Word: millers
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Other people die in the household. Four weeks ago, a three-month old baby died, lying alone on the parents' bed. The little girl had eaten nothing but pork fat in her short life; Mrs. Miller had no mild of her own to give the baby, and there was no money to buy milk from the store...
...Millers are an extreme case, Not many other families in the Black Belt make much more than Mr. Miller (about $12 a week), but not many families have 23 people to support. Miller himself didn't use to be in such bad condition--it wasn't until 1963 that he started losing children from cold and hunger. Before 1963, the family planted 25 acres of cotton and had enough money to have regular meals and to clothe the children for school...
...state Cotton Office cut off Miller's cotton allotment. Cotton is one of the nation's surplus crops, and each farmer can plant only as many acres as the Cotton Office allows him. Unfortunately, the Cotton Office is run by white Alabamians, and that often means there is discrimination. Miller's allotment went to a white planter in the country--a man who already had more than 300 acres allotted--and Miller's appeal to the Cotton Office brought no results...
...Miller's problems, again, are extreme. Not many families in the Black Belt have seen children starve to death. But malnutrition is nearly universal. Many black families know about children who "can't think right" because of the wrong kind of food; a Dpeartment of Agriculture worker said last summer that somewhere between 20 and 25 per cent of all black children in central Alabama suffer brain damage by the time they are five years old because of protein deficiency. Adult Negroes show the effect of another kind of malnutrition. A diet based on fat and carbohydrate produces bloated, formless...
...Some of the other phases of discrimniation--the black schools that keep churning out under-educated children, the employers who won't hire Negroes--contribute to the poverty, and other parts--segregated night clubs, "No Niggers" signs at YMCA's--almost seem superfluous compared to the poverty. As Silas Miller said, "It wouldn't be so bad if we just wasn't all the time poor...