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Object Description
Interview no. | U-0699 |
Restrictions | No restrictions. Open to research. |
Project | U.19. Long Civil Rights Movement: Breaking New Ground |
Project description | Interviews, 2011-2012, conducted for the Breaking New Ground: A History of American Farm Owners Since the Civil War project. This project was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and was coordinated by Adrienne Petty (of the City College of New York) and Mark Schultz (of Lewis University in Illinois) with assistance from Jacquelyn Hall. Interviews were conducted by two cohorts of research fellows and centered on African American farmers', landowners', and descendants' political, social, and economic experiences in the American South from the Civil War onward. |
Date | 10 August 2011 |
Interviewee | Simmons, Michelle H. |
Interviewee occupation | Government employees |
Interviewee DOB | Unknown |
Interviewee ethnicity | African Americans |
Interviewer | Schultz, Mark, 1964- |
Abstract | Michelle, the descendent of a family of farmers, talked about her personal story: her family's experience farming; how it shaped her life; how her family moved away from the farming profession; how she came to work for the US Department of Agriculture in Houston County, Alabama. Topics continues into: the experience of being a black farmer in Alabama; USDA efforts to help farmers in Houston County in general; trends amongst black farmers in response the USDA systems; the demography of black farmers in Houston County; trends of farming in Houston County; trends of black farming in Houston County; explanation of why children of farmers do not farm; struggle of being a small farmer; USDA "Conservational Reserve Program" that gives farmers money to plant pine trees and farmers/black farmers reactions to this program. Interview concludes with Michelle's experience being black and working for the USDA, including: how farmers treat her; how coworkers treat her; her facing racism at a post in western Florida; how there were no black farmers in the Floridian province where she worked. |
Citation | Interview with Michelle H. Simmons by Mark Schultz, 10 August 2011 U-0699, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
Description
Interview no. | U0699_Audio |