William Alexander Percy's wife, Nannie, gives birth to their first son, LeRoy Percy . He uses his influence in the state government to establish a new levee board to rebuild levees destroyed during the battles of the Civil War and in recent floods. Flood control and African American sharecropper labor are the cornerstones of his plans for developing the Delta region and building the Percy fortune. 1879 African Americans begin leaving the South in the first great migration, heading for Kansas and other points north. All over Mississippi, whites cheer their departure, except in the Delta, where plantation owners are desperate to hold onto their labor force.
Some planters resort to intimidation and threats to keep their tenants from leaving.
Although staffed with both military and civilian engineers, the Commission is dominated by the Army Corps of Engineers. Instead of using natural outlets and creating cutoffs, spillways and other means to drain the high water, this policy relies on levees alone to contain the river and prevent flooding. At the age of 53, Colonel W. A. Percy dies. His son LeRoy Percy, just 28 years old and already a formidable figure in his own right, takes control of the family enterprises. The state of Mississippi ratifies a new constitution, which institutionalizes discriminatory Jim Crow measures such as a poll tax, literacy tests and secret ballots and disenfranchises African American voters in the state.