Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2021/Spring/105i/Section 22/Hattie Amason

Overview
Hattie “Little Bit” Amason (née Sledge) was a Black woman who lived in Livingston, AL in the early 1900s.

Little is known about Amason other than her own statements from an interview for the Federal Writers Project in 1939. During the interview Amason estimated her age to be approximately fifty years and described some of her background. Her mother passed away when Amason was young. Amason was a Christian and married Warren Amason. Together they had several children. They were separated upon Warren’s arrest for being an accomplice to a crime for which he claimed innocence. From then on, Amason raised their children by herself. Warren eventually died while serving his sentence working in the coal mines of Birmingham, AL. Amason later lived with a man named Rich. The date of Hattie Amason’s death is not known.

Incarceration of Warren Amason
Warren Amason was convicted of assisting in selling a stolen cow. Hattie Amason claimed Warren was unaware that the cow was stolen. Hattie Amason also stated that the primary suspect was unable to “straighten it out with the white folks.” As a result of the conviction of Warren the court sent him to work in the coal mines in Birmingham, AL, for an unknown length of sentence.

Raising of children
Amason recounted that “they” [the authorities in Birmingham] had told her that “the law” ought to help her raise her children. Amason stated that “the washpot” [presumably a reference to her occupation] provided the child care assistance she needed rather than “the law.” Amason did not state whether she had been denied this welfare. Though she lived with Rich for a period, they were not married, and at the time of the interview, he had left unexpectedly 4 months prior.

Convict Leasing
State penal systems in the southern United States after the Reconstruction era included practices such as convict leasing which were a continuation of depriving liberty for Black Americans.

Due to many southern prisons being destroyed during the civil war, a strategy of leasing out a share of convicts to private companies was adopted. This system was also used to separate white and black prisoners. Black prisoners were primarily leased to coal mining, railroad, and lumber companies. White prisoners were primarily kept in the remaining jails.

Convict leasing in the South had two primary motivations: racial segregation and economic practicality. The abolishment of slavery created a void of cheap unskilled labor. State governments in the South used convict leasing to help fill this gap. Though convict leasing was not exclusive to the South, the practice of turning over disciplinary control from the prison warden to the private company was.

Aid to Dependent Children Program
The Aid to Dependent Children program, Title IV of the Social Security Act of 1935, provided aid to single parents who were in need.

In the original draft of the bill, support was intended for any widowed mother with children and included provisions for federal oversight of the program. However, the bill was revised by Congress, and in the version of the bill that was passed, federal oversight had been removed. Also, administration of the program had been revised so that it would no longer be by the U.S. Children’s Bureau but rather by the Social Security Administration. The absence of federal oversight meant that protection for applicants--regardless of marital status, race, or federally protected classes--had been removed. The Social Security Administration did not have the same expertise or commitment for the welfare of poor children as did the U.S. Children’s Bureau.

Some of the provisions of the Aid to Dependent Children program that were originally intended by the designers to support widows were ironically used to limit access to assistance at the state level. In particular, a provision which was intended to provide personal casework services was used by states to deem certain households “unsuitable” for various reasons. Some of the reasons why people were denied benefits were related to race, single motherhood due to illegitimate reasons in the eyes of the authorities, and cohabitation without being married.