Crooks Autobiography

My name (or the name given to me by the whites I worked with) is Crooks. I lived a fortunate life as a child when my father owned the ranch but as an adult I lived a tough life, a life of hardship, work and oppression. When I was a child I was different, not just because of the colour of my skin compared to the children I played with but also because my father was a landowner, this was very rare for the time. We had about ten acres in Oklahoma, a chicken ranch to be exact. It seemed like just about everything was perfect at the time, if only the colour of my skin was the same as the children I played with, anyway I will continue. The ranch also had an alfalfa patch and a strawberry patch, my brothers would sit on the fence rail and just watch.
Langston and much of Oklahoma was meant to be the blacks great salvation, it was supposed to be America’s only fully black state. It was supposed to be free from the prejudices and brutality that was to be found in the Deep South. Things didn’t work out as they should have, the whites distrusted us and were disgusted at the thought and eventually the communities in Oklahoma become more mixed race, but still better than slavery in the South. As a young kid I was taught to have pride, I was not just the descendant of Slaves but I was the son of a proud landowning black man. I expected to go onto do great things, I though that I would own the farm and run the farm with my brothers after my old man left. I was going to expand the ranch, tend the chickens and then maybe plant some
When we arrived at the Californian border there was a large group of Police, attempting to turn away the so called ‘undesirables’, this included the sick, elderly and coloured. We were also addressed by state troopers (also known as the Bum Brigade) who told all of us that there was nothing for us in California, one man replied “So? Well, you ought to see what they got where I come from”. Life in California was in some ways even worse than back in Oklahoma, the crops were different, jobs were difficult to come by and the racism was extreme. One of my most distinct memories is being my father being told of a ranch near Fresno, by this point we were starving and desperate for some food. My family and I lined up outside the Ranch boss’s office, he needed around 200 men, there were 2,000. The boss told us all that the pay was 20 cents an hour, we left, my father told us to have some dignity, he would not work for that amount. Only around half of everyone left. It was at this point that my brother died of starvation, he was weak and thin and struggling everyday. We couldn’t even give him a proper