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Authors: Anita Hill
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to change much with age. I looked and indeed was very bookish. I remained that way during high school and college.
Much of the classwork came easy, the rest I studied so intensely at times that my father worried. The time that I spent talking to my friend Pocahontas Barnett on our recently acquired telephone came only after I had completed my homework. Being bookish paid off, however, as I graduated at the top of my high school class, an honor that had been denied JoAnn. When she graduated from Morris High School three years earlier, she was told that even though her grades technically put her at the top of the class, the fact that she had transferred into the Morris system in the middle of the freshman year made her ineligible to be valedictorian. That honor went instead to her friend Clara Ivy, who, since elementary school, had been used to the top spot in her classes at Morris. JoAnn was made salutatorian. JoAnn, who even by then haddeveloped a pretty good temper, did not complain, though she must have been hurt deeply. When I graduated, none of my classmates seemed surprised or disturbed that I was first in the class, least of all the salutatorian that year, my friend Susie Clark. And next year Susie and I went off to college at Oklahoma State University, in Stillwater, together.
I always knew that I would go to college, though only a few of my classmates from high school would. As you can imagine in a family of our size, a good amount of energy was funneled to me, the youngest child. And along with the energy came an equivalent amount of expectation. Fortunately for me, I enjoyed the experience of being taught and learning from my family. My sister Joyce still teases me about reading over and over again the first book I ever owned. She claims she still remembers all of the lines in
Green Eggs and Ham!
This is a testament to her patience with me.
Fortunately, I grew up during a time when social forces were such that I might have a better opportunity to realize my family’s and my own expectations. In ways small and large, from school lunch programs to student grants and loans, they enhanced my opportunities for a better life than the one enjoyed by my parents and grandparents. I no doubt have benefited from affirmative action programs, which looked at my race, gender, and background and determined whether I would be admitted. But I am not ashamed of this fact, nor do I apologize for it. Such programs provided me with the opportunity to prove myself, no more, no less. After admission, my success or failure would be determined by my efforts. I do not consider myself either more or less worthy than my colleagues in the same programs.
M y parents raised their children to love and leave home because they knew they had no other chance there at a better life. And in just the same order they’d been born, every two years, almost like clockwork, each of my brothers and sisters left home for school or to enter the military. There were few employment opportunities to keep us home. Okmulgee County had, at the time of my birth, a population of approximately40,000, of which about 7,000 were black. The primary sources of jobs were related to agriculture and were relatively limited. The peanut plant located in Okmulgee, the seat of Okmulgee County, served as the station where most of the local farmers brought their crops for weighing and processing. It provided seasonal work for a few. Work that was dirty and dangerous. Prior to the time of OSHA regulations, several accidents occurred at the plant, one of which, involving the only son in a neighboring family, was fatal. The entire community grieved. As each offered the family condolences, many questioned whether it might have been prevented.
The other notable industry was the slaughterhouse, the success of which was linked to the fact that many of the local residents raised their own beef and pork for food. During the brief period between the time that home curing became unpopular
Much of the classwork came easy, the rest I studied so intensely at times that my father worried. The time that I spent talking to my friend Pocahontas Barnett on our recently acquired telephone came only after I had completed my homework. Being bookish paid off, however, as I graduated at the top of my high school class, an honor that had been denied JoAnn. When she graduated from Morris High School three years earlier, she was told that even though her grades technically put her at the top of the class, the fact that she had transferred into the Morris system in the middle of the freshman year made her ineligible to be valedictorian. That honor went instead to her friend Clara Ivy, who, since elementary school, had been used to the top spot in her classes at Morris. JoAnn was made salutatorian. JoAnn, who even by then haddeveloped a pretty good temper, did not complain, though she must have been hurt deeply. When I graduated, none of my classmates seemed surprised or disturbed that I was first in the class, least of all the salutatorian that year, my friend Susie Clark. And next year Susie and I went off to college at Oklahoma State University, in Stillwater, together.
I always knew that I would go to college, though only a few of my classmates from high school would. As you can imagine in a family of our size, a good amount of energy was funneled to me, the youngest child. And along with the energy came an equivalent amount of expectation. Fortunately for me, I enjoyed the experience of being taught and learning from my family. My sister Joyce still teases me about reading over and over again the first book I ever owned. She claims she still remembers all of the lines in
Green Eggs and Ham!
This is a testament to her patience with me.
Fortunately, I grew up during a time when social forces were such that I might have a better opportunity to realize my family’s and my own expectations. In ways small and large, from school lunch programs to student grants and loans, they enhanced my opportunities for a better life than the one enjoyed by my parents and grandparents. I no doubt have benefited from affirmative action programs, which looked at my race, gender, and background and determined whether I would be admitted. But I am not ashamed of this fact, nor do I apologize for it. Such programs provided me with the opportunity to prove myself, no more, no less. After admission, my success or failure would be determined by my efforts. I do not consider myself either more or less worthy than my colleagues in the same programs.
M y parents raised their children to love and leave home because they knew they had no other chance there at a better life. And in just the same order they’d been born, every two years, almost like clockwork, each of my brothers and sisters left home for school or to enter the military. There were few employment opportunities to keep us home. Okmulgee County had, at the time of my birth, a population of approximately40,000, of which about 7,000 were black. The primary sources of jobs were related to agriculture and were relatively limited. The peanut plant located in Okmulgee, the seat of Okmulgee County, served as the station where most of the local farmers brought their crops for weighing and processing. It provided seasonal work for a few. Work that was dirty and dangerous. Prior to the time of OSHA regulations, several accidents occurred at the plant, one of which, involving the only son in a neighboring family, was fatal. The entire community grieved. As each offered the family condolences, many questioned whether it might have been prevented.
The other notable industry was the slaughterhouse, the success of which was linked to the fact that many of the local residents raised their own beef and pork for food. During the brief period between the time that home curing became unpopular
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