Editing Herbert Hoover (section)

===Mississippi flood===
The [[Great Mississippi Flood of 1927]] broke the banks and [[levee]]s of the [[lower Mississippi River]] in early 1927, resulting in the flooding of millions of acres and leaving 1.5 million people displaced from their homes. Although disaster response did not fall under the duties of the [[United States Department of Commerce|Commerce Department]], the governors of six states along the Mississippi River specifically asked President Coolidge to appoint Hoover to coordinate the response to the flood.{{sfn|Leuchtenburg 2009|pp=68–71}} Believing that disaster response was not the domain of the federal government, Coolidge initially refused to become involved, but he eventually acceded to political pressure and appointed Hoover to chair a special committee to help the region.{{sfn|Whyte 2017|pp=328–329}} Hoover established over one hundred [[Tent city|tent cities]] and a fleet of more than six hundred vessels and raised $17 million (equivalent to ${{Inflation|US|17|1927|r=2}}&nbsp;million in {{Inflation-year|US}}). In large part due to his leadership during the flood crisis, by 1928, Hoover had begun to overshadow President Coolidge himself.{{sfn|Leuchtenburg 2009|pp=68–71}} Though Hoover received wide acclaim for his role in the crisis, he ordered the suppression of reports of mistreatment of African Americans in [[refugee camp]]s.{{sfn|Whyte 2017|pp=333–335}} He did so with the cooperation of black American leader [[Robert Russa Moton]], who was promised unprecedented influence once Hoover became president.<ref name="pbs">[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/flood-moton-cac/ 'Robert Moton and the Colored Advisory Commission'], PBS.org</ref>