MICHIGAN'S QUIET STORM
Mary Waters
By Vanessa Simpson Olive
Dawn breaks. A truck drops off workers at an
Alabama cotton field. The going rate for cotton
is 25¢ per pound. Carefully picking out each
ripe bud, trying not to prick her fingers on the
sharp petals, she moved as quickly as she could
down the row. It takes a lot of cotton to make a
pound. Once her sack was filled, she dragged it
to the weighing station. After hearing the value,
she headed back in the field with a new bag.
Working until sunset, she’d picked 20 pounds
of cotton.
Young Mary made less than $5.
This is the story of how a southern girl picking
cotton in Alabama graduated from the
University of Michigan, and went on to become
the first black female floor leader in the history
of the Michigan House of Representatives.
The tobacco fields were better. They paid a flat
$10 a day. “You crop from the bottom, you run
your hand around the stalk, taking leaves that
are ripe, and stacking them under your arms. A
wagon came down the row and you put your
leaves on the wagon. They’d string it, and hang
it in a barn to dry out. I had to make a decision
that I wanted to do something different with my
life. I heard there was an opportunity in Detroit
for black people, like me,” she explained.
CONT’D