Least Likely to Succeed

By Milton Ford Wright

Least Likely to Succeed by Milton Ford Wright

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638145233

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Least Likely to Succeed

Milton Ford Wright

ISBN 978-1-63814-522-6 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63814-523-3 (Digital)

Copyright © 2021 Milton Ford Wright

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books, Inc.

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

Table of Contents

N—load

The Northern Virginia Highway User Association

George in 1982

Spreading Business

The Way I Was Played

Stafford Airport

Alexandria Sludge Plant

The Chemical Contract

Energy Business

Colonel Owens

Submissions from My Daughters and Son

Foreword

I wrote this book because I have so many stories about my life that I feel should be shared. But mostly, I was inspired by the ADOS (American Descendants of Slavery) movement.

I’ve heard so many people say things like Slavery ended over one hundred years ago! and You weren’t a slave, so how were you impacted by slavery? This book is simply a collection of stories about my life and experiences. But upon reflection, I can see how significantly my life was altered by slavery, segregation, and the Jim Crow south. Many people think that once slaves like my great-grandfather were freed, everyone was equal. It was not that way at all, and it turns out that my story is a testament to that fact.

I never realized that we experienced racism and discrimination until I left my hometown and served in the US military. All I knew was my family, the farm, my classmates, my church family, and other community members were all living the same lives and experiences. It wasn’t until I went out into the world and witnessed the differential treatment for the first time that I became aware of our position in this country.

Everything I’ve accomplished required so much more effort and sacrifice than my White counterparts. It was disheartening and downright hurtful. But I’ve made lifelong friendships with White people along the way that restored my faith that White people were not the problem. Racist people were the problem.

I did not receive the same standard of education or the benefits from generational wealth as the White people I knew nor did my father, my grandfather, or my great-grandfather. Typically, we did not inherit the you can be whatever you want to be in life speech like many children. Southern Black parents in the ’40s and ’50s knew that not only was our potential limited but dreaming too big could be dangerous. For the sake of safety, we were taught to keep our heads down and to work hard. This mindset capped our potential and fragmented our dreams.

Hopefully, this book will not only entertain you as I have had exciting experiences but it will help you gain an understanding and empathy of the ADOS experience

When I was born, my uncle Ford had just drowned. And my dad decided to name me after him, Ford. My aunt Alice arrived at the house and asked my dad, Have you named him yet?

My dad said, Yes, we named him Ford.

My aunt Alice said, I just broke up with my boyfriend, Milton, so name him Milton Ford.

I was born in Mount Holly, Virginia to Reverend Issac and Frances Wright on August 15, 1943. I was one of sixteen kids. (Three of them died at an early age.) We were all delivered by a midwife except for my youngest brother, who was delivered in a hospital. My dad said that it cost more to deliver Robert than all the rest of us put together.

My dad and my mom were from large families. My dad was one of fifteen kids. My mom was one of eight. We were raised in a really strict Christian home. I considered my mom and dad the best parents anyone could ever have. I have never seen my mom and dad argue with each other.

When we were kids every Christmas, my grandfather on my mom’s side and all her brothers and sisters would come to our home, and my grandfather would pass out pennies. Also my mom would always have a large cookout on the second Thursday of August every year.

On my father’s side of the family, my grandmother and all of her siblings would come down from New Jersey every year, and we would have a really large cookout because there were so many of us. My grandmother passed in 1957, and my aunts and uncles continued our family reunions until they got too old, so they turned it over to my brothers and sisters.

When we were kids, my dad told us how his grandfather was a slave. In the 1860s, my great-grandfather was captured in Maryland, and they held him for nine months until the war was over, and then they released him. Because he had nine kids back home, even though he was a slave, he was allowed to go back and forth from Virginia to Maryland because he had nine kids; they knew he was not going to leave them.

My great-grandfather owned twenty acres of waterfront property at the Glebe in Virginia. Then in the early 1900s, the glebe purchased the land from my great-grandfather and gave him the land in front of the Glebe. My dad was a really nice-looking man, and he said when he was about fifteen years old, he would work at the Glebe. My dad’s father’s name was Charlie Wright. He told my dad, When you’re down there working in the field, if any of those White girls come out there messing with you, you need to come home. My dad said one day when he was plowing the field at The Glebe, he looked up at the edge of the woods and there were three young White girls there, pulling their dresses over their heads. My dad said when he saw that, he left the horses in the field and ran home and told his father. And his father said, Boy, you did the right thing. This happened in approximately 1925, and if you would get caught with a White girl, they would hang you. I remember when I was a kid my dad was painting at The Glebe mansion. My dad took me up in the attic of the mansion and showed me the beds where the slaves slept.

Before I started school, when I was five years old, I carried the crown for the queen on May Day. This was a special program that we had every year at A.T. Johnson High School. It was called May Day. I wore a white suit that my aunt Alice (who named me) gave me.

I started school in 1949 at Salem Elementary School. This school had two classrooms that had outside toilets and no running water. We got our drinking water from a spring on the side of the road in front of the church. With four different grades in each room (primary through third grade and fourth through seventh grade), Mrs. Smith was our teacher, and everyone considered her to be the best teacher ever.

The school was an extension of your home. If you were bad at school, you would get a beating at school. But if you were really bad, you would have to take a note home from school and get another beating at home with the switch. When we got a beating at home or in school, we were not abused. It was the way everyone was disciplined back then.

Looking back over seventy years, if more parents were like my mother and father who were strict and had strict disciplinary rules, this would be a better world to live in. We were taught how to respect our elders, saying Yes, ma’am and No, ma’am and never calling our elders by their first name.

My dad had an old saying: a switch will keep kids out of jail. None of us ever went to jail. Our parents insisted that we at least get a high school education. Ten of us did, and four of them went on to college. One of my brothers was an excellent student. He eventually worked for the Department of Agriculture and reached the highest rank in the federal government than anyone I have ever known. He also was the director of the Civil Rights Department for agriculture. He worked tirelessly for several years, trying to make a settlement for the Black farmers. He also was on the television program 60 Minutes. When he retired, he helped me to run my sludge business. If it were not for my brother, Lloyd, I would not have been able to run my sludge business.

In September of 1952, my dad got sick and couldn’t work until June. When my dad got sick, my older brother,