NBC Black: A Town With No Banks

Editor’s Note: This is a work in progress.

Very excited to speak at #PoorPeoplesCampaign later today in DC! @liztheo @RevDrBarber @UniteThePoor. Abolishing poverty is decades overdue. Let’s make it happen in 2020. ???

— Andrew Yang (@AndrewYang) June 17, 2019

This will also demand that the US devise a more concerted national plan for rolling out 5G. Hopefully this is forthcoming.

— Andrew Yang (@AndrewYang) June 17, 2019

If we don’t have one by the time I take office I will make a National 5G rollout plan a top priority as President.

— Andrew Yang (@AndrewYang) June 17, 2019

I’m confident that I am only blogger on the internet who is simultaneously interested in the likes of Bilbo, Vardaman, Pettus, Rankin, Davis and L.C.Q. Lamar II and Andrew Yang’s 2020 presidential campaign.

I have this weird perspective on politics because I am a historicist. I’m used to writing about politics and current events in the afternoon and brushing up on my other interests in history, economics and other subjects in the early morning and in the evening. I spend so much of my time exploring other centuries out of curiosity that it gives me some unique insights into the present.

NBC Black:

“ITTA BENA, Miss. — Shawn Robinson, 50, has a view from his front stoop that he often finds more interesting than what’s on TV. From the doorway of his building on the edge of Itta Bena’s town square, Robinson can see people come and go from this struggling Mississippi Delta town’s only no-fee or low-fee ATM.

Robinson has seen women stand in front of it and start to cry. On a few occasions he’s heard church folks use blue language or seen people smack the brick wall around the ATM. (The machine itself is too precious to ding.) The most frequent reaction: variations on a sigh.

In Itta Bena, population 1,828 and likely declining, the four other ATMs sit inside gas stations and charge $5.25 to $7.50 per transaction. So, the demand for the most basic financial services at an affordable rate is such that on one or sometimes two days a week, Hope’s ATM runs out of money. …

What Robinson is watching isn’t simply the most active spot at the center of a small, struggling town. Robinson has an unavoidable view of an economic problem so fundamental that even those experiencing its effects may not recognize its cause. He is standing in one of the 6,008 places where the nation’s banks have closed branches from 2008 to 2016.

Itta Bena is a banking desert, a place where traditional banks have completely disappeared. …”

Itta Bena, MS is 81.34% black.