It’s Cotton Blossom Time

By S. Earl Wilson III

S. Earl Wilson III is the author of eight books prior to this one. All his previous books, with the exception of two, have been fiction. In this book, this Mississippi writer, a Morehouse College graduate, pens a uniquely loveable and humorous recollection of the travels and adventures of the renowned Cotton Blossom Singers of the Piney Woods School of Piney Woods, Mississippi, during the fifties. Here, he invites you to travel along, sing, endure the hardships and pain, and rejoice in the success of these six special young girls as they pave the road for the benefit of others.

This story is not a must-read––it is a should-read. You’ll be elated if you do and sorry if you don’t!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796014587

S. Earl Wilson III

S. Earl Wilson, III comes from a family of educators. His father, a Morehouse College honor graduate, was a high school principal while his mother taught English. He was born and raised in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1955. He was the first African-American to get a master’s degree in science from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1970. He has taught science both in Mississippi and Rockland County, New York, for a total of forty years. During those years of teaching, he has also coached baseball, football, basketball, tennis, girls fast-pitch softball, wrestling, track, soccer, and volleyball. He attributes his tireless working habits as “taking after his daddy.”

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Copyright © 2019 by S. Earl Wilson, III.

Library of Congress Control Number:        PENDING

ISBN:                    Softcover                               978-1-7960-1459-4

                              eBook                                    978-1-7960-1458-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 02/06/2019

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CONTENTS

Biography

Foreword

It’s Cotton Blossom Time

The Selection of the Others

The Journey Begins

Fun Time in Fresno

The Disassembly and Rearrangement of the Sextet (The Sensational Six)

Fans Who Became Friends

Pot Luck Dinners or Suppers

The Changing of the Guard: Watchfulness and Control Supervision

Privileged Persons?

Epilogue

All Is Well with the World

All Is Well/All Is Now Truly Well With Me

These are Bertha’s words and photo Bertha Marie Bingham Williams

THIS BOOK IS dedicated

to Grace Jones, who first conceived the idea of the Cotton Blossom Singers and then followed through with the actual development of this highly successful, masterful endeavor. It is also dedicated to those who followed in her footsteps keeping the dream alive: people such as Eula Morman, Emma Miles, Carrie Crofton, Gertrude Buckhalter, Fannie Chaffee and all the Cotton Blossom Singers, past and present, especially the Sensational Six: Darlene Lattimore, Bertha Bingham, Marva Jo Dixon, Ruby Burkett, Shelby Jean Collier, and Nadine Larry.

I give special recognition to Dr. Reginald T. W. Nichols, president of the Piney Woods School, who gave his help and permission to develop this book. Also, I wish to give thanks to the grandest lady, M. Mc Clendon, for her help and encouragement.

Thank God for you all!

Biography

Sam Wilson’s life began in the city in which he presently lives, Hattiesburg, Mississippi. His elementary and secondary education were achieved there in a rural school where his father was the principal and his mother a teacher. Springfield Consolidated High School, located in the now city of Petal, Mississippi, was his alma mater. He graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1955 and received his Masters degree in 1970 from the University of Southern Mississippi located in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He taught school for 40 years in both the states of Mississippi and New York. He now writes. This is his ninth book.

Dear Brother Wilson:

Thank you so much for capturing the heart and spirit of The Piney Woods School through the voices of the Cotton Blossom Singers in your manuscript. As we celebrate 100 years of transforming lives through the head, heart, and hands and the recent unveiling of our Blues Trail Marker that testifies to the important contributions of our students to the musical world, I am honored to support this effort.

It is my hope that the story of The Piney Woods School and all of its intricate parts will continue to be told so that future generations will always embrace the legacy, passion, and call to service that beat through the heart of our Founder, Dr. Laurence C. Jones, his wife, Grace M. Jones, and all who have dedicated themselves to changing the world…one student at a time.

Sincerely,

Reginald T. W. Nichols, Ed.D.

President

FOREWORD

A hundred years ago the year 1909 was born, the year that Laurence Clifton Jones founded the Piney Woods Country School in Rankin County, Mississippi. He was an educated Negro who had earned his degree by working his way through the University of Iowa. He had a vision of a school for black people where the head, heart and hands industrial education would lift them from ignorance, poverty, and superstitions and place them upon the earth as useful citizens who would help society advance. He succeeded and the rest is glorious history. Laurence and his wife, Grace, took the hypodermic needle filled with wisdom and knowledge, injected it into the bodies of the unlearned, and ignorance and illiteracy began to dissipate.

1909 was like any other year in America. It had its goods and bads, its births, and its deaths of renowned people, its ups and its downs, its achievements and its dishonors.

January 28––United States leaves Cuba after being there since the Spanish-American War.

February 12––The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded, commemorating the 100th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln.

March 4––William Howard Taft succeeds Theodore Roosevelt as the 27th president of the United States.

April 11––The city of Tel Aviv (then known as Ahuzat Bayit) is founded.

November 11––The United States Navy founds a navy base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

December 31––The Manhattan Bridge opens in New York.

Births

January 1––Barry Goldwater, American politician; Dana Andrews, American actor

January 15––Gene Krupa, American drummer

February 1––George Beverly Shea, American gospel singer and songwriter

February 11––Max Baer, American boxer and actor

March 28––Nelson Algren, American author

April 30––Queen Juliana of the Netherlands

May 30––Benny Goodman, American musician

June 14––Burl Ives, American singer

July 23––John William Finn, American WWII hero

August 26––Jim Davis, Americn actor

September 21––Kwame Nkrumah, Ghanaian politician

September 28––Al Capp, American cartoonist

October 19––Cozy Cole, American jazz drummer

November 18––Johnny Mercer, American songwriter

December 9––Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., American actor and Naval officer

Deaths

February 17––Geronimo, Apache leadership

December 10––Red Cloud, Sioux warrior

Nobel Prizes

Physics––Guglielmo Marconi and Karl Ferdinand Braun for the development of wireless telegraphy (radio)

Literature––Selma Lagerlof, in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination, and spiritual perception that characterize her writings.

IT’S COTTON BLOSSOM TIME

Once there was a time in the state of Mississippi when things and conditions were not so good for the black man or woman or child or for any other people void of knowledge, skills, and education––the people on the lower echelon in general. This included the Chinese who were imported and enticed to come to the northern parts of the state just after the Civil War to replace the Negroes in the cotton fields in Mississippi’s Delta, places like Cleveland, Greenwood, etc. The Chinese did not fare too well in the cotton blossom fields, so some resorted to owning grocery stores that served both white and black customers. Some even married black females, therefore, producing mixed offsprings. The Chinese are still there today, though many have moved away.

Yet, cotton blossomed and survived well, draining the soil of its nutrients and people of their strength, endurance, and dignity. The black people who worked the fields knew not the meaning of dignity. The Negro had no standing in society, schools, or courts of law. They were told, and they believed that, their lives and conditions had no meaning here on earth. Some were told that the pharoah who punished Jews, was a black man and God was punishing them because of You got to reap what you sow.

The food that they ate was not at all bountiful, attractive, or adequate––saltmeat, meal and molasses or sometimes the unwanted, cast aside remnants