Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2023/Fall/Section20/W.A. Suiter

Overview

W.A. Suiter was a part-time worker who lived in Seaboard, North Carolina. This biography is based on an interview for the Federal Writers' Project conducted July 31st, 1939, by Bernice K. Harris.

Biography

Early life

Walmus A. Suiter was born in 1892 at the Bridgers house in North Carolina. His father, Alec Suiter, did public work as well as sharecropping. Suiter began farming with his father at the age of twelve, and the family moved around every four years to sharecrop at different farms. Suiter had ten siblings, two of whom died in the same week from influenza. Suiter's education ended at the fourth grade level. He did not get drafted to the first World War because of an accident he had as a child. He hit himself with an ax in the eye, and had only been able to see out of one eye ever since. At some point in his young life, he married Dezzie Daniel. After 11 months of marriage, however, Daniel's wife "stole her away" from Suiter, and they had been separated since then.

Later life

Home life

Suiter lived with his two unmarried sisters, one of whom was sick and needed care. His sister Mary cooked, and he provided the rations. His six other siblings were married and lived elsewhere. He liked to travel but had not been able to go anywhere further than Baltimore, MD. He attended Bethlehem Seaboard church, which cost him $2.50 a year plus money for Sunday clothes. When not at work, Suiter liked to drink, dance, and listen to music. However, after his boss-men had scolded him for smelling like alcohol at work, Suiter decided to drink less.

Suiter experienced an odd occurrence three weeks before the interview. In the middle of the night, he heard his father's voice calling for him to open the door. He opened it but did not see his father's spirit. He claimed to have seen the spirits of two people he had known before they died.

Working life

When Suiter turned eighteen, he began working on railroads, laying rails and ties, cutting paths for the loggers, and "skeeter work," which entailed tying a rope to a log and hauling it from the woods to the railroad. After a year, he got a job in Virginia where he did similar work but instead with machinery. During this time he lived in "shanties," or communal living spaces, and was paid $1.25 a day. Whatever money that was saved between the workers was used on drinking after work hours. After this, he went to work in Weldon, North Carolina as a saw-miller for $1.50 a day, unable to accumulate any savings throughout the year.

Florida migrant workers in Shawboro, NC, heading to New Jersey.

In 1916, Suiter began working at the cotton gin in Seaboard, North Carolina. This job was available year-round, as he worked ginning cotton from September through December and sawing and planing lumber from January through August. He was required to work around machinery and spoke about being very careful not to get hurt, for he had seen colleagues get hurt before. In 1922, his "boss-man" had to cut the lumber aspect out of the work, so Suiter could only work for four months out of the year. He became the head gin man and stayed working this job for twenty years. His responsibilities included running the machinery, packing and weighing the cotton, and marking each bale with the owner's name. This was a lot of pressure on him, but he did not seem to mind it, as he claimed that "everything [got] on very nice." Suiter had to work long hours during the "rush season," switching out with other workers to take naps throughout the shifts. During these times, he made on average $5.00 a day (including overtime pay). At the time of the interview, he was only making $2.00 a day- however, he claimed that he was satisfied with this. He had never had a bank account because he was never able to save up any money. After the four months of cotton ginning, Suiter searched for any odd job that he could do, from cutting grass to working in the field. During these eight months, Suiter was scarcely able to make nine dollars a month. As he looked toward his future, Suiter hoped for nothing more than breaking even by keeping a steady summer job.

Political life

Suiter talked about the way his boss-man helped him get out of a run-in with the law. There was a fight over tickets at a function at the "colored" school, and the police went and arrested Suiter, who was not involved in the conflict. His "boss-men" at the time got him out of jail for $240. Suiter was confident that his "boss-men" would not let him go hungry, and he adamantly rejected the notion of welfare. Suiter had never voted before, claiming that the "thing we got to do is keep straight, and let the white man run it." He did not feel that it was worth it to advocate for himself because he was busy looking for jobs and making money for himself and his family.

Social Context

The Great Depression and Industrialization in North Carolina

Cotton gin at Dahomey, Mississippi.

The early 1900s saw an increase in black tenant owners. However, when the Great Depression began, many blacks were forced to become homeless and unemployed. A letter written to Guy B. Johnson, a sociologist with a PhD from UNC-Chapel Hill, states, "Half of the Negro workers in North Carolina are in agriculture, and 90 percent of these are farm tenants or laborers. Here again we see that the Negro is a marginal man and is especially vulnerable to shifting conditions in agriculture." The marginalization that black people had already faced for centuries was made worse by the Great Depression. The implementation of machinery such as the cotton gin increased the possibility of injury and reduced the need for farm laborers, most of whom were black. While blacks that lived in cities faced economic hardships during the Great Depression, the effects of cotton prices dropping along with the increased use of machines had heavier impacts on blacks living in the South." Even farmers with jobs could not expect to be employed the whole year. Job security was already low for the American population, but it was even lower for Black Americans.

Social security for black people in the 1930s

Social security for black people during the Great Depression was largely unavailable. "As of 1935 no Southern state had passed any pension legislation, and the aged poor in the South had only the poor law." Three fifths of black workers worked in agricultural and domestic labor. The unemployment title and the old age insurance title of the Social Security Act excluded this kind of labor, which meant that most blacks were not covered by either program. The white people in power manipulated laws to make it so that black people had no social mobility- blacks were the last to be considered for "respectable," skilled jobs. Those in power did not want black children to be subsidized, as they would become more independent and not want to work the lower-paying jobs. This caused many black workers to either work undesirable jobs or be forced into unemployment.

Black voters and the New Deal

During the 1930s, black people increased their voting turnout and were a crucial factor in electing democratic candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt. While black voters had generally voted for the republican party since Lincoln's presidency, Roosevelt's "purpose" and "program" convinced black voters to switch parties. Roosevelt's plans, however, did not include advocating for passing the federal anti-lynching law or getting rid of the poll tax. He needed the Southern Democrats' support so that he could pass the New Deal. While his New Deal program gave black people economic assistance, it did not do much to combat discriminatory practices in the United States. Because the program was administered at a state level, it was up to each state to decide how to implement it. This allowed the discrimination of the Jim Crow era to flourish under Roosevelt's presidency. Despite the shift in the political field, blacks continued to be the most oppressed group during a period of extreme poverty.

References

Amenta, Edwin, and Bruce G. Carruthers. “The Formative Years of U.S. Social Spending Policies: Theories of the Welfare State and the American States During the Great Depression.” American Sociological Review 53, no. 5 (1988): 643. https://doi.org/10.2307/2095814.

Johnson, Guy B. “The Negro and the Depression in North Carolina.” Social Forces 12, no. 1 (1933): 103–15. https://doi.org/10.2307/2570124.

Klein, Christopher. “Last Hired, First Fired: How the Great Depression Affected African Americans.” History.com, 2018. https://www.history.com/news/last-hired-first-fired-how-the-great-depression-affected-african-americans.

Trotter, Joe William. “African Americans and the Industrial Revolution.” OAH Magazine of History 15, no. 1 (2000): 19–23. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25163396.

Ulrich, Sarah. “The Great Depression & Farmers in North Carolina.” ArcGIS StoryMaps, November 29, 2021. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/492a28f38d7a462ca28e4c668cc73df5.

"W.A. Suiter" interview by Bernice k. Harris, date July 31, 1939, Folder 448, Federal Writers' Project #3709, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.