Former Sharecropper Delen Lee remembers his mother’s love since childhood

By Janice K. Neal-Vincent, Ph.D.,
Contributing Writer,

Sharecropping was a post-Civil War Economy that emerged when the plantation economy and the need of labor collapsed. Largely a southern act of living and labor, the system had an exploitative nature – often called “slavery rerouted” or a form of “financial prison.” This system set out to hold Black families, in particular, hostage by keeping them in poverty, controlling them, and keeping them dependent. During the 1940s, increased mechanization and better economic opportunities in cities occurred, and sharecropping began to disappear.

Jackson resident Delen Lee recently shared his sharecropping years and years thereafter during a face-to-face interview. He said that times were tough. The family lived in a rough wooded house with a corrugated tin roof. The house had no gas, no lights, no tv, no radio, no water, and no toilet. There was, nonetheless, an outhouse.

“Something like a gutter ran down the house, which is how we got our water,” said Delen. From there, the family collected their water that flowed in cans. That water was for drinking, cooking, bathing, and cleaning. Early-on, Delen’s father David Lee deserted the family, leaving his mother (Vergie Mae Lee), him and his 11 siblings in the sharecropping system to fend for themselves. Eventually, his brother Louis left for New Orleans, LA, and his sister Bennie Mae moved to Jackson and married thereafter.

“Whenever I go to Flora off highway 22 and look at those fields, I feel myself working there. When we left Flora, I was around four-years-old. Our mother told me I was going to the cotton field. She told me to bring the cotton. I picked it and put it in the sack. I got hot, and she told me to get on the sack. I laid on it, and I asked her were we ever going to get to the end of the row. She said, ‘Don’t worry. We’re going to get there when we get there.”
Delen accentuated that he, his siblings, and his mother were poor. The family continued to work as sharecroppers when they left Flora and settled in Jackson. They labored as sharecroppers for 15 or 20 years.

The interviewee shared that Ms. Lee had a third-grade education, but she knew how to make ends meet. A professional cook, she would cut a chicken and make a six-course meal. “We ate commodity cheese and meat from the government, and our mother could make them last. Some of our friends would come by our house and ask us to ask our mother to fix them a plate. Somehow, she always had enough to share with others in the neighborhood,” he mentioned.

“Our mother worked at Rhodes Cleaners on Woodrow Wilson beside AutoZone. Seven of us and our mother lived on Elm Street (Elm Court off Pleasant Avenue) in a small, one-bedroom apartment with a kitchen, a front room, and a toilet. We made pallets. I don’t know how we made it, but our mother made us feel like we were rich.

Delen remembered when the landlord came to the house and told Ms. Lee that they had to move because she fell behind in paying the $6 monthly rent. She wept a long time. Although some of the oldest brothers tried to work and keep the apartment, the family had to move anyway. “Our mother told us that God was going to bless us. She was a strong mother who believed in Jesus Christ,” he said.

One day Delen heard Ms. Lee talking in her room behind the closed door. “I thought she was fighting with somebody, but when I got older, I found out that she was talking to Jesus. Approximately six months after she was praying, a white man from the federal government came to the house and asked if she was Ms. Vergie Mae Lee. He then asked what was her occupation. ‘I’m a sharecropper,’ she proudly stated. Mama had nothing to be ashamed of, for she was a hard worker. The visitor told her that our daddy had passed and she was going to get a check for every kid that they had.”

Delen recalled that his mother started shouting and calling Jesus. She purchased a new home at 3546 Newman Ave. “The house was built by Jim Walker, and our mother told us to never forget where we came from. She planted a garden in the back yard and roses in the front yard.”

While reflecting on the trials and tribulations of life, Delen was quick to acknowledge that his mother had power. “She believed in faith, and all of us stayed in that house until we got grown.” He further expressed that everybody in the neighborhood knew Ms. Vergia Mae Lee, a “cornerstone” and a giving person who died when she was 86.

Deacon Delen Lee and his wife, Deaconess Shelor Louise Lee, are members of Friendship Baptist Church (2948 Bailey Ave., Jackson, MS 39213, shepherded by Pastor Joshua E. Myers). Deacon Lee is a security guard, and Deaconess Shelor Louise Lee is a care giver. They work with many children and have four adult children: Alyson Lee; Delen Lee; Jr., Nancy Lee; and Laquita Lee.