Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper
School Teacher & Daughter of a Sharecropper
Close your eyes everyone. Think about where you live and what you have. What kind of job your parents have. How difficult is it? I want you to think about when you become an adult. What do you want to do? It starts now. I challenge every one of you to dream, focus, study do your homework, and read one hour a week. It will enhance your ability and you can be a tutor for yourself. What are you not good in? Be better. Find someone that is good in that area that can help you. This is where I end my life story of growing up in the south. Hope you’ve learned something. Be the best you can become!
Alice Cooper
School Teacher & Daughter of a Sharecropper
My name is Alice Cooper. I was born in 1953 on January 25th in Crawford, Mississippi. My family is the product of sharecroppers. I had a challenging childhood. I had a lot of chores to do. I have six sisters and three brothers. We all have college degrees. I now teach fourth grade at Earle Brown Elementary.
We are going to start in the south with Negro Spirituals. The spiritual was a tool used for communication. In the fields, slaves used a choice of spirituals to communicate with each other. Slaves [who were] due to escape, took the lead part in certain songs so everyone would know who was going to escape that night.
My great grandfather was Alford Short. He was born in 1864, one year after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. The South did not get the news. Slaves were still being sold even though the emancipation document was signed. His mom was sold as a slave.
Let me tell you about my mom and dad. Mom was more of the overseer in the house. Dad ran the fields. He operated the farm. He was the one who got the seeds and borrowed the money. We were poor, but we always had plenty to eat. We grew potatoes, cotton, peanuts, corn and cabbage. We raised turkeys, chickens and beef. We had pigs that we butchered for our own pork. We milked 60 cows a day by hand!
My family is very religious. We believe in God and church-going. We never had a chance to say “no.” We got up early to milk the cows, feed the pigs and put new straw in [the stalls]. We got ready for Sunday school after breakfast and sometimes we stayed all day.
During the harvest season I couldn’t go to school like you. You can go every day, unless sick. I couldn’t attend school from the second week of August until the end of October or November. It depended on how plentiful the harvest was. We had to be in the field from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm. We had a sack in the back and hand-picked the cotton we raised. We worked and brought our lunch. We had 20-gallon cans we put water in to take to the field to drink. I can’t explain how it felt to see the school buses go by without me. The bus left. During the harvest season we only got to school when it rained.
When we couldn’t attend school, my mom house-schooled us. She would drive twenty miles to the school each day. She would take homework to the teachers and meet with each one of them. We’d come home after work, eat, and then go through our schoolwork. She’d collect the bundle of work and take it into the school the next day.
When we went back to school, after missing so many days, we weren’t behind the other children. I went from first grade to third grade missing all of those days. I didn’t go to second grade. I moved on. In our school we had a one-room school with 50 students.
On the farm Dad would say I don’t want you guys to work as hard as I do. I don’t want you to work as hard as Ma and me. Get an education! We had to set goals and tell them what we wanted to do in life. They would guide us through. They tried to guide us so we would know how to prepare ourselves.
Honoring Alice Cooper
Nothing But The Love of Freedom
I was born in Mississippi
Nothing but the love of freedom
Freedom is my legacy
Nothing but the love of freedom
When someone sang that freedom song
It was a sign they would soon be gone
Far away from slavery
Nothing but the love of freedom
On Great Grandfather’s birthing day
Nothing but the love of freedom
My great grandfather was taken away
Nothing but the love of freedom
From my great great grandmother who
Never heard about the news
Of that proclamation signed
Nothing but the love of freedom
My father he sharecropped
Nothing but the love of freedom
The owner’s gain was his loss
Nothing but the love of freedom
He bought some land
Bought some seed
Bought some cows, chickens, pigs, turkeys
Milking cows everyday
Nothing but the love of freedom
We worked from six to six
Nothing but the love of freedom
Instead of school cotton we picked
Nothing but the love of freedom
When I came home my back it hurt
Then Mother made us do homework
We were poor, but we were proud
Nothing but the love of freedom
With ten kids to feed
Nothing but the love of freedom
Each of us earned a college degree
Nothing but the love of freedom
Father said, “I don’t want you
To work as hard as I do
Get an education, set high goals”
Nothing but the love of freedom
All ten kids on their own
Nothing but the love of freedom
My look how far we grown
Nothing but the love of freedom
Doctors, lawyers, finance planners
Teachers, bakers, programmers
All from the seed of a sharecropper
Nothing but the love of freedom
You can be what you want to be
Nothing but the love of freedom
Do homework, turn off TV
Nothing but the love of freedom
Think about where you live
What you have and where you’ve been
You’re not too young the time is now
Nothing but the love of freedom
Music by LARRY LONG
Words by LARRY LONG with Mr. Kelley’s and Mr. Wenndt’s 6th grade classrooms of Earle Brown Elementary School
(Brooklyn Center, Minnesota)
© Larry Long 2006 / BMI