NPR had an important story on poverty in America yesterday, focused around Robert Coles and Al Clayton’s book Still Hungry in America, which published photographs of the poor and hungry in the 1960s South. For their program, NPR reporter Michele Norris goes with Clayton back to Belzoni, Mississipi, “one of the poorest counties in one of the poorest states in the United States,” to see how conditions have improved — or not — since Clayton was there. As Clayton says in the NPR transcript, “It was so graphic with the small folks. The face of a hungry child or their demeanor just really prints on me. It’s unforgettable.”
Still Hungry in America is out of print, but a very few used copies are available from the NewSouth Bookstore, toll free (866) 639-7688.