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.

[Diva Betsy Ross]

Hey, I was quicker than your ping by a split second....

[SwankyC]

They are prolly liberal politians. <sarcasm> We dont need to go there. Nothing to see there. No need to open old wounds.... </sarcasm>

[cyborg]

Forty acres and a mule was so not like welfare. That just goes to show you how much this person knows about American history.

Continuining to be shocked and amazed in FR.

[lavrenti]

The 40 acres was a just reward for centuries of unpaid toil. Biggest mistake ever made was not implementing and enforcing that promise.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

That was just a touch stereotypical and bigoted. Yeah, just a touch.

Ya think? lol

My take on this story is, if true, attack the criminals who did this to the family - you didn't do it, I didn't do it -but if someone did, they deserve whatever can be thrown at them.......

[woofie]

Who were the "slave" owners? That should clear it up

[lepton]

"$40 acres and a mule" was the government program then.

No it wasn't. That was a proposal for how to deal with the issue of freed slaves - which was voted down in Congress.

[cyborg]

Absolutely because as former slaves, they could have more than used that to be prosperous. They already KNEW how to till the soil,etc.

[rdb3]

Continuining to be shocked and amazed in FR.

Do yourself a favor. Don't be. Please.

[liberallyconservative]

I would like to have seen ABC do their homework on this one before they ran with it, but there is the distinct possibility this could be true. There are deep rural areas of the South that haven't seen an "outsider" in decades.

Agree that, if true, the "slaveholders" should be brought to justice. This would be a true case for "reparations" to be made, because it would be a case of "this happened to ME", not my ancestors 5 generations back.

[cyborg]

You're right. I suppose a few people expect their retarded statements to go unanswered thinking everyone is of like mindedness. If one person doesn't immediately catch it, then some eventually will. That's not though police as some claim, it's about not making idiot statements.

[liberallyconservative]

Excellent point. My, my... how the South would have changed if this had been implemented. Desegregation MIGHT have begun 100 years sooner.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

I respectfully disagree with your comment about reparations....... this would be a case of suing the people responsible..... a civil case which held the guilty party responsible...... and I have no doubt that there are probably people who were treated inexcuseably.....but both black and white..... people who are poor and too ignorant to know any better are used in many instances.

[mhking]

This would be a true case for "reparations" to be made, because it would be a case of "this happened to ME", not my ancestors 5 generations back.

True, but don't be surprised if the Jesse Jackson Traveling Roadshow uses this to his betterment; true or not.

[liberallyconservative]

Glad you caught that. I kinda scratched my head in amazement, and decided not to respond. Glad you did.

[lavrenti]

Desegregation would have been immediate. Small white and black farmers were already attempting cooperative farming in parts of the deep South then.

[liberallyconservative]

Excellent point. I used "reparations" loosely and incorrectly. I had in mind that if true, and if caught, prosecuted and found guilty, then "damages" could be rightly sought.

[cyborg]

I have to give credit where credit is due. R caught it first. I had the same reaction as you,and to be honest I was more confused than anything.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

I thought that probably was what you meant......

[herkbird]

I live in Atlanta, Georgia, and read a newspaper story up in Flat Rock, North Carolina, while visiting my father. There was an article about poor peach pickers in the Southeastern States. Among them were whites, blacks, Latinos, you name it. Who were kept deeply in debt to the company store for CRACK, Alcohol, prostitutes, and many other illegal items. The article claimed that this was a very wide spread abuse of mostly the downtrodden, who had criminal records that made it hard for these people to get decent jobs. If they left, the local law would pick them up and return them, probably some kind of kick back involved. They also found it very hard to find people that would actually believe their stories of hell.

Although the Peach Picking stories entailed actual arrests for selling drugs and listed various Peach Grove violators. This original slavery story is highly possible, it does contain many holes in it that makes you wonder though. The whole deal about repatriation would end up as the biggest spending spree on drugs, booze, cars, and very few things that would benefit the receivers in the long term, otherwise known as just a waste of money.