ABSTRACT

This chapter presents an interview of Mr. Jodie Saffold, Jr., commonly known as "Preacher," who is a proud landowner. He was born in 1930 on a farm near West, Mississippi. He has two sisters and one brother; they all worked on the farm. When he was eighteen, he went into the Army; and when he came out, he bought himself one hundred eighty-two acres of land for sixteen hundred dollars cash. He believes land makes black men powerful, and he was very active in the Civil Rights Movement. Mr. Saffold is the father of three girls. Preacher's wife, Mrs. Virgie Saffold, was also a civil rights activist. She traveled to South Carolina, where she attended a citizenship training workshop. Mr. Saffold was injured by heavy machinery on a pulpwood yard back in the '70s, and he has been limping ever since. But he still works in the field and around the house.