The Mighty Mississippi (1998) s01e01 Episode Script
Episode 1
1 We're looking at one of the greatest waterways in the world, the Mississippi River.
It flows through the history of a country, creating in abundance and destroying without mercy, and playing a central role in the most dramatic events in the life of a nation.
And I'm about to begin a journey along its 2Ð thousand miles.
Starting in the Gulf Of Mexico, I'll be tracing its course right up through the American south, and then into the states of the Midwest, before reaching the river's source in northern Minnesota.
It's a fascinating journey of exploration and discovery.
It's a monster, it really is.
It is the mighty Mississippi.
It is.
To follow the river like this is to move through time and history.
Never seen a staircase like that anywhere.
From the birth of America and the most painful chapters of life in the Deep South, to the preoccupations of cities further north.
I talk to witnesses to dramatic events in recent American history.
Well, it was one shot which ran out across the world.
Isn't that something? It is, true.
Did you say there was a black man - In the White House, yeah.
What's he doing there? Exactly.
I see how the river has influenced the culture of millions.
Beautiful! She looks great.
Oh, lovely.
Oh, Lord Oh, I feel Like going home Trevor! Hello, Cherie! That's astonishing that they respond by name.
And I begin to understand how this wild and unpredictable river became such a vibrant liquid highway.
My journey begins above the river's delta, in the Gulf Of Mexico.
Lyle Panepinto has been flying over this delta for almost 40 years.
It's absolutely amazing to look at this and to think it's one river.
Yeah, this is nature's work at its finest here.
A great big powerful river.
Below us is the vast expanse from where the Mississippi water can take the better part of three months.
From whatever angle you approach it, it's a breathtaking view, absolutely astounding.
We're at flood speeds right now because of spring thaw.
It's a lot of water flowing down here right now.
Years of sedimentation have created this enormous, well-nourished wetland.
It's the auspicious start of America's greatest commercial waterway.
Of course, the Mississippi also has quite an effect on the entire United States, really, doesn't it? Yes, it does.
Our great farmlands, we bring farm products down the Mississippi and everything goes out through the mouth of this river.
Rising magnificently out of this ancient marshland, is the dazzling skyline of a modern metropolis.
This is New Orleans in the state of Louisiana.
When Louisiana was purchased from France in 1803, America acquired a city and a port that controlled access to a priceless asset.
New Orleans was the envy of all the great European empires, who saw its potential as a centre for world trade.
Slaves were shipped in, sugar and cotton went out, and vast fortunes were made.
There are still reminders today of those vast fortunes.
This is the surprising aspect of life in New Orleans.
This is evidence of old money, and lots of it.
This is the Garden District of New Orleans and this is one of the most impressive collections of historic mansions in the world.
Many of these houses have remained in the same families for generations.
The passing of the years has not diminished their look of stately opulence.
I've come to visit the Favreau family, who are quietly proud of their history.
Hello.
James, I'm Trevor McDonald.
Trevor, I'm James Favreau, so nice to meet you.
Please come in.
Thanks for inviting us.
Well, you're quite welcome.
We're pleased to have you.
This is my daughter Miquel Favreau.
It's a great pleasure to meet you.
And my mother, Kay Favreau.
So nice to meet you.
How do you do, ma'am? Very nice to meet you.
The Favreaus have lived in this area for 200 years and the younger members of the family are encouraged to remember their European antecedents.
For years, wealthy New Orleans families have presented their daughters to society at debutante balls.
Modelled on events like this in Europe, they're more lavish here than anywhere else in America.
The idea was to identify eligible marriage prospects.
Today the deb season ends with the more general celebration of Mardi Gras.
2010 was Miquel's deb year.
She went to scores of parties, and acquired a collection of gowns costing a small fortune.
This is something that you wore for? Yes.
This is what I wore for Comus which was the final ball.
It's one of my favourites.
Is it something you felt you had to do? Yes, a long line of women in my family have done this and so You wanted to be part of the tradition.
Yeah, it's a big part of my city and who I am.
I'm lucky to have grown up in a very old traditional place.
In that old traditional place, of course, you can understand why these debutante balls were held.
It was a way of meeting people.
Yes.
Now you can meet people in a thousand different ways.
My grandmother met her husband at one of these deb parties.
Yeah, but will you? No, I don't think so! I see there's some other dresses in your wardrobe.
Yes, there are.
This was another one of my favourites.
This was - we called it the crumb-catcher dress.
The what? The crumb-catcher dress.
OK, yeah.
Do you think if you were in any other part of America, life would have been much, much different? Yes, I do.
I think, obviously, where you grow up plays a central part in developing who you are.
But I think growing up in New Orleans, it's such a unique place, that I think it really in turn made me a much more unique person.
Although her deb year was over, Miquel agrees to model one of the gowns she wore.
So, how does she look? Beautiful.
She looks great.
Oh, lovely.
Such a beautiful girl in such a beautiful dress.
And when you see it like this, it's worth it.
Yes.
Thank you! Absolutely.
You look lovely, sweetie.
Thank you.
As always.
In few American cities do you encounter such a rich diversity of people and customs.
This is the Third Ward, one of the less privileged districts of New Orleans.
People who live here are, in the main, descendants of slaves.
One of the older traditions which they still observe is to mark the death of someone well respected with the honour of a jazz funeral.
And this is one of the biggest of the year.
Jonesy, who was the deceased? Miss Grant.
Beverly Grant.
Was she very well known in this community? Very well known.
She always gave, she always put in, always helped.
If a funeral like this goes a long way back in time, the modern touch is provided by New Orleans jazz.
Only in New Orleans, only in New Orleans, nowhere else.
As the procession begins, the music and the mood are sombre.
But not for long.
The sheer exuberance of the music and the dancing were described to me as 'cutting the body loose' from its earthly bonds.
Strange to think of this as a funeral? Certainly.
But it also seemed to me a marvellous way to celebrate the end of a highly-regarded life.
The procession, led by close family and friends, eventually becomes a music and dance parade in which everyone joins.
It's a contrast in the emotions, isn't it? There's sadness in the church but once out on the streets, it's joy.
It's joy.
You know, it says in The Book, when you come into the world, there's tears, when you leave the world, there's joy.
Leaving the world not with sadness but with joy is still a fairly common view among people whose forebears saw death as a relief from the scourge of slavery.
And so jazz funerals, with their long history, have become part of the modern image of New Orleans.
The life force running through this city is unquestionably that of the river.
The Mississippi is the creator of enormous wealth.
But in its darker moods, it can be terrifying.
You can sink one of these vessels in this river in 30 seconds.
It'll be gone.
I'm in New Orleans, following the course of the Mississippi, which for me begins in the Deep South, but which then spreads its influence across towns and cities in 31 states.
The Mississippi is, in reality, the largest river system in the United States.
And part of its massive watershed is the port of New Orleans.
15 miles long, it accommodates the movement of 6,000 ocean-going ships every year.
As familiar on the river as the container ships are the Mississippi tug boats.
Piloting these tugs requires years of experience and skill.
Navigating the Mississippi has never been easy.
I'm aboard one of the boats to meet Captain Barry Boudreaux.
The water level is higher than normal today, the river is always challenging.
You see this tree coming down river right now? Yeah, yeah.
You see that, that goes into your propeller, that will shut a whole operation down, the boat will die.
You can sink one of these vessels in this river in 30 seconds.
There's nothing anybody can do? That's it? No, try to get off.
So this is dangerous stuff.
Oh, it's very dangerous and these guys do it every day, 365 days a year.
And yet this is a commercial highway.
It is.
For not only this state, but for a lot of America.
This is the sixth largest river in the world, and the demographics of the river system is probably a third of the United States, with all the tributaries and everything, if not greater.
So, all of America, and all they export, and all our grains and all our petroleums and our coals, all come down through this passageway, to be exported to anywhere else.
So it's quite interesting, then, you know, that it's important as a commercial highway, undoubtedly, but yet it's pretty dangerous.
No, it is dangerous.
I suppose it's not a good idea for anybody to fall into any of this stuff, is it? No.
The survival rate right now for a man overboard it's pretty bleak.
I would give it at less than 5%.
When you look at it closely you can see the contours of the current and so on, but in general terms, it doesn't really look that dangerous.
No, because it's so big.
It's so massive.
I mean, you know, at this point right now, we're probably sitting over 110 feet of water.
It's a monster, it really is.
It is the mighty Mississippi.
It is.
It is the mighty Mississippi.
But the mighty Mississippi can be monstrous.
It can.
Difficult though the river is, New Orleans could never have become the place it is without the Mississippi.
The river breathes life into the city.
And it helps to shape its cultural expression and its creative talents.
It does that most significantly in its music.
This is the place where jazz was born.
In downtown New Orleans, this is one of the great jazz venues, The Howling Wolf club.
I've come to see the Hot 8, a group of childhood friends who know what it's like to grow up in one of the poorer parts of the city.
Like many before them, they found an escape from the problems of their environment through music, and in particular through jazz.
The morning after their performance, I return to meet band leader and tuba player Benny and trombonist Moon.
Tell me about the importance of music in your community.
First of all, I've got to say that if it wasn't for music, I don't know where I'd be.
It actually saved my life.
Yeah? In what way? Ahm, you know, it gave me the thing to keep going inside of me.
Made me want to - excuse me.
Just gave me something to seek refuge in, you know what I'm saying? That's interesting.
Seeking a refuge.
Refuge from what? Ah, well, sometimes you can get caught up into people and the way they think, you know.
A lot of people in the inner city turn to drugs and crime, or they just turn to a deep depression or they just drink all day or just sit back and just wind and let time go by.
And what is the cause of that depression? The crime.
It's a beautiful place, but you still got to be careful where you go and what you do.
That just wear and tear you in itself.
How is music a release from all that? How do you find music a release? When you hear the notes that you are projecting through your instrument, and when they come one wit' you and the soul, you know, and it's all of us are doing this together.
You know, and the sound that projects from all of us working together and playing this music, it's it's something.
It's cultural, actually.
Can I just see whether I can? Yeah, grab it from there.
Come round here? Grab it from there.
In here? Yeah, go for it.
Wow! It's pretty heavy.
And put it this way? Yeah, and now you're cooking.
See, most of the weight lie on your shoulders.
Yeah.
Yeah.
My shoulders wouldn't last very long.
This is where you blow? It's uncomfortable stretching your neck.
OK.
I'm not getting anywhere.
You know, you know what? It's not a blow.
The technique is not Look.
That's not it.
You don't want that.
What's the technique? You want your lip top and bottom I've got to give it to you first! No, no.
No, I'm not doing it.
Let me tell you, you don't want that That ain't gonna do it.
You want this lip and this lip to meet you on the vibrate.
Look, check it out.
That's what you want to do in there.
Yeah, well, whatever I want, I don't have it, anyway.
This is the beginning and the end of my music career.
Yeah? In New Orleans, living well means living on high ground.
Those who do not have that luxury face a recurring Mississippi threat, the fear of floods.
New Orleans was built on mud, the river flows about ten to 15 feet above sea level.
But most of the city sits below the water line.
To cope with the perils of life close to the river, the city fathers built the biggest system of embankments, or levees, in the world.
Most of the time they do their job.
When they fail, New Orleans faces disaster.
In 2005 disaster struck.
Hurricane Katrina came ashore packing so much wind and rain that the levees broke and large parts of the city were engulfed.
The effects of what happened then are still visible today.
I'm in New Orleans, following the course of a river that has been a part of critical moments in American life.
August 2005 is remembered with horror.
Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans with unbelievable menace.
It was the worst natural disaster this country has ever known.
Nearly every levee was breached.
80% of the city sank under water.
In some places it was 20 feet deep.
The cost in lives and property was huge.
Hundreds died.
Tens of thousands lost their homes.
The scenes of destruction were beyond belief.
Worst hit was the Ninth Ward.
What's left of it today is a ghost of what it once was.
An entire community died here.
Among the people who lived here, it's impossible to escape an air of tired resignation.
You hear that in the voice of Darren Collins.
He takes me on a tour of the ward in which he grew up.
What was your experience during Katrina? I was here and then at the last minute on that Sunday, I was, like, you know, something told me, just get out of here.
So I actually just went up the road to Baton Rouge, and then, you know, the storm came and went and then, you know, we saw on TV that it was over, everything was gone.
And what was the condition of the place when you came back? When I came back, the place was totally destroyed.
None of the stuff was here.
Hey, Miss Rose! Hey! How are you doin'? I'm doing good, how are you doing? All righty! All righty.
That's one of your neighbours? Yes, that's Miss Rose.
Actually, she's my oldest neighbour.
All my life that lady's bought me Christmas gifts.
Every Christmas since I was a little boy, that lady bought me socks and underwear, every year.
This is my neighbourhood, right here.
So, it was very much a close-knit community, in the sense of that word.
Yeah.
The hurricane destroyed some of that.
Man, the hurricane, you know, the hurricane killed it.
I mean, this is six years later and it's just cos it's the Ninth Ward.
This part is the part that was predominantly given to slaves.
That's the reason it was predominantly black owned, because that was the place they said, 'We don't want that'.
So all this overgrown area that we can see here, what was there before? Those were houses.
Every place that you see that grass existing, especially those slabs, the slabs are the best way to see the actual area.
So, this entire area here - Was all houses.
There was thousands of houses that was back here.
And now they're all gone.
The crosses painted on the front of the now derelict houses, coldly show the dates they were inspected, and the number of bodies found inside.
How you thought it was going to look? No, no, I didn't have any clue, really.
Everybody's much more It's much more devastating than I thought.
I never thought there'd be such a collection of just desolate houses.
And after so long, not to have been fixed, that's the astonishing thing.
Although Katrina sucked the life out of this place, homeowners must comply with a bizarre bureaucratic requirement, or risk losing their property.
If you don't cut your grass, technically they gonna blight you as not taking care of your lot.
Yes, but there's nothing to take care of.
Well, exactly.
I know that.
But see how you look at this lot here and it's cut? They have been marked off, the length of their lot.
They're letting the city know, 'We're taking care of ours, so you can't disenfranchise us.
' Can you show me wh-wh-where you lived? Actually, we're pulling up to it, right now, where I lived, and this is it, right here.
Wow.
3425 St It's in a state of total disrepair.
Everywhere around it's overgrown.
Yeah.
Everything looks in And, actually - Pretty bad shape.
Actually, to be real, I got the grass cut about two months ago.
Darin's is only one of thousands of houses ruined by Katrina.
Because this part of the city is overwhelmingly poor and black, the debate about its reconstruction has inevitably raised questions about race and inequality.
Before the hurricane, the population of New Orleans was three-quarters black.
Now the figure is just over half.
May survivors of Katrina could simply not afford to rebuild their lives in a devastated ward.
To me, the official response to what happened here is a blot on the reputation of an otherwise prosperous city.
Leaving New Orleans, I'm continuing my journey along the Mississippi.
For thousands of years, the river has generously watered the countryside and made its hinterland some of the most fertile in the United States.
This is plantation country.
And I'm travelling 30 miles north on the River Road, which hugs the Mississippi, to Edgard, Louisiana.
In the 19th century, there were some 400 plantations in this region.
One of the main crops, sugar, was so lucrative that it came to be known as white gold.
It gave plantation owners an enviable lifestyle.
Even now, looking at these old houses, you can almost taste the wealth they shared.
But of course they are essential to one of the darkest periods in American history.
Less visible is the ugly side of plantation magnificence, reminders of the lives of thousands who toiled from dawn to dusk as slaves.
This is the Evergreen Plantation, one of the few that's still a working farm.
Maintenance manager Josephine Romeau has made a study of early plantation life and agreed to show me around and to talk to me about what she's found out.
Well, hello, hello! Hi, Josephine, I'm Trevor.
Oh, Trevor, Josephine, it's very nice to meet you.
Very nice to meet you.
The main house here was rebuilt in the 1830s, and is a typical example of the style of the period.
Beautifully done.
I mean, I love the curved - Yes! Staircase approaches.
Oh, I've never seen a staircase like that anywhere and I've looked and looked and it almost gives the house wings.
And to have a double-fronted Which one shall we go up? There was an old rumour that one was for gentlemen and one was for ladies.
But it's never been proven so we can go up together.
OK.
And, of course, the house was built within sight of the great river, just beyond the trees.
You can see people sort of sitting out here in the evening, looking at the rest of the plantation.
Mm, mm-hm.
And it was kind of an accident.
You built your house so up high, one, because you wanted to stay out of the way of any sort of flood waters Because the river is just across there.
It is.
But built up high like this, you get that wonderful breeze off the river, cooling the house, drying the house underneath.
So it was very smart engineering but it also made for a lovely view.
This plantation remained in the same family for 150 years.
It fared well until, first, the Mississippi flood of 1927, and then Great Depression, forced it into bankruptcy.
By 1930, it was empty.
The shutters had gone down on an age of plenty.
The house was purchased by an oil heiress who restored it to what you see today.
But that's only one part of the Evergreen story.
Out of sight, away from the big house, are the cabins where the slaves were housed.
Not very long ago, thousands of these were dotted across the American South.
Only a few are left today.
Did the houses in the 1800s look as they do now, the slave cabins? No, no, they've changed quite a bit.
For one thing, the trees were planted probably 1850s, we think.
So for the better part of the history back here in the slave quarters, those trees were not here.
And would the slaves have built these cabins themselves? Oh, absolutely, and if you think about what it would take to just get a board, to make a flat board by cutting a cypress tree from the swamp, bringing it up, getting a long-saw, and two men on a long-saw on each side and shaving off planks, and no power tools, all of this done by hand.
Here we are.
Come in, come in.
Well, it's amazing to be in this place and just to imagine what life must be like for people who lived here and survived here.
Yes.
What was it like for a mother bringing up children here in surroundings like these? Hm.
Oh, very difficult.
Uh I only know a few examples.
One, nursing mothers would be given breaks to come and take care of their children throughout the day.
It must have been a chilling thought knowing that they were bringing up children who would themselves almost inevitably be slaves.
Yes.
Yes.
I have I have no frame of reference.
I can't even imagine what that must feel like, you know? I I have no idea.
A careful valuation of the estate and its assets in 1835 includes terse, matter-of-fact descriptions, of its workers.
Some of the descriptions are interesting.
They give an indication of that they're like.
American negro, excellent sugar worker and negro of confidence.
Yes, negro of confidence, just meaning that someone vouches for that that individual as being a good worker.
And this American negress field hand with her two children was worth $1,000.
Mothers and their children were always sold as a package.
The detail is instructive, isn't it? Oh, it fills in so many gaps.
The work descriptions, the designations of the people and their worth.
The personality descriptions.
You get a little bit.
Yeah, it gives you just a glimpse of maybe a person that was living back here.
When slavery was eventually abolished in the United States in 1865, some four million workers were technically free.
But some plantation life carried on as though nothing had changed, and for the majority, nothing had changed.
Many former slaves had nowhere else to go.
So they continued working here right up until the 1940s, in cabins with no electricity and no running water.
On a fine day like this, with the birds singing in the trees, Evergreen may look idyllic, but these cabins hold memories of years of unremitting toil, casual brutality and unconscionable hardship.
It's a period which tore the newly independent United States apart in a vicious civil war and set the tone for a tumultuous battle over American civil rights.
Listen closely, wherever you find yourself in America, and you can still hear echoes of that battle today.
Continuing my journey, I'm heading for one of America's most forbidding landscapes, another creation of the mighty Mississippi.
I'm in Louisiana on the first leg of a journey following the most important river in the United States the Mississippi.
I'm travelling through plantation country to explore another remarkable place that owes its existence to the waters of the great river.
My journey takes me from Edgard northwards to the state capital, Baton Rouge, and then west to the seemingly endless Atchafalaya Swamp.
My guide is Tucker Freedman.
He's spent most of his life here and knows how temperamental the Mississippi can be.
Today it's threatening another flood.
We'll go out this way.
This way? OK.
The water's rising really fast.
I can see, all around here.
The last group I took out, we walked here and it was dry, now the water's starting to get on the land.
It's rising that fast.
Yeah.
You could be in a spot of bother if it gets any higher.
Tomorrow morning there will be a foot of water over this.
Really? Anyway, let's have a go, eh? All right.
You can sit up here in the navigator's seat.
Sit in the navigator's seat.
The only thing wrong with that is, if I get lost it's your fault! Yeah, OK.
We are about to enter one of American's last great wildernesses.
A third of all the Mississippi's water ends up here.
It's the biggest swamp in the country.
To travel any distance through its confusion of inlets and lakes is to marvel at how Tucker Freedman is able to navigate his way through.
How do you find your way through all this? Because it's very forbidding.
It doesn't look terribly easy at all.
It's kind of instinctive, you know.
Been out here all of my life.
I was out here with my grandfather and my father when I was a little bitty boy.
It's still fascinating how you find your way about, I must say.
You're looking for my GPS, aren't you? I'm looking for something.
Cos I find it slightly slightly forbidding.
Yeah.
Intimidating.
Intimidating.
There's something sort of dark about it, do you know? The fear you're probably talking about, or the intimidation you're talking about, is if something happens to me, how are you going to get back? I was thinking about that, yes.
That's not going to be terribly easy.
But deeper and deeper into the swamp we go.
19 miles wide and 120 miles long, it's unlike anywhere I've been before.
But, incredibly, for runaway slaves, this inhospitable swamp was a refuge.
Those brave enough to escape ventured where no plantation owner was likely to follow in pursuit.
Today, the Atchafalaya Swamp is a natural sanctuary for wildlife.
Including one species I've always disliked intensely.
And Tucker is calling out to one of them.
Hello, Cherie! This area's a big nesting area for alligators, it's one of the highest land areas around the water and the alligators are nesting right now.
Laying their eggs.
What's that sound you were making? Is that a mating call of the alligators? It somewhat emulates the sound of a baby alligator.
Cherie! Hello, Cherie.
Hello, Cherie! Was that a special one you were calling there? Yeah, yeah.
Really? Yeah.
That is astonishing, that they respond by name.
Hello, Cherie! Here we are, Cherie.
Hello! And, yes, we're actually trying to persuade an alligator to swim closer our boat.
Hello, Cherie! Here we are, Cherie.
Hello, Cherie.
Come on, Cherie.
It is coming this way, isn't it? Here it comes.
Hello, Cherie.
Here it comes.
What's that? What's that you're feeding? Marshmallows.
I never knew alligators liked marshmallows! It all felt terribly unreal, an encounter in a Louisiana swamp, with an alligator which responded to its name and which had a passion for sweets.
The Atchafalaya Swamp, part forest and water, was forbidding, primeval, yet hauntingly beautiful.
Well done.
Fantastic.
I hope you enjoyed it.
Absolutely fantastic.
Back on dry land, I'm off to the final destination on this leg of my journey.
Leaving Louisiana behind, I'm in the state of Mississippi, and one of the oldest plantation settlements in the Deep South, Natchez.
The people who laboured under the yoke of plantation life left one of the most glorious legacies of all time, gospel music.
Emmanuel Emmanuel Somebody calling Emmanuel Emmanuel He is the Prince Of Peace Emmanuel Yeah We worship you We worship you Modern gospel can be traced back to the African spirituals and the songs slaves sang at work and when they're working day was done.
Welcome to the Pilgrim Baptist Church in Natchez.
Hey, how are you doing? Pastor White, I'm Trevor McDonald.
Trevor McDonald! How are you doing? So nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
Pastor Melvin White tells me how today's gospel hymns are still inspired by thoughts of freedom and release, from captivity and slavery.
Hey, buddy, give me some, give me some.
What would you say is the history of gospel music, which is such an important ingredient to these services? When we sing those songs, we get caught up in them because we are now singing upon the reality of what our ancestors endured, and what they went through.
So that's why those songs bring so much of an emotional response from us.
So there's a thought of liberation - Liberation.
And freedom.
Freedom.
About the gospel music.
That's the main concept of it.
Liberation and freedom, because during the time they was being depressed, they couldn't do anything else but er sing.
And most of the songs derived from hymns, that they would just moan sometimes, and Oh, Lord Oh, I feel like going home And those songs begin now to catch on, that now one of the others would cry out likewise and say, Oh, I feel, too, like going home So they would sing songs then They're gonna be a meeting tonight The slave owner didn't know what they were talking about, what they were doing, getting all the other slaves together.
Meeting on the old camp ground That they had a segment of a piece of a spot of land that they would all meet and steal away at the midnight hour, that they would go and worship from one point and one purpose and that was to worship God for what he was doing and that was liberating them from their depression that they was going through.
Yeah I said Anybody know that He live Anybody know that He live My everything Put your hands together You want to do your thing Anybody knows that He's My everything My everything My everything Next time, further up the Mississippi, I see the river's influence on the 20th century.
This is roughly where Elvis stood.
I don't believe that people actually marked the spot where he stood.
A time of greater optimism, and the stirrings of the American Dream.
It flows through the history of a country, creating in abundance and destroying without mercy, and playing a central role in the most dramatic events in the life of a nation.
And I'm about to begin a journey along its 2Ð thousand miles.
Starting in the Gulf Of Mexico, I'll be tracing its course right up through the American south, and then into the states of the Midwest, before reaching the river's source in northern Minnesota.
It's a fascinating journey of exploration and discovery.
It's a monster, it really is.
It is the mighty Mississippi.
It is.
To follow the river like this is to move through time and history.
Never seen a staircase like that anywhere.
From the birth of America and the most painful chapters of life in the Deep South, to the preoccupations of cities further north.
I talk to witnesses to dramatic events in recent American history.
Well, it was one shot which ran out across the world.
Isn't that something? It is, true.
Did you say there was a black man - In the White House, yeah.
What's he doing there? Exactly.
I see how the river has influenced the culture of millions.
Beautiful! She looks great.
Oh, lovely.
Oh, Lord Oh, I feel Like going home Trevor! Hello, Cherie! That's astonishing that they respond by name.
And I begin to understand how this wild and unpredictable river became such a vibrant liquid highway.
My journey begins above the river's delta, in the Gulf Of Mexico.
Lyle Panepinto has been flying over this delta for almost 40 years.
It's absolutely amazing to look at this and to think it's one river.
Yeah, this is nature's work at its finest here.
A great big powerful river.
Below us is the vast expanse from where the Mississippi water can take the better part of three months.
From whatever angle you approach it, it's a breathtaking view, absolutely astounding.
We're at flood speeds right now because of spring thaw.
It's a lot of water flowing down here right now.
Years of sedimentation have created this enormous, well-nourished wetland.
It's the auspicious start of America's greatest commercial waterway.
Of course, the Mississippi also has quite an effect on the entire United States, really, doesn't it? Yes, it does.
Our great farmlands, we bring farm products down the Mississippi and everything goes out through the mouth of this river.
Rising magnificently out of this ancient marshland, is the dazzling skyline of a modern metropolis.
This is New Orleans in the state of Louisiana.
When Louisiana was purchased from France in 1803, America acquired a city and a port that controlled access to a priceless asset.
New Orleans was the envy of all the great European empires, who saw its potential as a centre for world trade.
Slaves were shipped in, sugar and cotton went out, and vast fortunes were made.
There are still reminders today of those vast fortunes.
This is the surprising aspect of life in New Orleans.
This is evidence of old money, and lots of it.
This is the Garden District of New Orleans and this is one of the most impressive collections of historic mansions in the world.
Many of these houses have remained in the same families for generations.
The passing of the years has not diminished their look of stately opulence.
I've come to visit the Favreau family, who are quietly proud of their history.
Hello.
James, I'm Trevor McDonald.
Trevor, I'm James Favreau, so nice to meet you.
Please come in.
Thanks for inviting us.
Well, you're quite welcome.
We're pleased to have you.
This is my daughter Miquel Favreau.
It's a great pleasure to meet you.
And my mother, Kay Favreau.
So nice to meet you.
How do you do, ma'am? Very nice to meet you.
The Favreaus have lived in this area for 200 years and the younger members of the family are encouraged to remember their European antecedents.
For years, wealthy New Orleans families have presented their daughters to society at debutante balls.
Modelled on events like this in Europe, they're more lavish here than anywhere else in America.
The idea was to identify eligible marriage prospects.
Today the deb season ends with the more general celebration of Mardi Gras.
2010 was Miquel's deb year.
She went to scores of parties, and acquired a collection of gowns costing a small fortune.
This is something that you wore for? Yes.
This is what I wore for Comus which was the final ball.
It's one of my favourites.
Is it something you felt you had to do? Yes, a long line of women in my family have done this and so You wanted to be part of the tradition.
Yeah, it's a big part of my city and who I am.
I'm lucky to have grown up in a very old traditional place.
In that old traditional place, of course, you can understand why these debutante balls were held.
It was a way of meeting people.
Yes.
Now you can meet people in a thousand different ways.
My grandmother met her husband at one of these deb parties.
Yeah, but will you? No, I don't think so! I see there's some other dresses in your wardrobe.
Yes, there are.
This was another one of my favourites.
This was - we called it the crumb-catcher dress.
The what? The crumb-catcher dress.
OK, yeah.
Do you think if you were in any other part of America, life would have been much, much different? Yes, I do.
I think, obviously, where you grow up plays a central part in developing who you are.
But I think growing up in New Orleans, it's such a unique place, that I think it really in turn made me a much more unique person.
Although her deb year was over, Miquel agrees to model one of the gowns she wore.
So, how does she look? Beautiful.
She looks great.
Oh, lovely.
Such a beautiful girl in such a beautiful dress.
And when you see it like this, it's worth it.
Yes.
Thank you! Absolutely.
You look lovely, sweetie.
Thank you.
As always.
In few American cities do you encounter such a rich diversity of people and customs.
This is the Third Ward, one of the less privileged districts of New Orleans.
People who live here are, in the main, descendants of slaves.
One of the older traditions which they still observe is to mark the death of someone well respected with the honour of a jazz funeral.
And this is one of the biggest of the year.
Jonesy, who was the deceased? Miss Grant.
Beverly Grant.
Was she very well known in this community? Very well known.
She always gave, she always put in, always helped.
If a funeral like this goes a long way back in time, the modern touch is provided by New Orleans jazz.
Only in New Orleans, only in New Orleans, nowhere else.
As the procession begins, the music and the mood are sombre.
But not for long.
The sheer exuberance of the music and the dancing were described to me as 'cutting the body loose' from its earthly bonds.
Strange to think of this as a funeral? Certainly.
But it also seemed to me a marvellous way to celebrate the end of a highly-regarded life.
The procession, led by close family and friends, eventually becomes a music and dance parade in which everyone joins.
It's a contrast in the emotions, isn't it? There's sadness in the church but once out on the streets, it's joy.
It's joy.
You know, it says in The Book, when you come into the world, there's tears, when you leave the world, there's joy.
Leaving the world not with sadness but with joy is still a fairly common view among people whose forebears saw death as a relief from the scourge of slavery.
And so jazz funerals, with their long history, have become part of the modern image of New Orleans.
The life force running through this city is unquestionably that of the river.
The Mississippi is the creator of enormous wealth.
But in its darker moods, it can be terrifying.
You can sink one of these vessels in this river in 30 seconds.
It'll be gone.
I'm in New Orleans, following the course of the Mississippi, which for me begins in the Deep South, but which then spreads its influence across towns and cities in 31 states.
The Mississippi is, in reality, the largest river system in the United States.
And part of its massive watershed is the port of New Orleans.
15 miles long, it accommodates the movement of 6,000 ocean-going ships every year.
As familiar on the river as the container ships are the Mississippi tug boats.
Piloting these tugs requires years of experience and skill.
Navigating the Mississippi has never been easy.
I'm aboard one of the boats to meet Captain Barry Boudreaux.
The water level is higher than normal today, the river is always challenging.
You see this tree coming down river right now? Yeah, yeah.
You see that, that goes into your propeller, that will shut a whole operation down, the boat will die.
You can sink one of these vessels in this river in 30 seconds.
There's nothing anybody can do? That's it? No, try to get off.
So this is dangerous stuff.
Oh, it's very dangerous and these guys do it every day, 365 days a year.
And yet this is a commercial highway.
It is.
For not only this state, but for a lot of America.
This is the sixth largest river in the world, and the demographics of the river system is probably a third of the United States, with all the tributaries and everything, if not greater.
So, all of America, and all they export, and all our grains and all our petroleums and our coals, all come down through this passageway, to be exported to anywhere else.
So it's quite interesting, then, you know, that it's important as a commercial highway, undoubtedly, but yet it's pretty dangerous.
No, it is dangerous.
I suppose it's not a good idea for anybody to fall into any of this stuff, is it? No.
The survival rate right now for a man overboard it's pretty bleak.
I would give it at less than 5%.
When you look at it closely you can see the contours of the current and so on, but in general terms, it doesn't really look that dangerous.
No, because it's so big.
It's so massive.
I mean, you know, at this point right now, we're probably sitting over 110 feet of water.
It's a monster, it really is.
It is the mighty Mississippi.
It is.
It is the mighty Mississippi.
But the mighty Mississippi can be monstrous.
It can.
Difficult though the river is, New Orleans could never have become the place it is without the Mississippi.
The river breathes life into the city.
And it helps to shape its cultural expression and its creative talents.
It does that most significantly in its music.
This is the place where jazz was born.
In downtown New Orleans, this is one of the great jazz venues, The Howling Wolf club.
I've come to see the Hot 8, a group of childhood friends who know what it's like to grow up in one of the poorer parts of the city.
Like many before them, they found an escape from the problems of their environment through music, and in particular through jazz.
The morning after their performance, I return to meet band leader and tuba player Benny and trombonist Moon.
Tell me about the importance of music in your community.
First of all, I've got to say that if it wasn't for music, I don't know where I'd be.
It actually saved my life.
Yeah? In what way? Ahm, you know, it gave me the thing to keep going inside of me.
Made me want to - excuse me.
Just gave me something to seek refuge in, you know what I'm saying? That's interesting.
Seeking a refuge.
Refuge from what? Ah, well, sometimes you can get caught up into people and the way they think, you know.
A lot of people in the inner city turn to drugs and crime, or they just turn to a deep depression or they just drink all day or just sit back and just wind and let time go by.
And what is the cause of that depression? The crime.
It's a beautiful place, but you still got to be careful where you go and what you do.
That just wear and tear you in itself.
How is music a release from all that? How do you find music a release? When you hear the notes that you are projecting through your instrument, and when they come one wit' you and the soul, you know, and it's all of us are doing this together.
You know, and the sound that projects from all of us working together and playing this music, it's it's something.
It's cultural, actually.
Can I just see whether I can? Yeah, grab it from there.
Come round here? Grab it from there.
In here? Yeah, go for it.
Wow! It's pretty heavy.
And put it this way? Yeah, and now you're cooking.
See, most of the weight lie on your shoulders.
Yeah.
Yeah.
My shoulders wouldn't last very long.
This is where you blow? It's uncomfortable stretching your neck.
OK.
I'm not getting anywhere.
You know, you know what? It's not a blow.
The technique is not Look.
That's not it.
You don't want that.
What's the technique? You want your lip top and bottom I've got to give it to you first! No, no.
No, I'm not doing it.
Let me tell you, you don't want that That ain't gonna do it.
You want this lip and this lip to meet you on the vibrate.
Look, check it out.
That's what you want to do in there.
Yeah, well, whatever I want, I don't have it, anyway.
This is the beginning and the end of my music career.
Yeah? In New Orleans, living well means living on high ground.
Those who do not have that luxury face a recurring Mississippi threat, the fear of floods.
New Orleans was built on mud, the river flows about ten to 15 feet above sea level.
But most of the city sits below the water line.
To cope with the perils of life close to the river, the city fathers built the biggest system of embankments, or levees, in the world.
Most of the time they do their job.
When they fail, New Orleans faces disaster.
In 2005 disaster struck.
Hurricane Katrina came ashore packing so much wind and rain that the levees broke and large parts of the city were engulfed.
The effects of what happened then are still visible today.
I'm in New Orleans, following the course of a river that has been a part of critical moments in American life.
August 2005 is remembered with horror.
Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans with unbelievable menace.
It was the worst natural disaster this country has ever known.
Nearly every levee was breached.
80% of the city sank under water.
In some places it was 20 feet deep.
The cost in lives and property was huge.
Hundreds died.
Tens of thousands lost their homes.
The scenes of destruction were beyond belief.
Worst hit was the Ninth Ward.
What's left of it today is a ghost of what it once was.
An entire community died here.
Among the people who lived here, it's impossible to escape an air of tired resignation.
You hear that in the voice of Darren Collins.
He takes me on a tour of the ward in which he grew up.
What was your experience during Katrina? I was here and then at the last minute on that Sunday, I was, like, you know, something told me, just get out of here.
So I actually just went up the road to Baton Rouge, and then, you know, the storm came and went and then, you know, we saw on TV that it was over, everything was gone.
And what was the condition of the place when you came back? When I came back, the place was totally destroyed.
None of the stuff was here.
Hey, Miss Rose! Hey! How are you doin'? I'm doing good, how are you doing? All righty! All righty.
That's one of your neighbours? Yes, that's Miss Rose.
Actually, she's my oldest neighbour.
All my life that lady's bought me Christmas gifts.
Every Christmas since I was a little boy, that lady bought me socks and underwear, every year.
This is my neighbourhood, right here.
So, it was very much a close-knit community, in the sense of that word.
Yeah.
The hurricane destroyed some of that.
Man, the hurricane, you know, the hurricane killed it.
I mean, this is six years later and it's just cos it's the Ninth Ward.
This part is the part that was predominantly given to slaves.
That's the reason it was predominantly black owned, because that was the place they said, 'We don't want that'.
So all this overgrown area that we can see here, what was there before? Those were houses.
Every place that you see that grass existing, especially those slabs, the slabs are the best way to see the actual area.
So, this entire area here - Was all houses.
There was thousands of houses that was back here.
And now they're all gone.
The crosses painted on the front of the now derelict houses, coldly show the dates they were inspected, and the number of bodies found inside.
How you thought it was going to look? No, no, I didn't have any clue, really.
Everybody's much more It's much more devastating than I thought.
I never thought there'd be such a collection of just desolate houses.
And after so long, not to have been fixed, that's the astonishing thing.
Although Katrina sucked the life out of this place, homeowners must comply with a bizarre bureaucratic requirement, or risk losing their property.
If you don't cut your grass, technically they gonna blight you as not taking care of your lot.
Yes, but there's nothing to take care of.
Well, exactly.
I know that.
But see how you look at this lot here and it's cut? They have been marked off, the length of their lot.
They're letting the city know, 'We're taking care of ours, so you can't disenfranchise us.
' Can you show me wh-wh-where you lived? Actually, we're pulling up to it, right now, where I lived, and this is it, right here.
Wow.
3425 St It's in a state of total disrepair.
Everywhere around it's overgrown.
Yeah.
Everything looks in And, actually - Pretty bad shape.
Actually, to be real, I got the grass cut about two months ago.
Darin's is only one of thousands of houses ruined by Katrina.
Because this part of the city is overwhelmingly poor and black, the debate about its reconstruction has inevitably raised questions about race and inequality.
Before the hurricane, the population of New Orleans was three-quarters black.
Now the figure is just over half.
May survivors of Katrina could simply not afford to rebuild their lives in a devastated ward.
To me, the official response to what happened here is a blot on the reputation of an otherwise prosperous city.
Leaving New Orleans, I'm continuing my journey along the Mississippi.
For thousands of years, the river has generously watered the countryside and made its hinterland some of the most fertile in the United States.
This is plantation country.
And I'm travelling 30 miles north on the River Road, which hugs the Mississippi, to Edgard, Louisiana.
In the 19th century, there were some 400 plantations in this region.
One of the main crops, sugar, was so lucrative that it came to be known as white gold.
It gave plantation owners an enviable lifestyle.
Even now, looking at these old houses, you can almost taste the wealth they shared.
But of course they are essential to one of the darkest periods in American history.
Less visible is the ugly side of plantation magnificence, reminders of the lives of thousands who toiled from dawn to dusk as slaves.
This is the Evergreen Plantation, one of the few that's still a working farm.
Maintenance manager Josephine Romeau has made a study of early plantation life and agreed to show me around and to talk to me about what she's found out.
Well, hello, hello! Hi, Josephine, I'm Trevor.
Oh, Trevor, Josephine, it's very nice to meet you.
Very nice to meet you.
The main house here was rebuilt in the 1830s, and is a typical example of the style of the period.
Beautifully done.
I mean, I love the curved - Yes! Staircase approaches.
Oh, I've never seen a staircase like that anywhere and I've looked and looked and it almost gives the house wings.
And to have a double-fronted Which one shall we go up? There was an old rumour that one was for gentlemen and one was for ladies.
But it's never been proven so we can go up together.
OK.
And, of course, the house was built within sight of the great river, just beyond the trees.
You can see people sort of sitting out here in the evening, looking at the rest of the plantation.
Mm, mm-hm.
And it was kind of an accident.
You built your house so up high, one, because you wanted to stay out of the way of any sort of flood waters Because the river is just across there.
It is.
But built up high like this, you get that wonderful breeze off the river, cooling the house, drying the house underneath.
So it was very smart engineering but it also made for a lovely view.
This plantation remained in the same family for 150 years.
It fared well until, first, the Mississippi flood of 1927, and then Great Depression, forced it into bankruptcy.
By 1930, it was empty.
The shutters had gone down on an age of plenty.
The house was purchased by an oil heiress who restored it to what you see today.
But that's only one part of the Evergreen story.
Out of sight, away from the big house, are the cabins where the slaves were housed.
Not very long ago, thousands of these were dotted across the American South.
Only a few are left today.
Did the houses in the 1800s look as they do now, the slave cabins? No, no, they've changed quite a bit.
For one thing, the trees were planted probably 1850s, we think.
So for the better part of the history back here in the slave quarters, those trees were not here.
And would the slaves have built these cabins themselves? Oh, absolutely, and if you think about what it would take to just get a board, to make a flat board by cutting a cypress tree from the swamp, bringing it up, getting a long-saw, and two men on a long-saw on each side and shaving off planks, and no power tools, all of this done by hand.
Here we are.
Come in, come in.
Well, it's amazing to be in this place and just to imagine what life must be like for people who lived here and survived here.
Yes.
What was it like for a mother bringing up children here in surroundings like these? Hm.
Oh, very difficult.
Uh I only know a few examples.
One, nursing mothers would be given breaks to come and take care of their children throughout the day.
It must have been a chilling thought knowing that they were bringing up children who would themselves almost inevitably be slaves.
Yes.
Yes.
I have I have no frame of reference.
I can't even imagine what that must feel like, you know? I I have no idea.
A careful valuation of the estate and its assets in 1835 includes terse, matter-of-fact descriptions, of its workers.
Some of the descriptions are interesting.
They give an indication of that they're like.
American negro, excellent sugar worker and negro of confidence.
Yes, negro of confidence, just meaning that someone vouches for that that individual as being a good worker.
And this American negress field hand with her two children was worth $1,000.
Mothers and their children were always sold as a package.
The detail is instructive, isn't it? Oh, it fills in so many gaps.
The work descriptions, the designations of the people and their worth.
The personality descriptions.
You get a little bit.
Yeah, it gives you just a glimpse of maybe a person that was living back here.
When slavery was eventually abolished in the United States in 1865, some four million workers were technically free.
But some plantation life carried on as though nothing had changed, and for the majority, nothing had changed.
Many former slaves had nowhere else to go.
So they continued working here right up until the 1940s, in cabins with no electricity and no running water.
On a fine day like this, with the birds singing in the trees, Evergreen may look idyllic, but these cabins hold memories of years of unremitting toil, casual brutality and unconscionable hardship.
It's a period which tore the newly independent United States apart in a vicious civil war and set the tone for a tumultuous battle over American civil rights.
Listen closely, wherever you find yourself in America, and you can still hear echoes of that battle today.
Continuing my journey, I'm heading for one of America's most forbidding landscapes, another creation of the mighty Mississippi.
I'm in Louisiana on the first leg of a journey following the most important river in the United States the Mississippi.
I'm travelling through plantation country to explore another remarkable place that owes its existence to the waters of the great river.
My journey takes me from Edgard northwards to the state capital, Baton Rouge, and then west to the seemingly endless Atchafalaya Swamp.
My guide is Tucker Freedman.
He's spent most of his life here and knows how temperamental the Mississippi can be.
Today it's threatening another flood.
We'll go out this way.
This way? OK.
The water's rising really fast.
I can see, all around here.
The last group I took out, we walked here and it was dry, now the water's starting to get on the land.
It's rising that fast.
Yeah.
You could be in a spot of bother if it gets any higher.
Tomorrow morning there will be a foot of water over this.
Really? Anyway, let's have a go, eh? All right.
You can sit up here in the navigator's seat.
Sit in the navigator's seat.
The only thing wrong with that is, if I get lost it's your fault! Yeah, OK.
We are about to enter one of American's last great wildernesses.
A third of all the Mississippi's water ends up here.
It's the biggest swamp in the country.
To travel any distance through its confusion of inlets and lakes is to marvel at how Tucker Freedman is able to navigate his way through.
How do you find your way through all this? Because it's very forbidding.
It doesn't look terribly easy at all.
It's kind of instinctive, you know.
Been out here all of my life.
I was out here with my grandfather and my father when I was a little bitty boy.
It's still fascinating how you find your way about, I must say.
You're looking for my GPS, aren't you? I'm looking for something.
Cos I find it slightly slightly forbidding.
Yeah.
Intimidating.
Intimidating.
There's something sort of dark about it, do you know? The fear you're probably talking about, or the intimidation you're talking about, is if something happens to me, how are you going to get back? I was thinking about that, yes.
That's not going to be terribly easy.
But deeper and deeper into the swamp we go.
19 miles wide and 120 miles long, it's unlike anywhere I've been before.
But, incredibly, for runaway slaves, this inhospitable swamp was a refuge.
Those brave enough to escape ventured where no plantation owner was likely to follow in pursuit.
Today, the Atchafalaya Swamp is a natural sanctuary for wildlife.
Including one species I've always disliked intensely.
And Tucker is calling out to one of them.
Hello, Cherie! This area's a big nesting area for alligators, it's one of the highest land areas around the water and the alligators are nesting right now.
Laying their eggs.
What's that sound you were making? Is that a mating call of the alligators? It somewhat emulates the sound of a baby alligator.
Cherie! Hello, Cherie.
Hello, Cherie! Was that a special one you were calling there? Yeah, yeah.
Really? Yeah.
That is astonishing, that they respond by name.
Hello, Cherie! Here we are, Cherie.
Hello! And, yes, we're actually trying to persuade an alligator to swim closer our boat.
Hello, Cherie! Here we are, Cherie.
Hello, Cherie.
Come on, Cherie.
It is coming this way, isn't it? Here it comes.
Hello, Cherie.
Here it comes.
What's that? What's that you're feeding? Marshmallows.
I never knew alligators liked marshmallows! It all felt terribly unreal, an encounter in a Louisiana swamp, with an alligator which responded to its name and which had a passion for sweets.
The Atchafalaya Swamp, part forest and water, was forbidding, primeval, yet hauntingly beautiful.
Well done.
Fantastic.
I hope you enjoyed it.
Absolutely fantastic.
Back on dry land, I'm off to the final destination on this leg of my journey.
Leaving Louisiana behind, I'm in the state of Mississippi, and one of the oldest plantation settlements in the Deep South, Natchez.
The people who laboured under the yoke of plantation life left one of the most glorious legacies of all time, gospel music.
Emmanuel Emmanuel Somebody calling Emmanuel Emmanuel He is the Prince Of Peace Emmanuel Yeah We worship you We worship you Modern gospel can be traced back to the African spirituals and the songs slaves sang at work and when they're working day was done.
Welcome to the Pilgrim Baptist Church in Natchez.
Hey, how are you doing? Pastor White, I'm Trevor McDonald.
Trevor McDonald! How are you doing? So nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
Pastor Melvin White tells me how today's gospel hymns are still inspired by thoughts of freedom and release, from captivity and slavery.
Hey, buddy, give me some, give me some.
What would you say is the history of gospel music, which is such an important ingredient to these services? When we sing those songs, we get caught up in them because we are now singing upon the reality of what our ancestors endured, and what they went through.
So that's why those songs bring so much of an emotional response from us.
So there's a thought of liberation - Liberation.
And freedom.
Freedom.
About the gospel music.
That's the main concept of it.
Liberation and freedom, because during the time they was being depressed, they couldn't do anything else but er sing.
And most of the songs derived from hymns, that they would just moan sometimes, and Oh, Lord Oh, I feel like going home And those songs begin now to catch on, that now one of the others would cry out likewise and say, Oh, I feel, too, like going home So they would sing songs then They're gonna be a meeting tonight The slave owner didn't know what they were talking about, what they were doing, getting all the other slaves together.
Meeting on the old camp ground That they had a segment of a piece of a spot of land that they would all meet and steal away at the midnight hour, that they would go and worship from one point and one purpose and that was to worship God for what he was doing and that was liberating them from their depression that they was going through.
Yeah I said Anybody know that He live Anybody know that He live My everything Put your hands together You want to do your thing Anybody knows that He's My everything My everything My everything Next time, further up the Mississippi, I see the river's influence on the 20th century.
This is roughly where Elvis stood.
I don't believe that people actually marked the spot where he stood.
A time of greater optimism, and the stirrings of the American Dream.