LeRoy Percy

Who was LeRoy Percy?

LeRoy Percy was a wealthy attorney who became a planter in Greenville, Mississippi, in the heart of the Delta. His plantation of Trail Lake covered 20,000 acres and was worked by sharecroppers.

Percy attended the University of Virginia, where he was a member of the Chi Phi Fraternity. He became an attorney and accumulated land, sometimes in payment.

In 1907, a plantation Percy leased in Arkansas was investigated by the US Department of Justice for peonage of Italian immigrant workers after complaints from their consulate. Due to his political influence, the report was buried and no action taken against him. He served as U.S. Senator from Mississippi from 1910 to 1913. As a progressive leader, in 1922 Percy came to national notice by confronting Ku Klux Klan organizers in Greenville and uniting local people against them.

During the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, he appointed his son, William Alexander Percy, to direct the work of thousands of black laborers on the levees near Greenville. He prevented them from being evacuated when the levee was breached. They were forced to work without pay to unload Red Cross relief supplies, which required the work of volunteers.