Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2020/Summer II/Section 07/Sam Jackson

Overview
Sam Jackson was interviewed by Lawrence Evans for the Federal Writers' Project in 1939. The interview occurred late in Sam Jackson’s life. He was married to his wife Lou Jackson. The majority of the interview was Jackson recalling his life in a turpentine camp at the age of twenty-three.

Early Life
Sam Jackson’s early life is largely unknown. His family grew up poor in a turpentine camp. His father was a turpentine chopper. Jackson had never stepped foot into a school. He later claims that there was no use in going to school because he would be too smart as a black person in America. He would follow in the footsteps of his father, becoming a turpentine chopper at the age of sixteen. ]

Life in the Turpentine Camp
At the age of twenty-three, Sam Jackson worked in a turpentine camp named The Quarters in Stapleton, Alabama. The camp was located sixteen miles from town. Jackson lived in a neighborhood of worn-down wooden shacks with his wife, Lou Jackson, and his two young children. The shacks consisted of the bare necessities. Jackson had a bed, a stove, and a bed. His children slept on an old quilt. His family shared a privy with two other families. Jackson worked day in and day out, tapping nearly 2000 trees a day, for a measly six dollars a week. Six dollars barely fed his family for the week. Some weeks, his family would only have groceries for six days of the week. Jackson could not go into town so he had to order his groceries and they would be delivered by trucks sent by his boss. Jackson’s lack of access to the city caused larger issues such as voting. He felt as if he had no business voting as an uneducated black man that was isolated in a turpentine camp. He left the politics to his boss, who was likely a white man. Jackson managed with the resources he was given. He leaned on his faith, taking his children to the monthly preaching that would occur up the road.

Turpentine Industry
The 1840s marked the beginning of the boom in the turpentine industry. Turpentine is harvested from the longleaf pine. Turpentine can be used for a variety of purposes, such as a solvent for fuel or caulk for the seams of wooden ships. Turpentine’s purposes made it high in demand. In response, the industry employed poor labor practices that took advantage of slave labor, convicts, and immigrants. Workers were promised high wages and good working conditions. However, the workers baited into working in camps where they lived in poorly constructed shacks and were stuck working to pay off the transportation cost that they owed to the camp owners. In addition to worker abuse, turpentine farm owners would jump state to state tapping entire forests, damaging the pine population.

Voter Disenfranchisement
Voter disenfranchisement was a way to strip the newly gain rights of newly freed African Americans following to maintain the racial hierarchy following slavery. Initially, congress passed the fifteenth amendment in order to protect against denying any citizen their right to vote. However, the U.S. supreme court cases U.S. v. Reese and U.S. v. Cruikshank denied the right for enforcement of the fifteenth amendment, which allowed for southern states to take away the rights black voters. States used poll taxes, literacy test, and even direct violence as obstacles for black voters. As a result, African American participation in voting decreased by ninety percent. The black voice almost completely absent from the south, which allowed for the continuation of the government taking away black citizens’ rights.

Black Education
Following the end of slavery, the south quickly entered in the era of Jim Crow laws. Local and state governments enacted laws that enforced segregation between whites and people of color. In 1896, segregation was legalized in the notorious supreme court case, Plessy_v._Ferguson, where the precedent “separate but equal” was established. Consequently, the segregation of schools was legalized. Black schools were indeed separate, but not equal. Black schools were massively under-resourced. The school had a larger number of kids in smaller facilities. Teachers were under-trained and paid lower salaries. Education was used as another way to disenfranchise the black community. The idea was to starve the black community of resources and knowledge in order to maintain white supremacy after slavery was abolished. Ultimately, educational disenfranchisement contributed to a cycle of poverty, because of the limited job market based on education level. Educational disenfranchisement also created a cycle of discrimination and stereotypes. Those who were disenfranchised had to fight every day to find a voice in the world, despite being thrown obstacles constantly.