Title: North Bolivar County Farm Cooperative Records
Inclusive Dates: 1967-1969

Creator:

• North Bolivar County Farm Cooperative (Mound Bayou, Miss.)

Call Number: Mss 602; Tape 1027A

Quantity: 0.2 c.f. (1 archives box) and 8 tape recordings

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Abstract:

Records of an agricultural and food cooperative organized by black Mississippians in response to the mechanization of cotton farming and problems of unemployment and malnutrition in the Mississippi Delta. Among the records are articles of incorporation, by-laws, minutes of meetings, a progress report, plans, budgets, a membership list, and brochure of the Cooperative; minutes of meetings of “teams” concerned with health care; materials describing the programs of the Tufts-Delta Health Center; and data pertaining to the population and incomes in the Delta. Eight tapes record interviews made by Historical Society staff member Charles Bowden with Cooperative leaders and members.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00602

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The North Bolivar County Farm Cooperative was organized and incorporated by ten farm workers in April 1968 “to promote the general welfare of agriculture in North Bolivar County, Mississippi, and its environs,” and “to cooperate in the productions [sic], processing, packing, distribution, financing and marketing of agricultural products.” The Farm Cooperative's principal place of business was at Mound Bayou, in the Mississippi Delta. Early efforts included farming 80 acres of land donated by the owners for Cooperative use. Among the organization's major goals were helping black farm workers who had lost their jobs following the mechanization of cotton farming, and combatting malnutrition and health problems of area residents. In May 1968 the Cooperative received a federal food demonstration grant, which allowed the hiring of full-time staff to run the Cooperative farm. The organization also worked with the staff at Tufts-Delta Health Center to improve the quality of health care available, and tried to persuade a major food processor to establish a cannery in the Delta.

The collection includes such organizational records of the Farm Cooperative as articles of incorporation, by-laws, a historical sketch, a progress report, plans, budgets, membership lists, and printed brochure, and minutes of meetings beginning with the organizational meeting April 12, 1968. Also present are minutes of Area Teams, which were composed of health care and social services professionals who concentrated their efforts on a particular family or area in the Delta. There are minutes of the River Area Team, East Area Team, and others without identification. Records of the Tufts-Delta Health Center consist of a copy of a grant proposal, October 1968 progress report, two articles by Dr. H. Jack Geiger of the Center, and guidelines for the organization of health groups in North Bolivar County. Also included are data on the population of the Delta area, listing names, addresses, number of family members, and annual incomes.

The eight tape recordings were made during the early summer of 1969 by Charles Bowden of the State Historical Society staff. Bowden interviewed several Farm Cooperative board members and community leaders concerning their work with the organization, their lives, and conditions generally in the Delta. Bowden's field records note that many of the black people interviewed seemed to have a long-held fear of whites, which apparently inhibited them in speaking to Bowden, who was a young white Northerner. Bowden also found that many of the interviewees were reluctant to speak frankly on tape, either from a fear of the equipment or due to apprehension about who might hear the tape and how it might be used. Whatever the reason, Bowden placed the microphone at a distance from several of the speakers, and thus the sound on some of the tapes is impaired. Bowden also noted, “If at times it appears I forced the subject to speak of segregation, poverty, etc., I in turn [was] forced to do this because many black people assume such things are obvious and do not mention them.”

Acquisition Information

Presented by the North Bolivar County Farm Cooperative, Mound Bayou, Mississippi, and recorded by Historical Society staff, 1969. Accession Number: M69-210

Processing Information

Processed by Menzi Behrnd-Klodt, January 1983.

Mss 602 Box   1 Folder   1	Articles of Incorporation, By-laws, Historical Sketch, Report, Plans, Budgets, Lists of Members, Cooperative Brochure, 1968-1969
Box   1 Folder   2	Minutes of Meetings, April 1968-May 1969
Box   1 Folder   3	Minutes of Area Team Meetings, July 1968-January 1969
Box   1 Folder   4	Tufts-Delta Health Center, 1968; and Miscellany
Box   1 Folder   5	Population and Income Data for the Area, 1967-1968
Tape 1027A	Tape Recordings
No.   1 Side   1	Interview, June 11, 1969, with Lucinda Young, Shelby, Mississippi Scope and Content Note: Mrs. Young worked in the Cooperative office and was secretary of the NBC board. Became active in the movement about 3 years prior to the interview, and participated in the Shelby boycott, summer 1968, described by L. C. Dorsey. Described by the interviewer as 45-60 years of age, “volatile,” and somewhat frightened of the tape recorder.
No.   1 Side   2	Interview, June 12, 1969, with Rev. Levi Thomas, Duncan, Mississippi Scope and Content Note: Discusses the early civil rights movement. Described by the interviewer as about 50 years of age, “generally considered a tom” (i.e. “Uncle Tom”), and as very ambiguous about the involvement of ministers in civil rights.
No.   2 Side   1	Interview, June 13, 1969, with Mary Johnson, Winstonville, Mississippi Scope and Content Note: Mrs. Johnson was a board member of the Cooperative, a field worker for the Tufts-Delta Health Center, and a community leader in the Winstonville/Shelby area. Described by the interviewer as aged 50, “peppery,” and cautious on tape.
No.   2 Side   2	Interview, June 13, 1969, with Irene Williams, Mound Bayou, Mississippi Scope and Content Note: Interview is primarily autobiographical, discussing her early marriage, life as a sharecropper, her sense of rural isolation, and work at Tufts-Delta Health Center as a nurses' aide. Described by the interviewer as about 30 years old, beautiful, and intelligent.
No.   3 Side   1-2	Interview, June 14, 1969, with David Caldwell, Symonds, Mississippi Scope and Content Note: Made in a bar. Interview becomes a discussion between Lee Bankhead, a community organizer and Tufts employee, Charles and Zada Bowden, Bob Woods, and Caldwell. Caldwell was a laborer on a rice plantation, and on the tape is criticized for his caution and lack of militancy by Bankhead and Woods. On Side 1 Caldwell denies encountering difficulties with whites, but on Side 2 begins to discuss such troubles. On Side 2, Bankhead critiques federal programs for the poor.
No.   4 Side   1	Interview, June 18, 1969, with Barbara Ross, Mound Bayou, Mississippi Scope and Content Note: Ross was a young nurses' aide at Tufts-Delta Health Center. Mrs. Ross was also a board member of NBC, and on tape discusses the cooperative and her life. Taped in her office at Tufts.
No.   5 Side   1	Interview, summer 1969, with L. C. Dorsey, director trainee of the Cooperative Scope and Content Note: Dorsey became director in August 1969. Described by the interviewer as very militant, Mrs. Dorsey refuses to discuss the Cooperative's disagreements with the federal Office of Economic Opportunity, her vision of black politics, and her vision of herself (“I am a communist, anarchist, and insurrectionist”). She had been dubbed a communist by Mississippi Senator John Stennis. Early in the interview a local black teacher and bar owner, Samuel “Bubba” Jordan interrupts to ask for a job, and subsequently argues with Mrs. Dorsey. Jordan, who had been fired from his teaching position after organizing black teachers, wanted a job as assistant to Mayor Lukas of Mound Bayou. At one point, Mrs. Dorsey turns off the tape recorder to answer Jordan's charges and to give her vision of the future work of the cooperative -- to get all blacks to move onto its land, to cultivate thousands of acres, and to get all of the “pecker-woods” out.
No.   5 Side   2	Interview in the Cooperative's lunchroom with Jim Taylor, a professional social worker and organizer Scope and Content Note: White and in his early 30s, described by the interviewer as very nervous despite his choice of the lunchroom for the interview, Taylor discusses his work as an organizer in rural areas and the problems he encountered as a white man.
No.   6 Side   1-2	Interview, June 16, 1969, with L. C. Dorsey Scope and Content Note: Discussing her childhood, school experiences, marriage, sharecropping work, and civil rights, including the spring/summer 1968 boycott in Shelby, Mississippi. Mrs. Dorsey also discusses the Farm Cooperative, although with some reticence due to her fears of losing OEO funding for the organization. According to the interviewer, off the tape Mrs. Dorsey discussed her distrust of OEO, of the federal government, and of whites in general, and mentioned harassment by the FBI.
No.   7 Side   1-2	Interview, June 17, 1969, with John Brown Scope and Content Note: Discusses his early life, mother and father's working life, and his own work sharecropping. Brown also talks about the quality of his life, dealing with whites, and problems blacks have with whites, including being cheated by whites.
No.   8 Side   1	June 1969, unidentified people Scope and Content Note: An unidentified woman talking about living on Senator Eastland's plantation, her work experience and that of others, and problems of exploitation. Also, an unidentified man discusses life on the Eastland plantation, and a second unidentified man speaks about whites killing blacks and about life in the south.
No.   8 Side   2	People socializing