Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2020/Summer II/Section 013/Mary Miller

Overview
Mary Miller was an African American bootlegger, born twelve miles away from Asheville, North Carolina in a farm in the 1800s.1

Biography Mary Miller’s father was a farmer. He used to sell lumber in town. They had mules for transportation and had to ferry them over the river. Miller had seven siblings and she was the second among the eight. She used to help her father with farming and they moved to Asheville when she was young. Miller got married at the age of sixteen. She had only one daughter and a grandson. Miller’s husband died around 1900 and later her daughter also died. Her grandson, Jake, was all she had left, but he also died at a young age.2

She used to serve white families in Asheville, and she served two different white families. While serving the families she had to go and get alcohol for them. As there were prohibitions during the early 1900s, it was hard to get alcohol and you would have to get it from bootleggers which was illegal. So if Miller was caught, she would be arrested and charged, not the white families. While she was getting liquor for the Holt family, the last family she served, she realized a lot of people wanted liquor and she decided to quit and get into bootlegging.3

Bootlegging
Bootlegging was the illegal selling and distribution of alcohol. On May 26, 1908, North Carolina banned the sale of any alcoholic beverage state wide.4 Alcohol was federally banned in 1919, with the 18th amendment although it was overturned with the 21st amendment.5 When Miller was bootlegging during the great depression, bootlegging was still a big problem even after making alcohol legal. Because it had already been a good source for living and was difficult to enforce. Also bootleggers were pretty prosperous as getting alcohol was costly and even Miller was financially quite stable through bootlegging.6 She had a pretty good freshly painted house and a 1938 model Buick sedan.7 But there was always a high legal risk, if caught there could have been a $10,000 fine or five years of imprisonment.8 That's why Miller had a buzzer in her house so that if the police came to search she could know and pour all the alcohol down the sink.9 Most of Miller's customers were white male from all kinds of backgrounds. Miller did not serve drinks to African Americans unless she knew them. Most of her customers were like her regulars, so they all knew each other pretty well. She even used to invite many of her customers to her birthday party and that is the only party she used to throw every year. Miller didn’t like to extend credits, except one customer who used to pay her monthly by check, but she trusted him.10

Segregation and Racism
Although Miller earned a good amount of money from bootlegging, she still had to live in a segregated area. She used live in a “Negro residential area” in Asheville, North Carolina.11 Segregation was common in North Carolina during the Great Depression. And it was not only in the case of living places, but also education. During the 1930’s, African American voters were suppressed due to literacy tests and as a result most of the county and state government were white. So the white controlled government provided a little funding for the segregated black schools and many African Americans had to pay out of their own pockets to supplement the government funding.12 Even public schools for African Americans were not established until 1910 and even after that, there were very few opportunities for African Americans.13 African Americans were also hit economically during the Great Depression. Most African Americans during that time were sharecroppers and so they were not eligible for government aid. Also it was harder for black business owners to get a loan.14This actually made illegal ways of earning like bootlegging more attractive for many African Americans. In the South, even the restaurants were segregated. Southern whites wanted to force themselves as superiors to African Americans and regulated their food consumption. This also affected the work life of African Americans as in many cases they had to go out to eat after hard physical work.15 These reflects on the racial segregation issues in the southern United States.