It's spring 1927, and while Americans dance the Charleston and drink bootlegged liquor, the Mississippi Delta faces a flood of epic proportions. If battered river levees collapse, everything important to you will be washed away. Rising Waters is a co-operative board game built around area control, set collection, and variable player power mechanisms in which players are members of the African American community who are confronting two powerful and arbitrary forces: nature and the racism of white landowners. Resist by drawing on hidden strengths like your family, church, music, plots of land, and education. Can you manage the rising waters to stay alive? During the flood, work together to keep your family and neighbors alive by minimizing losses during the flood. Players must also negotiate the arbitrary demands of white landowners. If players keep below the maximum level of losses for a certain number of rounds, they've survived the worst of the flood and win the game!