1939: EVICTION DAY
Michael Brownstein
We planted cotton
and scarred our hands,
came home to make love
and fell asleep instead.
Greed is a wicked half-sister.
You filled your hands with it.
For a moment
color lost its importance.
I stand with others
holding my infant son,
every one of my possessions
along the highway
defining our misery.
-- In 1939, New Madrid County, Missouri’s plantation owners evicted both black and white tenant farmers and sharecroppers from land they had farmed for decades. The federal government had offered a check to help the workers. By evicting them, the plantation owners were able to take the money for themselves.
