The Delta Ministry played a crucial role in the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi. It was begun in September 1964, by the

National Council of Churches The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, usually identified as the National Council of Churches (NCC), is a left-wing progressive activist group and the largest ecumenical body in the United States. NCC is an ecumenical partners ...

as a civil rights project operating in

Mississippi Mississippi ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the s ...

to support the southern black freedom struggle. Among the local civil rights groups including the

SNCC The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and later, the Student National Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced ) was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emer ...

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du&nbs ...

and

CORE Core or cores may refer to: Science and technology * Core (anatomy), everything except the appendages * Core (laboratory), a highly specialized shared research resource * Core (manufacturing), used in casting and molding * Core (optical fiber ...

, the Delta Ministry became Mississippi's largest and provided numerous services and programs for area black people through the 1980s. It had "a significant impact on the black struggle for equality in Mississippi." The DM sought to provide "relief, education and training, self-help initiatives, economic and community development, and the fostering of indigenous leadership and leadership skills" in the poorest areas of the state. It operated primarily in the

Delta Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet * D (NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta"), the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * Delta Air Lines, a major US carrier ...

but also in McComb and

Hattiesburg Hattiesburg is a city in the U.S. state of Mississippi, located primarily in Forrest County (where it is the county seat and most populous city) and extending west into Lamar County. The city population was 48,730 in 2020, making it the 5th m ...

(where it supported Raylawni Branch). It successfully pressured state and federal agencies to distribute relief funds to the state's poorest communities, and itself distributed tons of food and clothing to local black people. It also supervised the establishment of federally funded health clinics in Mound Bayou and Greenville, and registered some 70,000 black people to vote. The Ministry was always poorly funded for its ambitions plans. Also, there was often poor and unrealistic planning and unrealistic expectations of the poor and uneducated black people they were trying to help. These were causes of the failure of the ambitious Freedom City commune project of 94 residents on near Greenville in 1966 which was planned to be an alternative to the out-migration of displaced black field hands, and to teach economic self-sufficiency and political independence. Another problem was tensions with the black middle class (who had less to gain and more to lose) and their churches. These offered little support to Ministry activities, and often criticized their efforts as too radical. There were also tensions with activists from the middle classes affiliated with the NAACP with its conservative, gradualist approach to social change. From the late 1960s onward it was internal problems, rather than white resistance, that impaired the Delta Ministry's efforts. Under Owen Brooks, a black northerner who the NCC appointed DM director in 1967, the group split over philosophical and personality issues into two separate units. Brooks wanted broad, statewide goals while the concerned staff wanted to promote projects and leaders on the local level. After 1977, the DM existed as a one-man organization under Brooks.

References

{{reflist Civil rights organizations in the United States African-American organizations Nonpartisan organizations in the United States Anti-racist organizations in the United States African-American history of Mississippi