The new plantation?

Maybe that's where the opportunity for him, and others, lies, he hopes. He might call his business "Delta Blues Catfish." The beauty of it, he says, is that the whole thing will be set up on the Internet. That's the secret. "So no one will know my color," explains Roberts.

Myers, a large, loud, and self- promoting man, rubs many in Belzoni the wrong way: He goes about his crusade in a lumbering, almost infuriating way, they say - not to mention that his agenda stirs up a debate that many, black and white, might want left alone. He is ridiculed by many, and ignored by many more. He is not welcome in Alison's, the town diner, which happens to serve up the best fried catfish around.

"The biggest problem in our county is not racism," says Solomon, at the Catfish museum, reflecting the opinion of many here. "It's Myers."

"Racism, how so?" thunders Dickie Stevens, president of Country Select for 17 years. His 650-plus workers, he says, have medical insurance, retirement packages, and paid holidays. Myers, he says, is a "loud mouth who has never made any contribution to the community and has never been in one of the plants and knows 'diddly squat' about what happens here."

"In our company, there is zero discrimination," adds Julian Allen, a fourth- generation farmer who serves as chairman of SouthWest, another large farming and processing company, which employs more than 600 people. "That stuff perhaps happened in the '50s," he says. "A few activists are still talking about it - but it simply is not going on."

The problems faced by the small black farmers unable to succeed in the industry, says Mr. Allen, are no different from those faced by the small white farmers. "It's a depressed economy," he says, "not racism." The fact that the industry has been in trouble for the past three years, fending off competition from cheaper catfish from Vietnam, coupled with the growth of large farms at the expense of smaller ones - has made it hard for all small farmers, he says.

Mr. Stevens says he does not know any processing plant owners who refuse to do business with black farmers. "I don't believe there is a legitimate black farmer who would ever claim that," he says. The catfish industry, he stresses, provides work where there is no other. The fact that there are no other opportunities, he says, is beyond his control - and not his problem.

But Myers disagrees. "The Mississippi Delta is the poorest region in America," he insists. "The industry should be donating to develop youth centers, scholarships, and summer business internships, and working to better race relations."

A few miles down the road from Country Select, workers are lining up at a mini-mart, buying refreshments and unwinding at the end of the day.

"What discrimination are you talking about?" asks one black woman who has been on the kill line for nearly 20 years.

She gets minimum wage plus $2, she says. There are sick days, and time and a half for overtime. The company gives workers a day off on their birthdays.

"Things are just the way they are around here. It's not racism," she says. "It's just the way they are."

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