Lay My Burden Down, Part 2

[Music] Well, I was happy here. Seem to be that all happy when they're around me and I reckon they all at home. I have to take care of them from the start to finish. I loan a money Christmas, buy the fertilizer and furnish that, furnish the land, furnish them something to work. And I go on through and then when they make the crop, I pay them for the cotton seed so that they can have something together to crop on and take care all of my my part has to come out the cotton. >> Make some pictures. >> Hopefully, man, you get along all right. Keep the chair there. >> I'm doing fine. >> Don't don't fall on >> Been had been with my folk since 1895. And >> so they sort of damage the family a long time. And you get an old age assistance check, don't you? >> Yes, sir. >> He says he take care of them. give him a home to live in and get him out of jail and all of that. But most of the negroes on plantation is not living in the house. They just in bonds. The white man get everything they made. So there's nothing left for the man and his family. Well, that's the way he set it up a long time ago and it's still going that way. He always figured and negroes out in debt and which he's he's in debt because you take a man making only $300 a year and with 10 or 12 in family. Well, naturally he's in debt because he's he's got always borrowed money from this white land owner is is to keep going. Well, then he keeps a big stick over his head. >> That's JC Aon. He is. Uh, that's Hanks Hen's first cousin. Next. Come on, Isaiah. That's Isaiah Jones there. Next one. Come on out there, Willie. I can see you. That's Willie Lee Watson, man. The big one. Long one. Who else around there? >> Leroy, come on around there. You and whoever that is. That Nathan. Come on, Nathan. That's another cousin now. That's Mason with the red shirt on. That's Hank's first cousin, too. Come on down there. George Jones. That's George Woods there. George Jones. Leroy Woods. That's all of them have a crop here. They work here when not needing home. Come on out in front where they can see you along there. All right. I believe that's about all of them. All right. You all right? You all right? >> All right. This and and and he been brainwashed. Now, we can say one thing. The white man is good and brainwashed. He brainwashed him into thinking that the only way that he can live is is just to cry on the shoulder of the great white father. and most of them feel like it. And I think it will help a lot to get a lot of them off the white man plates. >> Few negroes have been willing to give up their security by voluntarily moving off plantations like Morris hates. But on other plantations, Negroes are being forced off the land partly because it's now more economical to use and partly because some Negroes dissatisfied with the system are trying to change it. That system has kept him in debt and given him little for his labor. Negro tenants work the land. The land owner advances the money for farming. And on many of the plantations, the negro is forced to buy at the company store. Everything is bought on credit. In most stores, prices are higher than in town, and the landowner charges interest on the credit. Many illiterate negro tenants are unable to keep track of what they owe. Without cash of their own, they cannot buy things elsewhere or afford to move off the land. The Negro seldom gets out of debt to the land owner and is therefore easy to control. This year, a way was opened for the Negro farmer to get some money. Since the 30s, the government has paid all farmers to reduce cotton acreage. Payments for the tenants were sent to the landowner. Each year, many tenants, illiterate, kept ignorant of the program and not knowing what they were doing, would sign their X on the back of the check, endorsing it to the landowner. But this year, the government sent the checks directly to the tenant. Some of the tenants wanted to keep the money for themselves. When they refused to sign their checks to the landowner, he took away their land. This is Bill Williams, one of the tenants who lost his land. He was born here and with his father had cleared the land. He never made anything at farming, but that's all he knows how to do. He's been allowed to stay on in his shack, but he's waiting to be kicked out and off the plantation. He tells about the check. >> Say, "Y'all just going to have to sign them check to me." That's what he said. Y'all going to have to sign them to me. And uh I told him, I said, "Miss Jame, why are you changing that away?" I said, "You've been taking the mortgage on my mule." When I applying mule, on my wagon, whatnot, you've been taking the mortgage on that and I go ahead and make your crop. I said, "When I got rid of plying mules, I went bought a tractor." I said, "You've been taking the mortgage on my tractor." And uh he told me, he said, "No, we said I ain't take no more mortgage on that junky stuff. I'm taking mortgage on good security now." I told him, "Well, Mr. James, I said, "Uh, if you can't rent me a lane," I said, "I can't help that about signing a check to you." That's what I told him. Well, that's what I left him with. Me and him, him ain't had no more talk since then. No more. He come up here and I had done broke up all my land. All my lane was broke up. >> Without the land, he lost the government check. Money he could have used. Boy, if I had that check, no doubt, I might could buy me a plate. I might could buy a fine. I might not bother him. I might live better. Yes, there's a heap I could do with you. Throwing it away cuz I'm too old to throw away anything. I'm trying to live. Yeah. They want to bone you in town and rage you in town. Just want to die entirely for Mr. >> Hundreds of people are being kicked off the land. >> Some are trying to organize against the day when they too will be forced to move. >> I don't see no reason why y'all men was women too. Y'all just might as well have to get ready and get right side me. I'm fighting for y'all. I ain't fighting for myself. Y'all just might as well have to get ready. Get some nerve if you had to get you a drink. A whiff can get some and that'll get your nerve up. But I don't need none. Get your nerve up and say I'm going on with Miss Mura Pearl or whatever you call. It doesn't matter. So we going to stand up and we want these men to stand up and be men. Let us not get out here in the country and do a lot of talk and when the white man come around. Yeah, I suppose. And the thing for us got to do us got to get the moving now cuz the time is drawing yet. So us might as well have to get ready cuz when 1967 step in here ain't going to know what end of the road to take. It's going to be intents up like up in L County. >> Tents like these are springing up all over the south. A sign of negro defiance of the system. They've been kicked off the land for civil rights activities and for demanding higher wages. But they refuse to move out of the south. A brave but often feudal gesture because most of these rural Negroes have no skills other than farming. And even if they did, there are no jobs available to them. What few jobs there are go to the whites. >> I got out of school in 64. I'm 62. I spent 2 years in service. I've been home since December and I haven't found anything to do. So it still looks pretty rough. Nothing in the future so far. >> You been looking? I've been looking. >> What happened when you looked? Well, they tell you they fell out or something like that. They don't have any over can't do anything here. There's nothing here to do. You go somewhere looking for a job. All they say, you know, we don't have anything to do right now, fill out an application. That's that's as far as it gets. You know, fill out the application, you never hear from it again. Said, you can go to a place this morning and then, you know, they tell you to fill out an application, you don't get a job. And this afternoon the white kid can go down there, you know, and he he's high. So I think it's because I'm neglect. >> Well, the people that got is still getting and the poor people still left out and they still got all the money and the poor people, they still don't have anything to do. >> The work is getting scarcy and then we don't get no more for what little work that we do have to do. Well, the land was right here in front of the house. You we we used to uh chop and pick all of that. And for the last year, well, we didn't have a chance to uh pick it because it was all picked with the mechanic picker. >> And how about the chopping? >> Well, we did chop some there last year, but we haven't chopped a leak there this year. They use the grass killer to uh kill the grass in order that we won't have to chop it. Just rough working. No have no work to do. And uh the work that we do have to do it soon runs out and we don't get nothing for what we do. >> How many days have you worked this year and how much do you get paid? >> Oh, I would say uh made around 15 days. Three and a half a day. [Music] If you won't work, you got to go north. The whites are working, but our kids has got to go to New York or somewhere to get a job because our best tolerance leaving. We got to work out some way to keep those kids home. And they need jobs, but they can only get jobs. But when whenever they go to and ask for a job, the white man said they're not qualified. Where you know when when he's working, he's always a labor and if there's any promotion, it goes to the white man. So that's been a problem here because this man's working out there on the Southern Railroad. Now, I know one particular fell that's been out there around 40 years and he's still working as a labor. Never up. >> And you see the white man, he's the boss. He's standing around, but he says we laser. >> Well, I'm going down the mobile road. Bring women back wagon loading. Well, I don't know, but I believe I will meet my home. [Music] Well, all I hear about ling is sit ahead in quarterback. You devil man. Well, I'm going down the mobile road. Bring women back by the wagon lo [Applause] and make good money. You don't do nothing but go. [Music] Well, I'm going down the mop road. Bring women back. [Applause] Well, pretty girl. Pretty girl, you ought to be mine. And you wouldn't do nothing but start your night la. [Music] The vote is the hope of the southern negro. In the last year, with the help of federal registars, almost half a million Negroes were registered across the deep south. The Alabama primary in May was the first test of the new Negro voting strength. >> We have been on the outside of the mainstream of America's life. We have been on the outside of society. We have been on the outside of education. We have been on the outside of jobs. But we can change that tomorrow. >> All we got to do is get some black faces over there. I don't want you to march tomorrow, but I want you to make some X's tomorrow >> and make it beside those negro names because we are tired of the white man power. We are tired of being called a [ __ ] We are tired of being the last hide in the first five. We are tired of all the injustice that the white man been putting on us. So let's do something about it tomorrow. Just put some exes beside those poisoning. [Music] over. >> The act of registering was for some negroes their first defiance of the system. The act of voting their second. They turned out by the thousands with the hope of doing away with that system. [Music] [Applause] again. [Music] [Applause] >> But many Negroes, mostly the illiterates, were still afraid of the white man and did not vote for the Negro candidates. And even in counties where there were more registered Negroes than whites, Negro candidates lost. And local Negro leaders were forced to be more realistic about the chance for a quick change through the vote. >> It's going to take some time for the vote to change anything in Wilco County because really uh our peoples are still divided here. They still go by largely what the white man say. They have grown accomplished to being afraid of the white man and just just going being afraid. >> How long you been working with these? >> Nothing. >> Let me see. >> I don't know exactly but been mind you 20 years. I mean >> good folks ain't sick a long time. They put you on a job that you can stay on. >> Yes. Yes, sir. Cigarette. >> Did Bill, did I treat you and your dad and your brother-in-law when you live with me over there? Did I treat you right? >> Yes, sir. >> I went halfway. Yes, sir. >> Yeah, I think I did, too. >> Yes, sir. >> I don't care nothing. The first thing they say, I was raised with a with a nigress. I grew up with color folks. That's right. You grew up with them. They was in the field and you was in the kitchen. >> That's right. You out there working in them crackers fields while some of you ladies in there taking care of that little white nasty baby. >> This is Loun County, Alabama, through which the march passed. Negroes here, frustrated by the slow pace of integration and excluded from the Democratic Party, have come to try and form an all black third party, the Black Panthers. This is their own primary where Negroes are voting for Negro candidates to represent them. >> Make a dollar and a half a day. A dollar and a half a day. And it's time to stop it. Like right now, you got the power. You got the power. Their slogan is black power. It is designed to overcome fear of whites and to appeal to those negroes who have rejected working with the white man and want to go it alone. Stokeley Carmichael, national chairman of SNIK, a founder of the Panthers. >> 80% of the people here are black people and that they're the majority. This county has been run by 20% of the people who are white who have seized power legally and who have maintained power through all sorts of terroristic manners. The rest of the country ask now that these black people get with these white people and reform these white people. And I say to the black people that we don't have to suffer and have, you know, we don't have to bear the cross for them. Let us form our own party and let them take care of their own business. So we form our own party and we seek power. We don't seek integration. That's irrelevant to what we want. We want power. And this is the way we get it. >> My independence from the fool and from the nave. I declare my independence from the coward and the slave. I declare that I will fight for right and fear. No sh and the movement moving on. Move on over. I will move on over you. Move on over. I will move on over you. Move on over. I will move on over you. For the move. [Music] There's just one more. It says, "Many noble dreams are dreamed by small and voiceless men. Many noble deeds are done. The righteous to defend." We're here today, John Brown, to say we'll triumph in the end. And the movements moving on. [Music] over [Applause] [Music] you. [Applause] You [Applause] are [Applause] >> Yeah. Oh god. >> Yeah. >> Nothing. Been nothing but go down there and uh feed me one or two pig down there. Cut some stove wood. That's all been doing. Ain't got no job. That's just him. Now I don't know. He he ain't told us to go yet. I don't know what he got on his mind cuz he could say come in the morning. Say we say I want my house. I have to go and hunt somewhere to go one. What are you going to do if he kicks you off? What I'm going to do? Go hunt a place if I can find one. And uh re if I can't find that place, I reckon somebody would give us a tent to go in or some way. What do a man think he deserve when he wake all old time? Don't deserve something. He do. Yeah. That's what he waiting for. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the man waiting for the to have something, take care his family, children, and uh everything. But you don't work for way way look like a wacky just like a wick old mule. Wick him, feed him long as wick him. When he done gathered the crop, turn old mule loose through the winter, let him die poor or do any way he want. Then when he get ready to farm with him again, pick him up and then go to farm with him. That that the way we look like we go. Keep up with long make a crop and do the winter. If they take it all where you just go and do without to march and start the bing again. Yeah. If you waking, you wouldn't want to be waking if you don't get nothing out your work, don't you? That's the way it is with with with color folk. [Music] What do a man think he deserve when he wake all old time? Don't he deserve something? I think he do. Yeah, that's what he waiting for. Yeah. Yeah. Well, a man waiting for the to have something take care of his family, children, and uh everything. 11 years of civil rights activities have brought about some changes for the southern rural Negro. He can now go to white restaurants, washrooms, and the fronts of buses. A few Negroes are going to white schools, and many have now registered and voted. But basic problems still remain. The Negro still cannot get a decent education or find a good job. Nor can he make a living off the farm. And the economic gap between white and negro grows wider every year. The vote will not solve the problem for many years and the southern landowner is not likely to help. The riots which have torn many American cities have had their origin right here in the rural south. For the negro moved to the city looking for work where again frustrated he takes out his anger against the system which holds him back. The problem of the southern negro is not regional, it's national. And where the states have closed their eyes to the problem, the federal government can no longer afford to do so. It must start by policing its own agriculture department to stop discrimination in its programs and see that poverty funds, which barely exist in the south, reach the people. It could see that negro children get the education promised and their parents aren't discriminated against in getting jobs. But even this is not enough. Thousands of new jobs must be created. retraining programs set up and ways found to help those who want to stay on the farm. We have the laws. We have the wealth. We have the ingenuity to solve any problem we really care about. What is needed now is the desire and the simple understanding that it didn't end with the march. It just began. >> Glory. Glory. Hallelu. [Music] When I lay my burden down. Glory. Glory. Hallelujah. [Music] When I leave my un [Music] [Music] [Music] Next week, NE Journal looks at the life of the Negro in the North. [Music] This is NET, the National Educational Television Network. [Music]