[October 6, 2025] Standing alone in the Mississippi Delta are several small towns steeped in poverty. One of them is Alligator, Mississippi. Joe & Nic’s Road Trip is a YouTube channel specializing in road trips, mainly visiting the downtowns and neighborhoods of rural America.
They capture the decline of these small towns, showing the visual decay and the human stories behind it. My sister Terri put me onto this channel when one town they covered was Bastrop, Louisiana. Today, it’s the story of Alligator, Mississippi.
“I was shocked. I have never seen numbers like this. This has to be the poorest town in the country.” — Joe & Nic’s Road Trip
- Population: about 250 (116 in the 2020 census)
- Median age: 29, which is unusually young, where most of these dying towns have a much older population, as the young move away.
- Age 17 and under: 40%
- Race: 79% Black, 21% White
- Per Capita income: $11,500 per year, about $221 per week (the lowest they’ve seen).
- Average people per household: 3
- Poverty rate: 66%, for under 17 the rate is 72%, for 65 and older the rate is 73%.
The town is named after alligators. A lake nearby was apparently infested with them. There is a “City Hall,” which is a small cinder block building. Downtown, if that is what it can be called, there is not much going on. Watching the video, I saw one person, and he waved.
Most of the roads are paved and are narrow (one lane). There is plenty of junk lying about in people’s yards. There were some pretty good-looking apartments, certainly government housing. Interestingly, they saw no houses for sale. I’m sure you could get a good deal on them.
Here are some of my thoughts. First, I grew up only a few miles from Alligator, just west across the Mississippi River. Mer Rouge, Louisiana, was about the same size and existed under a cotton-centric economy and Christian culture. But times have changed in these towns since their peak in the 1970s/80s. My other sister said it well. “We got out just in time.”
Second, as Whites began a migration to follow jobs outside agriculture, the Black population became more concentrated, as the overall numbers declined rapidly. This meant less economic and political clout, pulling those left behind further underwater. And there were fewer jobs or opportunities. Government subsidies became the primary source of income, and that never bodes well. Why people would live in Alligator or similar towns is easy to answer. They are from there. This is their familial roots, and as long as the government pays, some folks will stay.
Third, Southern culture is anything but fast. Life is taken in slow steps. When there is no job or requirement to improve where you live, then you don’t live for much other than your family and friends. Alcohol and drugs are there to “help” get through the day. Church on Sundays helps. And an occasional BBQ with booze helps pass the time with fish caught in nearby lakes and the Mississippi River. There is little else.
I’ve never been to Alligator, Mississippi, but I’ve been to many like it. Joe & Nic commented that the decline of these towns in rural America continues. And, yes, they will continue to decline. What no one knows is where the bottom is located. I don’t know, but the bottom might see these towns become ghosts of the past. There are towns like these all over America.
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Thanks, Gen. Satterfield for not forgetting about your roots and showing us another side of life that we may be ignorant about.
Ouch, I would not want to live there. I once drove through rural Mississippi by accident, and saw much of what this tour shows. I also stopped for a snack at a small store and got to speak with these folks. They seemed happy with their slow lives but I could never do it. My grandparents on both sides lived in these kind of towns in Alabama. I saw what they did and how they loved their families and neighbors. Still, that is not a life for me. Call me selfish. I’m okay with that.
Gotcha, man! I live in the city of Lubbock, Texas and despite the rednecks, it’s a good place to raise a family and make a living.
Personally, I would not like to live there.
“I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance.”
― Beryl Markham, West with the Night
Nice quote, Lady Hawk. I think Beryl is saying that your home is always home, and don’t disparage it. 👍
🇺🇸 Youre right, Good Dog. And America is a great nation and people are different and as long as they accept America as their home, then we are fine with them. Here in Alligator, MS, there are folks who are with their family – young and old (per the demographic profile) and they are where they want to be. End of story. Gen. Satterfield himself is from a similar town just across the river, and likely not that much bigger or better. Home is, indeed, home. 🇺🇸
Gen. Satterfield, we much appreciate you showing us what America once was, and to this day partly remains. Many are still poor but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have families that make their lives satisfied. I’m originally from the Bronx, and I still go there to see relatives. Certainly not Alligator, MS. But home is home.
WOW, NICE PLACE NOT TO LIVE
Sweeney, maybe you think so, but clearly, others think differently. See the quote that Lady Hawk has above.
Bingo”………. Read Gen. Satterfield’s “55 rules for a good life.”
Good one!!!