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Object Description
Interview no. | U-0926 |
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 | 22 May 2012 |
Interviewee | Dean, Elton, 1954- |
Interviewee occupation |
Accountants Farmers |
Interviewee DOB | 1954 |
Interviewee ethnicity | African Americans |
Interviewer | Randolph, Justin. |
Abstract | This interview centered on the life and transmitted heritage of Elton Dean, Jr., a fourth generation black farm owner from Clay County, MS (near the city of West Point). Topics included: his great-great-grandfather Payton Dean's acquisition of 400 acres after emancipation; the flight of part of his family from the land; his attendance at the all black Beasley School nearby; the emergence of white private schools during the area's integration of the early 1970s; his church life at Hopewell MB church and his baptism; his studying accountancy at Jackson State University after graduation from Beasley in 1972; his working for the Monsanto Company for 28 years, based in St. Louis, MO; his retirement at age 50 and return to the family farm in Clay County. Dean described: a day in the life as a young helper on his father's farm and his current duties as a farm owner; his brothers and sisters’ attainment of higher education; his views on the decline of black landownership and changes in land usage (timber, hunting clubs); his father (Elton Deanes, Sr.'s) involvement in the Pigford lawsuit; his current work in the community with 4-H, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Farm Service Agency, the Cattlemen's Association and current membership; the meaning of his family's land ownership to him. |
Citation | Interview with Elton Dean by Justin Randolph, 22 May 2012 U-0926, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. |
Description
Interview no. | U0926_Audio |