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Catfish Dream: Ed Scott's Fight for His Family Farm and Racial Justice in the Mississippi Delta
Catfish Dream centers around the experiences, family, and struggles of Ed Scott Jr. (born in 1922), a prolific farmer in the Mississippi Delta and the first ever nonwhite owner and operator of a catfish plant in the nation.
Both directly and indirectly, the economic and political realities of food and subsistence affect the everyday lives of Delta farmers and the people there. Ed’s own father, Edward Sr., was a former sharecropper turned landowner who was one of the first black men to grow rice in the state. Ed carries this mantle forth with his soybean and rice farming and later with his catfish operation, which fed the black community both physically and symbolically. He provides an example for economic mobility and activism in a region of the country that is one of the nation’s poorest and has one of the most drastic disparities in education and opportunity, a situation especially true for the Delta’s vast African American population. With Catfish Dream Julian Rankin provides a fascinating portrait of a place through his intimate biography of Scott, a hero at once so typical and so exceptional in his community.
Both directly and indirectly, the economic and political realities of food and subsistence affect the everyday lives of Delta farmers and the people there. Ed’s own father, Edward Sr., was a former sharecropper turned landowner who was one of the first black men to grow rice in the state. Ed carries this mantle forth with his soybean and rice farming and later with his catfish operation, which fed the black community both physically and symbolically. He provides an example for economic mobility and activism in a region of the country that is one of the nation’s poorest and has one of the most drastic disparities in education and opportunity, a situation especially true for the Delta’s vast African American population. With Catfish Dream Julian Rankin provides a fascinating portrait of a place through his intimate biography of Scott, a hero at once so typical and so exceptional in his community.
- GenresNonfictionFood
160 pages, Paperback
Published July 10, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 9, 2018
Ed Scott Junior was one of the first Black catfish growers in the USA, a “Delta titan,” and he was the very first to own a catfish processing plant. My thanks go to Net Galley and the University of Georgia Press for the review copy. It’s inspirational, well written, and well sourced. The book will be available to the public tomorrow, July 10, 2018.
To say that this story is out of my usual wheelhouse is an understatement. I’m a city woman, Caucasian, living in the Pacific Northwest. The two slender ties that drew me to this biography are my interest in civil rights, and my love of a good plate of catfish; yet I enjoyed it a lot, and I think you will too.
Scott was the son of a successful Black farmer, a former sharecropper that bought land incrementally until he owned hundreds of acres in the Mississippi Delta. The first third of the book explains how he did that, and the experiences that Scott Senior and Junior had with the Civil Rights Movement and the local power elite. It’s a little slow at the outset, but the narrative wakes up in a big way around the 35% mark.
As Scott’s farm grows, he encounters one obstacle after another, and the racism is naked and blatant. Local white agribusiness runs him out of the rice growing business—and he has the nerve to drive a better truck than some of the white farmers in the area, which is an affront they can’t let pass. Left with hundreds of acres and no seeds to plant, Scott decides to dig ponds. Rankin is clear: by ponds, he means bodies of water the size of 15 football fields. Big damn ponds.
Caucasian farmers are able to get subsidies and FMHA bank loans, but Scott is declined, not on the basis of his credit score, but because he is African-American. Bank officers and local government officials are so certain of their positions of power that they put their refusals on the basis of race in writing, and up the road, that is what Scott will use to bring them down.
Prior to the 1980s, catfish was not sold in supermarkets. It was considered a lowly bottom-dwelling fish by many, and so its consumption was limited to the families of sport fishermen and poor Southerners . When it made its debut and was purchased by “Midwestern homemakers”, this reviewer was among them, puttering in the back of a Kroger in Toledo, Ohio. “Huh,” I said, “Catfish. Now we’ve never tried that.” I missed the cheap, readily available salmon I’d grown up with in the Pacific Northwest, and was jonesing hard for fish. I had no clue that an immense power struggle lay behind the little foam tray of fish in my shopping cart, but once I’d dipped it in a cornmeal mixture and fried it up, there was no turning back. Yummers.
I read multiple books at a time now that I’m retired, and some of the thrillers I favor make poor companions at bedtime. This biography was perfect then. It’s linear for the most part, focused, and although I was angered by the way Scott was treated, I could tell he was going to emerge victorious, so it didn’t keep me awake after the light was out.
Rankin wants to be clear that there’s a whole lot that needs to change before we will be able to say that every race is treated equally in the Delta, or elsewhere the US. One might hope this would be obvious. But everyone needs to read victory stories to boost their morale and remind them of what is possible. If you need a story where the good guys win, then you should get this book and read it.
To say that this story is out of my usual wheelhouse is an understatement. I’m a city woman, Caucasian, living in the Pacific Northwest. The two slender ties that drew me to this biography are my interest in civil rights, and my love of a good plate of catfish; yet I enjoyed it a lot, and I think you will too.
Scott was the son of a successful Black farmer, a former sharecropper that bought land incrementally until he owned hundreds of acres in the Mississippi Delta. The first third of the book explains how he did that, and the experiences that Scott Senior and Junior had with the Civil Rights Movement and the local power elite. It’s a little slow at the outset, but the narrative wakes up in a big way around the 35% mark.
As Scott’s farm grows, he encounters one obstacle after another, and the racism is naked and blatant. Local white agribusiness runs him out of the rice growing business—and he has the nerve to drive a better truck than some of the white farmers in the area, which is an affront they can’t let pass. Left with hundreds of acres and no seeds to plant, Scott decides to dig ponds. Rankin is clear: by ponds, he means bodies of water the size of 15 football fields. Big damn ponds.
Caucasian farmers are able to get subsidies and FMHA bank loans, but Scott is declined, not on the basis of his credit score, but because he is African-American. Bank officers and local government officials are so certain of their positions of power that they put their refusals on the basis of race in writing, and up the road, that is what Scott will use to bring them down.
Prior to the 1980s, catfish was not sold in supermarkets. It was considered a lowly bottom-dwelling fish by many, and so its consumption was limited to the families of sport fishermen and poor Southerners . When it made its debut and was purchased by “Midwestern homemakers”, this reviewer was among them, puttering in the back of a Kroger in Toledo, Ohio. “Huh,” I said, “Catfish. Now we’ve never tried that.” I missed the cheap, readily available salmon I’d grown up with in the Pacific Northwest, and was jonesing hard for fish. I had no clue that an immense power struggle lay behind the little foam tray of fish in my shopping cart, but once I’d dipped it in a cornmeal mixture and fried it up, there was no turning back. Yummers.
I read multiple books at a time now that I’m retired, and some of the thrillers I favor make poor companions at bedtime. This biography was perfect then. It’s linear for the most part, focused, and although I was angered by the way Scott was treated, I could tell he was going to emerge victorious, so it didn’t keep me awake after the light was out.
Rankin wants to be clear that there’s a whole lot that needs to change before we will be able to say that every race is treated equally in the Delta, or elsewhere the US. One might hope this would be obvious. But everyone needs to read victory stories to boost their morale and remind them of what is possible. If you need a story where the good guys win, then you should get this book and read it.
September 15, 2021
Thoroughly enjoyable biography of an African American man and his family (Ed Scott Jr) determined to make a go of his catfish farming operation in Leflore County, Mississippi in the 1980s and 90s despite facing discriminatory lending practices by the FmHA office in Leflore County. A bittersweet story of a family who received a substantial, settlement payment from the government shortly before Mr Scott's death in 2013. Very good.
July 25, 2018
GNa Catfish Dream is an excellent telling of the history of the Scott family in the Mississippi Delta, beginning with the birth of Edward Logan Scott, Jr in 1922 and ending with his death in October of 2015. This history concentrates on the problems beginning in 1980 with Scott's dealings with the Governments USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) and FmHA (Farmer's Home Administration) when Ed Jr. was forced by a waning market for soybeans, rice and corn into converting the focus of his husbandry on the 1,080 acre family farm, and the 51 families depending on that land for their income, to growing, processing and transporting catfish. Beginning in 1983, through a series of unacceptable practices, discrimination and downright unlawful procedures, FmHA and local banks had foreclosed on all of the Scott land except the 180 original acres never included in the working farm loans from FmHA and sold as second mortgages to those local banks. Ed Jr. struggled the rest of his life to right that wrong and return the family land to his descendants. With the help of his daughter Willena, he wife Edna and extended family, he managed to live to a ripe old age and see his dreams, if not materialize, find a comfortable resting place.
In 1920 there were 925,000 black farmers in the United States. By 1999 there were fewer than 18,000 African American owned farms. Judge Paul Friedman found that "The United States Department of Agriculture and the county commissioners to whom it had delegated so much power bore much of the responsibility for this dramatic decline." This is a story of justice and redemption that I found heartwarming and encouraging. It is a story that needed badly to be told. Thank you Julian Rankin.
I received a free electronic copy of this biography from Netgalley, Julian Rankin, and University of Georgia Press in exchange for an honest review. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me.
Pub date July 10, 2018
able to post at B&N 7-25-18
In 1920 there were 925,000 black farmers in the United States. By 1999 there were fewer than 18,000 African American owned farms. Judge Paul Friedman found that "The United States Department of Agriculture and the county commissioners to whom it had delegated so much power bore much of the responsibility for this dramatic decline." This is a story of justice and redemption that I found heartwarming and encouraging. It is a story that needed badly to be told. Thank you Julian Rankin.
I received a free electronic copy of this biography from Netgalley, Julian Rankin, and University of Georgia Press in exchange for an honest review. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me.
Pub date July 10, 2018
able to post at B&N 7-25-18
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May 28, 2019I sat through most of a documentary on MB Mayfield, an African American artist from Pontotoc, MS, only to feel forced to leave as yet another white elderly man explained how “it was with the blacks” in MS. This book by Julian Rankin is an HONEST account of institutional racism in Mississippi, with no blind spots. Read this. It is a critique of corporate farming, racist farming programs, and an inside view of agriculture for those of us who eat farmed food (most of us).
December 3, 2025
You can't help but love, respect, and admire Ed Scott. He was a war hero, a community hero, a family hero, and a business hero. Likewise, you can't help but detest, be disgusted by, and hate the institutional racism built into the fabric of the United States, as well as the Mississippi Delta that did everything within its power to not only prevent Scott from farming for America, based solely on the color of his skin, but also to absolutely destroy him. Rankin writes his story with a deft pen, being able to write of a man and his family (and his dreams for that family) and also able to write of a red tape-laden bureaucracy with way too much power and far too little oversight.
June 25, 2019
While I enjoyed the historical aspects of this family's journey to Mississippi and what it took to build a farm and a business, the storytelling did not really make the case for racial justice or what the family struggled against. The reading became a bit run-of-the-mill and left my interest behind in the early pages. I petered out about 2/3rds of the way through and skimmed the rest.
November 22, 2020
Great read.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews