When We Were Colored

Author: Clifton Taulbert

Category: I first heard about this book in 8th grade, when there was an excerpt from it in my literature book. Last month, I saw it at a library book sale, and it was only 50 cents, so I got it.

My thoughts: Like Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, this book reminds me of the experiences of my family in the 1950s. When We Were Colored is a memoir about the author’s experiences growing up in Mississippi during that decade. He was raised and nurtured by a network of relatives, and his life revolved around school, church, and the seasons of chopping and picking cotton. At one point, a young Clifton is able to pick 200 pounds of cotton in one day—which was a very big deal. But his family also deals with the strict Jim Crow laws that ruled over his family and other blacks in the South with an iron fist. Taulbert mentions how the community rallies around Joe Louis, and people move heaven and earth to hear his fights on the radio. At this time, Joe Loius was a hero bordering on being an idol to those in Taulbert’s community. Because of being kept down by segregation, they clung to successful blacks. A Joe Louis victory allowed the cotton pickers to live vicariously through him and hold their heads a little higher.

Clifton Taulbert also mentions how racial codes, which were so strictly enforced during the day, “slipped at night,” and as a result there were many people in his community who were biracial, or “high yellow,” as they used to say. Taulbert mentions that many light-skinned blacks moved North and passed for white, and never came to visit the South again. The author also mentions others who migrated to Chicago, like in The Warmth of Other Suns (indeed, Ida Mae Brandon Gladney from Warmth was originally from Mississippi). The author also mentions how the importance of education was hammered into him by his Uncle Cleve and Mrs. Knight, a white lady for whom young Clifton raked leaves. He and Mrs. Knight, in their heavily segregated world, were able to forge an acquaintanceship if not an actual friendship. People in these communities had to fight hard for access to a good education, and some fought really hard, because education was seen as a means to achieve the American Dream.

I read this on a family trip with my mom and aunt, both of whom were no strangers to cotton picking and country life. They were able to answer questions about terms in the book like “snapping cotton” and Gloversmain grease. My mom told me that my aunt Shirley once picked 400 pounds in one day (Go aunt Shirley!). My mother, by her own admission, was pretty lax with the cotton picking. She told me she’d pick just enough to fill her sack, then sneak off and read under the shade of a tree (I don’t think my grandfather ever found out—which is lucky for my mom, because my grandfather was pretty stern).

I said before, I liked this book because it reflects a lot of the experiences of my family. I admire the work ethic of the people in this book, because in spite of their country treating them like second-class citizens, they worked hard and supported each other, and did their best to lift up the children of the community. That work ethic leads me to a great passage from the book…

Great passage: There was a strong work ethic when I was growing up in the South. Every colored person worked from the time he was old enough to drag a sack through the cotton fields. The work was back breaking, exhausting and sometimes degrading. It often required a mother to leave home in the morning and go prepare breakfast for a white family before her own children were fed. Everybody worked, because in spite of everything, most of the older people still clung fast to the belief that if you worked hard, you would get a slice of the American dream.

Up next: The Age of Innocence…again