This Autobiography explores growing up in Cow Lake Township, Jackson County,
Arkansas, between 1920 and 1940 from the viewpoint of my mother, Kathryn (Kay)
Johnson Lannin (1920-1996). It is excerpted from a paper on Political
Socialization she wrote for a Political Science Class at Roosevelt University,
Chicago, Illinois. She was 56 years old when she took the class in the Spring
Semester 1977. Her Professor was A. Freedman. Kay got an “A” grade on the paper
and the comment: “This is very well written.” Kay received her Masters Degree in
Political Science at Roosevelt University at age 62.
This paper was retyped by her elder son, James Robert Lannin, Jr. in July 2009.
Chapters have been added for organizational clarity. The images of life growing
up in the South at that time which she created are vivid and deeply personal.
The reader will encounter terms and opinions which may be uncomfortable, and
perhaps taken to be offensive. Please consider that her intent was to accurately
describe her life growing up in northeastern Arkansas in the period from 1920
through the early 1940s. Although she often describes many of the family and
societal factors as oppressive and restrictive, ultimately resulting in her life
journey to first Little Rock, then New Orleans, Chicago, and finally Northern
California, she retained many of the values of her parents: be politically
informed, follow current events, political liberalism, education is important,
be socially and politically responsible, and others. As her son, I have
inherited these values and tried to pass them on to the next generation.
My mother died in California in 1996. Contrary to her promise to write
additional sections, none are known to exist.
MY BEGINNINGS
I was born in the soft autumn haze of an October afternoon in a middle southern
state of the United States of America. My birth climaxed four days of hard
struggle for my mother and me (mine was a first and late birth for her). It was
the end of what must have been a horribly traumatic experience for my mother; in
fact, the memory was so unpleasant for her that she was determined to never bear
another child. That is why I am an only child, a status which I will comment
upon further at the end of this paper.
The society into which I was born was rigidly structured—composed of levels and
tight compartments where attitudes, manners, and behavior were strictly
controlled by religion, mores, and the surveillance of family, relatives and
members of the community. My society was a composite of three different worlds:
1) My parent’s immediate world as land owners in the pre-World War II South; 2)
the world of professionals, business people, and intellectuals, which was that
of my mother’s relatives; and 3) the fringe world of ignorance, poverty and
helplessness of the “poor white trash” sharecroppers who worked my father’s
land. Familiarity with these three worlds comprised a whole for me. I felt
intact in my universe because I could not imagine that there was anything else,
anywhere.
My childhood years were lived in close association with my parents and the world
of nature, where I was allowed freedom to experience and investigate because
there was little danger in that time and place. There was extra time for me in
this protected world, which was due to the fact that my mother had been a
teacher before she married my father; therefore, she was able to obtain special
permission to tutor me at home through the first two grades.
In those early years, I had a definite sense of domain and a feeling of being
“special”, because I lived in a large white house which was set totally apart
from the humble houses of the sharecroppers; besides, my father’s land stretched
as far as my eye could see, and more. I truly felt at the center of my universe,
and the most powerful influence of my childhood was the presence of nature which
served as the catalyst to give me a vital sense of wholeness and basic trust.
My parents’ house was set in a frame of sky, trees, grass, flowers and shrubs.
Butterflies, hummingbirds, mockingbirds, grasshoppers, and June bugs were my
intimate friends, and the sweet fragrance of honeysuckle and the smell of cotton
blooms on a hot, moonlit summer night became so firmly imprinted in my emotional
fabric that I can, even now, experience a high sense of ecstasy upon recall.
The intimacy which I felt with the world of nature all about me may have been
reinforced by my sense of isolation from my parents, due to the fact that they
were more of the grandparent-age category. My mother was thirty-two and my
father was fifty-two when I was born; so, the gap which I felt between myself
and my father may have been more of a generational one than an emotional one.
This age gap between my parents and me was compounded by the fact that I had no
brothers or sisters with whom to form any common bonds of sharing; nonetheless,
this isolation problem led to a conflict situation between my mother and me.
This conflict revolved around my need for association with my peers and the fact
that the only children available were those of the sharecropper families on my
father’s land. My mother was convinced that these poor, ignorant, and culturally
deprived children would contaminate and diminish me.
MY SOCIALIZATION
As I grew older and became more insistent upon my need to play with other
children, my mother would relent, occasionally, and permit supervised play at my
home; or, when all else failed, I would slip away to one or another of the
sharecropper cottages. I could usually depend upon some sort of punishment when
I returned home, but it did not deter me, as my curiosity about life outside my
own home and family was too great- I had to know, to experience for myself. And,
the sting of the crepe myrtle switch (a deciduous shrub native to the south),
alternated with promises of rewards, could not stop me. I had to go. My first
acts of rebellion were the beginning of a pattern which has continued to this
day. If I want something, I will go to any lengths to satisfy my desires. I will
plot, plan, and implement to the extent required to fill my needs, or to help
any person who asks for my aid (even some who do not ask). I always desire to be
in the forward movement, but I do not desire to be there alone, I wish to bring
as many persons with me as possible, so that we may share and cooperate to
improve the quality of life for all.
As we played together, the sharecropper children and I created a world which was
totally separate from the sharply divided real world of our parents. There was a
sense of freedom from all of the contrived barriers of society; we were simply
children playing on our level of understanding, using our own ideas and
vocabulary: the basis for our harmony and cooperation was the commonality of our
humanhood (sic) and our childhood. We made our own mistakes and relied upon our
own resourcefulness and industry to develop our games and tools, crude though
they might have been, to contrive whatever we desired that was within the realm
of possibility.
I had all sorts of toys which were supplied by my parents and my various
relatives; these consisted of the usual dolls, doll house, doll carriages, doll
beds, doll wardrobes, tea sets, kitchen utensils and appliances; in fact, all of
the kinds of toys that were considered proper for a female child…but, as my
individuality developed, I became interested in playing with the boys and with
the things that they preferred, mainly, such as slingshots, bow and arrows,
marbles, and a wheelbarrow, which I built with very little outside help.
Although I enjoyed playing “house” and tea party with the girls, I greatly
enjoyed rough and tumble games with the boys.
Climbing trees, rolling in the grass, and engaging in all sorts of body contact
games with the boys (when my mother was not watching) gave me a great deal of
pleasure and I liked the acceptance as one of the group, by the boys. This
filling the tomboy role made a significant contribution to my sense of
wholeness, and helped me to make contact with the masculine part of my nature as
well as the female part of me. It told me, at an early age, that I was a
totality and not just a fragmentation, a partial being, which is what
polarization of male and female roles causes; but, my beautiful sense of
security was sharply threatened when, at the age of twelve, my mother called me
into close conference and gave me a “passage” lecture which summed up to : “You
are now responsible for your own sins, your own mistakes, your behavior, your
acceptance of God and religion and the standards of society; therefore, put your
childhood behind you and prepare to assume the burden of being an adult, and Oh,
Yes, be a lady!”
When my mother had finished, I thought my life was over, and I was not certain
whether I cared - the burden was just too heavy and the changes which she called
for would alter my life too drastically. To put it mildly, I was stunned for
days while I contemplated what sort of life my “new” life would be, but before
this mantel of change fell upon me, there was still lots of time to play as a
child.
We made castles and villages in my huge sand pile; we built roads and small
villages, using my wheelbarrow, cart, and wagon as vehicles of travel and
commerce; we tumbled and jumped in the hayloft, which was an especially
intriguing place to hide from my parents; we tumbled in huge piles of snowy
cotton, freshly picked; we created theatre, devising our own lines and costumes.
There was a total sense of abandon and equality while the other children forgot
that I was the owner’s daughter, and I gave it no thought. We were guiding and
participating in our own socialization, and it was happening in a quite natural
way. If the great gulf of difference in education and opportunities could have
been closed, or greatly narrowed, we might have gone forth enjoying the same
sense of equality that we felt as children; this, of course, was not to be the
case.
FISHING WITH MY MOTHER
My freedom increased as my ability to rebel increased. When my mother saw that
the crepe myrtle switch would no longer deter me from running away to play with
the “undesirables”, she began to employ rewards to keep me at home, or with her.
One reward which I particularly enjoyed was the fishing outing, which took place
on a warm, sunny spring day and involved elaborate preparation. Using the garden
spade, we would dig earth worms and place them in a tin can with some soil to
keep them alive and well until we arrived at the drainage ditch. The ditch had
been dredged out by the county to drain a lowland area which benefited my
father’s land in one place and for which he had been assessed a fee. The ditch
was quite deep in the main channel and willow trees grew along the bank, casting
lacy shadows over the water, which held goodly quantities of catfish and perch.
It was these small fish which were destined for my eager hook, the hook which I
must first bait with one of those earthworms from the tin can. In the beginning,
I was quite squeamish about pushing the poor worm onto the sharp hook, but after
a few determined efforts, I managed to secure the hapless worm sufficiently to
hold it for the fish that was lurking just below the surface of the water.
These were soft, beautiful days, the days when I went fishing with my mother.
The actual fishing was only a part of the total experience, which included
watching and listening to bird calls, studying the wild flowers along the banks,
especially the yellow buttercup. There was seldom more that two or three, and my
mother never allowed me to pick them because they were so rare (Emily Dickinson,
the poet, wished to have buttercups planted upon her grave). Sweet William was
more plentiful and grew under trees where they were partially hidden away,
nestling in the dead leaves from the previous fall.
Another kind of “fishing” which I enjoyed as a child was looking for crawfish, a
small fresh-water crustacean, which spawned in the back-up water of low areas
after the spring rains. As the days warmed and the water dried up, the crawfish
would dig holes deep into areas of damp soil and remain there, for the summer. I
liked their hard shells, funny shape, and the fact that they ran backing up.
This was one of the many kinds of experiences which I engaged in alone and
enjoyed alone.
ANIMALS IN MY LIFE
Animals were my very close friends, especially my horse named Maude. She was a
bay, a reddish-brown walking horse who was extremely gentle and tolerant of me.
Maude and I trusted each other and we lived in complete harmony during the long
summer days when, as she grazed in a leisurely manner about the pasture, I would
lie upon her back in the most casual of postures with complete confidence that
Maude would do nothing to dislocate me. Also, there were times when I would ride
her without benefit of a bridle, simply using my hands to press or lightly tap
the sides of her neck. To indicate the direction I wished her to take. The
ultimate test of her came one cold winter day when ice had glazed a shallow
puddle and was thick enough to bear Maude’s weight; this was when a friend and I
took turns riding her while the other hung onto her tail for a quick slide over
the ice. She could have killed either of us with a kick to the head or other
vital spot, but my confidence in her was well founded and we played until we
tired of it, with complete cooperation from Maude.
The incident was observed and reported to my father who, of course, admonished
me most stringently against a repeat performance; but I knew that, if the
opportunity and inclination should again arise, I would not hesitate to enjoy
the fun again, because I trusted Maude. But my days with Maude were numbered, as
she was doomed to a tragic fate, as I lost Maude when I was ten or eleven,
through a freak accident.
It happened at the end of a summer afternoon when I was riding Maude, while
investigating a new fence that my father had recently installed to close in a
recently cleared acreage which was to be planted with an agricultural crop.
Maude and I were moving along the fence at a leisurely pace when, suddenly, she
jumped aside and faltered. A quick look revealed that blood was spurting from
her flank, and the weapon was a surveyor’s stake which was standing at a
forty-five degree angle, and had been pointing in the direction of our approach.
This accident will always be a mystery to me because, even though I had not seen
the stake, and, thereby, guide her around it, she should have been able to use
her own animal instinct and observational powers to avoid it. Is it because her
trust in me was so great that she was not watching out for herself?
Nevertheless, her wound was obviously serious and I was stricken with terror,
also, momentarily confused as to what course of action to take.
With only slight hesitation, I decided to run her home as quickly as possible to
obtain help but, doubtless, this decision to run her (about one half-mile)
hastened her death, as she gushed blood all the way (the stake had entered her
abdominal cavity). Upon arrival at the stables, my father immediately summoned
help from farm attendants, also my mother, who worked feverishly to save her,
but all efforts were futile – she died within the hour. As this tragic drama
played out, I hid in my room filled with agony and fear until I summoned enough
courage to look toward the stables. What I saw was the most tragic scene of my
childhood: my horse, my gentle, intelligent, loving Maude was being dragged out
of the barn lot, dragged so helplessly along the earth with which she was
destined soon to combine. My world fell down, crushing me, hopelessly. I felt
that my life, too, was at an end; I could not visualize life without my horse.
I hid from my father’s wrath because I knew him to be stern and very severe when
he was angered; also, I had always felt that, at best, he just tolerated me. We
had an unspoken contract: I would stay out of his way and he would not bother
me. But this was different: I had “killed” a horse. That is what he accused me
of, never allowing me an opportunity to explain just what had happened. This
tragedy so traumatized my mind that I could never bring myself to ask where my
horse had been cremated; the pain was too great, I had to block it out.
My love for animals extended also to my dog “Jiggs”, my cats, and my rabbits.
The rabbits had been deposited by their mother in a cozy, fur lined nest in my
parent’s vegetable garden one spring. When I found them, I prevailed upon my
mother to allow me to adopt them and bring them into the house as my personal
pets. Considering the mother rabbit’s broken heart, it was doubtless an
unfortunate decision when my mother agreed to permit me to take them inside. I
prepared a proper bed for them on our large, screened back porch and provided
them with a daily ration of fresh lettuce and green grass.
The rabbits flourished and I was delighted by them, as they became accustomed to
their new environment and we grew together in a state of love and trust…until
one morning I awoke to find them all lying dead. My anguish was boundless, and
my head was full of questions as to the cause of the disaster. Neither of my
parents could offer an explanation for the death of all my rabbits,
simultaneously. Could they have eaten a poisonous substance that none of us knew
about? The question was never answered, and the death of my rabbits abruptly
closed another chapter of mutual love and trust with animals.
Then there were my pig projects. In the spring, when there were new litters of
pigs, I would ask my father to give me a baby pig that was weak, stunted and
generally in poor physical condition. This was agreeable with my father, since
he had already crossed the pig off the credit column of his ledger; so, request
granted, I would install my pig in a special pen where I could keep it under
constant surveillance to make certain that none of its needs were left
unattended. The best food, the freshest water, baths, and daily brushing were
lavished upon my pig; it was a labor of love which gave me quick returns, as the
pig (except one that died) responded well and quickly to my care. By fall, my
pig was grown to near-market size and was in excellent condition in every way.
My father paid me market price for my pig, the money easing the pain of letting
another animal friend go; but, mainly, I agreed to the arrangement because it
was time for me to go back to school, and I had no more time to attend to my
pig.
Snakes are prevalent in the south, both poisonous and non-poisonous, and figure
prominently in the composite of concerns and dangers of daily life. I was
taught, from an early age, that the long king snake was friendly and could be
trusted not to harm me because it was non-poisonous and consumed rodents and
rattlesnakes. The same applied to garter snakes, which were small, thin snakes
and slid rapidly through the summer grass, not easily detected because its
stripes blended with the environment. Then there was the blue racer, a long
blue-green-black snake which had a frightening appearance, although it was
non-poisonous. But the water moccasin or cotton mouth (so called because the
inside of its mouth was white) was a totally different story: this snake is
extremely poisonous and will cause death unless the victim is treated within a
very short period of time after being bitten.
Snakes helped me to sort out, realistically, the difference between the emotions
of fear and trust in nature; this has carried over into my adult life, correct
information being, of course, crucial. The major point being that I learned to
trust animals and reptiles, both domestic and wild, which gave me the facility
to trust my own kind – humans. I trust, openly, unless it becomes clear that I
cannot, then I close and look to my defense; this seems to be basic, instinctual
behavior which applies to all levels and forms of life. Basic trust is the
foundation of human socialization; thereby rendering the person who cannot trust
devoid of the vital element necessary for self-affirmation and open relating to
others.
MY IMMIGRANT FATHER
The three worlds of my childhood, as previously mentioned, were actually
over-shadowed by the two dominant worlds created by virtue of my father being
foreign born, and my mother being a “native”, due to the fact that her early
forebears were of British Isles derivatives (sic) who had settled on the eastern
coast of the United States before moving inland. My mother thought, spoke, and
generally reflected her English, Scotch, Irish influences; whereas, my father
was born in Sweden, having emigrated to the United States in 1887 with his
parents and four brothers. My father was born and lived in Goteborg, Sweden
until he was twenty-one; therefore, his thought processes, speech, and manners
were decidedly Swedish; his age made adjustments to an alien culture more
difficult. Although he adjusted very well in most other areas, his speech was
always different because he spoke with an accent all of his life. The very fact
of my father’s differences brought pressures to bear upon me which I did not
understand, and which my father never talked to me about. The schism in my
parents’ origins caused me discomfort and some degree of self-doubt, but it also
served to provide me with a more expanded view of the world: I was different and
there was something out there, something besides the tight little world of my
childhood.
To the casual reader, it might seem strange that the instance of my father’s
being foreign born affected my life so much, or that I seem to be giving it some
emphasis. The circumstances make all of the difference; that is, the fact that
my father’s family was the only Swedish family in the state (to their
knowledge); hence, he received the full brunt of prejudice as only a southern
Anglo-Saxon white majority could deliver. His parents were dead, as well as his
brothers, by the time of my impressionable years, which meant that he was the
only one left to take the pressure of discriminatory treatment which was
registered in me and took its toll in the form of some degree of self-doubt. But
the long-range effect has given me the ability to identify with the problems of
the foreign born.
LEAVING CHILDHOOD
As mentioned earlier in this paper, my mother gave me my “passage” talk at the
time of my twelfth birthday, this being the point in my life when my serious
struggles began. The major forces against which I had to struggle were
conventional religion, mores, the profile of a proper southern lady, and
upholding the family name. This overwhelming burden was placed upon me by my
mother, who advised me that, from that moment forward, she could no longer be
responsible for my transgressions, the responsibility was strictly mine. I was
left with a feeling of bewilderment and confusion which was most unsettling – I
felt disconnected. As I look back on it, I went around for days in a state of
hazy unreality, during which I could not make contact with the world that to me
had been real. My mother had created something artificial which I did not see
how I could possibly accept.
To worsen the situation, the gulf between me and my childhood friends began to
widen. This was happening because I was now spending more time away from my
childhood home due to the fact of my staying in town with relatives during the
school year and visiting away with relatives and friends during the summer
months. My horizons were advancing, I was learning new things, my social sphere
was broadening, and my childhood friends could see and feel the differences,
which caused an estrangement to begin developing between us. It was obvious that
the gulf which had between us all along, but we had not notices, now became
obvious, and we could no longer ignore it. I didn’t think that my attitude had
changed, but they began to through up defensive attitudes and behavior; they
even began to taunt me for being the landlord’s daughter; they felt pressure
which they synthesized and turned back upon me. At any rate, it was over – my
childhood was over and I must now turn my attention to the future, a future
which seemed very strange to me at the time.
I had learned my first lesson, a hard lesson, in how resentment and bitterness,
on the part of the underprivileged, can work to either depress or generate a
revolutionary spirit which can be brought to bear on more privileged classes. My
father had not been a harsh landlord; in fact, he had been as generous and
tolerant as possible and still maintain hi own position as an independent
property owner. The poor “white trash”, as they were generally referred to by
the society of that time and place, had no other source of aid other than the
land owner with whom they had entered into an agreement. The rules were
established by that society, and my father was simply following the rules.
LEARNING ABOUT RACE IN THE SOUTH
My childhood experiences with other races and ethnic groups were extremely
limited, a fact that was particularly influenced by a condition which existed in
the community where my father’s land was located: no negroes were allowed to
live there; in fact, they could never stop when they were passing through, they
must keep moving. This was brought about by the fact that a white woman had been
raped at a prior time, and, of course, one of the black men living in the area
at that time was blamed for the incident. Consequently, the white majority rose
up and demanded an exodus of all Negroes living within a radius of ten miles,
and, furthermore, they must never be caught in the area after dark. This harsh
ban created conditions which precluded my ever seeing any black people, except
from a distance, until I was six years of age. This momentous opportunity was
brought about by the instance of my visiting my relatives in town, alone, for
the first time in my life.
My big moment came when an older cousin, in whose home I was visiting, left me
playing in her living room while she went out to do her daily marketing. By
being a very inquisitive child, I went to the kitchen where my cousin’s houseboy
was working. He was only twelve or thirteen years of age and very friendly,
which encouraged me to engage in talk and generally free interchange, asking him
many questions. I was very curious about his dark color, since I had never been
so close to a person of the Negroid race before, and I simply did not understand
that his darkness was his natural skin color. To satisfy my curiosity, I tried
to scrape his color off with my fingernails, and, being good-natured and
playful; he did not take offense, but laughed and warded me off to prevent any
damage from my fingernails. At this point, my cousin returned, and, with a
darkly disapproving look, told me firmly to leave the kitchen and to never enter
same again. I did not understand any of this, and, at age six, did not ask any
questions, but I was shocked and confused, and the experience definitely marked
me for a later time in my life when I would begin to ask questions about racial
segregation in America.
It was a way of life: all of my relatives had a number of black servants who
were regarded largely as property; they worked as cooks, house maids, nurse
maids, houseboys, gardeners, and chauffeurs, but they were paid little in cash.
Rewards consisted of cast-off clothing, left over food, and other items which
meant nothing to the whites, but were a matter of survival to the Negroes. These
people lived in “nigger town”, a sort of shanty town section of every southern
town and city. Their shacks were owned by the rich people of the town and were
rented to the grindingly poor blacks. Whites seldom went into these areas,
except to collect over-due rent or some other form of harassment. I always felt
sympathy for these people; therefore the general attitude of prejudice against
their racial differences never did “take” on me.
If Jews were discriminated against, in my formative years, and in my most
immediate locales, I was never aware of it. As I recall, the Jewish merchants
and professional people were regarded and treated with respect, and no incident
of any other nature ever caught my attention. There may have been a “gentlemen’s
agreement between the Jews and Anglo-Saxon whites, but whatever the
undercurrents, if any, I was never aware of them: therefore I had no model of
any prejudicial attitudes toward Jews.
In 1941, when I was attending business school in Little Rock, I conducted what
may have been the first act of rebellion against the prevailing “Jim Crow”
seating arrangement on busses. The incident I refer to happened one afternoon,
after my classes, when I boarded a bus with the intention of visiting a friend
who lived on the west side of the city in one of the better white residential
areas, but this bus had to travel through the densely populated black area of
the city. At that time of the day, the bus was crowded with the aisles filled
according to the rules: whites occupied the first two-thirds of the bus, and
negroes occupied the last third, with no mixing allowed. When I boarded the bus,
I continued to move back toward the back of the bus until I reached the edge of
the black section, which placed me beside a seat occupied by blacks. When one of
these people vacated a seat to leave the bus, I sat down. It was a spontaneous
act with no premeditation whatever, but once I was seated, I felt somewhat
shocked and began to wonder what the results would be. The few whites who were
within eye range gave me very angry looks, and the blacks were apparently
nervous and apprehensive. The one factor which may have prevented a riot was the
fact of most of the whites facing the front of the bus and being unaware of my
action. As it was, all remained quiet and I subsequently left the bus without
incident, but the experience had made a definite impression on me. I had done
the unthinkable by sitting next to a black person: I had, in effect, integrated
the bus. I was shocked and did not tell anyone what I had done, but the
implications were clear to me that, in the future, when the occasion called for
it, I would be ready to move to the line of defense of any cause that I felt to
be in the interest of concern for people, regardless of race or ethnic group. I
knew that I had moved beyond the line of no return.
MY GROWING POLITICAL AWARENESS
My political awareness began with my father who read three newspapers, and
discussed current issues with my mother. I was being inculcated with certain
political views without realizing it. My father read papers which he considered
to present an unbiased point of view; in fact, I recall his referring to a
competitive state paper which was known for sensational journalism as “that dirt
sheet.”
My father believed in the democratic process and government through law and
order, I think, because he was impatient with any revolutionary flare-up in
South America, and I recall his referring to rebels as “those Latin hot heads.”
He was against the gun, or other show of force, in any political matters. He
took his vow of citizenship quite seriously, and thought voting was a sacred
duty which should be well grounded in as much factual information as could be
obtained. Toward this end, my father read everything available about federal,
state, and local candidates; additionally, he discussed with everyone whose
opinion he valued in such matters. He also had a strong sense of responsibility
regarding the participation of every citizen in local government and community
affairs. This attitude kept him in the position of president of the local school
board, and a long-standing member of the county election committee, throughout
my childhood and longer.
There was a particular duty, relative to serving on the local election board,
which I did not understand at the time, but was later to see as a direct
deterrent to prevent negroes from voting, or, in any other way, participate in
the election process: this was canvassing all white voters, or potential voters,
relative to the poll tax. Firstly, this precluded negroes on the basis of pure
economics, since it would have been difficult or impossible for any black person
to raise the money; but, more significantly, it was a message which stated,
clearly, that no black dare presume to approach the county clerk’s office to pay
the poll tax, in the first place. The system was very simple and very rigid:
white people pay the poll tax and vote; black people do not pay the poll tax and
do not vote. This grossly unjust custom was an uncontested way of life in the
southern United States prior to the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960, which
were meant to protect voting rights of this disenfranchised group; but, the more
sweeping Civil Rights Act of 1964 included more effective guarantees which were
augmented by the massive voter registration efforts which were begun in the
mid-1960s.
THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND THE ELECTION OF FDR
To move back in time to the Great Depression, means that I must skip back over a
number of years, but it is important that I not omit it because of the
impressions it made upon my life. The Great Depression was a severe experience
and everyone was inclined to blame Herbert Hoover for all of the woe and
hardship. I remember my parents speaking about the near-starvation diet of the
sharecroppers and others at the lowest economic level of our society, during
these times. There was no such organization or agency as Welfare such as we know
today, but Federal food programs were initiated to provide the barest of
subsistence to the needy; this consisted of a bag of flour, a bag of dried
beans, a gallon of lard, and a slab of salt pork, which was generally referred
to as “the Hoover diet.” So, when an election time rolled around and Franklin D
Roosevelt was running for President, everyone jumped on the bandwagon because
the consensus was: “anybody would be better than Hoover.”
That night in 1932, when the election returns were coming in, was the only time,
to my knowledge, that my father sat up all night. There was no television in
those days and communication from the remote areas was very slow to come in;
therefore, it was almost dawn before the final returns made it clear that our
next President would, indeed, be Franklin Roosevelt. My father was jubilant, and
I remember thinking that a bright, new future would surely open up for everyone.
Economically, my father was always left with the feeling that he was being
exploited, even though he was a land owner; this was due to the oppressive power
of the processors who paid minimum prices for my father’s cotton, corn, and
beans, but charged high prices, indeed, when these same products came back to
the growers in the form of consumer goods. The vast inequities in this system
caused my father to chronically rail against the “middle man.” Every land owner
was caught in a crunch between acting as the sole life support system of the
poor sharecroppers, on one hand, and being exploited by the processors and the
speculators, on the other. This had a direct influence upon my developing
attitudes about the inequities prevailing in the system into which I was born,
and it served to make me more sensitive to exploitation and inequities, world
wide.
FAMILY POLITICS TO PERSONAL AUTONOMY
In matters of politics and government, my references have been in regard to what
my father thought and did, which is the result of the sharp division between the
roles of my mother and my father. My father read, discussed, and generally
gathered information which he brought to the dinner table and discussed with my
mother. My mother read the newspapers and some magazines, but the final “word”
on matters of voting came from my father. If she ever differed from his choice
of candidate, she never mentioned it; she simply voted as my father thought
best.
My mother’s role was centered around religion, morals, manners, and the
specifics of education; although, my father provided input and augmentation, it
was my mother’s responsibility. A direct result of this polarized nature of
influences in my childhood was my mother’s providing me with more reasons for
rebellion in my struggle for my own identity. My father’s attitude was rather
stiff and cold: his word was “law”, but it soon became clear that if I stayed
out of his way, I could avoid harsh and repressive confrontations while I
continued my behind-the –scenes struggles with my mother. In this way, I
survived and developed my own consciousness raising techniques and the ability
to make my own decisions based upon trust of my nature and feelings.
