Informant38

The tornado leveled over 200 homes, many of good construction on the west side of town. It completely swept away poorly constructed homes several miles to the west of town, and on the northeast side of town. Entire families were killed, up to 13 in a single home. When the official death toll of 216 was set, there were still over 100 people in hospitals in three states. Many were in serious or critical condition. The Mississippi State Geologist estimated the final death toll at 233. Since only the names of the white injured were published in newspapers, it is not possible to follow up on the fate of the black injured. This racial aspect of tornado documentation was common until the late-1940's, and occasionally present, in some form, until the mid-1950's.

{Bobbie Ann Mason in her Elvis Presley in the Penguin Lives series, says Elvis saw that tornado when he was a one-year old. she also mentions the Negro community of Shake Rag which was completely obliterated, lock stock and barrel, men women and children, in that tornado. because of the prudish and infantile nature of most mass media, these small-hearted idiots who want to debate 'Affirmative Action' are allowed to go on spewing their ignorance on the uneducated and even more ignorant. because the horror that's there, the real gut-emptying nightmare that only so very recently began to lift, were it to be shown plainly and clearly on national TV, would make that kind of debate impossible to sustain, and show those craven fools for what they are.}