Delta Jewels

by Alysia Burton Steele

  CHARLESTON

  BORN MAY 1926

  MARRIED 65 YEARS WHEN WIDOWED

  HELPED RAISE 2 CHILDREN

  As a teacher [educator for 42 years,] I don’t mind sharing this, it wasn’t popular for the black teachers to belong to these Civil Rights programs and the like. When you got ready to get a contract for your job, you had to list everything you were a member of, like the NAACP. I never joined the NAACP. I did have questions. What I did, I would write a note to whoever needed to answer that question that I had. I would have them meet me at school and ask to talk to them.

  I went to closed rallies. The Bethel Church down the road from me—that was their headquarters. They would meet every Monday morning, but teachers were afraid to go there, anywhere where there was a meeting for the NAACP. It was disallowed for the teachers, but I would go to that meeting at old Bethel Church. The man that ran that meeting was Solomon Gort. Oh, he was powerful. He had strength. I would take notes.

  People that lived on the plantations went so they could be able to tell their boss. He would know what was going on. What I’m sayin’ is true. Some of them there were spies, so they could go back and tell what happened in the meeting. It’s not hearsay on my part. I would go by the bank every day; I had to leave money for the school for which I was the principal. When I walk in, the banker would look at me and say, “That was a good speech you made last night.” Didn’t ask me a direct question; would tell me. I would just look. I wouldn’t look surprised or anyway. I knew how he knew, but who it was [who spied], I don’t know. He said, “You said some real good thangs.” At those meetings, I would tell the ones on those plantations, “Civil Rights and all gonna come to you but you gonna have to be your own destiny and fight for it. You’ll never, you’ll never earn it as long as you’re on that plantation.”

  MRS. MAUDE W. COLEMAN, 102

  GREENVILLE

  BORN SEPTEMBER 1912

  MARRIED 49 YEARS WHEN WIDOWED

  1 DAUGHTER

  2 GRANDCHILDREN

  4 GREAT-GRANDS

  I’m doin’ things that I know I ought to do. Like for now, when I say my prayers, I thank the Lord for the things He allowed me to do. I didn’t do it. He was there wit’ me. All these walls full of congratulations—I didn’t figure I was doing it myself, I figured the Lord put this into me. That it was a natural incarnation that I received.

  My greatest accomplishment was to live and get old and to see my children [all her offspring including grands and great-grands] grow up to be useful and to see segregation change. The world is a better place. Until they start all this shootin’. Then I wonder where somebody failed. “What they didn’t teach you? Did you teach them about all that shootin’?” It’s the wrong thing to do.

  Did I ever pass [for white]? No. My father was white, and my mother was biracial, but my [black] stepfather raised me. I had opportunities with my color. With my ambition and my ways, I got a lot requests from white guys wanting me to say I was white altogether. I said, “Look, I don’t wanna do that. That won’t be me.” I identify as a black woman and I didn’t worry about it. You know, I have always had enough common sense to accept what I couldn’t change. I never had a hard time. I had a good time. People always treated me right. I don’t think people around in Winterville and Greenville thought anything of it. I really don’t think they bothered. You see, back then they weren’t so inquisitive. I never wanted to pass as white. Never thought about it. I didn’t have to do it, wasn’t going to change. I was much lighter than I am now, before I got old.

  I married a black man. We got married when I was about 21. He died ’bout two days before we would have been married 50 years together. I never remarried, no indeed. I never had to. My husband treated me like I was somethin’. People would say, when we would go out, “Oh, he just puttin’ on airs,” but he treated me like that at home.

  I loved him because he was a hard worker and a selfless person. He didn’t do a lot of comin’ in and out, and all that kind of stuff. He was very protective of his mother, my mother, and myself and our daughter.

  (When asked about the Civil Rights Movement:) Oh, I remember all that, honey. Back then, a long time ago, I went to the bank, First National Bank, with a paycheck. You know about segregation? You get in a line to cash somethin’ and white folks get ahead of you; they would call around and get the white person. I didn’t like that. I went to Trustmark and I have done banking business with them ever since I was 18.

  The Civil Rights was sad and yet it was necessary. You out there and you being treated unfairly and inhumane. I thought it was terrible not to break that situation down and make everybody have the same privileges. The only way you can do that was to change the attitude that Whites had against Blacks, and Blacks, I guess, had to adjust attitude against them, too, I reckon. The most I remember was the killing and the bad experience that people had to go through.

  (When asked what is hardest about getting older:) It would be all right if I could walk. I would still be working [as a high school counselor], I guess, doing stuff for somebody. But I just can’t walk now. That’s the hardest part; and then I forget so much. My memory’s not always there, [but thoughts] will come back finally. When I say my prayers, the first thing I say, “Thank you, Lord, for allowing me to do Your work. I didn’t do it. You did it. I did it at Your command.” And I close my prayer with the one thing I want to ask, “Is there somethin’ in my life that You want me to do, that I have not done? Please make that demand on me and then take me home.” If the Lord commands me to get up out that chair and go on home, I’d go right on. I’d get up and go. I’d be ready. I had already promised Him that when He did the last thing for me, to take me home. That’s my prayer, every day. That’s my prayer. Every day.

  MY MISSISSIPPI BURNING

  My mother took me to see the movie Mississippi Burning when I visited her in New Jersey when it was released in 1988, a few days before my eighteenth birthday. We both cried throughout the movie. I remember leaving depressed and afraid.

  I remembered that day when my husband, Bobby, exclaimed, “You wanna move where? Mississippi? Oh, hell no, didn’t they make a movie about it burning?!” It was 14 years later, and he was reacting to my wanting to teach at the University of Mississippi, a school some affectionately call Ole Miss. According to school research by David G. Sansing, the name comes from the Greek organizations who started a college yearbook in 1897 called Ole Miss. Elma Meek, a student from Oxford, suggested the term—a title that enslaved domestics used to distinguish the mistress of a plantation house from the young girls of the deed-owning family. Within two years, students and alumni were referring to the University of Mississippi as Ole Miss.

  I can barely put a shirt on that says OLE MISS. (Some black professors won’t wear anything that doesn’t read THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI in full, but it’s hard to find that design.) I like wearing our colors of red and blue, I’m proud of being a part of this university, I love teaching here, but I refuse to wear anything that says REBELS. I won’t go to the football games because they play the Dixie song, the ultimate song for racism in my opinion.

  I never imagined I would ever move to Mississippi until I heard about James Anderson, a black man who was run over killed by a group of white teenagers driving a pickup truck in Jackson in 2011. At that time I had been thinking of applying for a job at the university. A former colleague told me about a position at the University of Mississippi. I grew up hearing about Mississippi when learning about black history in middle school and from watching TV programs about the Civil Rights Movement. I went to after-school programs that taught me the Black National Anthem; I grew up singing “Lift Every Voice.” I grew up hearing about Medgar Evers, James Meredith, the boycotts, the segregation. It was a scary, unknown state to me. I was fine with never visiting. Something about those teenagers killing Mr. Anderson sent a cold chill down my spine and renewed my fear of the state. When a black man is run over because white kids feel like killing a “ni
gger” in 2011, it’s not exactly good public relations for a state or its university system, I thought, with angry sarcasm. I was offended by the actions, that this was still happening in 2011, by their defense and lack of accountability for horrific actions. I was angry that people still thought it was okay to hurt people just because of the color of their skin. But after talking to a former colleague who was newly hired as an assistant professor, I told Bobby I wanted to interview at the school. I expected him to put his foot down, to draw his proverbial line in the sand, and although he wasn’t enthused about the idea, he didn’t. I arrived on campus for the interview when the temps were in the eighties in April. I’m not even a flower person (Did I already mention my allergies?), but the magnolia trees smelled especially fragrant, as well as the pink azaleas, and I was charmed. After talking with Charlie Mitchell, the assistant dean and an assistant professor of the Meek School of Journalism, and Will Norton, the dean of journalism, I was more than interested. I wanted the job. Deans Mitchell and Norton told me Oxford “is forward thinking and liberal compared to the rest of the state.” They tell me it’s an extension of Memphis. Something was calling me to come to the university.

  A small Baptist church surrounded by a cotton field on Route 278 East heading toward Clarksdale.

  As cotton fields became a canvas I’d see daily while driving in the Delta as I began to interview these magnificent women, many who had worked in the fields just as their ancestors had planted, chopped, and picked the fluffy little white crop, I reflected on how such a soft plant had such a harsh history for Blacks. Most of the women I interviewed had parents who were sharecroppers. These beautiful women, like Ms. Bessie Thompson, had no schools open to them during cotton season or were forced to quit school to pick cotton to help their families make money. Mrs. Leola Dillard lost her home on the plantation because she and her husband refused to have their children pick cotton; Mrs. Bettie Clark dreamed of the day she’d walk away from the crop and have a better life.

  In 2013, I touched a cotton plant for the first time, having only looked at it for almost a year. I was on Route 278 East heading from Oxford toward Clarksdale. I was on my way to photograph a 101-year-old in Greenville, Mrs. Coleman. I talked Bobby into getting up at dawn with me to get photos of cotton in the first morning light. There was fog in the air and the crop smelled metallic, like it would be chalky if you bit into it. All kinds of emotions came over me. “I am thankful for my life now. And I’m so thankful to the women who have so graciously shared their stories with me, no doubt opening some old wounds,” I said to Bobby. “They open these wounds so others can learn from them.”

  Another time, Bobby and I were driving to Memphis for retail therapy. In Oxford, there are no malls. I needed retail therapy. I needed traffic. We were on Route 55 North when we saw the cotton fields. We both wondered aloud how many black folks worked in those fields. It saddened me. I was hit in the face with the history of race in this state—my new home state. As a photojournalist, I was fascinated. But as a black woman, I was offended by the cotton fields, which looked like rows of popcorn. I knew that I wanted to take photos of the crop, but fear of the history of slavery, plantations, intimidation made me hold off for a year. I couldn’t go near for over a year. It raised my own demons with race that I have had my whole life. I’d had enough racial tension in my life.

  Growing up in Pennsylvania, a child born in 1969 to a white mother and black father, I was teased by the blacks for not looking like my black side of the family. Whites made fun of my kinky, curly hair. Blacks said I had “good hair,” and whites said it was “woolly.” I couldn’t win. I got in constant fights. Kids in the neighborhood where I lived with Gram and Pop-Pop called me “Oreo” or “half-breed” like I was a dog, and that often sparked a fistfight.

  After Mom took me to see Mississippi Burning, I left the theater feeling more afraid of racial hate than in my younger years. Later that year, I went to the Indiana University of Pennsylvania college campus in western Pennsylvania where a pickup truck of white men followed me one summer evening. I was walking off campus at dusk to visit a boyfriend. The men in the truck revved the engine every time I stopped to cross a street. They stopped the truck when I stopped. They started when I started. They watched me and then finally decided to chase me when I ran to get away from them. Luckily I was able to hide from them. The streets weren’t busy during the summer; the town was basically deserted; there would have been few, if any, eyewitnesses. I felt unsafe, vulnerable, and scared. In fact, I was terrified. The IUP college campus was the first hostile place where I dealt with open racial tension. The Ku Klux Klan in that region was just miles from campus. I was called “nigger.” I’d never been called that before; I lived in a predominately black neighborhood, and it wasn’t a word I heard my neighbors or classmates say. (Although it was the mid-1980s, I didn’t listen to hip-hop.) We just didn’t say the “N” word—at least, I never heard it. No one in my family ever said that word around me. No one in our circle said it. My grandparents didn’t even cuss in front of me. It was not tolerated.

  When I interviewed my grandfather William Burton in November 2013, I took a photo of his hands. He was 85 years old then. He still wears his wedding ring, along with Gram’s, on his finger. Gram Burton passed away 20 years ago and he’s never taken off these rings. He wants to be buried with these rings on.

  I had my own race demons, as I wondered about Gram and her people, and collected other grandmother stories. But I kept getting hit in the gut that I don’t have any stories from my Gram. Every time I got a call from home, I worried something had happened to Pop-Pop or Aunt Tiny. I braced myself when I saw the Pennsylvania phone numbers. I headed back to Harrisburg to try to interview Pop-Pop and Aunt Tiny.

  I’m interviewing Pop inside his one-bedroom apartment. He doesn’t look as tall and strong as I remember as a child. It’s hard watching elders age. You want them to be as you remember them, youthful and strong. To interview and photograph him is very hard for me. His blue eyes aren’t as clear blue and vibrant as they used to be. He’s 86 years old and moving much slower. He’s had several health scares this year. He’s sitting on his brown love seat. I can see the age on him.

  Pop’s eyes used to be bright, vibrant, and playful, I daresay mischievous. Everyone talks about the twinkle he had in his eyes. I suppose as he ages, the twinkle isn’t as noticeable. It is hard for me to watch the change that comes with aging. In 2008, I flew home to visit during the holidays. Pop picked me up at the airport.

  I saw him waiting for me before he saw me. I almost dropped to my knees. My reaction to seeing his aging hit me right in the gut. He was hunched over more, wearing his tattered Pittsburgh Steelers baseball cap with his black winter jacket. Long hair dotted his cheeks. I held back tears when I saw the tall, strong male figure in my life become a physically weaker, older man. God, it hurt to look at him! When he saw me, he smiled. I was happy to hug him. He gave me a quick hug. I wanted to hold on a little longer.

  My grandfather in his home in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He is 85 years old in this photo taken in 2013.

  “Hi, Pop-Pop,” I say, trying to hold on.

  “Hi, Suga,” he says quickly. “Let’s go.”

  Flash back to his apartment in 2013, when I try to interview him about Gram: “Pop-Pop, what did you love about Gram?” I thought it would be an easy question, something to make him smile. Instead he turns his head to the left, away from me, and looks out the patio glass door. He doesn’t make eye contact with me.

  His blue eyes glaze over as he says, “Everything.”

  The interview doesn’t go well. I worry that I’ve made him sad. He and Aunt Tiny allow me to photograph them, but they are very tight with information. “I’ve interviewed all these strangers. They’ve told me their stories and I can’t get my family—the people I’ve known all my life—to open up?” I say to Bobby when I return to Mississippi and the bare, just-picked cotton fields, so disappointed.

  MRS. ANNYCE P.
CAMPBELL, 90

  MOUND BAYOU

  BORN DECEMBER 1924

  MARRIED 69 YEARS WHEN WIDOWED

  9 CHILDREN

  32 GRANDCHILDREN

  58 GREAT-GRANDS

  3 GREAT-GREAT-GRANDS

  “My husband was mischievous, let me just say that. Just as mischievous as he could be. He was always that jolly, jolly guy. He was always jolly.” (He had passed away in May 2013, three months before our interview.)

  I tenderly ask her the same question I later ask Pop-Pop: “Mrs. Campbell, what did you love about your husband?”

  She’s seated on a sofa in her cozy bedroom, furnished with a queen-sized bed and seating area that consists of two chairs, a table, and a love seat. A flat-screen TV is on. I’m seated on the sofa next to her. Her daughter Alma is across from us. Mrs. Campbell doesn’t make eye contact with me. She is silent for what seems like minutes. Finally she says—still not looking at me, “Alma, go get me that photograph in the next room.”

  “Mama, she don’t want to see that,” Alma replies.

  “I don’t know if she does or not, but hand it to me.” Still no eye contact with me.

  Alma hands her a framed photo. Mrs. Campbell holds it and runs her finger across the glass. She still hasn’t made eye contact with me. I don’t have video rolling, but as I’m watching this, I know I can’t reach for my camera to take photos or record video because it would seem callous. But I know something magical is about to happen, and I’m kicking myself for not being prepared.

  Mrs. Campbell still doesn’t look at me. A single tear falls down her cheek. I try to remember my question, but I’m caught up in this quiet moment before I remember I asked her what she loved about him. And then almost on cue, with the tear and picture in her hands, she finally looks at me and says, “Everthing. Everything. He was the most gentle person you wanna see. Loving and caring. Loving and caring. He was the first somebody that I loved.”