“My name is Eddie Carthan,” he says, “and I need your help to lift our county from the bottom.”

Nearly 40 years ago, Carthan was elected mayor of Tchula, becoming the first Africa American  mayor of a Mississippi plantation town since Reconstruction, and his victory was celebrated by African Americans across the South

Tchula still looks much as it did when he was elected mayor in 1977, haunted by stray dogs and boarded-up buildings. The median income is $14,000 — a quarter of the national average — and 63 percent of residents live in poverty. Beyond the town center, cotton fields stretch to the horizon in almost every direction.

.WP