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Barry Family Photo
“ Whoever needed something , they knew they could come and get it from you . ( If people were in need ) you would stop and help your neighbor .”
Mrs . Ann Barry
Ann Barry Age 15 ( Barry Family Photo )
Mrs . Barry ’ s Memories of Mississippi Faith and Family Have Been Her Foundation
Giovan Soares ‘ 19 Copy Editor In recent years , Ms . McHugh and Ms . Louko ’ s sophomore English students have read “ The Help ,” a novel by Kathryn Stockett that describes the mistreatment of African American maids by their white female employers . Many people will remember the 2011 Academy Award nominated film starring Viola Davis , Emma Stone , Octavia Spencer and Bruce Dallas Howard . Among other indignities , the maids are not allowed to use the same bathrooms as the families they serve , even though they look after their children . The story is set in Jackson , Mississippi in the early 1960s . “ The Help ” is fiction , but it conveys realism while describing the struggles of these domestic workers . We thought it would be very interesting to speak with someone that really lived through these times and did this type of work . We were extremely lucky to find a woman who performed domestic work in the south in the ‘ 50s and early ‘ 60s , and lived in a small town about 100 miles east of Jackson .
Through a connection with Mr . Dorman ( Tutor and Green Wave Gazette Adviser ), we found Mrs . Ann Barry , ( 85-yearsold on her last birthday ) who lived , worked and raised a family while living in Boston for 42 years , but who is originally from Mississippi , and once lived in Toomsuba , a very small unincorporated community ( pop . 773 ) near Meridian . Mrs . Barry is the second child of her father ’ s second wife . She married at 19 , and had her first child not long after that . She eventually had six more children who have given her 14 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren . At different times , she also lived in St . Louis , Alabama and Cleveland before settling in Boston ( Dorchester ) for 42 years . She now lives in Jacksonville , Florida with her granddaughter .
Mrs . Barry was happy to share her experiences living and working in the south during the turbulent times of Jim Crow and the civil rights movement . Despite the times , she has a lot of good memories , especially about her school in Meridian . “ I had a lot of fun there , and I had no problems with anybody . The principal and the teachers were behind you . They built you up ( and encouraged ) you to do the things you should be doing . I enjoyed being in Mississippi ,” said Mrs . Barry . Her mother worked at a knitting mill , and her father was a farmer . Because of this , the poverty of the area didn ’ t affect them as much . “ We didn ’ t have to worry about things to eat . We always had meat and my mother used to have a garden full of everything ; greens and anything she wanted to cook ,” said Mrs . Barry .
But , she acknowledges that some of her schoolmates may have had a different experience , and might not have had parents that were as supportive and dedicated as hers . “ We had praying parents . They were religious people . They gave you a foundation to stand on , and some children didn ’ t have that . ( Some parents ) were alcoholics , or ‘ good time Charlie bells ,’ that didn ’ t go to church or do anything substantial . Some people had it real hard because they didn ’ t know how to do things for themselves . It was hard . You have to have a good foundation ; you have got to have something to fall back on ( when life is hard ),” said Mrs . Barry . However if you were struggling , neighbors were there to help . “ Whoever needed something , they knew they could come and get it from you . ( If people were in need ) you would stop and help your neighbor .”
Mrs . Barry has seen a lot of change in her life . While growing up , she was close to her grandfather , Andrew Young , a former slave who was sold on the chopping block at 5-years-old to a ‘ mistress ’ in Mississippi . He lived to be 96 . “ He was my mother ’ s father . I knew him very well . He was some man . Oh wow ! He had power .”
She lived in the south during segregation and the civil rights movement , and knew how dangerous life could be for African Americans in Mississippi . Mrs . Barry lived close to several civil rights crimes committed in her home state , including the kidnapping and murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Money in 1955 , the assassination of civil rights activist Medgar Evers by a white supremacist in Jackson in 1963 , and the murder of three civil rights workers , by the Ku Klux Klan in Neshoba County , on their way home from a voting rights meeting in 1964 . “ They killed a lot of people ,” said Mrs .
THE GREEN WAVE GAZETTE
Barry .
From an early age , she learned to live with segregation and racial injustice . “ You knew what you could do and what you couldn ’ t do . You were taught that . A black boy had to be home by sundown . When it started being dark , ( he ) better be in the house , because sometimes , they ( the police ) would just pick at you . You didn ’ t have to be doing anything ,” said Mrs . Barry . “ You had to sit in the back of the bus , and if there wasn ’ t a seat , you had to stand up and hold on the best you could . It didn ’ t matter how many seats there were in the front . You could put your money in the slot next to the driver , but then you had go around to the back door of the bus . It was ‘ the segregation .’ There were things you didn ’ t do , and if you did , you knew it was trouble ,” said Mrs . Barry .
Like the women depicted in “ The Help ,” Mrs . Barry performed domestic work . She found jobs through “ word of mouth ,” working for a family for a time , and they would recommend her to their friends who were looking for a maid . “ You did everything , all the cleaning , the washing , the ironing , the sweeping and the mopping ; and you would take care of the kids if you had to ,” said Mrs . Barry . “ You worked in these homes , and you worked by the week . You got $ 2 a day . You worked sun-up to sundown , and , that ’ s all you got – $ 2 a day .”
But , unlike the maids in “ The Help ,” she didn ’ t feel stuck in any one job . “ If I was displeased with how you treated me , I just didn ’ t go back . I didn ’ t say anything because you didn ’ t speak to someone like that . You could get in trouble ; they might call somebody in that might do something mean or hurtful to you ,” said Mrs . Barry .
Change didn ’ t come to Mississippi and other parts of the south until more and more African Americans could vote . Mrs . Barry did her part to help by driving people to the polls . “ I drove so many people that didn ’ t have transportation .” But , at the polls , she saw people who could not read or write being asked to read the constitution . “ That was just to keep them from voting ,” said Mrs . Barry . And , then they closed the polls early . So ,