If it was Anything for Justice

“The preachers said we was dominized and the educators said we was crazy. But I didn’t feel that way about it. If it was anything for justice, I wanted the same thing for my children that the other segment had for theirs.’’ — Sally Mae Hadnott 

 

Sallie Mae Hadnott has carried on a spirited fight against poverty and racial discrimination for most of her fifty-six years. Her home is on Easy Street, a dirt road in one of the few black sections of Prattville, Alabama, an antebellum cotton mill town ten miles northwest of Montgomery. Before her family had indoor plumbing in their three-room house, she and her husband James added a room as a meeting place for blacks in their community. From there she organized the Autauga County NAACP in the mid-’60s, laid plans for voter registration drives, and raised eight children, two of whom were among the first black students to integrate Autauga County High School. She ran for office twice and was the name plaintiff in the Supreme Court case Hadnott vs. Amos, which allowed blacks to have their names on the ballot as members of the National Democratic Party of Alabama (NDPA). Her friends and co-workers describe her as “the stabilizing factor, the upsetting factor; the bulwark and the pacifier. She keeps Prattville alive.” 

 

Big Mouth Heifer 

Like other rural children, Sallie and her five brothers grew up with meager opportunities for formal education and with only as much food as their family could raise. 

“I was born in Montgomery County, Alabama, out between Dannelly Field and somewhere down the road. My father was a farmer. When we came along, we had hogs and cows and raised sugar cane. I learned about life and how to make it when you didn’t have it. When hardship was on, we used to cook a lot of peas and sweet potatoes. And that way we was educated to doing without. If we had good bread and milk, it was a good meal for us and we dared not ask anything more. 

“I remember very well my mother was a good cook. We’d go up to what was called the big house with Aunt Dinah — that was Mama — and she’d cook. After the white people had got through eating, whatever was left on the table she would take it and divide it among us. If I was with her, I had to eat out on the steps or the back porch. This kind of worried me. She was cooking the food, yet she had to wait until after everybody else ate their lunch and then she’d go in and eat the scraps or get just what was left. 

“An aunt raised me after my mother passed in July of ’31. I was almost eleven. She said, ‘If it’s a sack dress, make sure it’s clean. Make sure your feet look nice and let your head look neat because it won’t be this way all the time.’ 

“I remember she used to sit up and sew shirts out of muslin. After you wash ’em so long and bleach them with bluing they would become beautiful white. We used to take the fertilizer sacks and soak the letters out of them and make sheets. When we got through boiling them a time or two, they would be really good and long-lasting. We didn’t know anything about nice sheets and nice pillow cases like we do now. But we learned what life was all about. 

“We didn’t go to school like children go now. We only had three months to go to school. If cotton was in the field for scrappin’ in October, well, we had to get out and scrap the cotton for Mr. Charlie. ’Cause we didn’t pay any rent. The work that you done paid the rent. And I feel like we overpaid. 

“We moved from Montgomery to Autauga County in 1933 because some of Father’s white friends told him this was a good county for cotton. 

“We had to walk seven miles out and back to go to school — so far that the next year the superintendent decided to let us go into Prattville to North Highland School (the only school for blacks in the town). White children would ride the bus, while we had to walk the muddy roads, rain or shine. I felt that was unfair, but we couldn’t do too much about it. 

“I finally dropped out of school at seventeen. I had to wear my brother’s shoes and other kids would tease me about the soles flapping. But if I’d known like I know now, I’d put them shoes on and go those other six months. I had said I wanted to go to Tuskegee, but I didn’t make it. We didn’t have the money. 

“In 1940, we moved on Mr. Huey’s place down here at Lake Haven. The first year we made forty bales of cotton, and Dad didn’t lack but a little of catching up, of paying his debts. And the next year he made forty-five bales of cotton, and he still didn’t make enough to pay off the debts. So my older brother said to my father, ‘Dad, you can stay here if you want to; but I’m going to Birmingham and get me a job in the mine. I want to tell you right now, don’t send for me because- I wouldn’t tell a mule to get up no more if he laid down on my lap.’ So I felt like he really had his bitters. And I said, ‘Well, maybe someday we can do some things.’ 

“One thing that triggered me most— I never will forget. My grandmother lived with my Uncle Oliver down on the Old Hayneville Road. She was sick and they sent me down to be with her during the day while they worked. One day I was rubbing her back, and she had some scars down her back and they was larger than my hand. I was curious to know, ‘Grandmother, what happened to you, what caused these scars?’ 

“And she said to me, ‘This is where I forgot to get the kindling wood one night for the boss. And he put live coals — fire coals — down my back. Said he would teach me a lesson that I wouldn’t forget. And I got the sack and went on in the woods, and frost was on the ground. And I got pine straw and lay on it and put the sack over me until ’fore day where I could just see the light and blunder about in the woods to get something to start the fire. And then I came back to the house.’ 

“And I remember saying, ‘Well, Grandmother, I wish I had been there. They would have had to kill me!’ But I promised her this. I said, ‘You wait until I grow up, Grandmother; I won’t take it. And anyway I can pay them back for what they’ve done to you, I’m going to do it!’ And everytime I get to do something for good I feel like I’m keeping my word to my grandmother. 

“When my dad was working sharecrops he bought a mule and some fertilizer from a guy named Allison Bowman who ran the stockyard in Montgomery. And another lady and I — we called her Aunt Rose — would go to work in the field just as early as daylight would permit, and we would knock off at 5:00 or 5:30. We was working by the house, and Mrs. Bush, the little foreman’s wife, always would yell and tell us what time it was when we got to the end. So this particular day Mrs. Bush says, ‘Sallie, it’s 5:30.’ 

“And I said, ‘Thank you, Ma’am.’ 

“Aunt Rose said, ‘What time did she say it was?’ 

“And I said, ‘She said it was 5:30.’ “And he (Bowman) said, ‘Goddammit, little big mouth heifer, didn’t nobody ask you what time it was!’ “And I told him, ‘You crop-eared so-and-so. I wasn’t even talking to you.’ And it was real ugly — I said, ‘You just call me that again, you s.o.b., I’ll take this damn hoe and crop your other ear.’ 

“He started up to me, and I just drew the hoe back. I was gonna let him have it. I think he knew that I really meant it, so he sorta backed up, and said, ‘Get on.’ 

“And I said, ‘I’m going and I’m not in no rush about it.’ I picked up the hoe — he thought I was going to lay it down —and put it across my shoulder and we went on home. 

“I didn’t tell Daddy and I didn’t sleep good that night. The next morning I got up just as early and got my lunch and left the house with that hoe. I went on down Highway 31 and sit up under a pine tree until about 9:30. When I got up and went on down to the field it was nearing 10:00. Mr. Bush looked and saw me coming, and he made it to the road. 

“He said, ‘Hey, Mr. Bowman say for you not to come back here no more.’ 

“I said, ‘Did he really mean it?’ 

“He said, ‘Yes.’ 

“I said, ‘Oh, thank you.’ I took off and run up the road. I knew then that I had to tell Dad the truth. 

“I went on over to the field where Daddy was. He said, ‘Y’all got through early today.’ 

“ ‘No, sir, Daddy,’ and I just told him the truth about what happened. 

“And Daddy said, ‘That’s all right. Hand me the hoe; I’ll go see him.’ So Daddy went. And that was my last day’s work of being a sharecropper.’’ 

Sally left home to marry at the age of 18. Eight years later, faced with physical abuse and lack of support for herself and her three sons, she divorced her husband. 

Soon thereafter she met James O. Hadnott through the church choir. They married and together raised eight children — her three sons and their three daughters and two sons. Mr. Hadnott worked as a carder in the local cotton mill until a heart attack forced him to retire in 1967, and Sallie held part-time jobs until her notoriety as a civil-rights activist made it impossible for her to get work. 

“I don’t know how we did it,” recalls her daughter Nitrician, “but we did. We were happy, never had complaints about food on the table. Of course, we did eat a lot of pork. We had chickens in the back and a couple of pigs. On the side we raised greens. Mother made us know that was the best she could do and we were satisfied. ” 

Even before the civil-rights movement, Sallie began to assume her role as a community leader. Neighbors and friends came to her with their questions about legal or business matters, asking her to read, explain, and write letters for them. Nitrician recalls, ‘‘it just grew within her. She was always active in her church. She would give speeches at different- meetings, mainly church meetings, but she would tie in her political thoughts, too. I remember when the people came in to help with voter registration. She wasn’t afraid of the new — she wasn’t afraid to let them in, or of what would happen to her. Of course, my father was a little bit afraid, but I think with her there encouraging him, he got over that. And she started from there to go on into other things. She's always been against people mistreating each other; and when she did get the chance, she just let it out. ”  

 

Stand Up and Blunder On 

Sallie’s decision to organize voter education drives in Prattville grew out of her own experience of being denied the right to register to vote. 

“In Autauga County there was about 70 to 90 (black) voters. We had one black school teacher — rather she was classed as black, but really she was two-thirds white. And she would always deliver the black vote and get what she wanted. This I felt was unfair to the people and to me. So I decided to do something about it. 

“I went down to the board of registrars three times. Everytime I would go I never got a hearing. The first time they said come back in six months. The next time, they extended it to one year. Well, I didn’t know any better. I waited until the year was up and went back. 

“But there was a meeting in Birmingham at the Masonic Temple. The Assistant Attorney General of the U.S. was there, and I asked him, ‘If you go to the Board of Registrars, are they required to give you an answer whether you passed or not?’ 

“He said, ‘Yes.’ 

“I told him I had went for the third time and I never had heard anything, but I planned to go back. 

“He said, ‘Date the time and let me know when you go back to make sure that you get an answer.’ 

“So he sent somebody in and they found those records and brought them out to me. And I asked, ‘Did I fail it?’ 

“And they said, ‘No, not on either one. They just got wrote on here Incomplete. Don’t see a damn thing wrong with it except that they don’t want you to become a registered voter.’ 

“That encouraged me all the more to stimulate interest among the others.” 

Sallie expected the school teachers and preachers, traditionally recognized as leaders in the black community, to take the initiative in encouraging blacks to register and vote. 

“The black preachers are always in the pulpit on Sunday and they are preaching from eleven to one about heaven. I said to one of them, ‘I know we live in the hotbed of the Klans and this is the Klan county but you preachers always talking about heaven.’ How could he tell me what was on the other border and he hadn’t been there? And we’re catching hell right here. I said, ‘Preacher, I want some of what you’re preaching about gonna happen over on the other side, right here on earth.’ 

“I was in a meeting of the NAACP and I brought up this issue about what the teachers and preachers weren’t doing. And I remember a woman from Mobile said, ‘Look, if you feel that strongly about it, go back home and get your voter registration campaign ready. Get it organized, and then do what you have to do. If the teachers refuse, and they are the educators shaping minds, and the preachers are teaching you every Sunday and they fail to do it, then stand up, right or wrong. All that you don’t know, just blunder on. Somebody will come to your rescue.’ 

“So we got a campaign of registration underway. From July to November of 1965 we got 800 on the register. Then we got Mr. W.C. Patton of the NAACP Voter Education Project to get federal examiners to come in so we wouldn’t be harassed by the Klans. 

“But one of the federal examiners down there had called the chairman of the board of registrars of Autauga County to tell him how to challenge the federal books to keep us from being on record down there. He didn’t know I overheard him talking about his plan. 

“Now, he was a federal examiner and he was to go up for promotion that Saturday for State Supervisor. Now if he was that low down and he was just a federal examiner, what was he going to do when he got into power? 

“I come on home and I called Mr. Patton in Birmingham, and he was in Texas at Johnson’s ranch. So I put in a call out there. Mr. Patton said, ‘Well, all right, if you’ve got his name, that’s good enough. Me and the President will take care of that right now.’ 

“So that Saturday I was about thirty minutes late getting down to the office and when I got there the federal examiner had already been notified that he wouldn’t be here any longer and he couldn’t figure out the reason why. 

 

Keep Your Identity 

In 1968, Sallie ran for County Commissioner and in 1970, for Secretary of State on the N.D.P.A. ticket. Although she did not win, she said, “I done very well, and that was saying to me right then that if you left a light on the hill that some younger person is gonna be inspired later on to come on and pick this torch up and keep it moving. " 

Sallie takes seriously the idea of setting an example for younger people to follow. Her daughter Nitrician remembers that during her childhood her mother was "the mother of the neighborhood. ” In voter registration drives, she got young black people to leaflet communities and encourage their parents to register and vote. Nitrician also remembers that, after watching the news at night, the family would sit around and discuss what they had heard. So, it was not surprising that, when the “freedom of choice” plan for school desegregation was implemented in 1965, two of the Hadnott children chose to be among the first blacks to integrate Autauga County High School. Sallie recalls how it all began: 

“It wasn’t really my idea when integration came for my children to leave the school they were at. But we were sitting up discussing about freedom of choice and I said, ‘Well, I wonder who’s going.’ 

“My daughter Nitrician, who was in the eighth grade then, said, ‘Mama, don’t fool yourself. If they open that door, I’m going.’ 

“And I said, ‘Well, I won’t say don’t go, but tell me why.’ 

“ ‘Because our school don’t even have accreditation. Down there, if you go to the white school, you can go to the college of your choice. Are you going to fight me?’ 

“I said, ‘No, baby, all that Mama don’t know and you do, tell me, and I’ll back you all the way. You go down there, gal, and don’t try to be white. Just go down there and keep your identity. Let them know that you come from a black school and you appreciate what it had to offer because it was inferior education to start with. And if they ask you what you’re doing down there, tell them you are seeking the same thing that the other segment is seeking so when you get to college you can have any door opened that you want to. And I’m with you all the way.’ That’s all I could do to back her. 

“Her brother James wasn’t going at first. He was making C’s. He was just jiving around and the teachers were using him for an errand boy. But after he found out that the other boys with better grades backed out or were pressured not to go, on the last day to register he said, ‘Mom, that’s my sister who’s going down there to face the world. How about sending my papers on down there.’ I didn’t have but about thirty minutes; so I got my daughter-in- law to run it on down to the court house to the superintendent’s office. 

“The morning that they opened up, every mother that had a child going was giving me a ring to find out if mine were going to still go. I said, ‘By all means, honey!’ And I said,‘If you’re a little nervous, meet me down at the Blue Moon and we’ll line up as a car pool and all motor in together. And that way, if anything happens, somebody will know it.’ So they agreed. 

“I had called the FBI and the newsmen and told them exactly what time we were entering. So we went on down and Chief of Police Claude Burton was there with his big club on his hip. 

“And somebody that was janitoring down there had stopped me on the way and said, ‘Hey, I saw some white boys go over to the park and come back with new baseball bats. And we’re afraid that once the blacks get in, something’s going to break loose down there. I’m telling you this, but don’t tell on me.’ 

“Soon as we rolled up and the Chief was directing us in, I said, ‘Chief, before we loose the children in, I got a tip that there has been brand new baseball bats given to the white youth to beat the blacks up. Since you’re the Chief of Police, I’m letting you know. The burden of responsibility is going to rest on your shoulders. And I’m going to tell the principal the same thing. We’re going to take them on in here and we’re going to loose them. I want you to know as soon as we do, they are you all’s responsibility until they get back to us. I just want to make myself clear.’ 

“One of my older sons had told me, ‘If you send them down there, Mama, get prepared, we’ll have to set up with shot guns at night ’cause some of these Klansmen don’t want this.’ I laughed, I taken it lightly; but did you know it really come to that. 

“My husband and I took turns sitting up at night. They bugged us so with the phone. I didn’t want to change my number. If they found we were going to change it, we’d have to keep changing it. And the last time they called I said, ‘Hello.’ 

“And the voice on the other end said, ‘Well, goddamn, is you still there?’ 

“Yes, and I don’t plan moving anywhere. And if anything comes up there in my yard and squat, I’m going to wipe it with my shotgun.’ That was the last call. 

“We were so hungry sometime. It was rough then. Sometime we’d have only white meat and grits, but we was determined. I went down one time and asked the school principal, Mr. Davis, about giving them food. The free lunch program was on. 

“And I said, ‘You work for the federal government. What I’m doing — promoting citizenship — I’m doing for free because I want to raise the black folks’ standard of living. You all had us in the gullies so long, but we’re gonna rise.’ 

“He said, ‘Well, get your food then.’ “I said, ‘I know the choice is up to you. But that’s all right; we’ll make it.’ 

“Somehow he never did give us any free lunch. But I want you to know when he got ready to run for superintendent of education, he had little enough sense to come back up here and ask for our support. And that was my time that I told him, ‘No way, Mr. Davis. When the choice was yours to give my children food, you refused, when it was many a morning we had grits, gravy, and white meat.’” 

Because of her children's experiences with school integration in Autauga County, Sallie was asked on several occasions to testify before the U.S. Commission of Education in Washington, D.C., concerning problems of educating poor children and improvement of federal education programs. At the end of one hearing in October, 1968, Sallie made the following recommendation: 

“You know, you all make all these good laws and they look good in black and white, and then you place them in the hands of segregationists to implement. Just what kind of justice do you think we are going to get with the segregationists implementing it? With the money you’ve got, why don’t you call a few key people, leaders in each county, that would tell you what’s going on and let them mobilize the students to be in one place. You could get facts from the students.’’ 

The Commissioner made no comment at the time, but in the summer of 1970, Senator Walter Mondale visited the Hadnott home on Easy Street. In Sallie’s kitchen and under the trees in her yard, he listened to black children from across the county as they filed through to tell how they’d been threatened, beaten and sometimes expelled by teachers and school administrators. 

In response to Senator Mondale’s visit, The Prattville Progress, a local newspaper, published a scathing editorial calling Sallie Hadnott 'an uneducated disciple of hate and disorder’ and ‘a resident who continually fights progress. ’ 

Looking to the future, Sallie is interested in starting a school breakfast program for the poor children of the county and in working to get black women on the police force. Now that blacks are on juries, she would like to see monthly workshops conducted to educate jurors about their responsibilities. 

Sallie has worked hard to see that the doors of opportunity are open for blacks, but she is not satisfied simply to have black faces replace white faces in positions of community leadership. She is concerned with the responsiveness of both black and white leaders to the needs of the whole community. “Before blacks were hired on the police force, ’’ she said, “they were screened [by white officials] for the organizations they belonged to, such as the NAACP, and they never chose those recommended by the black community, but only those who would say ‘yes’ and do what they were told." 

Even as Sallie criticizes whites for refusing to work with blacks who are not “yes-men, ’’ she also criticizes blacks, especially elected officials, for failing to stand up for their rights. “If you take their money, it ties your hand. You can't speak freely because you got the man in your pocket and you just can’t say what you want to say. So I don’t have no strings attached to me. ” 

When Sallie, as president of the Autauga County NAACP, was asked by a local radio station to host a Sunday morning show, she replied: “Now, if you think you’re sticking a sugar tit in my mouth to go on the air and not talk about the things I see, you can get somebody else. Because if I see it, I’m going to say it. And I’m going to make sure it’s the truth. ”