Leland, Mississippi: The Village That Raised Me

By Velma P. Allen

Leland, Mississippi. once considered the "Hellhole" of the Delta, transformed itself into a vibrant little community which was able to provide support and encouragement when Velma Allen needed it most. This segregated Mississippi community withheld many basic amenities from her, but because of a determined mother ,her church, teachers, and numerous individuals in the Leland community, she overcame the appalling shortcomings she experienced financially and experientially.

"Leland, Mississippi: The Village That Raised Me" is a personal memoir intertwined with a cultural history. This is an ode to a community and the Christian faith that held it together.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098359294

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Copyright © 2021 by Velma P. Allen

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

without the express written permission of the publisher

except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-09835-928-7 (printed)

ISBN: 978-1-09835-929-4 (eBook)

Allen Perkins Publishing

3810 Wroxton Drive

Flint, Michigan 48532

Bookbaby.com

www.veeallen.com

[e-mail]

DEDICATION

THIS MEMOIR IS DEDICATED TO MY SON, NATHANIEL ALLEN III

You provided the extra incentive for me to save

myself so I could be there for you,

the best thing that ever happened to me.

Acknowledgments

Author Painting by Nathaniel Allen, III

Editing by Velma P. Allen

Some recent Leland photographs by Queosha Thomas

Old photograph of 701 Broad Street by Velma Allen

Photograph of Rex Theater from Library of Congress(Public Domain)

Typing of manuscript by Janice Lullo

Thanks to Cossetta and Barbara for helping to refresh my memory.

Disclaimer

In a few instances, I chose not to use actual names to protect the identity of the person.

I intentionally left out some details which were unnecessary and might have been embarrassing for someone.

My memory may have failed me in a few cases, but I have relied heavily on my memory of events which happened over six decades ago. No harm is intended, and I invite corrections. In some cases, I mentioned my uncertainty.

Literary, grammatical, and other choices made by the author in this document

There are three areas where I believe the reader may be due an explanation of certain grammatical and literary choices:

I have chosen to capitalize the words White and Black when referring to race.

I have referred to some people as Mrs. and others as Miss; some by first names and others by last names. These choices do not denote lack of respect; rather, this is how I spoke of them or addressed them in certain contexts. Also, in the South, it was common to call women Miss along with their first names.

I knew St. Peter Church as St. Peter. Many references online refer to the church as St. Peter’s. I do not know if the name was changed, but the name I used then and continue to use is St. Peter.

Table of Contents

Chapter One: My Intended Audience

Chapter Two: Leland – My Village

A Little History

The Leland I Knew

Chapter Three: Having The Talk in Leland

Chapter Four: My Birthplace – Main Street, Leland

Mr. Whitehead

Chapter Five: My Mother, Annie Mae

Honoring Mama’s Final Wishes

Revisiting Leland

Mama, the Equalizer

Leland Prepared You for the world

My Family Life Quilt

Acknowledging the Village

Chapter Six: Memories of My Daddy, Ike Estes

Selling Peanuts with Daddy on Saturday Night

Making the Rounds at the Leland Compress

Singing at Daddy’s Boss’s Office

Drinking Daddy’s Homebrew

Wondering about Daddy’s Curious History

Drinking Maxwell House Coffee with Mama and Daddy

Bringing Daddy’s Outside Child Home

Daddy’s Other Jobs

Defending Mama’s Honor

Chapter Seven: Living in and Around Leland

Living Briefly on Railroad Avenue

Living in Cary, MS

Living at 126 McGee Street

Becoming an aunt in Leland

My first cousins visit

Christmas with brother Mickey

Mickey and his first saxophone

Starting school

Wearing Adna Mae’s clothes

Getting Our first telephone

Moving up the street on McGee

Living in Kent’s Alley

Living on West Third Street

Living at 701 Broad Street

Chapter Eight: Mama’s Powerful Influence

Dove Soap and Avon Perfumed Deodorant

My First Set of Luggage

The Big Red and Cream Couch

Skeet watching me take company

Chapter Nine: Little Mama, My Grandmother

Grandmother’s House in Eden

Grandmother’s White people

Grandmother’s Husband, Mr. Eddie

Grandmother Moves to Leland

Grandmother Becomes Little Mama

Little Mama’s Death

Son Thomas Inherits Little Mama’s trunk

My Apology to Little Mama

Chapter Ten: Special Members of my Village

Mama’s Friends

Mama’s Special Friend, My Godmother

Mama’s Other Special Friends

Aunt Dood

Miss Rosie (our landlady) and Etta Mae

Emulating Etta Mae

Eating with the Butlers

Taking a bath in the Butlers’ claw-foot tub

Wearing Etta Mae’s clothes

Mrs. G. T. Thomas

Her office, my bedroom

Death cots and playground equipment

Mrs. Thomas, family supporter

Liberated woman

Miss Lucy Vee

Miss Bessie and Miss Berta

Miss Berta’s Beauty Shop

Miss Bessie’s prayers

Miss Bessie comforts Mama

Chapter Eleven: My Earliest Friends

Rose Bell and Delores

Shed and Velmarie

King-Kong – My first Adult Male Special Friend

Chapter Twelve: Friends I Grew up With

Girlfriends

Boyfriends and Dancing Partners

Chapter Thirteen: My First School Memories

Early Years in the Rosenwald Building

Leland Consolidated School District

Walking to School, Crossing Deer Creek

Chapter Fourteen: Memorable High School Events

Breisch High School’s First Yearbook

Homecoming 1957-58

The First Breisch High School Band

Trying out for Girls Basketball

Participating in clubs and organizations

Dramatics Club

Tri-Hi-Y Club

Delivering my Salutatorian Speech

My First Athletic Banquet Date

Breisch High School talent shows

Coleman High School talent show

Seeing my future husband for the first time

Greenville Public Swimming Pool

Senior Prom (Breisch)

Senior Prom in Hollandale(Going Solo)

Greenville Elks Beauty Pageant

Performing in the Community

Chapter Fifteen: Special Teachers who Influenced My Life

Leland Teachers

Mrs. Willie Mimms Powell

Miss Annie Jones

Mrs. Rosa Lee Levison

Mrs. Erma Nolls

Getting in Trouble in the Fourth Grade

Mr. L. R. Fletcher

Mrs. Mary Alma King

Mrs. ReJohnna Brown and Coach William Brown

Mr. John Scott

Mr. Henderson Howard

Chapter Sixteen: Significant Trips/Vacations

Visiting Godmother in New Jersey

Song that haunted me

Returning to Leland

First Trip to Chicago with Al Perkins

Senior trip(includes second visit to Al’s)

Senior trip (Chicago, Detroit, New York, Chicago, Detroit, Washington, D.C. Niagara Falls)

Niagara Falls and Raymond Robinson

Sharing stories and letters with Christine Thomas

Third Visit to Chicago to Visit Al Perkins

Barbara and Me, Chicago 1958

Going to the Regal Theater with Mickey

Singing Debut at Theresa’s Lounge

Preparing to Go to MVC

Chapter Seventeen: Attending MVC – A Historically Black College

Founder’s Day Speech at MVC

Commuting to Mississippi Vocational College

Student Teaching at O’Bannon High School

Choosing to Graduate Early from MVC

Graduating with my B. S. and Mrs.

Chapter Eighteen: Special Teachers at MVC

Mr. H. Lincoln Health

Rev. Fred Matthews and Mrs. Matthews

Mrs. Ratcliff

Mrs. Zelma Howard

Chapter Nineteen: Moving to Belzoni, MS

Big Daddy and Big Mama

Living with the In-laws

A New Sister-in-Law, Denise LaSalle

Teaching in Belzoni

Howard Austin, Lula Brown

Daddy’s Death in Leland

The Al Perkins Band Tours the Delta

Chapter Twenty: Moving Home to Leland

701 Broad-- Again

Moving to 121 Katzenmier Street in New Addition

Teaching in Leland at my Alma Mater

Chapter Twenty-One: Special Places in Leland

The Montgomery Hotel

Mama’s Montgomery Hotel family

Miss Sister Coot

Highway 61 Blues Museum

Pat Thomas-playing for tourists

Asking Eric Clapton about Son Thomas

Chapter Twenty-Two: Special Leland People Who Influenced Me

Marie Smith

Lillie B. Randle Perkins

Reverend and Mrs. Randle

Pink Gorman

Alex Abraham and Son

Carolyn Brown

Teaching Carolyn to drive

Chapter Twenty-Three: My St. Peter Church Memories

Mama’s Funeral-Saddest Day of My Life

Mama’s Burial Place – Delta Memorial Gardens

St. Peter Church Mentors

Mrs. Annie Jones’ Class

James Harris, Beloved Mentor

Mrs. Nona Coleman

Mrs. Nanester Hamilton

Chapter Twenty-Four: Other Community Church Mentors

Mrs. Percy

Mrs. Martha Skinner

Chapter Twenty-Five: Area Civic Voices of Reason

Hodding Carter, Editor, The Delta Democrat Times

Hazel Brannon Smith, Editor: The Lexington Advertiser

Chapter Twenty-Six: Radio Stations serving Leland

Local Popular Music Stations

Late Night Radio Shows, WLAC

WESY

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Entertainment Venues in Leland

Movie Theaters

Juke Joints and cafes

Ruby’s Nite Spot

Social and Fraternal Organizations

Special Events/Shows

Rabbits Foot Minstrel Show

Silas Green from New Orleans Show

Rum Boogie Rooming House

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Shopping with Mama

Trips to Greenville with Mama

Frances Turner shop in Leland

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Significant Leland Landmarks

Deer Creek – And a creek runs through it….

First Babysitting Job on Deer Creek Drive

Getting Engaged on Deer Creek Bridge

Swimming in Deer Creek

Lillo’s Supper Club (Whites Only)

Son Thomas, entertaining patrons

Al Perkins stealing a swim at Lillo’s

Chapter Thirty: Leland Community Development – Housing

School Park Subdivision

McGee Street(Habitat)

Chapter Thirty-One: Medical and Dental care in Leland

Local Doctors

Dental Care

Chapter Thirty-Two: Stoneville Landmarks

Stoneville Landmarks

Experiment Station

Stoneville Cemetery

Daddy and the Stoneville Cemetery

Cemetery ribbons for my hair

Chapter Thirty-Three: Working in the Cotton Fields

Being sprayed with pesticides

Chapter Thirty-Four: Riding with The King (B.B., that is)

Chapter Thirty-Five: Celebrating Birthdays in Leland

Sweet Sixteen Party

Learning to Dance at Jeff Lloyd’s House

Chapter Thirty-Six: Popular Leland and Greenville Stores

Grocery Stores

Clothing Stores

Drug Stores

Sterling’s Five and Dime Store on Main Street

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Black-Owned Businesses(Non-entertainment)

Percy’s Barber Shop

Beauty Shops

Lou Mae’s Grocery

Pickney’s Shoe Shop and Cage’s Cafe

Funeral Homes

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Shopping Experiences in Greenville

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Postscripts About Certain Leland Landmarks

Deer Creek – Kermit the Frog Museum

Hotel Montgomery (a bit more)

Stoneville Cemetery-Many Memories

Leland Cemetery

Delta Memorial Gardens

Leland Train Depot

Main Street

Railroad Avenue

Chapter Forty: Poems I Wrote About Leland People and Places

Poem No. 1

Poem No. 2

Poem No. 3

Poem No. 4

Poem No. 5

Summary

Chapter One:

My Intended Audience

The intended audience for this book is people who love Leland, have pleasant memories of Leland, and will remember with me some of the special people, events, and places in Leland that have influenced my life in small and large ways. Leland is such a small town; I know that other Lelanders will remember many of the same wonderful people who helped make all our lives better.

Additionally, as historians engage in the study of the life and culture of the Delta in the forties and fifties, learning about Black lives from Black people like me may offer some insight. We are often written about, but rarely, it seems, are we deemed relevant and credible enough to describe our own lives. It seems the story is better if it comes from someone who writes about us rather than from our own writings about ourselves.

I hope some of my former students have fond as well as fun memories of Leland and our times together. I also hope they realized then and now that I really was invested in teaching them and helping to broaden their horizons to the extent that I could. My best teaching years were the years I spent in Leland. This is probably because I was a part of that community and had a personal connection with so many of my students. Some of their names I cannot recall now, but I still see their innocent faces sometimes when I reflect those times and they still make me smile.

It is my intent to also honor the many people in the Leland village who took it upon themselves to help monitor our behavior and did not hesitate to chastise us if we were observed being inappropriate. They also made it their business to let our parents, or someone who knew our parents, know about our behavior. My mother’s friends were always looking out for me, always encouraging, and asking questions about how I was doing in school. There is no doubt that they were concerned, even if we sometimes did not appreciate their involvement and their tendency to report our behavior to family. As I think about it, they had no obligation to do any of this; it is just that they felt they had some role in our upbringing, if only to tell on us and correct our behavior, because they were our elders and they wanted to see us grow up properly and become good, sensible adults.

There was a sense of community responsibility for all the children, even when they were not your own and not even related to you. That is what the term It takes a village to raise a child means, I suppose, and in Leland, the village was fully functioning when I was a child and a young adult.

And there were the church leaders and teachers who dedicated so much of their time to helping us grow and develop educationally and spiritually. Church members sponsored programs for us to become involved in, had us learn Easter speeches and Christmas speeches and plays for Holiday programs. They practiced with us and encouraged us to stand before the church audience to say our speeches and perform our plays.

Our teachers, many of whom went to church with us, spent many extra hours sponsoring clubs and talent shows, and hauling us around to other communities to compete with others who acted, sang, or said speeches. They took genuine pride in us and in our achievements and taught us way beyond the confines of the used textbooks sent over to us from the White school across town, which were used for their classes. They taught us about life, about manners, about respect, about decorum and pride in ourselves and our accomplishments. It is now in looking back and having lived long enough to understand the magnitude of their gifts, that I want to have it known that I appreciate what they did for us and what they meant to me.

I am also celebrating many of the friends and acquaintances who were a part of my life back in my Leland days. I have very fond memories of so many of them and I would guess that they have no idea how much they meant to me and how fondly I think of them now. How unusual is it that I liked every one of my classmates? There was not one of my classmates who was mean or cruel and for whom I have negative memories or thoughts. There were other kids at school in higher or lower grades with whom I may have had negative experiences here and there, or who may have written ugly things on the bathroom wall about me, but none of them were my classmates and the perpetrators were few and far in between.

I admired some of my classmates from afar, and some of them were in the immediate circle of friends that I spent the most time with. When I think of them today, there is always something special about each of them that I recall, whether it was a smile or a kind gesture, or a happy greeting (like they were glad to see me) or a word of support when I needed it. Now that we are all getting older, I am always interested in finding out where they are and how they are doing. Whenever I can find information about them, I am always interested and concerned. I love to hear when they are doing well, and I am saddened to hear of their problems or their passing on.

It is good to have those special memories to warm my heart, and I hope my friends and acquaintances will enjoy reminiscing with me as they read this book. I hope they treat it as an extended community yearbook and will write their notes in the margins and between the lines and pass it on to their children and grandchildren. We had some great times together in Leland and it helps to remember those times in this strangely dark period we are experiencing in 2020.

It is interesting to me that after writing my previous book, which is steeped in Leland details, I thought that I could move on past the relationships between my mother and my brothers and me to other ideas like self-help, poetry, business ideas and such. However, here I am feeling the need to talk about Leland -- people, places, and events -- especially, the people who influenced my life when I grew up there, and also when I returned to live there as a young teacher, working at the school where I graduated in 1958 as high school salutatorian. It is as though I cannot leave Leland and Leland will not leave me.

But I will focus this time on other people I knew and cared about – the ones who lifted me up and encouraged me. Although most of them are long gone, maybe some of their surviving relatives will appreciate hearing something kind about their loved ones. Even if they are indifferent to these tidbits of information about their relatives, I pay tribute to them anyway. Someday they may look back on this effort with belated interest.

This is my way of saying Thank you and easing my own mind. At least I am emptying my personal reservoir of memories and emotions that are blocking my efforts to focus on or write about anything else except an occasional set of song lyrics. I suspect it is that at my age, I am beginning to think more about my mortality and the need to leave something behind – even if it is only words.

I remember Mitch Albom writing about the Five People You Meet in Heaven which I once paraphrased in a speech I made to the members of the Lelanders Club in Detroit. I talked about groups of people who influenced my life significantly in Leland. This is my tribute, my way of saying Thank you and perhaps my way of saying goodbye. I have lived in a few other places in the Mississippi Delta and elsewhere, but at this point and in this book, my focus is Leland because that is where I was born and where much of who or what I have become was instilled in me. Whether Leland prepared us for the world or not, as someone once said, it certainly shaped us – especially me.

Map of Leland

Chapter Two:

Leland – My Village

Leland was a pretty little town, I always thought. Traveling back there in recent years, I cannot help but wonder what happened to it. It seems so small and desolate in comparison to the way it looked years ago. I know that many of the people I grew up with moved away, but many others stayed and worked there to make things better for those who came along after us.

There used to be a sign just off of Highway 82 as you approached the right turn onto Broad Street (Highway 61) that said 5,000 nice people and a few old soreheads. I used to smile at that sign. I knew many of those nice people. I knew some of the soreheads too, but they only warrant a passing mention here or there since they are not a happy part of my memory bank. The sign is no longer there, and the population has dwindled significantly in recent years.

A Little History

Leland, Mississippi was founded in 1886 and located on the western side of the state, about 85 miles southeast of Pine Bluff Arkansas and 130 miles south of Memphis. Leland had something of a bawdy reputation back in the day. It was said by some of the older folks that women were afraid to let their husbands go to the Delta because they might not ever return, due to all the loose women reported to be there. Raising cotton was the dominant trade, and the fact that Leland was a railroad town contributed to its lifestyle and culture.

According to some accounts, Leland was considered the hellhole of the Delta at one time, but was eventually cleaned up by its residents, who turned the city’s famous Deer Creek into a showplace, especially at Christmastime when beautiful floats decorated the Creek. Many beautiful homes are located along its banks.

A number of well-known people grew up or lived in Leland at some point, like Thelma Houston, Jim Henson, Johnny Winter, Leo Smith, in addition to my brothers Al Perkins and Son Thomas.

Growing up there in the 1940’s and 1950’s, I was unaware of the hellhole designation, but I was aware that there were many juke joints, much partying, plenty of blues music, and much cotton picking.

The Leland I Knew

Leland was considered a fairly liberal Delta town where race relations were not all that bad, and everyone seemed to get along. We lived separately, worshipped separately, and all that, but there was not a lot of overt hostility – at least not that I can remember. There were many subtle and not so subtle reminders of who we were supposed to be and where our places were, but we had ways of thinking around those reminders and looking forward to a future which we could help create in spite of what we were reminded of on a constant basis. There were people around us telling us that there was a way forward and we could navigate that way forward skillfully if we prepared ourselves. We believed that.

We were taught that what happened to us in life had as much to do with how hard we worked, whether we got a good education and carried ourselves well as intelligent, respectable girls – as anything else. How smart our parents were to insist that the answer to our succeeding in the kind of society that we grew up in was within us and not totally dependent on others. If we had believed that it was up to others to fix our situation, we would still be waiting and would probably have given up a long time ago.

In Leland, when my friends and I saw things that did not make sense, we would talk about these things and conclude that there were some people around us who had serious problems. While you had to be mindful of that, it did not mean that there was anything wrong with us. In fact, we were sure there was nothing wrong with us.

We used to talk about how ridiculous it was that we could prepare meals for our White community members but were not clean enough to sit beside them in restaurants; we could keep their babies, but we were not clean enough to sit beside them? What could require more cleanliness than preparing your food and keeping your baby? It was amazing to me that most of the people I knew were not overt racists. We were never taught to hate White people or anyone else. There were too many people of all races that were decent people. It would have been easier, perhaps, to just lump everyone who looked a certain way into one category as bad people who were out to hurt us than to use our brains and our common sense to figure out that not all White people were out to hurt us and similarly, not all Black people were out to help us. People were people and you had to take them individually.

My mother explained away the unexplainable by saying simply, That’s how it is.

Chapter Three:

Having The Talk in Leland

Today, we often hear people asking Black people – especially mothers – about The Talk we are all supposedly having with our sons to keep them alive. Of course, we – daughters and sons – were given the facts of our situation: there were people around us who held hatred in their hearts for us and anyone else who shared our skin color, but they were definitely in the minority. We also imagined that many of them were forced to act certain ways because of their own family pressures, societal pressures, and such. Those people were denied their rights too because they were imprisoned by the bigoted ideas that they were taught or that they had to pretend they believed.

But we were also taught that most people respected hard work, civility, and good manners. We were taught to exemplify all those qualities in addition to watching out for the misguided souls who held all these irrational views and wanted to hurt other people for no reason other than the color of their skin. We were not taught to hate people of other races or religions. There were too many kind people all around us of all races and nationalities all around us.

Lessons were woven into our daily interactions with each other and with the White people we might encounter in one way or another. For example, I remember walking downtown Leland on Saturday night with Mama when we were met by some young teen-aged White girls who were approaching us on the sidewalk. Mama said to me, Move over so they can pass by. I said, Mama why do we have to move over, and they didn’t?

She said, That’s how it is. I never understood.

I still have a complex about the practice of moving over for other people to pass by. I know that this is a holdover from my youth, when I was nine or ten and my mama had to practically get off the sidewalk so these teens could pass by because they were White. They fully expected us to move over, and we did.

That seems such a small thing, but it had such a profound effect on me that to this day, I tense up inside when I am directly approaching someone who is not making a move to share the space equally with me. I refuse to move all the way over when approaching people coming from the opposite direction. I move some of the distance over and fully expect them to move some of the distance the other way unless they are little children or the elderly.

It has nothing to do with hating them, but more to do with my silent statement that You are not worth more than I am; we are equals and we are both entitled to that space.

I will also defer out of consideration for persons who have some legitimate reason for not being able to share the space which we are about to be in, but not just because of race.

I also recall Mama buying something in the ten-cents store (what we called the Sterling Five and Dime store on Main Street in Leland), as we were being waited on by a young, teenaged White girl. Mama responded to a question she asked by saying Yes ma’am.

I said, Mama why are you saying Yes ma’am to her? She is just a girl.

Mama said, Yes, but she is a little missy girl and we have to start saying Yes ma’am to them when they get to be little missies. I thought, She is a girl like me – a little older, but still a girl."

This made no sense to me. Yes ma’am to grown women made sense, but now my mother had to say, Yes ma’am to these young girls instead of the other way around?"

Mama explained away all kinds of things by saying, That’s how it is.

Yes, there were always talks and explanations and discussions, woven casually into our day-to-day life experiences. There was no one Talk. There were many Talks. I have always wondered, however, What kinds of discussions were White people having with their children?

Today, as we are all talking about how Black mothers must explain all these things to their Black children, I am wondering if White mothers are having The Talk with their children and when White woman are going to start having The Talk with their fathers and brothers, husbands, uncles, and grandfathers.

Are they going to have The Talk with their daughters about showing respect to others and being careful about the kinds of men they bring into their lives who may be fathering their children and teaching them this ridiculous hatred? Do they worry about grooming another generation of killer cops, lynchers, bad politicians and the like ,whose goal in life is keeping their knees on the necks of people who are less fortunate than they are, who have a different skin color, come from a different country of origin, or some other asinine thing that, they believe, gives them rights and privileges that some of us should not enjoy?

Why must the onus continue to be on those of us who are Black to teach the victims of this hatred how to be better victims and explain that this is how you stay out of trouble and maybe even stay alive?

I have heard so many people casually dismiss the prejudices shown by the men in their lives and explain that this is just the way they are. I’ve been to homes where the wife has said, Don’t mind my husband; he is prejudiced, but I am not like that. I have had good friends explain that their fathers are racist, and they had to tell them that if they offended me, they would not tolerate their racist behavior. Do White wives and mothers try to explain right and wrong to these men they sleep with, eat with, give birth to, raise, and spend most of their time with? If not, what does it say about them that they do not have