My Brother J-Boy

By Hazel Janell Meredith

Hazel Janell Meredith is the co-author of A Story about James H. Meredith - A Civil Rights Leader. She is a contributing writer of My A to G Activity Book and My 1 to 5 Activity Book. She owns Amerikan Press, and is the co-founder of Heirsskymall.com Inc, www.shopheirs.com. Hazel Janell Meredith is a member of Heirs Un

• Language: English
• Publisher: Book Vine Press
• Release date: Sep 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781958678855

Book preview

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Special Commendations

Introduction

About the Author

Praise for Hazel Janell Meredith’s My Brother J-Boy

Dedication

This book is dedicated to our parents who loved and nurtured us: our father, Moses Arthur Captain Meredith (1891-1965); his first wife, Barbara Nash (1893-1929); and his second wife, Roxie Mariah Patterson (1903-1986). I dedicate this book to memorialize their legacy which was characterized by honesty, integrity and perseverance.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Ms. Dorothy Mays, a retired elementary school teacher in Memphis, Tennessee, who inspired me to write this story; my brothers (especially J-Boy), sisters, children, in-laws, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins, friends, neighbors, teachers, and fellow Americans for their contribution to the events in this story.

Special Commendations

I want to thank Dora Washington, PhD and the late Mrs. Luana F. Clayton for their editorial assistance; Mrs. Loretta Adkins Stuart, Mrs. Hazel Cooper, and Ms. Terryann Nash for their assistance in the preparation of this manuscript; Mrs. Meredith Coleman McGee for the cover design and Chuck and Bobby for the illustrations. Words cannot express my appreciation for the many listening ears including but not limited to: Mrs. Dolline G. Russell, Mrs. Dorothy T. Stewart, Mrs. Bettye P. Little, Mrs. Virgie Banks, Ms. Willa Coleman Ridgeway, and Mrs. McKenna. I extend my sincere gratitude to Ms. Christine Perry, Mrs. Beulah Sealey Thomas, Mrs. Glennie Alston Kirkland, Mrs. Georgia Cohran, Ms. Angela Stewart, Mr. Arthur Meredith, Mrs. Mary Meredith, Ms. Jerrye Nash, Mr. Charles Thomas, Dr. Daisy Thomas, M.D., Linda Anderson, PhD, Mr. Arthur Anderson, Johnnie McField Giles, Mr. and Mrs. James Allen Meredith, Mrs. Willie Mae Gilmore, and Mrs. Faye Stokes, and her late husband Mr. Jimmie L. Stokes, former president of Utica Junior College for their support.

Introduction

This story is about my brother James Howard Meredith. His given name is J. H., but to me, he will always be J-Boy. He taught us many things about life and living on and off the farm, and how to survive during the Jim Crow era.

This story is written to help young readers understand the fun times, work ethics, and the inspirational activities of an American, who wanted him and his race to enjoy all the privileges of full citizenship in the United States of America.

Thurgood Marshall, the attorney who argued and won the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, authorized the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund to file a lawsuit on behalf of James H. Meredith. Marshall appointed Constance Motley to handle Meredith’s lawsuit against the Mississippi Board of Education. R. Jess Brown, an attorney from Jackson, Mississippi served on Meredith’s legal team. Meredith’s lawyers fought in court for eighteen months before they won the right for him to be admitted to the University of Mississippi. Meredith walked across campus, registered, and attended class on October 1, 1962, thus breaking the Jim Crow law which prohibited Negroes from attending school with Caucasians in the State of Mississippi.

History records James H. Meredith opening the doors for Mississippi Negroes to obtain advanced and specialized degrees. On August 18, 1963, he graduated from the University of Mississippi with a degree in History and Political Science.

My name is Hazel Janell. Everyone calls me Nell. It was nice having a big brother.

My brother J.H. is called J-boy. He is six years older than I, so I had 11 years with him before he left home. During those years I learned a lot from him.

Our father’s name was Moses Arthur Meredith. Everyone that knew him called him Cap for short. Cap is the name on some of our birth certificates. He was a man of few words, but he had a powerful effect on both children and adults. His demeanor was serious, with a look facial expression to match. Daddy’s father was Ned Meredith, and his mother was Francis Brown Meredith.

Grandma Francis was born in 1865 to a former slave named Millie Brown, who was owned by J.A.P Campbell. Grandma Francis’s father was a Caucasian lawyer, who became a Mississippi Supreme Court Judge. He spent a lot of time with Grandma Francis when she was growing up on his farm in Attala County, Mississippi. She obtained a formal education and was a schoolteacher in 1887 when she married Grandpa Ned Meredith. Ned was a Choctaw with African ancestry.

While still a young lad, daddy was sent by his mother to Holmes County, Mississippi to live with Mr. Rudolph Hamilton, a Negro land owner, to learn farming. Cap was a fast learner and quickly perfected farming techniques.

When Cap was a young man, he fell in love with the beautiful Miss Barbara Nash. She was the daughter of Eddie and Lugina Nash. He married his childhood sweetheart in 1911. He was 20 and she was 18 on their wedding day. They lived in the Mt. Vernon/New Garden Community on Highway 19 East of Kosciusko, Mississippi.

The Nashes and Merediths were members of Mt. Vernon Methodist Episcopal Church in the Mount Vernon/New Garden Community. Cap and Barbara’s first home was on Highway 19 West in the Mt. Zion Community, where they worked as sharecroppers.

One day Cap made a suggestion to the Caucasian landowner that he thought would help make the crops better. The landowner told Cap, If you want to be the boss, get your own farm. The next day, Cap found an 84 acre farm with a three room house on it.

Cap obtained a note from Merchants and Farmers Bank of Kosciusko in the amount of $1,000 to secure funds to purchase the land. He made his first monthly payment on the loan in April of 1923. He wanted his family to