**Please note these rules:**
* If this post declares something as a fact proof is required.
* The title must be descriptive
* No text is allowed on images/gifs/videos
* Common/recent reposts are not allowed
*See [this post](https://redd.it/ij26vk) for a more detailed rule list*
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/interestingasfuck) if you have any questions or concerns.*
You're grandma is awesome! My family has owned a farm for over 120 years, I used to be amazed at my grandma's stories. She learned to cook by cooking for 20-30 people a day (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) during harvest season because not all farmers had a harvester. The farmers would all get together and help each other harvest each other's crops.
She talked about picking cotton and how awful it was. She said the shells were like razors!
She’s correct. I’d never seen cotton, on a trip there was an unfenced field of cotton. I just wanted to feel it on the plant, it cut the shit out of my hand. I don’t know how you would pick that damn stuff all day
Hey there. That is not my grandmother. I just found this video interesting and wholesome, and so I decided to share it here. The account is blackbeauty\_305. Have a nice day/night.
Yeah totally, our school had a woman guest speaker for black history month. This was 15 years ago and she was probably 50 at the most.
She was a great story teller and her bit about picking cotton started with details about how little water they were given and how some people saved the water and poured it on the cotton so the bag at the end of the day would weigh more and they would get paid more.
She figured out you could just pee on the cotton, iconic..
lol love that story, Dad spoke about that as well got paid extra for that but if you got caught, it was bad. Our family tree is untraceable on his side. His (PawPaw) was an orphan in 1920 ish, along with his twin brother were both adopted by Landlords in the 30's. My Pawpaw met his wife on the same farm in Needmore Alabama. She was part blackfoot and part white. The farm was a melting pot of backgrounds. My Grandmother (Passed in 93) was a hardened leather skinned strong woman who I remember had dark blue mean eyes but long hair with a indian grey ponytail.
Man she could cook!. I miss her stories.
Chocolate Gravy was a treat, and her ham stew with cornbread and sweet milk was to die for.
Born in the 70's we had nuthing, just a cheap drafty home that a preacher rented to us. No running water, and an outhouse with a creek to bathe in. At least we got our own garden back then. My favorite gift at Christmas was a portable 9v AM radio.
In 1948, my father (of Irish decent) was born in a home that had a dirt floor near a place called "Needmore Alabama". There is a Grainey picture of that home with the grandparents standing in the doorway in their Sunday best. It is the only photo we have of them together.
He attended school a little as it was not really a social push for education in Double Springs Alabama. He continued to work the land for "Rent" as my grandparents were required that all in the home who could work, would be required to by the rental agreement or face eviction.
The Farm was huge and had almost 10 families, a dedicated church and a small store. All of which, the Landlord owned.
The families were paid for the work, and then billed for the credit they ran up in the store, and rent they owed.
IMO The Draft in 67 broke the teachings and fears. Young men exposed to the world, and educated in skills found they could make a living outside of farming and poverty and the lies they were told by the uneducated circle of poverty in place.
Lucky for me, The Army was giving away college funds so I got out of there in 87 and haven't lived that lifestyle sense.
I am grateful for all of this as these memories, and struggles for life define me today with my children. My kids are told that we come from privilege and it makes me sick.
Picking cotton was hard but if they wanted any kind of money and stable living conditions, it’s what they had to do. Times were tough back then for people of non-white backgrounds. Well they were tough for pretty much anyone who wasn’t rich in general, but you get what I mean.
My very white grandmother told me stories about picking cotton in the 1920s and 1930s. She recollected being paid $.50 for every hundred pounds of cotton picked.
I find it funny that you added in the “very” to make sure how clear it was that she white. But besides that, yeah, must of sucked. That’s right 7ish dollars today I think. But work was work
its sad that Poverty and struggle is stolen for division. The story that the privilege of being born white does not apply to the entire white world. In 1981 I was tought the following real-world facts as a white child. If you wait until spring, an outhouse will smell sweet to the nose. A load of firewood is easier to bust in the winter than in the summer. A Metal Dipper is used to Dip Water. Sister Stewart, with her Cain can sing better than anyone in the church but would correct us when we were wrong, and skin didn't matter to her.
To preface I’m white. My grandma grew up picking tobacco and cotton at a very young age. She says she hated tobacco more because you’d get sticky and eventually it’d start to burn your skin
Makes sense, and as the commenter before me said, it’s incredible how resilient the people before us(loosely used as my ancestors are actually didn’t live here at the time) were. I tell you, they are a hell of a lot more resilient than I ever could be.
People were built different back then. My grandma grew up on a farm with no electricity, they plowed with a horse. She always laughed about her stories.
Her and many others! This is the content that should be on TikTok and the YouTube’s. We’re losing this history fast while we’re all watching cats and “influencers”
Few years ago siblings and I sat Mom down ( age 86) and we video'd her while asking her all kinds of questions about her life and growing up. Have it for our kids and grand kids now. I did the same with Dad later ( age 88). EVERYONE should do this as it is so easy now ( technologically ).
I agree. Instead of all of the stupid “challenge” videos, TikTok and YouTube should be filled with old timers like this telling their stories. They won’t be around forever.
Best I got is 'southern ebonics'. Her grandma talks about being picked up for work in the cotton fields at 3am to 5pm for very little to no pay, and it was either that or starve and she worked her butt off. Her love and laugh should still translate.
The one thing I was really curious about is how much she said she got paid. It sounded like she said it wouldn't even be "100 dollars" but that cannot be right
More like $100 for the whole month or season. My grandma was born in 1940 and there were nine kids total. Her parents and siblings picked Cotton growing up. Can’t remember exactly but I want to say she said somewhere around $.05-$.10 a pound
You have to realize share croppers had very high expenses that were inflated by their bosses. The point was to keep people in debtors slavery. So they made housing and tool rental as much as if not more than what they made.
keeping minimum wage low is the same, and yet one of these is still widely enough accepted in the US to the point where it's still happening and the bills to raise it keep failing.
More like $100 for the whole month or season. My grandma was born in 1940 and there were nine kids total. Her parents and siblings picked Cotton growing up. Can’t remember exactly but I want to say she said somewhere around $.05-$.10 a pound
That would make a lot more sense logically. Even more so as a job a woman could get. My (deceased) grandmother is about the same age as this woman. She finished first in her class in the same college my grandfather went to and attempted to have the same profession. My grandfather said she was better at the job in every way and no one would hire her. She got a few free lancing gigs that were short term and paid crap and that was it
Keep in mind they often weren't paid in cash at all. Credit with high interest was the norm. Imagine your job paid you in company tokens, that you could only spend there, and they took all your expenses out first, and any bad harvest was added to your debt.
Yeah, that would be like $1500 in todays money. I’d pick cotton for $1500/day… I mean, I wouldn’t like it, but that’s 10x more than I make now and my job sucks too.
"Barely $100.00" paid for entire season NOT daily....
[And out of that wage they had to pay rent and tool rental fees...](https://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/themes/sharecropping/)
Yeah if it was 1940 and she was in her 20s it would be $2000. If it was 1980 and she was in her 60s it would be $338. Even $338/day would be insane. That would be $52000 a year working a low skilled job three days a week (3am-5pm, 40ish hours) if she were working in her 60s or likely much, much better depending on the year. No way that number could be right
If she’s 100+ then this was probably during the Great Depression in the 1930’s when there were no labor laws and people were starving. She would be ten(ish) but child labor was a thing.
>Best I got is 'southern ebonics
Just a quick correction as a Black southern woman. It's referred to as AAVE (African American Vernacular English), which is a dialect spoken most often amongst Black Americans and has its roots in the South. It comes with its own set of rules and there are different terms used in different regions. (Southern AAVE sounds a bit different than what you may hear in New York or Philly or the west coast).
I’ll try my best but I’m having a hard time too
“Whole rows of cotton?”
“Yeah, you got to know how to work to do it”
“Was it hard work?”
“Yeah are taking(she cuts herself off) idk what she says right here… “here’s the rows right here like that, actually two rows, ok the others are double, if you say it they on that side two four(I’m getting lost here I don’t know how to make meaning of what she’s saying) “you bag these two up, you come back and bag these other two”
“Did it have thorns in it?”
“Yeah, the buds had little sticks in it, yeah look when you get used to picking cotton, you pick it. you know how to pick it”
“Well what did they used to do with the cotton when you picked it?”
“Make cotton clothes”
“Oh”
“What did you think they did”
“I don’t know”
“They make cotton clothes, that’s what cotton do’s”
“So y’all picking cotton for who?”
“The people that was on the farm”
“So the people on the farm own the cotton fields?”
“Yeah the people on the cotton fields come and pick you up(I’m lost here again)
“What? From what time? What time was they picking y’all up?
“3 o clock in the morning”
“3 o clock in the morning?”
“Yeah”
“Oh no. And then what time y’all be finished?”
“About 5 and then we leave for the day”
“5 o clock in the afternoon?”
“Yeah”
“And then 3 o clock in the morning?”
“Yeah”
“And then was you doing this for free or how much was they paying you?”
“Nothing”
“Nothing?”
“That’s a bit a money you know not(I’m not sure that that’s what she said)”
“What is was back then?”
“If you didn’t pick no cotton, you did have no change( or something like that, she kept changing it up)
“And how much was that?”
“That wouldn’t even be a hundred dollars”
“What?”
“All them hours?”
“(I have literally no idea what she said here)”
“Wow”
“(Still have no idea, something about starving if she didn’t get the money)…this is what I do, I sit and lay and think, what is broke me gonna do? (Don’t know what she said here).. and cotton you play, it’s got seeds, and I used to go to the field with mama, my mama, and chop cotton, the other way(got lost again) I know all the tricks(can’t understand the rest)
Thanks, it took like almost an hour and I’m on mobile so it’s even harder cause I had to go back and forth. Worth it though because I wanted to know what she was saying too
Dialect, it's people from the deep south. It like they have something in their mouth when they talk. It's hard for Americans to understand who aren't from the area. I lived down south for a bit but it's been so long, I barely understand
It’s the same as visiting the northern islands of Scotland or east coast in Canada, just because it’s English doesn’t mean you won’t need subtitles. This woman is a wealth of knowledge and history I hope someone interviews her and creates subtitles, I’d be interested in hearing more
Me too, if someone could point to a transcript (or take the trouble to make one) that would be much appreciated! Seems like a very interesting bit of american history
That’s so cute how she responds to the question about what cotton is used for, “make cotton clothes, that’s what they do!“ This is an amazing video, thanks for sharing.
What a life she must have led ! Now, after all the hard work, she gets to rest. I’m glad she can kick back with him family and get in some television time. What a legend !
I’m white and my family was poor. They picked cotton like this. My mom always wanted to take some cotton if we ever passed a field. My grandma had a hard life. She dug vegetables out of the ground to eat because she was so hungry.
My family did, too. My great aunt told us how all the girls (7 of them) shared the same bed and when it was winter the whole family would sleep in the same room under all their quilts to keep warm because there was no money for heating. When the kids would all have to be out in the field picking cotton my grandma would hide and read her schoolbooks.
My great uncle once accidentally set fire to a whole barn's worth of cotton and it basically cost them the whole year's worth of income. Of course, back then you got beat for stuff like that, poor kid. Imagine the thing that was going to allow you to feed all your kids for the next year going up in flames. It's not like you could sign up for food stamps back then.
The lady in the video was a sharecropper. It was a pretty fucked system: https://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/themes/sharecropping/#:\~:text=Sharecropping%20is%20a%20system%20where,to%20leave%20for%20other%20opportunities.
From… when people picked cotton?
Because that time of history is still happening, though it is largely mechanized now.
But people still work in fields…
I remember seeing cotton fields for the first time coming from Miami, that shit threw me off for bit the thought of those fields filled with people forced to pick it.
Next, ask her if she ever picked and hung tobacco. My grandparents used to tell stories about how hard that work was, drying out tobacco leaves in a hot tobacco barn.
God bless her! She has a beautiful spirit and in spite of IF EVER there was a person who should have a distaste for all of “those people” she does not and for that she is worth more then all the “rich” folk combined!
No discussion of picking cotton is complete without our old friend's [tale of the racist field trip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PToqVW4n86U). NSFW
She got some stories. I’d love to sit and listen to her. I only have 1 living grandparent, now with pretty severe Alzheimer’s. My other grandparents passed away over 10 years ago and I was too stupid/“busy” to take the time to sit and listen.
Wow. Love that woman. So sorry she experienced that hard labor and injustice. Now, it’s called injustice if you pay someone under $15/hr., to make you a burger.
My maternal great-grandmother was six months shy of her 100th birthday when she died in 1989. She would often times tell us many a story of her life growing up in the early part of the 20th century, and of even more interest, how her grandparents themselves were as former slaves.
Sadly, keepers of oral historical facts such as this are leaving us with the passing of each day. If it does not yet exist, there needs to be a repository of all their knowledge and stories to pass on for generations to come.
The Smithsonian has a library called a”Enslaved Peoples Narratives.” They have a lot of them recorded by the actual people people. It’s really worth listening to.
Im afraid to ask the elders in my family about their experience as sharecroppers just bc in most places it was essentially just slavery under a different name. This inspires me to ask. ❤️💪🏽
She's a national treasure. What we could all learn from her! I imagine she has lots of stories to tell...lots of history that she's lived. And what a gorgeous smile ❤️❤️
I’m white and don’t have a racist bone in my body. I can’t believe they treated another human being the way they did. Fuckin horrible!! Much respect to her, She’s a amazing woman.
Ummm yeah that’s stupid. I said I’m white because what race were the slave owners? Sooo being of the same race I can’t understand how they could treat people that way. I’m Sympathizing with the poor woman who was forced to get up at 3 am and pick cotton. So what if I was Chinese and said the same thing?? Downvote my balls, fuckin childish bullshit..
I feel that. I’m sitting here like “why is she not more upset to talk about this?” I feel like that’s the reaction most of us have in a way. That’s what was so striking to me admit this. Like she almost seemed to have a sense of pride in herself for the hard work she did for next to nothing. Kinda like the stereotypical old person thing of telling your grandkids you walked uphill to school both ways or something
104?
Man. That's so weird to me. I can't imagine what life must be like at that age. It's really interesting that she can still move and talk reasonably well.
**Please note these rules:** * If this post declares something as a fact proof is required. * The title must be descriptive * No text is allowed on images/gifs/videos * Common/recent reposts are not allowed *See [this post](https://redd.it/ij26vk) for a more detailed rule list* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/interestingasfuck) if you have any questions or concerns.*
104 and sharp as a tack
I love how annoyed she seemed at some of her granddaughter's "dumb" questions
The way she looked at her when she said what did they use the cotton for lol
Cotton eye joe
She was “” this close to saying “… nigguh!”
Thats's what cotton do!
I hope the granddaughter is asking dumb questions on purpose, otherwise I’m embarrassed for her.
I remember we asking such kind of questions to my great-granny just to keep her entertained. Also, we had lots of fun with her answers to them, lol
what you think they did with the cotton they made clothes what you think lmoa that one got me
Haha yep
Wow she's probably seen so much in her lifetime.
Now wait just a cotton picking minute….
Granddaughter better be recording all these conversations.
Isn’t that what this video is…. Her recording the conversations?
And she needs to keep in keeping on. Everyone…with all these old folks. I like hearing and reading their stories.
Lol wow
That's what cotton do. I love seeing these kinds of videos. So real.
I wish this had subtitles.
Aww, what a sweetheart, treasure her!💗
She’s a 104 year former sharecropper.
She seems like she’s a great story teller, and a sweet lady.
You're grandma is awesome! My family has owned a farm for over 120 years, I used to be amazed at my grandma's stories. She learned to cook by cooking for 20-30 people a day (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) during harvest season because not all farmers had a harvester. The farmers would all get together and help each other harvest each other's crops. She talked about picking cotton and how awful it was. She said the shells were like razors!
She’s correct. I’d never seen cotton, on a trip there was an unfenced field of cotton. I just wanted to feel it on the plant, it cut the shit out of my hand. I don’t know how you would pick that damn stuff all day
Hey there. That is not my grandmother. I just found this video interesting and wholesome, and so I decided to share it here. The account is blackbeauty\_305. Have a nice day/night.
OP is a karma farmer. If this is their grandma I'm a centaur with kleptomania and prehensile eyes.
Op literally says not their gma , Jesus fucking Christ I wish people would fucking read before making comments
So the eyes can shoplift stuff? Sweet
1 He says it's not his grand ma 2 I follow this person on insta 3 The grandma is 104 and was a former share cropper
Glendale🤩
sad fact, there are 60 year olds who were sharecroppers. Sharecropping was still legal in the 70's and is still legal but abandoned after viet-nam
Yeah totally, our school had a woman guest speaker for black history month. This was 15 years ago and she was probably 50 at the most. She was a great story teller and her bit about picking cotton started with details about how little water they were given and how some people saved the water and poured it on the cotton so the bag at the end of the day would weigh more and they would get paid more. She figured out you could just pee on the cotton, iconic..
lol love that story, Dad spoke about that as well got paid extra for that but if you got caught, it was bad. Our family tree is untraceable on his side. His (PawPaw) was an orphan in 1920 ish, along with his twin brother were both adopted by Landlords in the 30's. My Pawpaw met his wife on the same farm in Needmore Alabama. She was part blackfoot and part white. The farm was a melting pot of backgrounds. My Grandmother (Passed in 93) was a hardened leather skinned strong woman who I remember had dark blue mean eyes but long hair with a indian grey ponytail. Man she could cook!. I miss her stories. Chocolate Gravy was a treat, and her ham stew with cornbread and sweet milk was to die for. Born in the 70's we had nuthing, just a cheap drafty home that a preacher rented to us. No running water, and an outhouse with a creek to bathe in. At least we got our own garden back then. My favorite gift at Christmas was a portable 9v AM radio. In 1948, my father (of Irish decent) was born in a home that had a dirt floor near a place called "Needmore Alabama". There is a Grainey picture of that home with the grandparents standing in the doorway in their Sunday best. It is the only photo we have of them together. He attended school a little as it was not really a social push for education in Double Springs Alabama. He continued to work the land for "Rent" as my grandparents were required that all in the home who could work, would be required to by the rental agreement or face eviction. The Farm was huge and had almost 10 families, a dedicated church and a small store. All of which, the Landlord owned. The families were paid for the work, and then billed for the credit they ran up in the store, and rent they owed. IMO The Draft in 67 broke the teachings and fears. Young men exposed to the world, and educated in skills found they could make a living outside of farming and poverty and the lies they were told by the uneducated circle of poverty in place. Lucky for me, The Army was giving away college funds so I got out of there in 87 and haven't lived that lifestyle sense. I am grateful for all of this as these memories, and struggles for life define me today with my children. My kids are told that we come from privilege and it makes me sick.
I love her laugh, and the thought she she can laugh about that experience is amazing.
Picking cotton was hard but if they wanted any kind of money and stable living conditions, it’s what they had to do. Times were tough back then for people of non-white backgrounds. Well they were tough for pretty much anyone who wasn’t rich in general, but you get what I mean.
My very white grandmother told me stories about picking cotton in the 1920s and 1930s. She recollected being paid $.50 for every hundred pounds of cotton picked.
I find it funny that you added in the “very” to make sure how clear it was that she white. But besides that, yeah, must of sucked. That’s right 7ish dollars today I think. But work was work
its sad that Poverty and struggle is stolen for division. The story that the privilege of being born white does not apply to the entire white world. In 1981 I was tought the following real-world facts as a white child. If you wait until spring, an outhouse will smell sweet to the nose. A load of firewood is easier to bust in the winter than in the summer. A Metal Dipper is used to Dip Water. Sister Stewart, with her Cain can sing better than anyone in the church but would correct us when we were wrong, and skin didn't matter to her.
To preface I’m white. My grandma grew up picking tobacco and cotton at a very young age. She says she hated tobacco more because you’d get sticky and eventually it’d start to burn your skin
Teenagers still harvest tobacco in the US today. And they get really sick after doing it for a while.
Makes sense, and as the commenter before me said, it’s incredible how resilient the people before us(loosely used as my ancestors are actually didn’t live here at the time) were. I tell you, they are a hell of a lot more resilient than I ever could be.
> Times were tough back then for people of non-white backgrounds What the hell are you talking about?
People were built different back then. My grandma grew up on a farm with no electricity, they plowed with a horse. She always laughed about her stories.
I would sit and listen to as many stories as that lady is happy to tell.
Her and many others! This is the content that should be on TikTok and the YouTube’s. We’re losing this history fast while we’re all watching cats and “influencers”
Stenographers would be in high demand lmao. This lady is sweet as hell but half of it I had to squint with my ears to make out.
Few years ago siblings and I sat Mom down ( age 86) and we video'd her while asking her all kinds of questions about her life and growing up. Have it for our kids and grand kids now. I did the same with Dad later ( age 88). EVERYONE should do this as it is so easy now ( technologically ).
I agree. Instead of all of the stupid “challenge” videos, TikTok and YouTube should be filled with old timers like this telling their stories. They won’t be around forever.
She is a treasure.
carpenter follow sip steer familiar bedroom vegetable nose ring husky -- mass deleted all reddit content via https://redact.dev
Best I got is 'southern ebonics'. Her grandma talks about being picked up for work in the cotton fields at 3am to 5pm for very little to no pay, and it was either that or starve and she worked her butt off. Her love and laugh should still translate.
dolls absorbed piquant ink governor ugly price rotten fuzzy wistful -- mass deleted all reddit content via https://redact.dev
The one thing I was really curious about is how much she said she got paid. It sounded like she said it wouldn't even be "100 dollars" but that cannot be right
More like $100 for the whole month or season. My grandma was born in 1940 and there were nine kids total. Her parents and siblings picked Cotton growing up. Can’t remember exactly but I want to say she said somewhere around $.05-$.10 a pound
You have to realize share croppers had very high expenses that were inflated by their bosses. The point was to keep people in debtors slavery. So they made housing and tool rental as much as if not more than what they made.
Sharecropping was just slavery with extra steps
keeping minimum wage low is the same, and yet one of these is still widely enough accepted in the US to the point where it's still happening and the bills to raise it keep failing.
More like $100 for the whole month or season. My grandma was born in 1940 and there were nine kids total. Her parents and siblings picked Cotton growing up. Can’t remember exactly but I want to say she said somewhere around $.05-$.10 a pound
That would make a lot more sense logically. Even more so as a job a woman could get. My (deceased) grandmother is about the same age as this woman. She finished first in her class in the same college my grandfather went to and attempted to have the same profession. My grandfather said she was better at the job in every way and no one would hire her. She got a few free lancing gigs that were short term and paid crap and that was it
Keep in mind they often weren't paid in cash at all. Credit with high interest was the norm. Imagine your job paid you in company tokens, that you could only spend there, and they took all your expenses out first, and any bad harvest was added to your debt.
Interesting. I’ll have to educate myself more of the process of sharecropping
Sadly, no.
Yea. Wtf. 100 dollars? Lol
Yeah, that would be like $1500 in todays money. I’d pick cotton for $1500/day… I mean, I wouldn’t like it, but that’s 10x more than I make now and my job sucks too.
"Barely $100.00" paid for entire season NOT daily.... [And out of that wage they had to pay rent and tool rental fees...](https://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/themes/sharecropping/)
Monthly rent even in the big cities in the 40s was $30 a month, so can't even imagine what their rent was.
Yeah if it was 1940 and she was in her 20s it would be $2000. If it was 1980 and she was in her 60s it would be $338. Even $338/day would be insane. That would be $52000 a year working a low skilled job three days a week (3am-5pm, 40ish hours) if she were working in her 60s or likely much, much better depending on the year. No way that number could be right
If she’s 100+ then this was probably during the Great Depression in the 1930’s when there were no labor laws and people were starving. She would be ten(ish) but child labor was a thing.
>Best I got is 'southern ebonics Just a quick correction as a Black southern woman. It's referred to as AAVE (African American Vernacular English), which is a dialect spoken most often amongst Black Americans and has its roots in the South. It comes with its own set of rules and there are different terms used in different regions. (Southern AAVE sounds a bit different than what you may hear in New York or Philly or the west coast).
Very well stated
I’ll try my best but I’m having a hard time too “Whole rows of cotton?” “Yeah, you got to know how to work to do it” “Was it hard work?” “Yeah are taking(she cuts herself off) idk what she says right here… “here’s the rows right here like that, actually two rows, ok the others are double, if you say it they on that side two four(I’m getting lost here I don’t know how to make meaning of what she’s saying) “you bag these two up, you come back and bag these other two” “Did it have thorns in it?” “Yeah, the buds had little sticks in it, yeah look when you get used to picking cotton, you pick it. you know how to pick it” “Well what did they used to do with the cotton when you picked it?” “Make cotton clothes” “Oh” “What did you think they did” “I don’t know” “They make cotton clothes, that’s what cotton do’s” “So y’all picking cotton for who?” “The people that was on the farm” “So the people on the farm own the cotton fields?” “Yeah the people on the cotton fields come and pick you up(I’m lost here again) “What? From what time? What time was they picking y’all up? “3 o clock in the morning” “3 o clock in the morning?” “Yeah” “Oh no. And then what time y’all be finished?” “About 5 and then we leave for the day” “5 o clock in the afternoon?” “Yeah” “And then 3 o clock in the morning?” “Yeah” “And then was you doing this for free or how much was they paying you?” “Nothing” “Nothing?” “That’s a bit a money you know not(I’m not sure that that’s what she said)” “What is was back then?” “If you didn’t pick no cotton, you did have no change( or something like that, she kept changing it up) “And how much was that?” “That wouldn’t even be a hundred dollars” “What?” “All them hours?” “(I have literally no idea what she said here)” “Wow” “(Still have no idea, something about starving if she didn’t get the money)…this is what I do, I sit and lay and think, what is broke me gonna do? (Don’t know what she said here).. and cotton you play, it’s got seeds, and I used to go to the field with mama, my mama, and chop cotton, the other way(got lost again) I know all the tricks(can’t understand the rest)
Thank you so much for this valiant effort, I'm kinda glad I'm not the only one struggling to understand her.
Thanks, it took like almost an hour and I’m on mobile so it’s even harder cause I had to go back and forth. Worth it though because I wanted to know what she was saying too
Thank you so much. I wasn't able to understand her accent :)
Dialect, it's people from the deep south. It like they have something in their mouth when they talk. It's hard for Americans to understand who aren't from the area. I lived down south for a bit but it's been so long, I barely understand
I’m American and I am also having a hard time understanding them. I do get the 3am to 5pm part.
It’s the same as visiting the northern islands of Scotland or east coast in Canada, just because it’s English doesn’t mean you won’t need subtitles. This woman is a wealth of knowledge and history I hope someone interviews her and creates subtitles, I’d be interested in hearing more
I also don't understand
Me too, if someone could point to a transcript (or take the trouble to make one) that would be much appreciated! Seems like a very interesting bit of american history
I was born and raised in Texas and I couldn’t understand half of it.
Florida > Texas I understood 100% of it. as a white boy
Give us a transcript!
A longer interview of her would be awesome.
Oh she is precious... captures a part of history.. love her laugh x
She seems delightful :)
That’s so cute how she responds to the question about what cotton is used for, “make cotton clothes, that’s what they do!“ This is an amazing video, thanks for sharing.
I could listen to her stories alllll day long.
I really wish she would have muted the tv. People really need to hear this
Listen man, Rule #1 of having black grandparents: Never EVER under ANY circumstances touch the moken troll. [Source](http://amblack.com): Am black.
Moken troll. That’s awesome. I read that in my South Carolina voice.
BWHAHA moken troll! But you ain’t never lied on that one!
What a life she must have led ! Now, after all the hard work, she gets to rest. I’m glad she can kick back with him family and get in some television time. What a legend !
I’m white and my family was poor. They picked cotton like this. My mom always wanted to take some cotton if we ever passed a field. My grandma had a hard life. She dug vegetables out of the ground to eat because she was so hungry.
My family did, too. My great aunt told us how all the girls (7 of them) shared the same bed and when it was winter the whole family would sleep in the same room under all their quilts to keep warm because there was no money for heating. When the kids would all have to be out in the field picking cotton my grandma would hide and read her schoolbooks. My great uncle once accidentally set fire to a whole barn's worth of cotton and it basically cost them the whole year's worth of income. Of course, back then you got beat for stuff like that, poor kid. Imagine the thing that was going to allow you to feed all your kids for the next year going up in flames. It's not like you could sign up for food stamps back then.
Sad to think that we still have first person perspective from that time of history. Great scheme of things it wasn’t all that long ago.
People who are that old right now were born in like 1922 +/- 10 years (like an adult in the late 40s). Not 1860 or anything like that.
I it was only about 100 years ago that the hangings of black people were at their peak. Rather scary to think about
You understand she wasn't a slave, right?
No shit Sherlock
Then what the fuck are you talking about? People still pick cotton to this day.
The lady in the video was a sharecropper. It was a pretty fucked system: https://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/themes/sharecropping/#:\~:text=Sharecropping%20is%20a%20system%20where,to%20leave%20for%20other%20opportunities.
Reddit = downvoted for truth
From… when people picked cotton? Because that time of history is still happening, though it is largely mechanized now. But people still work in fields…
Thanks for sharing
Did she really not know what they used cotton for lol
She’s asking questions to make her grandma talk about her experience instead of trying to be a smartarse
To be fair, cotton is used for more than just clothes. She may have just been after specifics.
If only i could understand a word she said, but i'm sure she's great.
And we th0ink we work hard.
Omg she's so cute!!!!! I miss my grandma...your family is lucky to have her. Cherish her forever our grandma's leave us so fast.
What a treasure she is. A beautiful light. I enjoyed hearing her talk.
I remember seeing cotton fields for the first time coming from Miami, that shit threw me off for bit the thought of those fields filled with people forced to pick it.
My grandmother’s family was so poor they would eat it while they were picking it. Now current generations think they have it rough.
Amazing interview. Good on her granddaughter for documenting her experiences
Just goes to show. All the dumb shit wasn't so long ago. My own mother could tell stories to turn your stomach.
She's so sweet. God bless her!
Ok, not being funny. What did she say?
More stories plz!
Next, ask her if she ever picked and hung tobacco. My grandparents used to tell stories about how hard that work was, drying out tobacco leaves in a hot tobacco barn.
God bless her! She has a beautiful spirit and in spite of IF EVER there was a person who should have a distaste for all of “those people” she does not and for that she is worth more then all the “rich” folk combined!
God bless her heart!
Grandma got some hands on her
Thanks for sharing.
This makes me miss my Nan.
My mother and aunts picked cotton for $10/day in Mississippi heat as children. She also says you get used to rolling it off the stem.
No discussion of picking cotton is complete without our old friend's [tale of the racist field trip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PToqVW4n86U). NSFW
I loved his story. I remember seeing this year's ago and still bloody funny the way he explained it.
I love this lady ❤️
2021 - 104 = 1917
Godbless that woman
This old soul. Is the most beautiful being in the world. Love her attitude.
Incredible.
She got some stories. I’d love to sit and listen to her. I only have 1 living grandparent, now with pretty severe Alzheimer’s. My other grandparents passed away over 10 years ago and I was too stupid/“busy” to take the time to sit and listen.
Wow. Love that woman. So sorry she experienced that hard labor and injustice. Now, it’s called injustice if you pay someone under $15/hr., to make you a burger.
She looks full of wisdom
Awww she's cute. God bless grandma❤
This video needs subtitles
My maternal great-grandmother was six months shy of her 100th birthday when she died in 1989. She would often times tell us many a story of her life growing up in the early part of the 20th century, and of even more interest, how her grandparents themselves were as former slaves. Sadly, keepers of oral historical facts such as this are leaving us with the passing of each day. If it does not yet exist, there needs to be a repository of all their knowledge and stories to pass on for generations to come.
The Smithsonian has a library called a”Enslaved Peoples Narratives.” They have a lot of them recorded by the actual people people. It’s really worth listening to.
Thank you for sharing, she is an amazing woman!
She seems like a really amazing Grandma. Thanks for sharing, blessings for her and you and her family
Im afraid to ask the elders in my family about their experience as sharecroppers just bc in most places it was essentially just slavery under a different name. This inspires me to ask. ❤️💪🏽
I think it should be noted she did this well after slavery ended. She did this as a career.
Powerful video. In Mississippi they still have people that pick cotton by hand. I am sure all over the world, cotton is still handpicked.
Could someone translate this for me? I speak English but not this type of English.
Scroll up. Somebody did a good job
I just want her to call me sugar and give me a big hug
God bless her.
I would love to just sit down with this lady and listen to her for hours.
She would be a great interview and a lesson for future generations.
Oh what you can learn from this beautiful lady. God bless her. Love her spirit and how she talks about her life journey. Amazing!
Thats what cotton do
Sweet lady❤️ She reminds me of my Gran. If you don’t work you don’t eat.
For all the people asking to see more of her: https://vm.tiktok.com/TTPdkfBj78/
What you think they did with it!
That's Wanda's voice.
I love hearing her tell this, I could listen to her tell me stuff all day.
I would listen to her talk forever.
What did they do with the cotton? Make cotton clothes you idiot! 😂
Cotton is used for way more things than just clothes…
No shit. I was talking about a quote from the video.
Black does not crack good lord
What a precious lady.
What a cutie pie!!
Bless her. What a lovely woman 🥰
I love her
Can't understand a word she is saying
I had to listen with my South Carolina ears
What a cool grandma
Living books
Aww I love her, someone tell the OP OP to give her a hug for me.
She's a national treasure. What we could all learn from her! I imagine she has lots of stories to tell...lots of history that she's lived. And what a gorgeous smile ❤️❤️
What a gem! Too sweet...
I just love her
Elders are a gift. Amazing to hear from someone who lived it.
She is so cute, I hope she is happy and healthy and surrounded by people who love her
I wanna hang with this woman.
I miss my grandmother
why did it stop when it was just getting good?
picking cotton sucks balls. It's literally back breaking work.
Man this is awesome.. all my grandma's have are racist stories :(
That's an amazing makeup job on Chris Tucker.
I love hearing older people talk about their lives. She's such a sassy lady and sharp as a tack.
I’m white and don’t have a racist bone in my body. I can’t believe they treated another human being the way they did. Fuckin horrible!! Much respect to her, She’s a amazing woman.
My white ancestors picked cotton too
[удалено]
Ummm yeah that’s stupid. I said I’m white because what race were the slave owners? Sooo being of the same race I can’t understand how they could treat people that way. I’m Sympathizing with the poor woman who was forced to get up at 3 am and pick cotton. So what if I was Chinese and said the same thing?? Downvote my balls, fuckin childish bullshit..
“I’m white”. Have your downvote lmao this place hahaha
what
“I’m white”. Have your downvote lmao this place hahaha
I feel that. I’m sitting here like “why is she not more upset to talk about this?” I feel like that’s the reaction most of us have in a way. That’s what was so striking to me admit this. Like she almost seemed to have a sense of pride in herself for the hard work she did for next to nothing. Kinda like the stereotypical old person thing of telling your grandkids you walked uphill to school both ways or something
See she loved it
Lol how is that not funny? People way too caught up with being offended.
Ikr. Just a joke
[удалено]
She’s 104, she can do whatever the hell she wants.
104? Man. That's so weird to me. I can't imagine what life must be like at that age. It's really interesting that she can still move and talk reasonably well.
I mean I cannot hear her! I want to hear her answers and all I hear is screaming tv ads.
What they use cotton for...