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Hello, my name is David Olds and welcome to Mississippi Happenings Podcast.

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Joining me each week is my friend and co-host, Jim Newman.

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Jim, talk to us.

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I guess I'm the only one in this group that did not grow up in Mississippi.

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So I'm going to get an education today.

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Well, I grew up in Tennessee, but that's the same thing as pretty much, but good.

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All right.

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A few weeks ago, we had a discussion with Jack Reed Jr.

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from Tupelo about desegregation in public schools.

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His father was very active in civil rights and facilitating integration in the Mississippi
public schools.

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From that conversation, we heard

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about individuals with both inspiring and sad stories.

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It also made Jim and I more aware of the thousands of stories about segregation that
needed and must be told.

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Today we have two very successful women who lived, survived, and thrived during
segregation.

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First, I want to introduce Ms.

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Lovie West.

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uh Lovie grew up in

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during the civil rights movement where she gained appreciation and a commitment to serve.

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Although her father was in the military, she spent her childhood in central Mississippi,
Holmes County to be exact.

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Her childhood experiences followed her witness, allowed her to witness firsthand injustice
that occurred to people of color, especially women and children.

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Lovie has been involved with professional,

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presidential campaign since the Jimmy Carter campaign.

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She worked on grassroots level for Ann Richards, Bill Clinton, Barack campaign and 2018
Mike Espy's USA Senate campaign.

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She also worked Hillary Clinton campaign and President Joe Biden and VP uh Kamala Harris
campaign.

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After the campaigns,

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Lovie and other concerned DeSoto County women met and formed what is now known as the
DeSoto Marshall County Federation of Democratic Women.

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currently serves as the fourth Vice President National Federation Democratic Women and
co-chair of the Political Education Committee.

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She serves on the Executive Committee for the Mississippi Democratic Party, first
congressional district and

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DeSoto County Executive Committee.

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Lovie is a political dynamo and a friend.

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Lovie, thank you for joining us today.

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Thank you and it's an honor to be here.

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Our next guest is Miss Virginia Tolliver.

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Miss Tolliver was born in rural Mississippi in the Tupelo area.

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After positions at Alcorn State University and the University of Southern Mississippi, she
was selected for prestigious Council of Library Resources Academic Library Management

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Internship.

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and was assigned to Washington University in St.

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Louis in 1981.

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She was the Associate University Librarian at Washington University and recently retired
after more than 35 years at the university.

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She also served for many years as an HIV AIDS support group facilitator.

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She has taken many leadership positions at her local Presbyterian church.

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She has served the larger church community in many capacities, including as chair of the
Presbyterian Church USA National Committee on Self-Development of People, which is a

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ministry that funds hundreds of projects around the world to promote human dignity,
self-reliance, and community growth.

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Virginia is also active in interfaith efforts

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in the community and also served as chair of the Board Trustees for Eden Theological
Seminary as both the first woman and the first African-American to do so.

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Miss Virginia, thank you so much for being with us today.

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I'm honored to be here.

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I want to start out, uh and Lovie, let's start with you, and telling us a little bit about
growing up uh in rural Mississippi.

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Okay, thank you so much and thank you for this opportunity.

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I grew up, as he has stated in the introduction, in Holmes County, which is in central
Mississippi.

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It is one of the poorest counties in the state of Mississippi.

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the, back when I was growing up, the cheap.

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chief profession for African American men was farming.

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So my father grew up a farmer and later went into the military to escape having to live
there and farm.

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uh I'm dating myself now.

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Of course, I graduated high school in 1968, which was right in the throw of the civil
rights movement.

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But prior to that time, I went through uh segregation.

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and then um kind of transformed over into a DSEG program, if you will.

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It was very difficult because of course that time we didn't have phones and you didn't
have neighbors, you could go over to their house and get their homework together and that

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kind of thing.

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So we received the books from the white schools that were outdated books, some of the
pages were missing and all of this.

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So we had to figure out before we left school, whether or not we had all the pages that we
could get our assignment done and then there would be arrangements made from that.

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One of the things that I can say that took place during the segregation piece was we had
teachers who cared.

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And those of us that grew up very poor,

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We can count on the teachers pulling us aside, checking on us, making sure everything's
okay, making sure we had lunch and that kind of thing.

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So I really appreciate that.

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Versus today, uh many times we don't know who's teaching our children and we don't know
what they're teaching our children.

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And our children get the blunt end of this whole piece.

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It is not an accident that we live in an era where we have a president who really doesn't
care.

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It's not an accident that we live in an era where we seem to be turning back the hands of
time.

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All of this is by design.

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And ever since we had the DSEG of schools, there's been an effort to turn back to where we
were.

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It is no accident that the white South Africans were brought over to this country.

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All of this again is a unique plan to take us back.

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And when I say us back, I'm talking about people of color.

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uh Back to my story in Mississippi, one of my first experiences with uh racial issues was
when I had gone into a store to get an ice cream cone.

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And uh the store owner's daughter was waiting on me and she was not that much older than I
was.

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So I gave her my money and told her that I wanted a strawberry ice cream cone.

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And she said strawberry, and I said yes.

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She kept saying strawberry, and I kept saying yes.

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What I did not realize was she was looking for me to say yes ma'am, and I had no idea what
I had done wrong.

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And so I heated up, and by that time my dad came in the store and removed me, and I
understood then that I was different.

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Going to school in Mississippi, rural Mississippi, we were all poor when we were at the
all-black school.

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And we didn't have issues where one person had on expensive pair of shoes and whatever,
because we were all poor.

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In fact, I didn't realize that I was poor until I was an adult, because we were all pretty
much oh the same in that era.

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And so...

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Oftentimes when I'm speaking with young people, I try to share with them the opportunities
they have that we did not have.

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We had to really work to go to college.

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We had to really work to survive in an era and in a space that we were not wanted.

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Whereas there many opportunities now uh for children to get a good education,
opportunities for adults even to go back and get a good education.

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So I just appreciate so much this podcast that will allow me to share bits and pieces of
my life story in hopes that someone else can identify with it and can appreciate where I'm

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coming from.

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Thank you.

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Miss Virginia.

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was the young lady serving the ice cream, um was she wanting you to say ma'am or was she,
that was.

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that was part of the culture in that area of Mississippi where you greeted all white
people with yes ma'am and no ma'am.

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And then all black people were boys.

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know, none of them got to be an adult.

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I don't care how old they got to be, they were still a boy.

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Well, I've noticed since I've been here, it's hard for me to get any person of color to
address me as just Jim.

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It's always Mr.

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Newman.

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And it just boggles my mind.

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ah I'm just Jim.

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I'm not anything other than that.

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So that's...

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that was respect that was taught as well in terms of elders.

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We were taught to say yes ma'am and no ma'am and we were not on equal terms with oh
adults.

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So we were taught to say yes sir, no sir, mister regardless of the color.

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That was just part of the culture.

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Miss Virginia, let's go ahead and hear from you and let's hear a little bit about your
story.

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OK.

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Like, like, Lovie, I grew up in in the Palmetto community, which is the poor was the
poorest community in the county.

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But before I go into my story about me, you were talking about the yes, sir and no, sir.

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The one thing I remember growing up in addition to the cotton fields, which I'll talk
about later, my grandmother worked for the white families, you know, cleaning house,

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cooking.

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doing those kinds of any kind of menial tasks to do to get a 50 cents a week.

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And the children of the white, she had to address the white children who were like four
and five to six year old as Miss this, Miss Anne, Miss Julie, Master John, but they always

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referred to her as Virgie.

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She never got the title, oh that title of respect from.

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hmm.

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name.

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So she's 60 years old and she can't be a miss, but she has to address them as Mr.

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and Mrs.

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And that used to really irritate me because the times that we go to their house, they
would expect me, I'm 10 years old and they're five and six, but I had to call them Miss

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and Mr.

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as well.

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but I could go through the back door because I never could go through the front door.

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But I grew up, as I said, in Palmetto, which is a rural community.

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And unlike Lovie, I didn't have the opportunity to attend a desegregated school because I
graduated from high school in 1965.

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So everything was totally segregated then.

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And we also because in this community, most of us were there were either small black
farmers or sharecroppers.

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The school, even the school year was based on the white landowner, so we had to go and I
don't know if you did that in in Holmes County and not, but we had a split sector.

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We had to go to school in the summer.

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know, June, July, I think, late June to September.

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Each year.

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so that we could be out in time to pick cotton from the September through the end of
October.

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And I don't think that it happened.

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I know it didn't happen in the city schools, but I know that it happened in Pontiac
County, which is where I went to school, that everything was based on the white

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landowners.

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I went to a totally, as I said, a totally segregated high school.

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But also like Miss West said, one of the things that was important to all of us and that
kept us grounded were our teachers, because they were dedicated, caring, committed to

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having us learn more than what was in those used and thrown away textbooks.

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Because they knew that they, having grown up in the segregated South, they knew what was
going to be required, the challenges and obstacles that we were going to have to face.

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as we grew older as black Americans, African Americans in still a segregated community.

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And they wanted us to be prepared to meet those challenges and obstacles.

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So fortunately for us, uh the teachers went beyond those outdated textbooks.

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And we talked about current events that were going on.

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What happened with Emmett Till, the Philadelphia murders, the lynchings and everything.

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Yeah.

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Diets, Look, Life, and those magazines.

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But they encouraged us to go outside, to look outside the box and to really do research.

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And those were skills that

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really helped us as we helped us later on.

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The schools actually integrated, like I said, after I left, first with the freedom of
choice plan, and then after the Holmes versus County Board of Education Supreme Court

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ruling that the schools must integrate immediately.

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The integration took place in 19, it was supposed to happen, that law was passed October
of 1965, 1969.

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But the schools in Mississippi didn't actually integrate until 1970.

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Now Brown versus Board of Education was in 1954, which mandated integration.

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This is 16 years later.

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But some of the students from my high school and from the school that I graduated from
tried to follow that mandate and went to the White High School in September of 19...

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and they actually left 10 days later and went back to the old school that had been
reverted uh up to 10th grade because of the treatment they received from the white

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teachers, the students, the constant use of the N-word, the refusal to allow them to
participate in class and just normal mistreatment.

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Mississippi had entered an agreement with Health Education and Welfare

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.

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then after Holmes versus

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oh the homes ruling by 1970, of the schools at the schools, all, of the schools in
Mississippi had integrated because some even did not integrate with homes.

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They use other means to avoid integration.

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So while we were not separate but equal like the place, the Plessy versus Ferguson ruling.

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We had inadequate facilities.

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We had wooden school with out...

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we had the outdoor toilets for the boys and girls.

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oh Nothing in the facilities was equal to what the white students had.

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But the caring and compassionate teachers were what helped us to survive and make it
educationally.

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And one of the other things that happened after integration,

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The black leaders, teachers, with whom we had the utmost respect and held in high esteem,
actually were demoted in their positions.

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They were no longer the principals.

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When they went to the white schools, some were able to be assistant principals, but that
was a disciplinary act.

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And they wanted somebody to take control of these black students that were coming here.

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The teachers who were devoted high school teachers, 11th 12th grade teachers, were
teaching eighth grade, were putting in eighth grade, seventh grade.

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They were all put in demeaning positions.

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And that's the one thing that really hurt me.

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One of the things that really hurt me about the whole integration, what happened to those,
they remained my role models and the role models of the other students.

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but the treatment of both students and teachers was very disturbing.

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oh

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the first generation to receive ah college educations?

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No, my mother, my parents were college graduates.

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My grandmother, who had no form of education, was determined that her children were going
to get out of the cotton fields and were going to have oh an education.

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so at that time, CME Church had Mississippi Industrial College in Hollis Springs,
Mississippi, and they were both able to

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you work that way through and go to college there.

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So I was kind of first year college.

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Lovie, how did you get a college education?

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was a first generation college graduate.

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My father had a fifth grade education.

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They grew up farming and his dad taught all of them carpentry.

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So he was very successful in that realm.

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And like I said, he ended up going into the army just to make a better living and not to
be confined to the farming industry.

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My mother had a ninth grade education and back then,

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ninth grade was as far as you could go unless you went off to high school.

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It was kind of like going off to college now and only those that had income had had enough
income could afford to send their kids off to this high school because they would have to

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board with the family and pay, you know, for them to eat and pay their board and that kind
of thing.

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So she never made it farther than the ninth grade.

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So, uh, it was a

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period of time where we understood the importance of education.

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I just want to interject if I can, the difference, and many people don't understand the
difference between the Black sorority and fraternities and the White sorority and

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fraternities.

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In the White world, because of wealth and access to other material things and advantages,

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There's not the need for these sorority and fraternities to play the role that is played
in the black community.

209
00:21:59,849 --> 00:22:08,891
ah We many times are the catalyst for those to be able to receive scholarships and go on
to colleges.

210
00:22:09,071 --> 00:22:11,652
You will find us in every industry.

211
00:22:11,652 --> 00:22:14,522
uh I'm AKA and Ms.

212
00:22:14,522 --> 00:22:18,934
Toliver is a Delta, but still we work together as sisters.

213
00:22:18,934 --> 00:22:21,534
And you saw this come out.

214
00:22:22,274 --> 00:22:34,099
when VP Harris ran for president, how the sororities and fraternities wrapped ourselves
around her to support her because we understood what she was going through.

215
00:22:34,820 --> 00:22:43,964
And so um many times you can see where this play a role in making us successful in
business and so forth.

216
00:22:43,964 --> 00:22:48,166
We have conventions every two years or so.

217
00:22:48,506 --> 00:22:54,632
And during those conventions, oh we are taught skills that are not taught in many schools.

218
00:22:54,933 --> 00:23:06,484
And leadership skills, leadership roles, and just things that may not be taught in
schools, especially non-HBCU schools.

219
00:23:07,126 --> 00:23:10,709
And so you'll find many of the students in Mississippi

220
00:23:11,062 --> 00:23:22,091
leave and go to college and they don't know what they don't know and there's a need for
etiquette training and those kinds of things and that's why HBCUs play such an important

221
00:23:22,091 --> 00:23:25,514
role in the education of our students.

222
00:23:25,514 --> 00:23:36,442
Not that they can't get an education elsewhere, not that they're not smart enough to get
an education elsewhere, but that particular nurturing is uh rare on many occasions.

223
00:23:36,442 --> 00:23:40,445
uh I also, go ahead.

224
00:23:40,706 --> 00:23:43,330
I'm sorry, just a quick question.

225
00:23:43,330 --> 00:23:44,492
Sorry to interrupt.

226
00:23:44,492 --> 00:23:47,950
You said HBCU.

227
00:23:49,834 --> 00:23:53,268
Historically black colleges and universities.

228
00:23:53,806 --> 00:23:54,331
Thank you.

229
00:23:54,331 --> 00:23:55,333
Okay.

230
00:23:55,580 --> 00:23:56,083
Go ahead.

231
00:23:56,083 --> 00:23:56,638
Sorry.

232
00:23:56,638 --> 00:24:01,260
for example in our area she have referred to the Rust campus.

233
00:24:01,481 --> 00:24:09,705
We have Rust College, that's HBCU, Jackson State, Alcorn, so there are several in
Mississippi.

234
00:24:09,705 --> 00:24:19,391
And you will find in the southern area that there are more because there was such a need
for more there than it was in the northern part of the United States.

235
00:24:19,391 --> 00:24:23,613
uh Go ahead.

236
00:24:24,411 --> 00:24:37,785
Yeah, was saying because one of the things that I didn't mention growing up is the Jim
Crow laws were alive and well in the South and they were established to ensure that Blacks

237
00:24:37,785 --> 00:24:47,918
remain second class citizens, that we had no access to public facilities were mandated and
segregated.

238
00:24:47,918 --> 00:24:49,568
They had to be segregated.

239
00:24:49,568 --> 00:24:52,359
Even the retail, I mean the stores.

240
00:24:52,429 --> 00:24:57,241
If you were able to go into that establishment, there was a separate instruments for
blacks.

241
00:24:57,241 --> 00:25:00,832
couldn't just go in the store and then go with the white people.

242
00:25:00,832 --> 00:25:02,853
We had the Lyric Theater.

243
00:25:03,273 --> 00:25:04,094
It was open.

244
00:25:04,094 --> 00:25:10,957
We could go in, but we had to go up in the back, go around in there's a side entrance and
then you have to go up to the balcony.

245
00:25:10,957 --> 00:25:14,998
So the laws stipulated that we remain segregated.

246
00:25:14,998 --> 00:25:17,939
And that was one of the things that, you know, Ms.

247
00:25:17,939 --> 00:25:20,260
West mentioned the sorority of fraternities.

248
00:25:20,260 --> 00:25:22,491
I mean, we're talking about

249
00:25:22,537 --> 00:25:26,939
1908, 1913, going back to the 1900s.

250
00:25:26,939 --> 00:25:38,574
And these sororities are fighting, have continued to fight against the same social
injustices that existed back then, that still exist now and we're still in those fights.

251
00:25:38,574 --> 00:25:52,239
So historically, they have played a significant role in education for Blacks and in
enlightening for Blacks who are even those who are not members of the Sorority.

252
00:25:52,608 --> 00:25:55,833
Mm-hmm.

253
00:25:55,833 --> 00:25:57,553
in 1913.

254
00:25:57,893 --> 00:26:01,853
We were the back of the line.

255
00:26:01,853 --> 00:26:04,473
We were relegated to the back of the land.

256
00:26:04,633 --> 00:26:10,813
there are organizations that have always been fighting for those in justice.

257
00:26:12,324 --> 00:26:15,380
Do you feel that, go ahead.

258
00:26:15,752 --> 00:26:20,756
just going to say another demeaning thing when we were growing up.

259
00:26:20,756 --> 00:26:24,118
We were not allowed to go to the store and try on shoes.

260
00:26:24,118 --> 00:26:32,143
They would take a piece of paper and draw our shoe size and take that into the store to
get our shoes.

261
00:26:32,143 --> 00:26:40,029
So there were many things that were just flat out dumb and wrong that was done to
humiliate us and especially the man.

262
00:26:40,029 --> 00:26:45,412
ah People don't understand a lot of times why our young black men are angry.

263
00:26:45,740 --> 00:26:50,243
They're angry because they have seen and heard the stories about the injustice.

264
00:26:50,243 --> 00:27:02,360
Many of them grow up in high school, and I know my sons did, thinking that slavery was
over and thinking that everybody was equal because they would get to go to slumber parties

265
00:27:02,360 --> 00:27:03,610
and so forth.

266
00:27:03,610 --> 00:27:13,746
And then as an adult, when they realized that some of same treatment that was happening
before to our generation is still there.

267
00:27:13,896 --> 00:27:27,018
And that's what this fight is all about, the DEI fight, to remove our history so that we
won't know our history and the proud things that we've done, but more importantly, so that

268
00:27:27,018 --> 00:27:36,737
white America will not know our history and they can be taught that we were just a bunch
of drug addicts and low IQ people and that kind of thing.

269
00:27:37,418 --> 00:27:38,629
Go ahead, David.

270
00:27:38,846 --> 00:27:40,266
I'm sorry about that.

271
00:27:40,266 --> 00:27:44,069
When you come at that, maybe remind you of what I'm a Jim Crow laws.

272
00:27:44,069 --> 00:27:52,453
I was I made a presentation with one of my colleagues at church and we were talking about
it and I mentioned your own call.

273
00:27:52,453 --> 00:27:55,455
I said, you need to explain what that is.

274
00:27:55,475 --> 00:27:58,467
And so what do mean I need to explain this Mississippi?

275
00:27:58,467 --> 00:27:59,857
I want to have to explain.

276
00:27:59,857 --> 00:28:01,939
He said you would be surprised.

277
00:28:01,939 --> 00:28:03,319
He said I asked my daughter.

278
00:28:03,319 --> 00:28:06,634
She had never heard of Jim Crow laws and she's a young adult.

279
00:28:06,634 --> 00:28:07,065
Mm-hmm.

280
00:28:07,065 --> 00:28:22,230
it's just a confirmation that we are there are efforts on their efforts that underway and
some succeeding in writing us out of history and erasing and erasing our black history.

281
00:28:22,230 --> 00:28:24,183
And that's one of those things.

282
00:28:24,183 --> 00:28:27,225
The other thing I thought about when you were talking about treatment.

283
00:28:28,713 --> 00:28:32,593
When I moved up in the world, I was in high school then.

284
00:28:32,593 --> 00:28:36,053
It was the summer that we, I didn't have to go to the cotton fields.

285
00:28:36,053 --> 00:28:38,213
It was my sophomore year in college.

286
00:28:38,213 --> 00:28:47,873
And I was hired at a white restaurant in Tupelo for the summer as a waitress.

287
00:28:47,873 --> 00:28:52,613
Totally unheard of for me to be anything other than a dishwasher or a cook.

288
00:28:52,813 --> 00:28:56,613
And I could do neither one of those very well.

289
00:28:56,773 --> 00:28:58,401
But one of the,

290
00:28:59,050 --> 00:29:06,996
One day I was waiting on this table and I walked up to the table and to the men sitting at
the table and said, good morning, may I help you?

291
00:29:07,537 --> 00:29:14,182
I was called every name, negative thing that a black person can be called.

292
00:29:14,182 --> 00:29:21,247
I was invited to do things, this is here in Tupelo, that nobody should be invited to do.

293
00:29:21,488 --> 00:29:24,881
I found out later and I was shocked.

294
00:29:24,881 --> 00:29:27,817
I didn't know what was going on and why he was treating me.

295
00:29:27,817 --> 00:29:35,037
Well, I knew why he would treat me like this, but I was amazed that it would still happen
in this restaurant.

296
00:29:35,037 --> 00:29:44,357
found out later that he came there purposefully to do that because he had found out that
this white restaurant owner had hired a black girl.

297
00:29:44,357 --> 00:29:47,717
And so we're going to take care of her and show her her place.

298
00:29:47,857 --> 00:29:52,777
And I also found out later he was one of the leaders in the Krupa's clan, which was still
in existence.

299
00:29:52,777 --> 00:29:57,697
Now this is 67, you know, this is in the 60s.

300
00:29:58,203 --> 00:30:07,417
And fortunately, the restaurant owner put him out, know, she put him out and then
explained to him why she was putting him out.

301
00:30:07,417 --> 00:30:09,798
But, you know, these are kind of things.

302
00:30:09,798 --> 00:30:18,162
It I was most it mostly shocked than anything else, I think, to have someone talk, talk to
me like that for no reason.

303
00:30:18,162 --> 00:30:21,663
Now, I went to Jackson State, which is an HBCU.

304
00:30:21,663 --> 00:30:26,225
So it was nothing for us to try to walk across the street and whites would be.

305
00:30:26,269 --> 00:30:32,546
driving through because the industry was open and calling us all kinds of names and
throwing at us and all of that.

306
00:30:32,546 --> 00:30:36,720
But somehow I did not expect that kind of treatment.

307
00:30:36,841 --> 00:30:40,825
And I don't know why I thought that it was over, but.

308
00:30:41,267 --> 00:30:55,128
In doing some research, I did not know that Jim Crow is a derogatory term for African
Americans.

309
00:30:56,016 --> 00:30:56,997
Mm-hmm.

310
00:31:00,157 --> 00:31:01,998
It's because you live in Mississippi.

311
00:31:02,039 --> 00:31:04,941
And so it's keeping us in place.

312
00:31:05,863 --> 00:31:10,092
But it wasn't just some other southern states had Jim Crow laws as well.

313
00:31:10,092 --> 00:31:11,562
It was just Mississippi.

314
00:31:11,562 --> 00:31:12,562
Right.

315
00:31:13,144 --> 00:31:21,541
David, if I can, I just wanted to share, she was talking about treatment uh and how it was
back then.

316
00:31:21,541 --> 00:31:25,153
It is still there, but it's more subtle.

317
00:31:25,154 --> 00:31:29,778
And one of the differences we have now, we knew who the KKK was.

318
00:31:29,778 --> 00:31:31,059
Now we don't know.

319
00:31:31,059 --> 00:31:32,500
It can be our doctor.

320
00:31:32,500 --> 00:31:35,282
It can be the teachers of our kids.

321
00:31:35,463 --> 00:31:38,845
And we, ah as a people,

322
00:31:39,038 --> 00:31:42,420
still get the brunt of these experiences.

323
00:31:42,560 --> 00:31:46,542
I worked as a hotel manager for Marriott.

324
00:31:47,122 --> 00:31:53,045
And um I was very aggressive and I thought I was the sharpest thing.

325
00:31:53,266 --> 00:32:00,870
And I found that they would give me the inner city hotels, the hotel with the problem.

326
00:32:00,870 --> 00:32:07,353
But if they had a brand new hotel, they wouldn't give it to me, but they would allow me to
go and train the person.

327
00:32:07,817 --> 00:32:10,123
ah to be the manager.

328
00:32:10,123 --> 00:32:18,701
And so these are some things that we have been confronted with today ah that is still on
the shoulders of this Jim Crow law.

329
00:32:21,531 --> 00:32:32,200
It sounds like that you almost had a double whammy, meaning you were African American and
you were a woman.

330
00:32:34,903 --> 00:32:37,789
Jim, you had some...

331
00:32:37,789 --> 00:32:38,529
You

332
00:32:44,003 --> 00:32:46,175
Jim, you had something.

333
00:32:47,062 --> 00:32:56,381
I having not been raised in Mississippi, I was raised in Kansas City and I'm sure growing
up that there was.

334
00:32:58,695 --> 00:33:00,567
some segregation problems.

335
00:33:00,567 --> 00:33:05,391
I was probably too young to realize it, but I grew up in a neighborhood where...

336
00:33:05,391 --> 00:33:07,874
ah

337
00:33:07,874 --> 00:33:11,284
I don't recall any.

338
00:33:13,444 --> 00:33:19,548
Well, I started to say minorities, but ah my neighborhood had Italians.

339
00:33:19,889 --> 00:33:21,830
It had Polish.

340
00:33:21,830 --> 00:33:24,232
ah

341
00:33:26,190 --> 00:33:28,621
I don't know, was a neighborhood of...

342
00:33:30,520 --> 00:33:37,944
I don't know if God wanted to put together a patchwork of people that are not alike, other
than just their color.

343
00:33:37,944 --> 00:33:41,004
ah That's the neighborhood I grew up in.

344
00:33:41,004 --> 00:33:52,888
ah And when you grow up in that kind of a neighborhood, ah there isn't really any
segregation because...

345
00:33:53,840 --> 00:33:55,662
I mean, who are you going to segregate against?

346
00:33:55,662 --> 00:34:04,430
mean, your neighbors are all your neighbors and they're all for the most part, Amel
Aminino, my next door neighbor.

347
00:34:04,430 --> 00:34:18,462
ah I learned later in life, ah his wife, it was an arranged marriage and she was 14 when
she came from Italy.

348
00:34:18,462 --> 00:34:20,724
ah

349
00:34:21,434 --> 00:34:23,407
the keggies that lived across the street.

350
00:34:23,407 --> 00:34:28,934
He was German, ah worked for a meat packing company.

351
00:34:30,717 --> 00:34:31,138
So...

352
00:34:31,138 --> 00:34:33,140
ah

353
00:34:35,172 --> 00:34:48,543
I just grew up in an integrated neighborhood other than the lack of ah black faces except
on the baseball field.

354
00:34:49,024 --> 00:34:54,092
And I loved the baseball field.

355
00:34:54,092 --> 00:34:58,882
I always wanted to play professional baseball and I was fortunate.

356
00:35:01,050 --> 00:35:02,973
Growing up to a.

357
00:35:04,879 --> 00:35:22,668
being able to go see the, not only the Kansas City ah baseball team, which was a minor
league team, but the Kansas City Monarchs, which was an all black baseball team.

358
00:35:23,029 --> 00:35:27,951
And they played the leagues and everything.

359
00:35:28,532 --> 00:35:35,095
just a few years ago, Satchel Paige was one of the great pitchers of all time.

360
00:35:37,118 --> 00:35:39,172
.

361
00:35:39,172 --> 00:35:46,277
found out reading his obituary that he lived not too far down the road from Tupelo.

362
00:35:46,277 --> 00:35:55,103
And I so wished that I had realized that because I wanted to go talk to him about those.

363
00:35:57,579 --> 00:36:00,940
minor league black baseball teams.

364
00:36:01,020 --> 00:36:02,980
They were so wonderful.

365
00:36:03,781 --> 00:36:08,802
And a lot of pro players when it finally baseball was finally integrated.

366
00:36:09,442 --> 00:36:14,103
There were so many wonderful pro players that came out of those leagues.

367
00:36:14,103 --> 00:36:18,625
ah But they had the same problems.

368
00:36:18,745 --> 00:36:23,926
couldn't the team, the pro team would travel, but they couldn't go into the same hotel.

369
00:36:23,926 --> 00:36:27,827
They couldn't go into the same restaurant and ah

370
00:36:29,049 --> 00:36:36,790
I mean, these stories are important to understanding where we are today.

371
00:36:38,637 --> 00:36:40,817
And I'm so grateful for you too.

372
00:36:42,735 --> 00:36:45,896
to allow us the privilege of listening to your stories.

373
00:36:47,358 --> 00:36:58,063
Did either of you have any, ah did any of you have any, I know the Klan existed.

374
00:36:58,163 --> 00:37:00,445
I never met anybody with the Klan.

375
00:37:00,445 --> 00:37:04,487
It just has always been in books and hearsay.

376
00:37:04,487 --> 00:37:12,631
ah What was it like with, did the Klan, I know the Klan existed in Mississippi.

377
00:37:12,921 --> 00:37:22,042
But did any of you have any, either of you have any experience with your family in the
Klan or neighbors in the Klan?

378
00:37:23,099 --> 00:37:31,223
Well, I mentioned my encounter with the, I don't know what the chief wizard or whatever
you call them back then.

379
00:37:31,223 --> 00:37:33,364
We knew the Klan existed.

380
00:37:34,104 --> 00:37:43,469
And I know of people who were targeted by the Klan and they did not come out.

381
00:37:43,469 --> 00:37:48,971
Well, some of them, didn't have to come out to our community because a lot of them already
lived out here.

382
00:37:49,327 --> 00:37:52,008
So we had those kind of inaction.

383
00:37:52,008 --> 00:37:54,130
I didn't see any cross burnings.

384
00:37:54,130 --> 00:37:58,132
I don't have that experience, but I know that they existed.

385
00:37:58,132 --> 00:38:10,378
And also because we're in a rural area, back then the transportation was not, we didn't
actually go into town all of the time.

386
00:38:11,719 --> 00:38:14,621
Wagon and the horses would only go so far.

387
00:38:14,621 --> 00:38:17,602
And even when we got cars, we still didn't go into town.

388
00:38:17,602 --> 00:38:19,463
And when we did, we didn't go.

389
00:38:19,515 --> 00:38:28,915
we've seldom went into the white section of town because we knew then you had to step off
the street of a white person saying you couldn't look at a white person and now you

390
00:38:28,915 --> 00:38:30,615
couldn't say anything.

391
00:38:30,695 --> 00:38:41,135
And so we, I did, I personally did not see any claim mentions or anything like that, but I
knew that they existed.

392
00:38:41,135 --> 00:38:45,095
And as I got older, I knew who they were in the area where I lived.

393
00:38:46,562 --> 00:38:48,164
in our area, go ahead.

394
00:38:50,204 --> 00:38:55,937
Well, wasn't a matter, you you didn't have enough interaction to worry about whether you
were being kind or not.

395
00:38:56,620 --> 00:39:00,568
You just didn't, you know, stay away from them.

396
00:39:00,606 --> 00:39:01,483
Yeah, okay.

397
00:39:01,483 --> 00:39:02,670
were in fear.

398
00:39:03,234 --> 00:39:09,205
And that was the culture and that was the intent was for us to be in fear.

399
00:39:09,246 --> 00:39:21,489
And so like now, oh the young African-American males are having to be taught how to
conduct themselves when they're in contact with the police and so forth.

400
00:39:21,489 --> 00:39:28,931
Back then, they knew to be home by night because it was not safe for them to be out after
dark.

401
00:39:28,971 --> 00:39:33,372
And so there were many things that had to be done

402
00:39:33,737 --> 00:39:35,478
just to survive.

403
00:39:35,900 --> 00:39:39,965
And this goes back to our history doing slavery.

404
00:39:39,965 --> 00:39:50,159
You can see the strength and the ah wisdom, if you will, of the African-American community
of the things that they had to do to survive.

405
00:39:51,028 --> 00:39:56,713
I want to mention, Jim, you had talked about being growing up in an integrated community.

406
00:39:56,713 --> 00:40:04,159
uh From my viewpoint, a community is not integrated until you get some people of color
there.

407
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:17,851
Because when you look at the Polish people and all the other people, uh they somehow,
because of the color of their skin, can get by with being white and accepted as white.

408
00:40:18,057 --> 00:40:23,753
But before I even get a chance to say anything, they automatically know who I am.

409
00:40:23,874 --> 00:40:25,817
I don't have to say anything.

410
00:40:25,817 --> 00:40:29,721
And so that made us be able to be prepared.

411
00:40:29,721 --> 00:40:37,482
We knew we had to be better than in order to just compete because we only got a few
seconds to prove who we were.

412
00:40:37,482 --> 00:40:50,703
And, and lovey, you probably because you if you wouldn't had an integrated community, the
share the white people and families who were sharecroppers.

413
00:40:51,664 --> 00:41:02,253
And who had no more than we did treated us like dirt that they were much better than us,
even though they were economically no better off than us.

414
00:41:02,253 --> 00:41:05,926
But it was just the color of the skin that made the difference.

415
00:41:06,756 --> 00:41:17,874
I remember when they integrated school, there was a white family that lived near us and we
played and we didn't have any idea about what was going on on the adult level as it

416
00:41:17,874 --> 00:41:19,725
related to integration.

417
00:41:19,785 --> 00:41:22,387
And my best friend name was Nancy.

418
00:41:22,387 --> 00:41:34,725
And I mean, we just had the best of time, but I can remember when we started to mature as
women, young women, we could no longer play with the white boys.

419
00:41:34,740 --> 00:41:43,984
um And it hurt me so when they integrated the schools that their kids went to a private
school.

420
00:41:43,984 --> 00:41:46,865
And like she said, they were no better off than we were.

421
00:41:46,865 --> 00:41:58,529
So they actually took the black school and sold it to the white private school for $1 and
bused us over to the next city.

422
00:41:58,769 --> 00:42:04,101
And so even the poor white kids were allowed to go to this private school.

423
00:42:04,419 --> 00:42:07,450
And I want to reflect for a moment back on what Ms.

424
00:42:07,450 --> 00:42:10,162
Tolliver had talked about the school year.

425
00:42:10,162 --> 00:42:14,183
um You were fortunate in Tupelo.

426
00:42:14,183 --> 00:42:22,487
In central Mississippi, the students started school, especially the boys, at the end of
October, first of November.

427
00:42:22,487 --> 00:42:24,548
So they missed all of that.

428
00:42:24,548 --> 00:42:30,150
And then in the spring of the year, they had to leave early because they had to plant the
crops.

429
00:42:30,191 --> 00:42:31,289
And so...

430
00:42:31,289 --> 00:42:41,187
It was not unheard of for the young men to drop out of school fifth, sixth, seventh grade
because they would have missed so much they couldn't catch up.

431
00:42:43,065 --> 00:42:46,661
And even now on many, go ahead.

432
00:42:47,904 --> 00:42:49,257
No, I just wanted to correct.

433
00:42:49,257 --> 00:42:51,161
I went to school in Pontotoc County.

434
00:42:51,161 --> 00:42:53,776
Not too, you know, because I don't want to have...

435
00:42:55,896 --> 00:43:02,610
I don't know what it was going to do below, but I remember the different periods for the
boys because of the planning.

436
00:43:03,768 --> 00:43:18,311
I was going to say it's not unusual now to meet a black man that is 70 that got very
little schooling, barely know how to read and write.

437
00:43:18,799 --> 00:43:32,662
I went to a hearing over in the Delta two, three years ago and a young man, Todd Pinkett,
who was running for office, uh he had done the research on this lawsuit.

438
00:43:33,016 --> 00:43:40,471
And at that time they brought in white South Africans on our dime to work the equipment.

439
00:43:40,571 --> 00:43:47,616
And they used the black farmers uh to train them and then they would let them go.

440
00:43:48,116 --> 00:43:58,483
And so one young man, one man talked about that the whites, they had water coolers for
them.

441
00:43:58,483 --> 00:44:02,714
But as a black, and I'm talking about now, present day, I'm not talking about.

442
00:44:02,714 --> 00:44:04,054
back in the day.

443
00:44:04,375 --> 00:44:10,077
The blacks had to bring their own water or drink out of the hydrant outside.

444
00:44:10,517 --> 00:44:16,620
The whites could go to the bathroom and the blacks had to go out in the woods or whatever.

445
00:44:16,920 --> 00:44:21,262
I'm talking about in the Delta, in Mississippi, current day.

446
00:44:23,542 --> 00:44:28,604
And so that gets us back to, we see how fast things are turning.

447
00:44:28,604 --> 00:44:35,187
Just think about how slow it was for us to get the civil rights movement and legislation
through.

448
00:44:35,187 --> 00:44:37,788
But look how quickly is he roading.

449
00:44:39,229 --> 00:44:46,151
And we know that Trump is sick, but you have to question what's wrong with the rest of the
people.

450
00:44:46,852 --> 00:44:50,194
And there are different motives for people doing things.

451
00:44:50,194 --> 00:44:51,546
They know he's wrong.

452
00:44:51,546 --> 00:44:56,230
They know he's sick, but they chose him because he would do their bidding.

453
00:44:56,271 --> 00:45:01,728
And he made it safe for people to come out of the covers and tell us who they really are.

454
00:45:01,728 --> 00:45:10,273
and the elimination of the DEI things that's going on, all of the banned books.

455
00:45:10,273 --> 00:45:21,819
Basically what that means is, whereas we had an opportunity to research whatever we could
find at that time available, there was a proliferation of information about the

456
00:45:21,819 --> 00:45:23,660
African-American history.

457
00:45:23,781 --> 00:45:29,904
None of those things, and it still wasn't enough, but there is even less now.

458
00:45:29,904 --> 00:45:40,904
with all of the book bannings that reflect our history, with the elimination of diversity
in programs, inclusiveness.

459
00:45:43,544 --> 00:45:45,304
Students won't have anything to research.

460
00:45:45,304 --> 00:45:48,124
They won't have anywhere to go find it.

461
00:45:48,124 --> 00:45:49,670
They will not be paid.

462
00:45:49,670 --> 00:45:56,695
you share your stories and try to get your stories out as much as possible.

463
00:45:56,695 --> 00:46:11,935
There was an article in, this is on Yahoo News, and it talks about, in a public memo
issued by the GSA, General Services Administration, the federal government no longer

464
00:46:11,935 --> 00:46:17,925
prohibits contractors from having

465
00:46:17,925 --> 00:46:22,868
segregated waiting rooms, restaurants, and water fountains.

466
00:46:23,508 --> 00:46:36,736
The memo specifically read, when issuing new solicitations or contracts, do not include
any of the following provisions or clauses.

467
00:46:36,736 --> 00:46:44,000
And it says, prohibitation of segregated facilities.

468
00:46:47,061 --> 00:46:52,404
that fits right back into its segregation.

469
00:46:55,827 --> 00:46:58,728
it appears that that's where we're going back to.

470
00:46:58,728 --> 00:47:10,415
And all of the civil rights, you know, since the 50s and the 40s is being erased, erased.

471
00:47:10,435 --> 00:47:13,627
that's, to me, it's frightening.

472
00:47:15,011 --> 00:47:15,794
Jim?

473
00:47:16,464 --> 00:47:34,288
Yes, um I don't know which one of you young ladies mentioned it, but we do have, in my
opinion, an awful lot of angry young men.

474
00:47:34,591 --> 00:47:35,470
Mm-hmm.

475
00:47:38,436 --> 00:47:40,717
and there is racism.

476
00:47:42,542 --> 00:47:46,827
And as Lovie said, it's under the surface.

477
00:47:48,538 --> 00:47:52,695
You've got to kind of look to see it.

478
00:47:54,419 --> 00:47:55,239
And.

479
00:47:59,034 --> 00:48:00,675
How do we go about?

480
00:48:02,554 --> 00:48:13,150
bringing that out of the shadows so that it's not under the surface.

481
00:48:13,150 --> 00:48:23,266
It's out in the open and everybody knows that racism still exists and we need to work on
changing it.

482
00:48:27,769 --> 00:48:33,101
one of the things we have, we have the midterm coming up next year.

483
00:48:33,181 --> 00:48:40,044
So it behooves all of us to get involved and do what we can to change the House and the
Senate.

484
00:48:40,044 --> 00:48:51,028
And it's going to take legislation to be able to roll back some of this uh craziness
that's going on and give students an opportunity.

485
00:48:51,689 --> 00:48:57,213
We look at Mississippi, how ah the numbers are eroding.

486
00:48:57,213 --> 00:49:00,544
We went from five congressional districts to four.

487
00:49:00,544 --> 00:49:13,818
Then they did this redistricting a couple of years ago because the students leave, go off
to college if they're fortunate to, and they see what is going on and they're not about to

488
00:49:13,818 --> 00:49:19,949
come back uh to Mississippi where there are no jobs, where all of this is going on.

489
00:49:20,030 --> 00:49:25,871
And so uh Mississippi is getting to be in a dire situation because

490
00:49:26,183 --> 00:49:30,307
We have so many young people that just will not come back.

491
00:49:30,935 --> 00:49:33,346
And this is both, races.

492
00:49:33,809 --> 00:49:36,551
Yeah, that's, that's true.

493
00:49:36,551 --> 00:49:46,398
oh I remember now I'm just a little bit younger than, than you, you guys, this group.

494
00:49:46,398 --> 00:49:47,469
I'm a little bit younger.

495
00:49:47,469 --> 00:50:02,479
And my first experience of segregation, I grew up in Memphis and my mother and I, oh I was
probably three or four years old.

496
00:50:03,029 --> 00:50:12,753
And we had gotten on uh the bus and we were going from, we were going up downtown to the
Memphis Public Library.

497
00:50:13,514 --> 00:50:22,298
And it was my first time on the bus, I was excited and I'm at the front and I'm just
taking all of this in.

498
00:50:22,738 --> 00:50:28,821
And this black lady gets on the bus and.

499
00:50:28,901 --> 00:50:33,372
I speak to her, she speaks to me, very nice, very friendly.

500
00:50:33,995 --> 00:50:38,184
And then, and then she walks to the back of the bus.

501
00:50:39,885 --> 00:50:45,157
And I'm kind of thinking, what did I do?

502
00:50:45,157 --> 00:50:46,628
What did I say?

503
00:50:46,785 --> 00:50:50,129
You know, why is she, why I wanted to talk to her.

504
00:50:50,129 --> 00:50:52,850
Why was she not sitting by me?

505
00:50:52,985 --> 00:50:58,293
And I asked my mother, I go, why didn't she sit with us?

506
00:50:58,733 --> 00:51:06,296
And I remember my mother saying, she has to sit at the back of the bus.

507
00:51:07,317 --> 00:51:07,951
Now,

508
00:51:07,951 --> 00:51:27,446
At that time, I didn't comprehend what was going on, but I remember kind of, and even
thinking about it today, I can kind of recall a sadness in her voice.

509
00:51:29,407 --> 00:51:37,619
But being a three year old, yes, I like to talk and, but by the end somebody else

510
00:51:37,619 --> 00:51:39,952
came down and sit by us.

511
00:51:39,952 --> 00:51:45,598
So that's my first recollection of segregation.

512
00:51:45,598 --> 00:51:51,745
uh

513
00:51:52,692 --> 00:52:05,236
What was the em reason for the large number of Mississippians who went to Chicago?

514
00:52:06,791 --> 00:52:11,252
They didn't want to work in the fields and they knew that's all that was for them.

515
00:52:11,352 --> 00:52:14,073
So they went to Chicago, St.

516
00:52:14,073 --> 00:52:24,976
Louis, uh Milwaukee, any northern city that they had relatives or could get away to so
that they would not have to work in the fields.

517
00:52:24,976 --> 00:52:34,603
The other thing that happened is those that had property, a lot of times would lose their
property, not from a legal system standpoint,

518
00:52:34,603 --> 00:52:37,894
but from all the torture and so forth.

519
00:52:37,894 --> 00:52:46,696
if they got a cross burned in the front of their house, they already knew what that meant
because the cross burned in the front of the church and the church got burned down.

520
00:52:46,696 --> 00:52:51,257
And so they would flee oftentimes for their lives.

521
00:52:51,397 --> 00:53:04,211
And if something happened to the male child, many times they would send them up North just
to get them out of Mississippi and the Southern States to protect them legally.

522
00:53:04,211 --> 00:53:17,773
And we were given the, when we would be in split session in school in the summer and our
cousins from up north or religious from up north would come down and talk about life up

523
00:53:17,773 --> 00:53:20,891
north being so much better than down here.

524
00:53:20,891 --> 00:53:25,670
It became aspirational to manage.

525
00:53:25,670 --> 00:53:31,903
I want to go Chicago, same, you know, the great migration place because

526
00:53:31,903 --> 00:53:37,281
because of an aspiration and a desire to do better and improve.

527
00:53:37,281 --> 00:53:37,942
that's what.

528
00:53:37,942 --> 00:53:39,907
ah

529
00:53:41,767 --> 00:53:46,873
African Americans felt they would get by participating in the Great Migration.

530
00:53:47,719 --> 00:53:50,005
And I think Memphis is full of music.

531
00:53:50,005 --> 00:53:51,368
stuff like that.

532
00:53:52,819 --> 00:53:55,278
going to say I think Memphis is full of musicians.

533
00:53:55,278 --> 00:53:56,601
Did I cut you off?

534
00:53:57,867 --> 00:54:04,961
No, I was just thinking $2 an hour is better than $2 a day in the cotton field.

535
00:54:04,961 --> 00:54:05,921
right.

536
00:54:05,923 --> 00:54:07,746
And you get air conditioned.

537
00:54:08,234 --> 00:54:08,745
Yeah.

538
00:54:08,745 --> 00:54:09,297
Tell me.

539
00:54:09,297 --> 00:54:14,137
uh

540
00:54:14,137 --> 00:54:21,879
into being, I think, on some levels because you had uh musicians from Mississippi on their
way to St.

541
00:54:21,879 --> 00:54:26,160
Louis or on their way to Chicago and ran out of funds or whatever took place.

542
00:54:26,160 --> 00:54:29,980
So they ended up stopping in Memphis on Beale Street.

543
00:54:30,601 --> 00:54:40,273
And so you think of a lot of your blues players and all the people from back then that
were musicians, uh they came out of Mississippi.

544
00:54:40,883 --> 00:54:53,129
And uh Mississippi was rich with talented people, even though uh we were still looked upon
as low IQ, lazy, and all of those kinds of things.

545
00:54:53,870 --> 00:55:00,493
And the other thing I wanted to mention, I was talking about, uh Jim, your integrated
neighborhood.

546
00:55:01,614 --> 00:55:06,697
It was clear that the lighter you are, the better you'd be treated.

547
00:55:06,717 --> 00:55:10,939
And so some of us have relatives that were very, very fair.

548
00:55:10,975 --> 00:55:18,515
that actually passed for white because they didn't want people to know that they were
black because of how they would be treated.

549
00:55:18,775 --> 00:55:33,295
And there were stories where you would have, for example, a fair person that's married to
a white person and the genes would skip a beat and the child would come out dark.

550
00:55:33,355 --> 00:55:38,535
And then of course there would be all kind of chaos that would take place.

551
00:55:38,663 --> 00:55:45,467
just because this person may not have known that this person had um Black roots.

552
00:55:45,528 --> 00:55:54,073
And you just think about so many people have had to do what they had to do uh just to
survive.

553
00:55:54,573 --> 00:56:00,338
And so that message got out where the lighter you are, the better you are.

554
00:56:00,518 --> 00:56:04,861
And there became racism in the Black community.

555
00:56:05,062 --> 00:56:07,283
And this was born out when

556
00:56:07,283 --> 00:56:11,888
The master could see his blood in his offsprings and bring them up to the house.

557
00:56:11,928 --> 00:56:15,592
And then the darker slaves would have to work in the fields.

558
00:56:15,592 --> 00:56:20,998
So that division was planted early on and it continues until today.

559
00:56:23,067 --> 00:56:25,915
That's no, I don't.

560
00:56:25,931 --> 00:56:32,051
and when it came back, I was 4 % African.

561
00:56:33,992 --> 00:56:34,823
See.

562
00:56:36,633 --> 00:56:37,683
Absolutely.

563
00:56:37,683 --> 00:56:42,802
I mean, that's, that's what I can't understand.

564
00:56:44,509 --> 00:56:53,831
We all come from, apparently, ah pretty close to the same place on Earth.

565
00:56:54,653 --> 00:56:56,655
And there's...

566
00:56:58,865 --> 00:57:00,721
some of that in all of us.

567
00:57:02,071 --> 00:57:03,214
And I guess...

568
00:57:05,151 --> 00:57:06,743
I so much for that.

569
00:57:06,743 --> 00:57:11,277
What I did want to ask, Virginia had mentioned sharecropping.

570
00:57:12,239 --> 00:57:15,641
Did your parents ever make any money sharecropping?

571
00:57:16,023 --> 00:57:20,647
Because I've heard stories that you sharecropped.

572
00:57:20,827 --> 00:57:25,604
we had a small farm, so we were not sharecroppers.

573
00:57:25,604 --> 00:57:28,719
There were many around us that were.

574
00:57:28,719 --> 00:57:31,613
But most sharecroppers...

575
00:57:33,491 --> 00:57:48,423
did not make that much money because one of the things that happened was because you was
the landowner provided the house and the seeds and all of that.

576
00:57:48,423 --> 00:57:52,957
So after the crop, when the crops came in and also as Ms.

577
00:57:52,957 --> 00:57:59,813
West mentioned, uh a lot of them didn't have formal education to know any difference.

578
00:57:59,813 --> 00:58:03,185
So when landowner gave them the books to show that

579
00:58:14,873 --> 00:58:18,555
Mm-hmm.

580
00:58:18,955 --> 00:58:19,581
Mm-hmm.

581
00:58:19,581 --> 00:58:22,673
the most part, most sharecroppers did not make.

582
00:58:24,283 --> 00:58:29,847
enough money to survive or exist on their own.

583
00:58:29,847 --> 00:58:35,410
That was my experience with care-prifers and I don't know, I'm sure it was that way in the
delts too.

584
00:58:36,029 --> 00:58:39,349
But I'm going say that was a way of keeping them sharecroppers.

585
00:58:39,349 --> 00:58:42,909
If they can keep them in debt, they can keep them sharecroppers.

586
00:58:43,009 --> 00:58:54,809
And even when the blacks got to the point they could read and write and can understand
what was going on, they were still enslaved on some levels because the only little store

587
00:58:54,809 --> 00:58:57,329
was a store owned by the master.

588
00:58:57,329 --> 00:59:03,649
And the master would bring the prices so high that they still could not ever break even.

589
00:59:03,695 --> 00:59:14,694
And so it was a caste system where they would never ever be able to break even and leave
on their own unless they went up north or something else into being.

590
00:59:14,694 --> 00:59:16,896
They never could make it.

591
00:59:16,896 --> 00:59:22,359
And that's why, you know, they moved a lot around a lot, too.

592
00:59:22,800 --> 00:59:32,186
know, person, I go from this landowner to another landowner, but I'm still in the same
situation.

593
00:59:32,206 --> 00:59:36,809
And there was also a fear of rebuttal.

594
00:59:36,970 --> 00:59:43,334
know, Jim Newman says I didn't make any money, but I know I should have ten dollars.

595
00:59:43,334 --> 00:59:50,896
But I'm not going to get into an argument with Jim Newman, who's the white landowner,
about the fact that I didn't break even.

596
00:59:50,896 --> 00:59:53,007
Because that, as Mrs.

597
00:59:53,007 --> 00:59:56,978
West said, that affects my survival.

598
00:59:57,618 --> 01:00:09,761
Because I know that when I say something to this white man, then the guns are coming next,
or the Klan is coming next, or somebody's coming next to take care of me, because I think

599
01:00:09,761 --> 01:00:11,962
I can talk to you like that?

600
01:00:11,962 --> 01:00:13,082
No way.

601
01:00:13,242 --> 01:00:18,304
So sharecropping was not a way of acquiring property ownership.

602
01:00:18,340 --> 01:00:33,900
No, no, it was just a way of surviving, a way to house me and my children and get back
from one period to the next.

603
01:00:34,371 --> 01:00:36,611
And she has spoken of housing.

604
01:00:36,611 --> 01:00:40,091
The housing were in poor condition.

605
01:00:40,931 --> 01:00:42,911
I mean, it leaks.

606
01:00:42,911 --> 01:00:45,671
It did not have insulation for the winter.

607
01:00:46,571 --> 01:00:49,911
You know, it was just a poor situation.

608
01:00:49,931 --> 01:00:54,091
And so here's the man that got to go to work.

609
01:00:54,471 --> 01:01:03,244
The woman has to not only cook and do all of this to get her family situated in the
morning, but

610
01:01:03,244 --> 01:01:12,697
pregnant or not, she still had to go to field and work that day and then come home and paw
bar greens or whatever it was she had to do to get dinner for her family.

611
01:01:12,877 --> 01:01:18,818
And even when she had the child, she didn't have time to heal and nurture herself.

612
01:01:18,818 --> 01:01:23,920
She had to get back in the field or go up to the master's house or wherever it was.

613
01:01:23,920 --> 01:01:26,100
She had to still pull her duty.

614
01:01:26,441 --> 01:01:31,456
And I think a lot of this is what has made Black women as strong as we are.

615
01:01:31,456 --> 01:01:35,258
because we've had to do what we had to do to make it.

616
01:01:39,108 --> 01:01:40,523
I can tell you that.

617
01:01:44,112 --> 01:01:50,177
If I need a job done, I know who to go to ah to get it done.

618
01:01:50,177 --> 01:01:51,998
ah

619
01:01:53,828 --> 01:01:58,222
the women and in particular the black women.

620
01:01:59,284 --> 01:02:01,746
You are such marvelous creatures.

621
01:02:02,207 --> 01:02:04,468
I don't know how you survived.

622
01:02:05,170 --> 01:02:09,514
And I honestly, I don't know how you.

623
01:02:12,140 --> 01:02:14,051
still love Mississippi.

624
01:02:16,868 --> 01:02:31,772
When I first moved down here, one of the first things when I first got into Mississippi, I
don't know, it was in 78 or 79 or so, the legislature changed a law that said uh up until

625
01:02:31,772 --> 01:02:41,705
then it was okay for a white person to discipline his manservant.

626
01:02:41,805 --> 01:02:44,676
And if in the process he killed him, it was okay.

627
01:02:45,506 --> 01:02:46,362
Mm-hmm.

628
01:02:46,488 --> 01:02:48,200
I could not believe it.

629
01:02:49,403 --> 01:02:56,193
It was just so startling because I knew exactly what it was.

630
01:02:57,496 --> 01:02:58,977
It was out and out.

631
01:02:59,015 --> 01:03:01,579
some of those laws still on the books.

632
01:03:01,579 --> 01:03:03,113
Yes, yes.

633
01:03:03,113 --> 01:03:07,740
racial disparities were not just in Mississippi.

634
01:03:08,102 --> 01:03:10,646
That was universal for Black.

635
01:03:10,877 --> 01:03:11,688
Mm-hmm.

636
01:03:13,552 --> 01:03:17,845
Do you think in our lives we'll ever see it get to that point?

637
01:03:20,508 --> 01:03:21,451
get to what point?

638
01:03:21,451 --> 01:03:24,310
The equality, racial equality?

639
01:03:24,589 --> 01:03:26,073
some equality.

640
01:03:26,685 --> 01:03:27,465
No.

641
01:03:28,127 --> 01:03:29,688
don't think so.

642
01:03:29,688 --> 01:03:33,491
Because we're going backwards.

643
01:03:33,551 --> 01:03:34,092
As Ms.

644
01:03:34,092 --> 01:03:44,260
mentioned, we're going backwards instead of, you know, we always thought that we push
forward because we want to, I want a better life for my child and my grandchildren than I

645
01:03:44,260 --> 01:03:45,180
had.

646
01:03:45,341 --> 01:03:53,016
But a lot of the strides that we've made are being abolished.

647
01:03:54,642 --> 01:03:56,598
We're not going forward.

648
01:03:57,598 --> 01:04:04,463
And it used to be each generation, and this is not just with the Blacks, each generation
did better than their parents.

649
01:04:04,463 --> 01:04:15,870
But in the Black community, uh when that child did go off to school or whatever, they
would reach back and help their siblings or they would reach back and help their parents.

650
01:04:15,950 --> 01:04:20,833
And now we're in a situation where the children are not doing as well as we did.

651
01:04:20,833 --> 01:04:26,973
And so this going backwards is much bigger for the African-American community.

652
01:04:26,973 --> 01:04:36,614
than it is from some of the other communities because you have children now that are
adults and they have children and families and so forth and having to move in with their

653
01:04:36,614 --> 01:04:37,545
parents.

654
01:04:41,274 --> 01:04:49,202
David, I know we're running out of time, but I think this is the subject that we need to
continue talking about.

655
01:04:49,963 --> 01:04:54,707
And I think we need to have these two lovely ladies back again.

656
01:04:54,814 --> 01:04:57,110
And let's continue this.

657
01:04:58,591 --> 01:04:59,702
I totally agree.

658
01:04:59,702 --> 01:05:19,713
This has been eye opening and oh Gemini both are in awe of you two ladies and your
strength and what you have endured.

659
01:05:19,713 --> 01:05:22,555
uh

660
01:05:24,395 --> 01:05:27,737
Thank you for sharing your stories with us.

661
01:05:27,737 --> 01:05:39,926
oh Lovie, I'll ask you anything, any last words for us and then I'll ask, excuse me,
Virginia, any last words from her too.

662
01:05:39,926 --> 01:05:42,357
So Lovie, you first.

663
01:05:42,735 --> 01:05:55,702
I just want to say thank you to the two of you for having us to share this portion of our
lives and hopefully it will be an educational process for all of those that are listening,

664
01:05:55,702 --> 01:06:00,754
even those of color that may not understand what it was like in years before.

665
01:06:00,756 --> 01:06:03,416
So thank you so much for the opportunity.

666
01:06:03,416 --> 01:06:12,327
And as long as I'm able and in my right mind, I will continue to work ah for the good.

667
01:06:13,306 --> 01:06:17,719
Just that you're still in Mississippi, I question your right mind.

668
01:06:20,151 --> 01:06:21,517
Miss Virginia.

669
01:06:21,704 --> 01:06:22,965
I'd like to echo Ms.

670
01:06:22,965 --> 01:06:33,414
West's sentiments, but also, and your statement, Jim, just reinforces, it's not just
Mississippi.

671
01:06:33,414 --> 01:06:36,538
I mean, this is a universal problem.

672
01:06:36,659 --> 01:06:39,840
And racism is a universal problem.

673
01:06:39,840 --> 01:06:48,430
Denial of racism is one of the major causes of all of the problems that we have, because
you have to...

674
01:06:48,430 --> 01:06:52,071
In order to solve a problem, have to acknowledge that it exists.

675
01:06:52,092 --> 01:07:01,256
And there are both sides of the spectrum are really disowning the concept that it still
exists.

676
01:07:01,256 --> 01:07:13,035
until we accept that it's important that it be eradicated, we will never be able to
overcome it.

677
01:07:13,035 --> 01:07:16,152
So that's my

678
01:07:16,381 --> 01:07:30,329
was a book written a couple of years back and I'm sure I have the wrong title, it was
Project, help me out ladies, Project, New York Times.

679
01:07:30,329 --> 01:07:31,500
It was about...

680
01:07:33,455 --> 01:07:39,574
slavery in this country project, I want to say 2016.

681
01:07:42,449 --> 01:07:43,857
I don't recall.

682
01:07:44,223 --> 01:07:48,948
I, it slips my mind, ah but I'll get it out.

683
01:07:48,948 --> 01:08:04,312
I read it and we'll get back on and get together ah and continue this conversation because
racism's not going away and I don't think we should either.

684
01:08:05,062 --> 01:08:05,982
Right.

685
01:08:07,555 --> 01:08:13,999
Jim, I was trying to find that book that you mentioned, but I couldn't find it.

686
01:08:14,560 --> 01:08:17,242
Yes, thank you guys so much for being with us.

687
01:08:17,242 --> 01:08:19,704
uh Thank you, ladies.

688
01:08:19,704 --> 01:08:22,505
This has been an eye-opening experience.

689
01:08:22,586 --> 01:08:36,125
And yes, we know that it's up to you guys to share your story, and it's up to us to make
sure that those stories get out.

690
01:08:36,291 --> 01:08:41,231
I do want to thank our subscribers.

691
01:08:41,231 --> 01:08:46,391
I do want to thank our sponsors for supporting us.

692
01:08:47,451 --> 01:09:01,747
if you have any questions, comments, or issues that you would like to talk about, please
contact us at mississippyehappeningsofone.com.

693
01:09:01,747 --> 01:09:04,698
That's mshappeningsofone.com.

694
01:09:08,580 --> 01:09:13,169
May we never become indifferent to the suffering of others.

695
01:09:13,391 --> 01:09:14,372
Thank you.

696
01:09:14,902 --> 01:09:15,858
Thank you.