The Economics of Segregation

Civil rights activist John Perkins worked as a Mississippi sharecropper in his youth. At 12 years old, he equated his meager earnings and social standing with slavery, and vowed to fight the economics of segregation that limited his outlook. Through his work organizing cooperative businesses, registering black voters and organizing boycotts of white-owned businesses, Perkins deepened his influence as a leader of Mississippi’s civil rights movement.