Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2020/Summer II/Section 013/Leathy Lightsey

Overview
Leathy Lightsey was an African American woman, South Carolina native and North Carolina resident. She played many roles in her lifetime, being a mother, working on the WPA, and providing for her family following the Depression. Lightsey’s life was documented by Cora L. Bennett as part of the Federal Writers’ Project of 1939.

Early Life in South Carolina
Lightsey was the eldest daughter of six children born and raised by her parents in rural South Carolina. Her father was a farmer and carpenter and she and her siblings often helped him with these jobs. When she was in the fourth grade, Lightsey’s mother passed away, forcing her to drop out of school and become a caretaker for her siblings. Though Lightsey does not dwell on these, the family faced financial hardships throughout their lifetime. When she married John Lightsey in 1922, the couple along with Leathy’s family moved to North Carolina in an attempt to raise their economic status.

Adulthood in North Carolina
The Lightsey’s and Leathy’s family moved to Charlotte, North Carolina in 1922. To the family, moving to a town provided economic opportunities that living in the country did not. While Leathy’s father continued his work as a carpenter, John got a job at the lumberyard. The couple had their first child in 1923 and over the next fifteen years had seven more children. Though Leathy did random jobs such as sewing, being a cafeteria worker, or working on a canning project for the WPA, most of her time was dedicated to raising her eight children. The family never found economic sanction in North Carolina, and thus struggled finding jobs, paying rent and providing for the children. When the Great Depression hit in 1929 and John Lightsey lost his job, he was sick and out of work for months at a time. Though the family did not recognize it until much later, this took a toll on John’s mental health and the family was forced to send him away to a colored asylum. This caused Leathy Lightsey to become the primary caretaker and financial provider for her family.

Value on Education
Though Lightsey was forced to drop out of school in the fourth grade, she valued education and believed she would be better fit to raise her family if she had one. Thus, Lightsey made it a goal for all of her children to receive a proper education, but due to John’s departure and the need for financial aid from the children, her two eldest were forced to drop out as well.

African Americans, the Great Depression, and the WPA
One of the most heavily hit communities by the Great Depression of 1929 was African Americans. Strides that had been made by this community in the early 20th century were suddenly reversed and opportunities that were given to African American men and women were given back to their white counterparts. This reflected itself in the loss of jobs, housing, and financial aid. Though FDR put into place New Deal programs such as the Works Progress Administration to increase employment during the Depression, the communal struggles continued well into the 1930s. This was reflected heavily in living conditions and “a 1935-36 National Consumer Purchases Study of the rural South, where so many African Americans still lived, found that more than 80 percent of black farm families and half of white lived in homes rated as ‘poor’, many lacked furniture and virtually all these shacks lacked running water, electricity, or telephones.”

Southern Education for African Americans
The struggle for equal education for African Americans in the South grew in the first half of the 20th century. The increased opening of school buildings for blacks allowed official to believe they had provided African Americans with an equal opportunity. Many of these buildings were dilapidated, miles away from predominantly African American communities, and lacked funding for buses, books, and proper teaching materials. In a race relations study by economist Gunner Myrdal, it was found that “in 1939-40 only 14 percent of the [North Carolina] state’s vocational teachers were black… vocational opportunities remained limited, especially in the poorest rural areas, where black youth most desired to escape the labor patterns of their parents”. Due to the inadequate funding and lack of opportunities provided by schooling, many African Americans found that taking time away from work to go to school was counterproductive. They already lacked job opportunities due to discrimination and these were not increased as proper training was not received.