Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2020/Summer II/Section 01/Lula Wright

Overview

Lula Wright was an African American field worker on Green’s Plantation in Tuskegee, Alabama in the early 20th century. She was born and raised in Alabama to a big, working class family and grew up in a household that valued dedication and strong morals. Wright eventually married and started her own family, and was known as a charismatic, generous mother and reliable friend to those around her. A large portion of Wright’s life was spent working on Miss Green’s plantation in Macon County, Alabama, where she served as a field worker and carried out various tasks such as harvesting cotton, caring for animals, and cooking for her friends. The date and cause of Wright’s death are unknown.

Background

Early Life

Wright was born in Cotton Valley, Alabama in 1868. She was born into a stable family of eleven children and her father worked hard to provide them with adequate food and clothing. Wright enjoyed learning and went to school with her siblings until the fifth grade, when she had to begin working in the field on a plantation. This was common for African American children at the time because laws and social norms in Alabama pushed African Americans away from education and toward low-income jobs in physical labor.

In 1886, Wright married her first husband, Jasper Sanford. Wright and Jasper had 11 children, seven boys and four girls, and she eventually had two grandsons. Three of Wright’s children died at a young age from illness, yet death by illness was very common in the 20th century because adequate health care was scare, especially for African Americans.

Her husband Jasper died in 1916, yet soon after his death, Wright married her second husband Eddie Wright. It was expected that women continue marrying after their husband’s death because in the early 20th century, women were seen as dependents of their male counterparts and could not provide for themselves otherwise. Eddie brought three of his own children to the marriage, however unlike Wright’s father, Eddie did not provide food and stability to his family. Wright eventually left Eddie and raised her children on Miss Green’s plantation, of where she spent the remainder of her life working with her children.

Plantation Life

On the plantation, Wright lived in an old, unkept home where she carried out various tasks such as cooking, field work, housekeeping, and caring for farm animals. Wright worked during the Great Depression, so although her home had leaks and rotting siding, her plantation owner would not fund improvements to her living quarters because African Americans employees were the first to face budget reductions. Nevertheless, Wright enjoyed her life there and had a stable network of friends and family nearby that often frequented her home. In an interview with Rhussus L. Perry, Wright stated that she lead a community club on the plantation where her and eleven women would compile their earnings and buy sets of shared gifts for each other to enjoy on Christmas. Plantation life was very simple yet challenging due to the racial disparities and prejudices that plagued the era, so strong bonds often formed between workers as an outlet of relief from the monotonous tasks and poor treatment they were subject to.

Alabama Plantation Workers and the Great Depression

Despite slavery being outlawed in 1865, many southern economies such as Alabama’s still relied heavily on the functionality and efficiency of plantation work and depended on the productivity of large numbers of African American field workers to keep the plantations in business. However, this system was derailed when the Great Depression struck in 1929. The Great Depression was a period of economic turmoil and the financial losses that plantations consequently faced posed plantation owners with a serious issue; they could no longer afford to employ such high numbers of field workers, yet they needed those numbers to meet their output goals, so they were forced to either cut African American pay rates, or lay off their much needed laborers.

With plantations as the foundation of Alabama’s economy, lawmakers created racially charged loopholes in labor legislation that allowed independent employers to severely decrease African American pay rates on plantations or even deny them employment opportunities during the Great Depression. For example, African American positions were the first to eliminated on plantations in Alabama, shown by an African American unemployment rate that was two-three times higher than that of whites from 1929-1940. Moreover, agricultural workers- the main field that African Americans worked in- were excluded from the 1935 Social Security Act, leaving many blacks with no pension or financial safety if they became unemployed. Thus, rather than fire their field workers, plantation owners could simply reduce their field workers’ wages severely with no legal repercussions. Ultimately the Great Depression caused African American plantation workers in Alabama to be unjustly slighted adequate pay and employment opportunities, further damaging their economic situations.

Women’s Work in the Post-Slavery South

When the Great Depression stuck America in 1929, women became valuable assets to the workforce because they were employed in more stable industries that involved domestic service, and female employment rates actually increased nationally. However, women’s work looked far different for African American women living in newly emancipated southern communities. With white women in the south entering the workforce at a higher rate, finding employment for a respectable wage as a black woman became more difficult due to the racial tensions that existed in society. For example, white women were more likely to be hired into positions that utilized domestic home skills such as cooking, cleaning, and sewing because white women were viewed as docile, respectable, well-mannered women. On the contrary, black women were denied these positions because they were viewed as hostile, incapable employees; instead, they were left to work jobs that involved physical labor, required demanding hours, and paid very little or lacked employee benefits. Moreover, the burst of white women entering the workforce threatened job security for black women who had been in the workforce long before white women and who needed their job to support their families. With employers now having the ability to choose a white woman over a black woman for a job, black women struggled to advance into higher paying positions and were ultimately forced to accept jobs in physical labor that paid little and warranted poor treatment from their bosses.