Black soil in the Mississippi Delta: Thriving on the farm against the odds

From the very first in nearly all the schools some attention had been given to training in handiwork, but now was this training first raised to a dignity that brought in direct touch with the South’s magnificent industrial development, and given an emphasis which reminded black folk that before the Temple of Knowledge swing the Gates of Toil.- W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Fol