As it stands today, around 17 percent of Mississippi’s citizens have no health insurance at all.

Another cruel symptom of poverty shows up in dietary choices since eating healthy costs more than high calorie junk food evidenced in Mississippi’s ranking as America’s most obese state with Alabama and Georgia not far behind on the scales.

And despite the hope that the 1954 Brown V Board decision would somehow equalize educational opportunities in the South and elsewhere, de-facto segregation and incredible funding disparities became the norm throughout the south.

Truth be told, this nation has yet to offer any sort of aggressive national public school education policy that seeks to address the epidemic of educational inequity so prevalent and obvious in the deep-south where a few wealthier districts funded by local tax dollars do exceptionally well, while a vast portion do poor in test scores, funding per pupil, drop out rates and other measurable factors. Mississippi education statistics, like much of the south are mind numbing, almost always at or near the bottom, all coupled with the fact that the state is home to one of the nation’s lowest literacy rates.

Still, according to 2004 Manhattan Institute report, Mississippi saw a 62 percent high school graduation rate which tied with Alabama and beat Georgia with its 54 percent rate of successful graduates.

But, that compares to a national average of 71 percent.

Proactive solutions are scarce if teacher pay is an indicator since Mississippi ranks 50th out of the 51 states including the District of Columbia in average teacher salaries.

Of course, a litany of statistics has the potential to bore people or perhaps ignite the usual dismissive, disparaging remarks about the South that are fueled by simplistic and ignorant stereotypes. And that sort of dismissive attitude is precisely when the ugly head of hypocrisy within the Democratic Party political strategy rears its ugly head.

Just miles away from the glass towers and majestic suburbs of places like Atlanta, Birmingham and Jackson are the real and living examples of Southern socio-economic injustice. They are found in countless isolated communities along back roads or in the poor often violent cities. These stories offer up evidence that we operate under a failed system run by a government that has in essence, relegated millions to cultures of poverty that continues to breed psyches of hopelessness and isolation. It is a system sorely lacking a national beacon of hope, direction and real solutions.

It would appear that ambitious programs like the New Deal, the Great Society are long gone, not even any sort of national education policy task force that seeks to target those desperate areas that need it most. Where and when did the Party and America lose its way and become such a fractious divided land where power grabs became the goal of politicians and where the collective goal to elevate all our people seemed to slide to a backburner of national indifference and individual greed.

Shrill tactics by Republicans created a pattern that neutered what should have been an aggressive plan to win Southern voters by offering policy solutions in a region where hope is a distant land that far too many can’t afford to visit. In the South, Democrats long ago failed to call the Republican bluff, and for that they should be ashamed. Perhaps it’s time to once again, explain and actively sell a progressive agenda that tells Southern voters what Democrats can do for them.

Otherwise, if national Democratic leaders continue the pattern of neglect, they are complacent in allowing its problems to fester since much of this region is a living laboratory filled with the ills the Party has long claimed it wanted to cure.

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