The Land That the Internet Era Forgot

Roberto Gallardo is affiliated with something called the Extension Service.Its original purpose was to disseminate the latest agricultural know-how to all the homesteads scattered across the interior. State extension services still do all this, but Gallardo’s mission is a bit of an update. Rather than teach modern techniques of crop rotation, his job -- as an extension professor at Mississippi State University -- is to drive around the state in his silver 2013 Nissan Sentra and teach rural Mississippians the value of the Internet.

The issues of digital literacy, access, and isolation are especially pronounced here in the Magnolia State. Mississippi today ranks around the bottom of nearly every national tally of health and economic well-being. It has the lowest median household income and the highest rate of child mortality. It also ranks last in high-speed household Internet access. In human terms, that means more than a million Mississippians -- over a third of the state’s population -- lack access to fast wired broadband at home. Gallardo doesn’t talk much about race or history, but that’s the broader context for his work in a state whose population has the largest percentage of African-Americans (38 percent) of any in the union. The most Gallardo will say on the subject is that he sees the Internet as a natural way to level out some of the persistent inequalities -- between black and white, urban and rural -- that threaten to turn parts of Mississippi into places of exile, left further and further behind the rest of the country.
[This story was originally published on Nov 7]