ABSTRACT
Growing up in Texas, James Farmer saw whites humiliate his father.J. Leonard Farmer was a college professor with a doctorate, butwhites in the Lone Star state still looked down on him. One day, while Dr Farmer was driving his family to a picnic, his car struck a stray pig crossing the road. He drove on, he explained, because ‘out in these rural parts, Negroes are killed for less.’ A pickup truck caught up to the picnickers, and a tall white man carrying a shotgun yelled at Dr Farmer: ‘You done kilt mah hawg, nigger . . . Ah wuz gon show that hawg in the county fair. Y’all gon pay a purty penny fer that hawg.’ To spare his family, Dr Farmer adopted a Sambo pose. He held his straw hat in his hands and looked downward while he apologized and asked how much the hog was worth. When the white man claimed the absurd figure of $45, Dr Farmer handed over his entire paycheck, which the white man let fall to the ground. ‘Pick it up, nigger,’ he ordered the professor. When his father bent over to retrieve the check, Jim vowed angrily, ‘I’ll never do that. . . . They’ll have to kill me.’
