# data[].attributes.body
Jesmyn Ward was born in DeLisle, Mississippi in 1977. Her mother's employer provided money to allow Jesmyn to attend a private school to help further her education. She earned degrees from both Stanford University and the University of Michigan.

# data[].attributes.body
Jesmyn Ward has won many notable awards from her writing. You might know some of these award like the Alex award and the National Book Award for Fiction. The novels she's most known for are Men We Reaped, Salvage the Bones, and Sing, Unburied, Sing.

# data[].attributes.body
The Jim Crow Laws affected blacks so deeply as they weren't able to do what white people could—freely at least—they had to fight just to go to a better school or to get a better job or to simply sit in the front of a bus. Several states used these laws to limit colored peoples' right to vote too. Jim Crow Laws supported the fact that colored people are different than white people and caused colored to go through an intense amount of discrimination for a majority of their lives.

# data[].attributes.body
The 'name' "Jim Crow" came from a character created by a white entertainer and was the beginning of the unfortunate popularization of black face. Jim Crow Laws were enforced after the Civil war in 1877 to separate whites and people of color and continued to exist for about 8 decades. These segregations happened at basically any public place such as restrooms, schools, churches, and even water fountains.

# data[].attributes.body
The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill was the largest oil spill in history. The spill was caused by an explosion that occurred after gas was blasted through concrete that was used to seal an oil well. Eventually, they were able to plug the leak with a 75 ton cap.

# data[].attributes.body
Going back to Jim Crow Laws, black people were often arrested for tiny offenses like loitering, being in the same vicinity as white people, breaking curfew, and the list goes on. The Parchman Farm took these prisoners to their advantage and took them as new workforce for their prison. These prisoners were being worked to death and it wasn't uncommon as not a single one of them made it to serve their full jail time sentence if it happened to be 10 years or more.

# data[].attributes.body
Hurricanes in general have a significant impact on the poor but Hurricane Katrina really took the cake. This storm killed hundreds of people and left a lot of families homeless for some time. About a third of these residents with destroyed homes were in poverty and it was difficult for them to build up.

# data[].attributes.body
To clean-up the oil from the water easier they pumped substances that the oil was made of into the leak so it would break the oil down into smaller droplets, these droplets were either siphoned or burned. Recovery from the spill happened little by little since lots of the oil couldn't be removed and just kept washing up onto shore. The cleaning up process was doing more harm to the ecosystem than good, however they eventually got it clean enough to reopen the gulf to the public.

# data[].attributes.body
Poverty is a major problem in the south and Mississippi is definitely not excluded from their neighboring states in this issue. Mississippi has the most disappointing poverty rate of 20% making it the poorest U.S. state overall. Some people might say that it's actually the worst state to raise a family in regarding the amount of poverty and lack of opportunity.

# data[].attributes.body
Mississippi simply doesn't have the opportunity that a lot of teens and young adults strive for however, this opportunity is available for them in other states. Since there is a lack of pay from the school system, the teachers' they have aren't qualified enough to even really teach, some even lacking a high school diploma. People leave Mississippi as soon as possible just for a better quality of life—whether it be for their children or for themself—since it is unlikely to get anywhere education or money wise when living there.

# data[].attributes.body
As hard as it was eventually people started to build up after the effects of Hurricane Katrina. This process took around 18 months to really start to level out. States that were affected (mainly New Orleans) spent billions of dollars trying to make sure if something destructive were to happen again it wouldn't be as detrimental to their people.

# data[].attributes.body
For Mississippi, Parchman Farm was a big money maker for them because of the prisoners' work on it. This prison quite literally was legalized torture since often they were served inedible food, they had no mattresses, it was crowded with insects and rodents, and was just filthy in general. Eventually, there was an immediate order to end this system as this was no way for a human, prisoner or not, to live.