Sardis, Mississippi
Main Street; Sardis, Mississippi - Photo from flickr.com
My
first visit to the Deep South was 120 years
after the Civil War ended yet it was painfully obvious who had lost. I left Memphis
and drove south for a little over an hour on Interstate 55 to reach the town of
Sardis , Mississippi which lies just north of the Little Tallahatchie River
I-55
is Mississippi ’s main thoroughfare and a two-hour drive south will take you from Sardis
to Jackson Los Angeles
to San Diego
Photo from USNews.com
If a gas station sitting along side the biggest road in the state can't survive, what hope is there for anybody else? Unfortunately there is little if any hope as Panola County is one of the "hardest places to live" in the USA according to the New York Times. Data from all 3,135 counties in America was compiled including education, income, unemployment, disability, obesity and life expectancy. The results are displayed on the map shown below with a range from dark blue, representing the easy life; to dark orange, representing a desperate struggle.
Image from The New York Times.
The chart makes it clear that all of the states that seceded from the union in the 1860s haven't fared well since then. By the end of the war the south was decimated. Nearly all of the fighting had taken place in southern states and had taken a heavy toll on areas where two-thirds of the confederate population lived. All of the financial, governmental and social systems and institutions collapsed; the wealthy and their companies went bankrupt; confederate currency was worthless; municipal and transportation infrastructure was destroyed; entire towns and cities were incinerated. Farm crops, structures, livestock and equipment were decimated and the 250,000 confederate soldiers that died included the 18 to 40 year-olds that would have been needed to revive an agricultural economy. Any level of manpower, even if trained, wouldn't have been enough as the loss of all means of transportation made any needed materials and supplies inaccessible. Much of the general population was barely subsisting in make-shift camps and thousands ended up starving to death.
When Lee surrendered at Appomattox the damage to the railroads, bridges, levees and roads made it impossible for photographers to arrive in time to capture the ceremony or any of the participants. The closest they could come was the shot below of the exterior of the courthouse several hours after the signing.
When Lee surrendered at Appomattox the damage to the railroads, bridges, levees and roads made it impossible for photographers to arrive in time to capture the ceremony or any of the participants. The closest they could come was the shot below of the exterior of the courthouse several hours after the signing.
photo from ashvilleoralhistoryproject.com
The legislators from the southern states all resigned from the U.S. government prior to the start of the war enabling the northern lawmakers to implement policies that directed the future economic development of the country. A combination of funding and tariffs helped launch the industrial revolution in the northeast and built a transcontinental railway system that supported expansion and growth in the west. In addition to losing the war and their way of life, the southern states were occupied by Yankee troops until 1877 and were required to sign loyalty oaths and pay sufficient lip service to the 14th amendment before being accepted back into the union.
I had gone to Sardis to visit a plant that made mowers and snow blowers for the Toro Company. The plant was one of the few opportunities for a good steady job in Sardis and employed 175 people. The only other good-sized employer was ten miles further south at the Batesville Casket plant. I had worked with several other Toro plants in the U.S. but the others had all been in or near major metropolitan areas and none had been in the south. I had begun at Toro headquarters near Minneapolis where I discovered that the Sardis plant outperformed the 17 other plants that manufactured products for Toro. Production engineers and technicians from the other plants often spent time in Sardis hoping to return with ways to improve their own operation.
The Sardis plant was a marvel. The surrounding county's lack of job opportunities had created a highly motivated self-autonomous work force. The employees mirrored the community's 50-50 split between black and white folks and as one group they were driven to perfect their operation, outdo the other plants and thus stay employed. The production norm for other plants was one supervisor to a maximum of 12 assemblers. At Sardis, there were no supervisors on the production floor. The employees set up and tore down their own production lines; made the products, monitored the quality, solved problems and implemented improvements. All this was accomplished, unlike the other Toro plants, with no need of support or expertise from production, mechanical or quality engineers.
The Sardis plant had a staff of seven people who handled administrative functions but the production employees managed their own activity. During the ten years I spent visiting manufacturers, I spent a minimum of 2 or 3 days in several hundred plants in North America including a good dozen that were anointed by the Harvard Business Review as "world class," but I never saw anything that came close to what was going on in Sardis.
Ken Melrose ran The Toro Company from its headquarters in Minnesota at the time. In the book God is my CEO, he explained that his Christian beliefs were at the root of the "servant leadership" management style he had tried to infuse throughout the company. The Toro Company completed implementing a new accounting system with the help of some expensive consulting during the latter half of the 1980s. Unfortunately, the expected increases in net income and earnings did not materialize and some type of executive action seemed appropriate, so Ken Melrose shut down the Sardis plant.
I never heard a reason for this but I was truly curious since Sardis produced more product at a faster rate, a lower cost and better quality than any other plant. I suppose Ken may have taken offense that Sardis employees preferred bass fishing on Saturday rather than sitting in team building sessions mulling over the company's mission, goals and objectives. Human Resources at Corporate was also some what steamed that Sardis employees had little use for the HR's culture surveys and myriad politically correct programs. I doubt it was a north-south thing. Maybe Ken Melrose never read the Book of Revelations.
I had gone to Sardis to visit a plant that made mowers and snow blowers for the Toro Company. The plant was one of the few opportunities for a good steady job in Sardis and employed 175 people. The only other good-sized employer was ten miles further south at the Batesville Casket plant. I had worked with several other Toro plants in the U.S. but the others had all been in or near major metropolitan areas and none had been in the south. I had begun at Toro headquarters near Minneapolis where I discovered that the Sardis plant outperformed the 17 other plants that manufactured products for Toro. Production engineers and technicians from the other plants often spent time in Sardis hoping to return with ways to improve their own operation.
The Sardis plant was a marvel. The surrounding county's lack of job opportunities had created a highly motivated self-autonomous work force. The employees mirrored the community's 50-50 split between black and white folks and as one group they were driven to perfect their operation, outdo the other plants and thus stay employed. The production norm for other plants was one supervisor to a maximum of 12 assemblers. At Sardis, there were no supervisors on the production floor. The employees set up and tore down their own production lines; made the products, monitored the quality, solved problems and implemented improvements. All this was accomplished, unlike the other Toro plants, with no need of support or expertise from production, mechanical or quality engineers.
The Sardis plant had a staff of seven people who handled administrative functions but the production employees managed their own activity. During the ten years I spent visiting manufacturers, I spent a minimum of 2 or 3 days in several hundred plants in North America including a good dozen that were anointed by the Harvard Business Review as "world class," but I never saw anything that came close to what was going on in Sardis.
Ken Melrose ran The Toro Company from its headquarters in Minnesota at the time. In the book God is my CEO, he explained that his Christian beliefs were at the root of the "servant leadership" management style he had tried to infuse throughout the company. The Toro Company completed implementing a new accounting system with the help of some expensive consulting during the latter half of the 1980s. Unfortunately, the expected increases in net income and earnings did not materialize and some type of executive action seemed appropriate, so Ken Melrose shut down the Sardis plant.
I never heard a reason for this but I was truly curious since Sardis produced more product at a faster rate, a lower cost and better quality than any other plant. I suppose Ken may have taken offense that Sardis employees preferred bass fishing on Saturday rather than sitting in team building sessions mulling over the company's mission, goals and objectives. Human Resources at Corporate was also some what steamed that Sardis employees had little use for the HR's culture surveys and myriad politically correct programs. I doubt it was a north-south thing. Maybe Ken Melrose never read the Book of Revelations.