Читать книгу El Segundo - James Newton - Страница 8

The Leprous

Four leprous men, dying on the out side of the walls said, “why should we sit here until we die? Let us get up and move and walk toward the enemy, we have nothing to lose. So what if they kill us. We are dying any way.”

These men got off of their sick bottoms and moved. They stumbled along with their gait resembling weary wounded soldiers that had walked a thousand miles to get back home.

In the case of these leprous men, God caused the enemy to hear the hoofs of thousands of men and horses. So the enemy got out of their beds and abandoned their posts leaving millions of dollars of booty behind. The four leprous lifeless men were the only ones left to enjoy these riches. But these men said, “We must go back and share this loot with those that put us out and counted us out”. These four leprous men saved a Nation, only because, God used them and made them look greater than they appeared. He used them as a secret weapon against oppression.

Yet year after year like the slavery system of “Old South’s past and the sanction apartheid policies of South Africa, both poor white and black were helplessly deprived of social acceptance in our little town of Sumner. We were like the leprous. We skirted around the outer circle of our little town. Sumner was a little town of about five stores, which encircled the county Court house at the town center which embodied the seat of power.

We were not part or privy to that power.

Sumner had less than one hundred and seventy five houses which were mostly the affluent white land owners. Of course, there were no blacks except for “The Help”, who were kept there as servants to do menial work such as house cleaning and child care in these Southern traditional homes.

Racism and economic segregation was part of the social fabric and ideology in our day to day ongoings especially in the Towns, Counties, States and Regions of the Deep South.

King Cotton ruled the day in every way even the legislative court system. Everybody suffered under its whip both whites and blacks who tolled under this terror were called “White Trash and Niggers”. Fueled by the hate of the K.K.K. that controlled the State Highway Patrol there was no way out of Mississippi as a practical matter as well as an economic matter.

But not everyone was a bigot and racist, there were a substantial number of white people who were loving, compassionate and even helpful towards the socially isolated and deprived black and white share croppers. Why? The reason is simple many of the compassionate and conscientious had white relatives trapped with in this economic and political system of apartheid. Cotton picker who were aunts, uncles and sometimes brothers and sister would provide “love” offerings and unofficial system of aid to their relatives who would in turn share their booty with their black brothers and sister because poor didn’t know no color.

With very little industry outside of cotton, Cotton became the life blood of the south with money flowing like wine with all the luxuries enriching our corrupt society.

History tells us, that wicked tyrannical systems eventually fall. But, it was difficult to see how anything would change for me and my family.

Fortunately, the Newton Family had a secret which all stemmed from the “Holy Roller Brush Arbor”. The sawdust floor worship place made by tree limbs, and covered by tree brush with no electric lighting and pot belled stove for heating had instilled a will to walk with faith through the hard times and the darkness. Our secret steeled and prepared us not only to cultivated our share chop, but cultivated our plans to escape from our fallen condition, the secret of the “Holy Roller Brush Arbor” was to be our salvation, our gift from our leprosy.

Overseer in hat supervising the Newtons and their adopted "black" brother Snow Kirk weighing Cotton.