Her Family Owned Slaves. She Says Slaves Grandchildren Are Not As Happy

This interview was recorded in 1968.

For the children of American slaves who continued working in cotton fields after slavery ended, life was still harsh and exhausting. Many of these children were part of sharecropping families in the South, where parents rented small plots of land from white landowners and paid rent with a portion of the cotton they picked. The whole family, including children as young as six or seven, was expected to work from dawn to dusk during the picking season.

Days were long, hot, and physically painful. Cotton plants have sharp burrs that cut into fingers, so children’s hands often became raw and bloodied. They worked bent over for hours, dragging heavy sacks that got heavier as the day went on. In the summer heat, there was little shade, and breaks were rare. School attendance was often disrupted or delayed because children were needed in the fields during harvest time.

The work was not only physically demanding but also emotionally draining. Children understood from a young age that their labor was tied to debt—the sharecropping system often left families owing more to the landowner than they could pay. This meant they could not easily escape the cycle of poverty. Despite this, families sometimes found small ways to make the work bearable—singing in the fields, talking to each other, or imagining a different future. But for many, childhood meant labor first, education second, and very little time for play.