Life as Slaves (till the early 60's)

abc ^ | 12/20/03

[knak]

Mae Miller and her father, Cain Wall, say they lived in slavery in Mississippi until the early 1960s.

Life as Slaves Sisters Recount Treatment as Modern-Day Slaves in Mississippi

Dec. 20 — As Mae Miller tells it, she spent her youth in Mississippi as a slave, "picking cotton, pulling corn, picking peas, picking butter beans, picking string beans, digging potatoes. Whatever it was, that's what you did for no money at all."

Miller and her sister Annie's tale of bondage ended in the '60s — not the 1860s, when slaves officially were freed after the Civil War, but the 1960s.

Their story, which ABCNEWS has not confirmed independently, is not unheard of. Justice Department records tell of prosecutions, well into the 20th century, of whites who continued to keep blacks in "involuntary servitude," coercing them with threats on their lives, exploiting their ignorance of life and the laws beyond the plantation where they were born.

‘Don’t Run Away — They’ll Kill Us’

The sisters say that's how it happened them. They were born in the 1930s and '40s into a world where their father, Cain Wall, now believed to be 105 years old, had already been forced into slave labor.

"It was so bad, I ran away" at age 9, Annie Miller told ABCNEWS' Nightline. "But they told my brother they better come get me. I ran to a place even worse than where I were. But the people told my brothers, they go, 'You better go get her.' They came [and] got me and they brought me back.

"So, I thought Dad could do something about that," she said. "You know, I told him, said, 'I'm gonna run away again.' He said, 'Baby, don't run away. They'll kill us.' So, I didn't try it no more."

The Millers' story came to light recently when Mae Miller walked into a workshop on the issue of slave reparations run by Antoinette Harrell-Miller, a genealogist.

"She said, 'I have to tell you my story. My dad is 104. He's still living. He has some stories that he can tell you when we were still held in slavery,' " Harrell-Miller recalled.

At first, Harrell-Miller needed some convincing, but, "When I looked at the living conditions of the family, I understood very clearly how it's possible for people to live like that. Driving down to the deltas of Mississippi, looking at the house that they lived in, it was hard to believe that people would live in houses like that."

Now she not only believes the story, she has become something of a guardian angel in Mae Miller's life. The Miller sisters and their father, hospitalized for the past several months after suffering a heart attack — have joined a class action lawsuit in Chicago seeking reparations for the 35 million African-Americans who are descendants of slaves.

Ron Walters, a political scientist who's an advocate for slavery reparations, also believes the Miller sisters' story.

"I believe it because it is plausible," Walters said. "One of the things I think we know is that these letters [archived early in the 20th century by the NAACP] tell us that in a lot of these places, that they were kept in bondage or semi-bondage conditions in the 20th century — [in] out-of-the way places, certainly where the law authorities didn't pay much attention to what was going on."

‘Reckon It Had to Be Slavery’

Class action suits are always stronger when the plaintiffs include someone whose personal experience dramatically illustrates the wrong that's been done. It does not get more dramatic than the story the Miller sisters told about life as slaves in Mississippi.

"It's the worst I ever heard of, so I don't know what you name it," Annie Miller said. "It was very terrible. So, I reckon it had to be slavery for it to be as bad as it were."

"They beat us," Mae Miller said. "They didn't feed us. We had to go drink water out of the creek. We ate like hogs. We didn't eat like dogs because they do bring a dog to a certain place to feed dogs. We couldn't have that."

Mae Miller said she didn't run away because, "What could you run to?"

Annie Miller was frightened to discuss the experience her family left behind 42 years ago.

"They said, 'You better not tell because we'll kill 'em, kill all of you, you n----rs,'" Annie Miller said. "Why would you want to tell anybody that you was raped over and all that kind of mess? You don't tell. Who would you want to tell? I don't want to tell you. I don't want to tell nobody."

"We thought everybody was in the same predicament," Mae Miller said. "We didn't know everybody wasn't living the same life that we were living. We thought this was just for the black folks.

"I feel like my whole life has been taken," she said. "You know, they did so much to us."

ABCNEWS' John Donvan contributed to this report.

[Husker24]

At first, Harrell-Miller needed some convincing

Yeah, im sure.

[G.Mason]

" ....... And by the way, there are still blacks all over the South living in uninsulated shacks that look like the door is ready to fall off and you might break through a floorboard if you step in the wrong place. I have seen it myself."

Thanks for the visual excursion into the South.

If I didn't have 18 kids, 44 cats, and 79 dogs, I would surely like to help.

BTW ....... did I ever tell you about what I saw in Newark, New Jersey?

[Defiant]

I think what happened to Mr. Wall and the Millers (if accurately protrayed) is totally disgraceful and criminally actionable.

I agree. Unfortunately, the statute of limitations ran out about 40 years ago.

[gg188]

...exploiting their ignorance of life and the laws beyond the plantation where they were born...

This sure seems pretty far-fetched when you consider that poor blacks migrated in droves from Mississippi to places like Chicago in the first half of the 20th century.

And a note of equal relevance: among these migrants are many individuals who went on to have lasting effects upon our culture, music, science and government. (Suggesting that poor blacks were that ignorant, particulary by the 60s, strikes me as a typical liberal, patronizing back-handed racist slap. Of course, we all know, the biggest racists are the liberals.)

[jocon307]

I hope you don't think I was making light of anything, I wasnt' trying to.

I've seen some of those shanty homes, when I took the train back from New Orleans and you go up the river side to Slidell. I didn't notice them on the way there, but that maybe because it's night time when you arrive, and the morning when you depart. I don't know if it's black people or white people, or both maybe who live there, because I didn't see any people. But I'm sure the places were populated, for whatever reason I thought that, they didn't look abandoned. Tremendous poverty.

It reminded me of the time my (much older) cousins visited from California and my mom took us all on a bus-ride sight seeing tour of NYC. This would have been in the mid-1960s. She wanted them to see all sides of the city, and I remember going through the upper lower east side, what today is called "alphabet city", driving down Avenue C and seeing the horrid living conditions there. People living in basically shacks, behind "fences" made of discarded doors. I guess later they tore those places down, and built the projects! I suppose it was something of an improvement.

[T'wit]

I understand your point, but this one wasn't "just one more." It caused the death of thousands, and subjected many thousands, perhaps millions, to ruined lives with incurable viral disease. It never ends... the viruses let loose by this scheme (AIDS and Hep C) keep on infecting new victims even now.

[vladog]

Another 'Free Money' ploy!

[Katya]

I agree...there are many areas in this country that are isolated and desolate...this could easily have been done until the 60's.
In fact, here in the Wash DC metro area, we keep hearing cases of foreignors from third world countries who keep other non-english speakers as slaves in their own homes. Occasionally these people are found out, and of course it makes the news.

[Cicero]

It's just possible, in some remote rural district. It would be similar to those stories you occasionally see about parents who keep their children in a closet until they're twelve years old--that kind of thing. In other words, human perversity is capable of just about anything. But this was not any kind of common practice.

Share cropping, yes. No doubt that was exploitative, but people WERE free to pick up and move if they chose to.

[Hildy]

Even if this were true, which I question, why would the government be responsible for it?

[ohiobushman]

I can also tell you there are some whites that live the same way.

[SkyPilot]

Were they captured by space aliens too?

[WackyKat]

People who think this isn't possible should consider that, in the 1990's, there were prosecutions of migrant farm labor contractors for violations of the federal anti-slavery law.

They held illegal immigrants under armed guard, sometimes for years, and forced them to work the fields without pay

[yankeedame]

Puhleeze! Looking for money, I guess.

No! I'm shocked, do you hear me? Simply shocked!

(Do I smell a "Movie of the week" here?" You know, one of those "We're not saying it's true. But some people say...")

[yankeedame]

I'm sure it'll come as a surprise to the yahoos at ABC, but de facto AND de jure slavery is very much alive and florishing TODAY in the islamic theocracies of Africa.

Well, that's different. That's...er...that's a ...a legacy of colonialism. That's why it's different. (sarcasm)

[Terry Mross]

I'd like to see the proof of a literacy test for blacks that's printed in Chinese. That sounds like urban legend stuff. The other day my wife was telling me that her mother told her about this sign that used to be at the city limits of her hometown in Tennessee. I interrupted and said, "Did it say 'Nigger, don't let the sun set on you in this town'"? (fill in the blank for whatever town you want)." I've heard that about practically every town in the South.

As for the Delta, it's stlll the same way. Poverty is everywhere. But it's getting better since the casinos moved in to Tunica, Ms. But, even with the casinos there are people who live off welfare checks and don't want to go to work. Then there are those who are just not smart enough to do anything else. But what people don't understand is there are whites who live the same way. As a kid I grew up picking and chopping cotton. Hardly anyone picks or chops cotton anymore. It's all done with chemicals and machines. And it was 1964 before we had running water. So, where do I sign up for reparations?

[rdb3]

This doesn't sound right.

[Capriole]

Boy, are you ever right. This happened just up the street from me in a suburb of Gaithersburg. Poor woman from Indonesia forced to work constantly by a charming professional Chinese-American family. She was terrorized, exploited, abused, and was afraid to reach out for help. But we neighbors rescued her and now she has her green card, has a driver's license, works hard, and pays taxes. We're really proud of her.

[SevenDaysInMay]

Anyone after 1870 who lived the life of a slave, deserved it because all they needed was luggage to get on with their lives.

"$40 acres and a mule" was the government program then. Welfare hasn't stopped since.

Which "Afro-" Americans are worse off than your average West Coast African there in "Eden" now? Loosers, stupid, and those who can't get a rap contract.

[WackyKat]

And by the way, there are still blacks all over the South living in uninsulated shacks that look like the door is ready to fall off and you might break through a floorboard if you step in the wrong place. I have seen it myself.

I've seen the same thing in Northern cities. But only Southerners are "racist", right?