Sun up to Sun Down

By George L Oby

Sun up to Sun down is a story about the son of a sharecropper, named Leotis. Sharecropping was a system designed after the Civil War ended, by plantation owners. Under this system the rich got richer while the poor remained poor. It continued many years after the Civil War ended. This is not your typical down on the farm story. The field hand worked in the cotton fields, chopping cotton from sunrise tjo sun set. Some elderly field hands would say that one had to work from dusk til dawn, or until it was too dark for anyone to see what they were doing. Afield hands arms and shoulder muscles ached daily from the constant use of picking and chopping cotton from five or sometimes six days a week. This Story focuses on Leotiss hardships sometimes comical and mysterious situation which happened during his life on the plantation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 8, 2004
• ISBN: 9781456725341

George L Oby

George Oby , U S Army Retired was born October 18, 1949 to George & Francis Oby in Tunica country Mississippi. Oby was a Professional Soldier who fought in the Vietnam War, and is now a Vietnam Veteran. He Retired from the U S Army in 1991.  He wrote sun up to sun down based on his personal adolescence experiences while living in the deep south. All events and situations are true, only the names are changed.  Sun up to Sun down is a story about the son of a share cropper, name Leotios.  The story focuses on Leotis’s hard ship & sometimes comical and mysterious situations.  He encountered during his life time while living on various plantations.  Oby is also the Author of “U S Army A Wise Choice”, which was published by Publish America at: www.publishamerica.com in February 2004.

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Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

BIOGRAPHY

ALBERTA HENRY ADAMS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

To my wife, Charlotte Oby, and children

Gergustia, Vincent , Amber, & Obadiah.

Thanks for loving and believing in me.

Pastor & Mother Hollins, Min. Willie & Lisa Robinson

Nancy, my Aunt and Uncle Sylvester & Annie Mae Dupree, Lee Floyd Oby,

Larry J. Oby, Oscar & Katie Oby, James & Darlene Oby , Lena B. Brown,

Lucy B. Oby, Delores Oby, Roy Ross, Juan Burns, Melvin Ward, James Ross,

David Patrick , Cadell Keys, Ieshea Hollins, Michael Seay, and Marilyn Wilson.

&

Living Gospel Church Family

I appreciate all your prayers, hard work in helping

put this together, and continued faith in my endeavors.

CHAPTER I

The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 supposedly ended slavery, but life on the plantations was harsh. Blacks were still being hanged, whipped, oppressed, raped, and threatened by white people. The law existed on paper but it was not strictly enforced. Hundreds of thousands of freed slaves continued to live on plantations throughout the Deep South after the Civil War ended. The majority of ex-slaves were afraid to leave the plantations because it was the only life they knew and they didn’t know how to do any other type of work. Ex-slaves were poor and uneducated. Many other ex-slaves were afraid to leave the plantations because they had a fear of the unknown. However, a large number of freed slaves did leave the plantations with only a few meager possessions , traveling north where they felt that a better opportunity awaited them.

Thousands of ex-slaves were fortunate enough to enlist in the United States Army at the end of the Civil War. I say fortunate because at least their basic needs were met - food, shelter and clothing. Blacks have fought in military conflicts since Colonial Days. Blacks fought for the Union Army as well as with the South. The blacks that fought with the Confederacy had been so indoctrinated with deception, false information and lies that they did not realize that they were fighting to keep themselves in slavery.

During this time Congress passed an act authorizing the establishment of the first all-black units of the military, two cavalry and two infantry units later to become known as Buffalo Soldiers. The Buffalo Soldiers, comprised of many former slaves, freedmen and black civil war soldiers, were charged with the responsibility of escorting settlers, cattle herds and railroad crews. The 9th and 10th cavalry regiments were the most famous regiments of the Buffalo Soldiers. The Buffalo Soldiers were segregated units commanded by a white officer.

These regiments conducted campaigns against the American Indians and fought over 177 engagements. The nickname Buffalo Soldier was originally given to the 10th Cavalry by the Cheyenne Warriors out of respect for their fierce fighting in 1867 on the battlefield. The Indians respected the black soldiers for their courage and fearlessness, qualities they found in the buffalo. They also thought the soldiers hair resembled the tuft between the horns of the bison.

One female, an ex-slave named Cathay Williams, became a Buffalo Soldier. She was born in 1842 outside Independence, Missouri, and had been a house girl for a wealthy farmer . Initially, she served as a cook for the Union troops after the Civil War started. Cathay was an excellent cook. She had been a house girl for a wealthy farmer and was taken to Little Rock, Arkansas, by the Union Army. Cathay dutifully served the Army in the capacities in which she was assigned, traveling with the army all around the South and later to Washington where she served as a cook and laundress for a General and his staff. The General and his staff were well pleased with the fine meals Miss Williams always prepared. Cathay was no longer a slave so she was paid for her services which helped her develop a sense of independence.

Cathay lived by two principles that were very important to her: she must provide a living for herself and she must not be dependent on others. So she enlisted in the army in November of 1866, as William Cathay. Since no medical examinations were required, Cathay was able to disguise herself as a male. Only two other people knew Cathay’s secret and they both kept it. Undoubtedly, she was an extremely brave lady to perform such tasks as riding horses on the open range and sleeping on the ground in a blanket or tents with the possibility of being captured and tortured or even killed by Indians. Cathay Williams was discharged on October 14, 1868.

Prejudice and discrimination was wide spread in the army. Black soldiers were not issued the best equipment and their pay was not equal to the white soldiers. They were not allowed to enter white-owned establishments, such as bars, restaurants, hotels and saloons. A white company commander, Lieutenant Edward Heyl, of the 9th Cavalry Regiment openly displayed his racism. In 1867 he named his black horse Nigger and treated black soldiers with open contempt and physical abuse. He was a man of limited education, deep prejudices and an abiding taste for liquor. The company commander killed two of his own men supposedly to put down a mutiny. The officer only received a reprimand. We could say that he got away with murder.

Black soldiers endured racial prejudices and discrimination for many years, but a great change eventually took place. By the end of the Korean War, the entire United States Armed Forces had been integrated. It was the end of all black units. However, prejudices and discrimination continued for many more years.

The picture of the two elderly couple on the front cover of this book are my paternal great, great grandparents. They were ex-slaves and became sharecroppers after the Civil War ended. If you look very closely at their picture, you will notice that their clothing was not in the best condition. It was typical of slaves and ex-slaves who were often ragged and hungry. I never knew anything about my great, great grandparents or the kind of life they lived as slaves. I only knew what my father told me about them. My father told me that his grandfather often told him about the many years of hardship that he endured as a slave. His grandfather told him of the brutality, mental and physical abuse he endured starting at a young age at the hands of the white overseer. To actually get an idea of what slavery was really like, one should read Twelve Years A Slave by Solomon Northrup. It is a very powerful book filled with stories of hardship, beatings, lynching, and killings. In his book, Solomon Northrup wrote about a conversation which took place between his master and an associate. In Solomon Northrop’s presence, his master described a black slave as being nothing more than a baboon, the only difference being that a slave could talk. And that was exactly the way his master treated his slaves, like animals.

Solomon Northrup generalized that white people looked upon slaves and only saw animals. If you were an obedient and excellent worker, you were considered to be a prized animal. In my mind, I have always wondered why so many black females were raped and impregnated by white males if black people were considered to be only animals. Even more puzzling, why would anyone beat and mistreat an individual and force that person to prepare and cook his meals. God only knows what foreign matter may have accidentally or otherwise fallen into your food. Some people can be awfully vengeful if provoked. I have even read a few cases of masters being poisoned by their slaves. I must warn you that if you have a care and concern for your fellow man, it is hard to read certain chapters in Solomon Northrup’s book, Twelve Years a Slave without becoming emotional effected with feelings of anger and sadness.

In spite of all the misery and suffering Northrup endured during his enslavement, he stated that not all slaves were mistreated or abused. On another plantation, he noted that one young mistress was actually loved by her slaves. The plantation was an inheritance from her parents. She never had her slaves whipped. They were well fed and clothed and she always spoke kindly to them. This was an exceptionally rare situation considering all of the sad stories I have read and heard about slavery.

The book gives a first hand account of what life was like as a slave. It is a true story of a free black man who was kidnaped, drugged and sold into slavery. Solomon Northrup was an intelligent, educated and talented man at a time when it was unlawful to teach blacks how to read and write. Solomon Northrup never let his master or overseers know that he could read and write because he knew it would have cost him his life. Ultimately, it was education that helped free him from slavery.

I would like to take this opportunity to speak on a subject which I feel is very important – education. It is disappointing to see so many potential great minds being wasted away today. An alarming number of our youth are standing on street corners, refusing to attend school; and others that are enrolled in school are not serious about their studies, especially our young black males. These young people reject the very thing that kept our forefathers in bondage many years after being freed from slavery. Education was not considered to be important for our forefathers. An educated black male or female was viewed more or less as a threat by many whites. Black people had always been judged to be inferior by the majority of whites. It was far from the truth, but sadly that stigma still persists in the minds of many white Americans today. Besides having a deep hatred and resentment of black freed slaves, white Americans feared that black educated people would take over their jobs and professions. Moreover, they just didn’t want black people around. Often blacks pretended to be ignorant because the majority of them understood that was the way many white Americans pictured them to be and that assumption pleased whites.

Even though many blacks understood the value and power of a higher education, our ancestors were primarily concerned with the basic necessities in life. The system was designed to keep blacks in ignorance so they could only perform jobs that required manual labor serving as field hands, sharecropping and housemaids. Some blacks did receive a good education and college degrees, however, the majority of them lived in the northern part of the United States.

By failing to obtain an education, we limit ourselves in the things we can do in life, the goals we can obtain. We cannot fully function on our own and have to depend on others. In other words, we are not fully independent. Today, with an education one can achieve great opportunities of advancement – opportunities which were denied our forefathers, opportunities that they could only dream about. Many of them prayed and sacrificed themselves for the benefits that we enjoy today. It is a well-known fact that everyone does not possess the same capabilities. It could be a physical or a mental handicap. We cannot all be doctors, lawyers, teachers or scientists. But we can try to obtain the best education possible.

I strongly believe that some people possess a God-given talent. I cannot prove it and I am quite sure there are those that would not agree with me. I say God-given talent because no one can explain how these people achieve such talent without any type of formal training or an education. I am positive that they encountered obstacles and disappointments in their lives, but they never gave up their goals or dreams in life. I have known people who could not read or write do amazing things. They were mechanics, musicians and artists. Then again, I have known people who were highly educated and talented. They were blessed. I feel that we