The Sharecropper's Son


Book Description

My grandfather was a sharecropper. He and my grandmother adopted me when I was thirteen years old. Prior to me going to the Army, he told me these words: "Boy, you're smart and strong. You can handle the military. Your problem is, you will do anything." Though he died in 1976, the prodigal returns.




The Sharecropper's Son


Book Description

Between the stock market crash, a rich man’s greed and the Navarro County drought an indentured slave is left with few [if any] choices. Jamison Baines Weir is born the son of a sharecropper where hard times and sorrow are a way of life. It is a way of life Jamie never questions until famine and malice force him to leave the dying farm and follow a path that leads to murder and mystery. All eyes were on Wall Street, but truth be told, the market crash paled in comparison to the Navarro County drought. A Form of Free Slavery? Sharecroppers were provided land for farming, shelter for their family, equipment and credit for living expenses until the harvest. The sharecropper provided labor - his only resource. After the harvest they settled up, the landowner received three-fourths of the profit and the sharecropper one fourth. Of course the sharecropper's share went toward paying his credit bill and often he was left owing so he had little choice but to stay on the farm, do it again and try to produce more so he could get out of debt, but debt was always waiting at the end of the row. The Great Depression




The Sharecropper's Son


Book Description

In 1917, there is no escape from the tight grasp of the Mississippi delta, especially for a black young man. As James Hayes grows up tilling the soil with his disabled father and younger brother, all he can think about is how badly he wants out. Lured by stories of the Great Migration north, he dreams of the day when he will be able to leave and make his mark on the world. Finally on one October morning, eighteen-year-old James gets his chance. When he is drafted and sent to France at the height of the Argonne Offensive by Germany, James becomes embroiled in the thick of battle, eventually standing out from other soldiers by winning the French Croix de Guerre. As the conflict ends in 1918, he ventures to Paris where he is invited to sing at a local bistro. Soon, he becomes a sensation, settles in his adopted country, and marries a local woman. But when he is called home to be near his terminally ill father, fate rises up to meet him and changes everything once again. In this tale of hope and perseverance, a black World War I draftee from the Mississippi delta journeys from the trenches of the Western Front to 1920s Paris and back home again.




The Sharecropper's Son


Book Description

This book describes the life of the sharecropper and his family on their various tobacco farms.




The Senator and the Sharecropper's Son


Book Description

Weaver's narrative explores these tangled lives against the background of "the color line," which W. E. B. Du Bois defined in 1903 as "the problem of the twentieth century."




Bluegrass Banjo for the Complete Ignoramus!


Book Description

Beginning banjo lessons have never been more fun! Written for the absolute beginner, this FUN book is guaranteed to help you learn to play bluegrass banjo (How many books come with a personal guarantee by the author?). · Teaches the plain, naked melody to 23 easy bluegrass favorites without the rolls already incorporated into the tune. · Wayne shows simple ways to embellish each melody using easy rolls. · With Wayne’s unique method, you’ll learn to think for yourself! · Learn how to play a song in different ways, rather than memorizing ONE way. · Includes a link to download 99 instructional audio tracks off our website! You WILL learn to play: Bile ‘Em Cabbage Down, Blue Ridge Mountain Blues, Columbus Stockade Blues, Down the Road, Groundhog, Little Maggie, Long Journey Home, Lynchburg Town, Man of Constant Sorrow, My Home’s Across the Blue Ridge Mountains, Nine Pound Hammer, Palms of Victory, Pass Me Not, Poor Ellen Smith, Pretty Polly, Put My Little Shoes Away, Red River Valley, Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms, Shall We Gather at the River, Wabash Cannonball, When I Lay My Burden Down, When the Saints Go Marching In.




Delta Fragments


Book Description

The son of black sharecroppers, John Oliver Hodges attended segregated schools in Greenwood, Mississippi, in the 1950s and ’60s, worked in plantation cotton fields, and eventually left the region to earn multiple degrees and become a tenured university professor. Both poignant and thought provoking, Delta Fragments is Hodges’s autobiographical journey back to the land of his birth. Brimming with vivid memories of family life, childhood friendships, the quest for knowledge, and the often brutal injustices of the Jim Crow South, it also offers an insightful meditation on the present state of race relations in America. Hodges has structured the book as a series of brief but revealing vignettes grouped into two main sections. In part 1, “Learning,” he introduces us to the town of Greenwood and to his parents, sister, and myriad aunts, uncles, cousins, teachers, and schoolmates. He tells stories of growing up on a plantation, dancing in smoky juke joints, playing sandlot football and baseball, journeying to the West Coast as a nineteen-year-old to meet the biological father he never knew while growing up, and leaving family and friends to attend Morehouse College in Atlanta. In part 2, “Reflecting,” he connects his firsthand experience with broader themes: the civil rights movement, Delta blues, black folkways, gambling in Mississippi, the vital role of religion in the African American community, and the perplexing problems of poverty, crime, and an underfunded educational system that still challenge black and white citizens of the Delta. Whether recalling the assassination of Medgar Evers (whom he knew personally), the dynamism of an African American church service, or the joys of reconnecting with old friends at a biennial class reunion, Hodges writes with a rare combination of humor, compassion, and—when describing the injustices that were all too frequently inflicted on him and his contemporaries—righteous anger. But his ultimate goal, he contends, is not to close doors but to open them: to inspire dialogue, to start a conversation, “to be provocative without being insistent or definitive.”




Sharecropper's Son - The Story of Doc Garland Granger


Book Description

"Doc Granger's biography is a fascinating series of stories that chronicle a life well-lived. Doc is the kind of strong, savvy, spiritual man who has helped make the American Dream a reality." - Susan D. Brandenburg, Author of Sharecropper's Son The Story of Doc Garland Granger "Doc's competitive nature inspires me. He is someone with great vision, and he gambles to get what he wants he'll go right to the edge! He's not afraid of anything, and he loves to build something from nothing. He builds people as well or better than he builds businesses. He saw more in me than I saw in myself. Without him, I wouldn't be where I am today." - Nadine Gramling "Doc just sits there and talks quietly to people until they see things his way." - Eddie Sparks "He gave us a boat called The Foxy Lady! Imagine that . . . the Baptist Church and The Foxy Lady! That was a lot of fun! With Doc's help, the church was able to sell The Foxy Lady for $60,000, but for a while, it certainly caused a few waves!" -Dr. O. R. Rice SHARECROPPER'S SON The Story of Doc Garland Granger His mother named him Doc, and though she never did say why, the name has served Doc Garland Granger very well for 94 years. Born in a sharecropper's shack, Doc spent his childhood laboring in the cotton fields and tobacco patches of Robeson County, North Carolina. When, at age 17, he left the farm and set out to make his fortune, Doc carried with him enduring faith in God, indomitable entrepreneurial spirit and innate "tobacco patch wisdom." With only a 4th grade education, the tall, handsome, sinewy son of a sharecropper was destined to become an icon of the steel industry, a successful hotelier, restaurateur, and real estate developer, a highly respected member of the Masonic Temple, a yachtsman, philanthropist and philosopher. Sharecropper's Son is the inspiring story of a man who achieved success despite facing insurmountable challenges. Doc Granger is a man whose legacy of love is laced with laughter; whose homespun intelligence is like money in the bank; and whose heart has always been big enough to forgive, forge ahead and live life to the fullest.




Delta Memories: Early Life Of A Sharecropper's Son


Book Description

Delta Memories follows the life of Joe T. Harper, as he stands in the shadow of a terminal illness;this delightful book revisits Joe's remarkable life and his "can do" attitude. Born in a rural, poor, black family, Joe overcomes the many obstacles that he faced - poverty, alcohol abuse, and domestic violence of the 1960s era. He, the son of a Mississippi sharecropper, was able to attend college thanks to a generous benefactor. This is a remarkable story of grinding poverty, perseverance, and redemption. Written in a graphically visual style, Joe keeps the reader right beside him and provides a bird's eye view as he describes his mothers' tragedy; watches his brother recover from hernia surgery; and endures the family's status which is viewed an object of humor. Come, travel with Joe back in the pages of time as he relives the early years of life in the Mississippi Delta.




From Sharecropper's Son to Who's Who in American Women


Book Description

Transsexual Pioneer At two o'clock in the morning of January 31, 1969, I walked across the Mexican border alone into Tijuana. My purpose sex-change surgery. This book is an account of the events of my life leading up to that trip and afterwards. Before I became aware of Christine Jorgensen, I didn't know there was another person in the world like me. I was in my mid-teens when I first heard of sex-change surgery. I spent years searching for information and a doctor who could and would perform the operation. I was 29 years old when I had the surgery. With no ID, birth certificate or record of any kind to document my existence, I faced many obstacles in my new life. I worked for the State of Georgia thirty years, retiring in 2000.