Harry must have struggled

In the first chapter of Deeply Rooted, Hamilton talks about a life long farmer named Harry Lewis. Farming is obviously a very hard profession. There is so much to keep track of and even more to do. I, like most of us, would not imagine going into farming. I would have no idea where to start. Not only did Harry have a hard job, he also had to live and work through the civil rights movement as a black man. I am taking a first year seminar on the 1960s and I have learned a lot recently about civil rights and how hard life really was for black Americans back then. I always knew they had been discriminated against and treated very poorly but this class goes into depth on the civil rights movement and it has taught me things that I had not known before. Hamilton states, "The white, concrete-brick milk barn was built in 1952, when Harry was six years old"(Hamliton 20). This means he was a young kid during the heat of the Civil Rights movement. However, he would still be old enough to remember some of the horrible things going on. Hamilton says that if you have time to sit and listen it is worth it to talk to Harry. I personally would love to sit and talk with him about his life, especially his childhood. So much was going on then and I am curious as to how his childhood on a farm was. I would assume that by being black Americans it made it much harder for his family in every aspect of their lives, even farming. Until the early 50s, even though Lincoln freed the slaves, black people were still considered less than whites and segregation was legally accepted. Even after segregation was no longer accepted black people still faced the resistance from racist whites who fought to keep their immoral ways. Trying to live and thrive on a farm was probably not easy at that time. However, maybe it was the best place to be. Maybe they were able to have their own little spot of land and did not have to deal with the same racism on a day to day basis that black americans in cities would see. It would be a great learning experience to sit and talk with someone who lived through this time. I bet you would come out with a completely different view on the subject.