane Katrina). USGS Scientists Investigate New Orleans Levees Broken by Hurricane Katrina gives a diagram of how the levees failed because of the water levels; the caption explains that when the water goes over the wall it erodes the soil (in multiple areas) forcing it to give way to the pressure (Kayen Collins

    Read More

  • The Effects Of The Buffalo Creek Flood, By Kai T. Erikson

    1402 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kai T. Erikson studied the effects of the Buffalo Creek flood and interviewed the survivors left in the community. Erikson documented his research and his analysis in his ethnography Everything in its Path. The flood was unique in the way that it affected the community so drastically and the calamity that it caused in its wake. Buffalo Creek is a small mining community in rural West Virginia. The community has deep roots in the land and has always trusted the land to provide for them as well as trusting the company to treat them fairly. The community is made up of families that have been there for several generations and treats everyone in the community as a family member. Individuals in Buffalo Creek pride themselves on their hard work and

    Read More

  • Hurricane Katrina: America's Costliest Storm

    967 Words  | 2 Pages

    By August 28, evacuations were underway across the region. That day, the National Weather Service predicted that after the storm hit, “most of the [Gulf Coast] area will be uninhabitable for weeks…perhaps longer.” New Orleans was at particular risk. Though about half the city actually lies above sea level, its average elevation is about six feet below sea level–and it is completely surrounded by water. Over the course of the 20th century, the Army Corps of Engineers had built a system of levees and seawalls to keep the city from flooding. The levees along the Mississippi River were strong and sturdy, but the ones built to hold back Lake Pontchartrain, Lake Borgne and the waterlogged swamps and marshes to the city’s east and west were much less reliable. Even before the storm, officials worried that those levees, jerry-built atop sandy, porous, erodible soil, might not withstand a massive storm surge. Neighborhoods that sat below sea level, many of which housed the city’s poorest and most vulnerable people, were at great risk of

    Read More

  • Analysis Of An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge

    591 Words  | 2 Pages

    The 1890 story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce was composed with a structure that shows time fluidity. The story illustrated the perceived function of time as beyond reality as it slows down to the satisfaction of the delusions of protagonist, Peyton Farquhar, as he experiences a dying incident on the day of his execution. Farquhar was charged with the crime of an attempted act to destroy or sabotage the Owl Creek Bridge, and was thereafter sentenced to death by the Federal Army. Farquhar believes as he also leads the readers the same that he has escaped execution and has made his way back home. The dying protagonist’s experience was portrayed in a slow flow of time that seemed to exactly fit the many circumstances that occurred just in time for reality to come and take its place in time.

    Read More

  • Analysis of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce

    611 Words  | 2 Pages

    Numerous American authors have written stories about the Confederate Civil War. Ambrose Bierce has been one of the most popular authors whose writings have withheld the ticking test-of-time. His own distinction within the Union Confederate Army provides a parallel within his own writings. In the justly famous short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (Bierce 551), Ambrose Bierce, creates a fascinating tale of reality that infuses a bridge into ostensible spirituality through his effective use of characters, settings, and symbolisms.

    Read More

  • At The Time Of Louisville Flood Analysis

    353 Words  | 1 Pages

    "Migrant Mother" and "At The Time of the Louisville Flood" were two works published during the Great Depression which have some similar and different messages and ideas.

    Read More

  • Muddy Waters Biography

    1850 Words  | 4 Pages

    Williams and recorded in 1981. In this piece starts off with an electric guitar that gets a mini solo in a high pitch tone. Then you begin to hear the drums and the piano which adds a fast paced tempo that imitate the feeling of excitement. But when you listen to the song the lyrics, they suggest that he has to stay a musician because his life depends on the income that it brings. The lyrics of this sing include “Well I broke down hungry, I got to go out to the well yard, I got to get myself a food stamp, So I can buy myself a cup of coffee, Well I can see I was born to lose, For me there ain't no escape from the blues.” The sound of his voice has become more clear over the course of his career. Also the overall feel for his songs have become less dark toned and a more upbeat. In a National Public Radio broadcasting they discussed how Muddy Waters audience had shifted from African American to Caucasian by the end of his career. It also mentioned how when he was on tour and went to England he found that he was more popular there than he was in America. “In England they changed the label of his genre from blues to folk and also turned down the amplification in his songs when he would perform in the hopes to please the hosts” (David Welna,

    Read More

  • The Factors that Influence the Flood Hydrograph

    953 Words  | 2 Pages

    In this essay I aim to find out the ways in which they affect the

    Read More

More about Analysis Of When The Levee Breaks

Open Document