Looking Back: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927

We’re seeing the worst flooding along the Mississippi river in many decades. Eight states have evacuated residents, levees have been blown up or breached and the water is still coming. Many are saying that by the time the flooding reaches the southern Mississippi Delta, we’ll be looking at the worst flooding on this river since the great flood of 1927. Besse Smith wrote “Backwater Blues” in 1927. The floods that year changed American culture and history as devastation ripped through Nashville, Tennessee and along the Mississippi. Pete Daniel, retired curator and historian at the Smithsonian Institution of American History and author of “Deep’n as it Come: The 1927 Mississippi Flood,” says the lesson we should take with us from the Great Flood is that Mother Nature can be stronger than humankind.