Mamma Hattie and Annie Bell... Southern Belles and Patron Saints to Guide Us

(Writer's Note: This is a journal entry I made in late 2001. I ran across it over the weekend and thought it worth sharing. I hope you enjoy.)

“And they themselves were a part of the confluence. Their own joint act of faith had brought them here at the very moment and matched its occurrence, and proceeded as it proceeded.” from The Optimist’s Daughter, by Eudora Welty

My Grandmamma was Hattie Ross Mitchell. My nanny was an African American by the name of Annie Bell, Annie Bell O’Bannon. They were both of the same generation, born in the first decade of the 1900’s. They were both from the back roads of Mississippi. Both of them were Southern Belles.

Annie Bell was barely removed from the institution of slavery; yet the unpainted shack of the cotton field where she was born and raised, the dependence on white landowners, and a life never existing above the poverty line sustained a different form of slavery. She was in her sixties before she ever had the right to vote. And she lived in a place that flew a flag that had flown over the people who enslaved her ancestors, the Stars and Bars. A flag that stood for a heritage that was hard, disenfranchising and racist.

Mamma Hattie grew up in the home of a sharecropper. She also spent her life under the poverty line, and under the same flag that represented Annie Bell. She was white so her family voted and could get jobs that paid marginally better than black jobs. She grew up picking cotton by hand and washing clothes in a tub in the yard. Mamma Hattie, by thousands of standards, had a hard life. There was no moonlight and magnolias in her heritage. Mamma Hattie’s front porch wasn’t for Mint Julep sipping. Her heritage was not glossed over in myth; it was one of hard work and meager means.

I was present during the confluence of their lives. Maybe I was the reason for this confluence. Annie Bell came on as my nanny in 1969 when I was three years old. We lived on Third Street in Grenada, Mississippi. My father was a cotton planter and the county Sheriff. I called him what everyone else did, Big Daddy. My mamma ran my father’s office. Mamma Hattie lived next door to our home, in a house also owned by Big Daddy.

So there I was growing up with a nanny and a Grandmamma at my convenience. My heritage comes from their existence.

Annie Bell and Mamma Hattie read their Bibles feverishly. Their faith led them to pray whenever storm clouds came near.

Their literal view of the Bible gave me a simple lineage dating back to Adam.

I shelled peas at their feet during thick August afternoons from the front porch. Annie Bell taught me how to clean a fish with a spoon and Mamma Hattie coached me on how to play baseball. She always told me that my grandfather would have been a professional baseball player had the opportunity existed out in Beat 4, Grenada County during the 20’s and 30’s. I have no reason to doubt her to this day.

For purposes of correction when I did wrong, like sneaking off to the train tracks two blocks to the east to watch the massive Illinois Central trains rumble past, Mamma Hattie used the basic switch cut from a bush. Annie Bell used a hairbrush on the up-turned palm of my hand. She believed a young boy’s kidneys could be injured by traditional spanking methods. Annie Bell would hold my hand still and pop it a time or two while the rest of my body danced and twirled, trying to gain freedom.

In the mornings, by the time I was usually roused from sleep, Mamma Hattie and my mamma would be out in the yard watering flowers and looking at blossoms in the cool of the early hours. Annie Bell and Big Daddy would be in the kitchen. Annie Bell still cooking breakfast, Big Daddy eating and both of them having a shared morning Bible-study. If the Bible said the moon turned to blood, well, for Annie Bell, it did! Big Daddy would laugh and tease Annie Bell. And Annie Bell: “Now Sheriff Strider, that’s just what the Holy Bible says.” They always prayed before Big Daddy headed off to fight crime and look at his cotton.

Mamma Hattie came from a huge family. The Ross family dominated our corner of Grenada County in population where our family’s farm was located. I got to know Uncle JD and Aunt Sarah Lee, and Aunt Ruby and Uncle Tom James and countless others by often traveling out to the country. Mamma Hattie never drove a car, but mamma would take her, I would ride in the back seat. Mamma Hattie wore a big, floppy straw hat and plastic shades affixed over her regular eyeglasses.

Annie Bell lived on the other side of town. Sometimes I would ride with my mom real early in the mornings to pick her up. The houses would turn from large, painted show places to dingy unpainted shacks. Annie Bell was always on the front porch of her shack, waiting. The lady who lived next door to her was Magnolia. I couldn’t understand Magnolia to save my life. I would look at her as only a little boy could, with turned head and big eyes. I thought she spoke a foreign language. I would mimic her sometimes with a quick retort of sounds and noises.

Annie Bell would throw her head back and laugh so loud some dog off on the side walk would bark.

Whenever I cut myself, or a bee stung me or I fell from a tree I would run to the nearest one of the two for help, Mamma Hattie or Annie Bell. Either would do because their open arms were full of love and care. Their soft words were full of comfort and ease. They were saints and I had all their patronage. Once, I fell through the front door window because I was playing where I had been told not to. I was so startled and upset that Annie Bell hugged me and said all would be fine; she didn’t even reach for the hairbrush. And she called my mom and told her it was an accident. Mamma Hattie loved to clip the end off Aloe Vera plants whenever I burned myself. She would coat the burn and soothe my cries.

Mamma Hattie died in 1984 when I was a senior in High School. She had had a stroke several months before and even though Annie Bell had been retired for a few years she came everyday and sat in a bedroom of our home we had fixed up for Mamma Hattie... she couldn’t get out of the bed; she couldn’t talk. Annie Bell would read her the Bible and sit calmly and tell her stories. She’d hold Mamma Hattie’s hand and pray.

They were friends in their twilight. The confluence of their lives created a bond and a familiarity that is rarely encountered. Their experiences were much more common than different. They prayed, they planted the same vegetables, they both knew that if you killed a snake with your garden ho make sure you don’t leave it belly-up or it would come back to life at sundown; that’s what they told me. Nothing really made them different from one another. I can’t imagine anyone trying to tell me one should matter more because of skin color.

Annie Bell looked like the singer Leontyne Price and Mamma Hattie look like Miss Clara on Andy Griffith. Mamma Hattie made the best biscuits and gravy, while Annie Bell made the best-fried chicken. Annie Bell was partial to the soap opera called Dark Shadows and Mamma Hattie watched General Hospital.

They both knew God and God knew each one of them, by name.

Being present during the confluence of their lives forever convinced me that skin color doesn’t matter. A great hoax has been played on way too many people; a great hoax that says skin pigment defines people. It doesn’t. I have Mamma Hattie and Annie Bell to prove any such argument blatantly without merit.

When debates arise over symbols and heritage and identification I am infuriated that the great hoax seems so alive. We can’t have one nation when we embrace symbols that reflect a tense and asymmetrical heritage. It’s a false heritage we seek to elevate when our symbols divide rather than include. Our energy and spirits are washed down into the gutter when we fight to uphold a heritage that seeks to alienate rather than embrace. Some of our heritage belongs in museums. We have plenty of nobility and decency to embrace and stand on, stand on together without the insecurities and ignorance of racism.

Annie Bell passed away in 2001. I was driving down Connecticut Avenue in Washington, DC when I got the news over my cell phone. I was headed home from my job on Capitol Hill. Annie Bell never drove down Connecticut Avenue or visited Capitol Hill.

I’ve worked with many great leaders, elected Members of Congress and the Senate being a few. Anne Bell never met a Congressman or Senator.

But when Annie Bell died, I knew that I would never again meet a person as great.

When Annie Bell died I knew that the confluence of two great saints had once again occurred. Mamma Hattie and Annie Bell were once again somewhere on a front porch shelling peas, and talking about the flowers, and the windows that needed washing and maybe doing a little grocery shopping later in the day. When Annie Bell died I cried a river of tears because the last of my two saints had crossed over Jordan to their place in Glory.

Everyone needs an Annie Bell and a Mamma Hattie. Everyone needs a heritage that is real, and true and personal; for me, it was the confluence of Southern Belles – my patron Saints.

Translating Big Daddy... Rules for Life

There seem to be two facts I continue to learn over and over as I go through life. One is that my Southern home and way of life is pretty unique. The second is that out of all the nuances and ways of seeing things we’re really all alike, no matter where we’re from. It’s like when the sun finally burns off a thick Delta fog and it becomes evident that the dog with you in the fishing boat looks like the dog on the shoreline doing all the barking.

Grenada, MS sits on the hills overlooking the great Delta. My folks, one can say, have put down roots there. Both sides of my family have called Grenada home for more 150 years. You could surmise that we know our neighbors. We’ve pretty much been farming and running for office the whole time. We’re from the Pea Ridge community, live on Strider Road and do our shopping at Bloodworth’s General Store (our cousins). The people of Pea Ridge work hard, play hard and pray hard. Families with names like Ingram, Ross, Winter, Mitchell, Burt, Rounsaville, Thomason, Mormon, Bloodworth and Strider have been there forever. Their farms and home places are as much a part of them as their next of kin.

I am one of the community’s prodigal sons having lived, for a few years, abroad and now for nearly a decade here in Washington, DC. I was a Baptist youth minister in Hong Kong in the mid-90’s. I would have fish-n-chips at Harry Ramsden’s restaurant on Sunday’s with the Cameron’s and giant Chinese family dinners on Tuesday night’s with the Tan’s. On Saturday mornings I’d join some of my Pakistani contemporaries at their flat in the Wan Chai neighborhood for food and fun. We’d sit on the floor and eat curries and other dishes with our hands. The meals would be so hot I’d break out in a sweat. It was like someone had taped a water hose to the top of my head and turned it on.

They’d talk about the game of cricket and Pakistani players who were hot or cold just like my friends and me sitting in a rib shack down in Starkville, MS, drinking sweet tea and talking SEC football. I didn’t know cricket, they didn’t know SEC football but we knew the value of a good game. We knew the difference between work horses and show horses on the battlefield of sports.
Today, I live and work in Washington. I’m raising, along with my wife, Karen, two nearly perfect little boys – my little old aunts and other relatives back home pray every night I’ll get those boys home to Mississippi where they can be raised right. Sometimes I can see their point. But I love Washington and am glad to be here. The fact, though, is that Mississippi is home and Truman Capote once remarked that Southerners go home sooner or later, even if it’s in a box. That is indeed true.

There is one constant that stands out, one continuous thread of continuity and perspective that helps bring connectivity and meaning to all that I do – my father and the examples he provided and the lessons he taught. This old cotton farmer and politician, God rest his soul, had as strong an impact on people as anyone I’ve ever met. Possibly the strongest impact was on me.

He was known as Big Daddy by nearly everyone in Mississippi. He stood at 6'7", weighed in at over 330 pounds and wore a suit, cowboy hat and cowboy boots 7 days a week. Jesse A. “Big Daddy” Strider was Sheriff of Grenada County for 24 years. My uncle has since been sheriff and now my oldest brother is sheriff. When my father died in the late 1980’s the Governor appointed my mom to finish the last months of his 5th term. I'm pretty sure that's when I decided to move out of Grenada County. By no means did I desire to be in a county where my mom had the legal authority to carry a side arm and arrest me.

We, and it is a family affair, have to get elected every four years. With my brother currently in the Sheriff's office we're still getting elected – he’s up this year and looking pretty good. I spent my entire life since birth going door to door asking for votes. By the time I was a teenager I knew everyone in Grenada. I knew who was kin and who had marriage plans. Heck, I knew those getting divorced and usually why. That’s what happens when you sit each morning at the breakfast table of the county Sheriff. You know things.

Mostly, I learned respect for folks. I learned about listening to people and taking them seriously. Big Daddy took people seriously. No one failed to meet the importance test in his book. Everyone was valid. Everyone mattered. Everyone had intrinsic value. And he expected no less from the family he raised, the deputies he employed and the county and state he helped lead.

David Hampton, a current editor at the Clarion Ledger, Mississippi’s statewide daily, came out of Ole Miss journalism school in the 70’s and got his start at the daily newspaper in my hometown. He said this, last year in a column, about Big Daddy, “I worked in Grenada as a cub reporter and was given some lessons in Mississippi politics by Sheriff Strider. While he looked every bit the stereotypical Southern sheriff, he was one of the most progressive, open-minded and smart politicians I have ever known.

When I think about Big Daddy’s greatness I realize that is a word he would have never honestly applied to himself. He was, though, very good at bringing out and recognizing the greatness in others, be it the cashier at the little grocery at Gore Springs, the guys who cut the grass along the highway, the waitresses at the Hill Top Restaurant, the people serving a little time in his jail or the retired farming couple at Hardy he saw their greatness, their ability to love, and smile and give to others. And he celebrated that greatness with laughs, and hugs and prayers on front porches and praising the homemade ice cream he never turned down.

Big Daddy taught me a lot. I realize sometimes, at strange moments, how universal his lessons were. I’ve come to recognize this amazing progressive streak that he played out in his politics and everyday life that impacted so many people. And he knew what he was doing. He held a Mississippi county together in the post- civil rights movement. But he also moved it forward. It wasn’t about keeping the old lines drawn as a way to maintain peace, it was about getting the new integrated schools up and running, getting everyone registered to vote, bringing everyone together at the Chamber of Commerce, running the Klan out of the county.

It was also about joining in all community celebrations such as the annual NAACP Freedom Banquet. I always went with him to that banquet as I grew up. I didn’t know at the time that we were breaking new ground by being there – doesn’t that seem ridiculous in 2007? I just knew I looked forward to the end of the evening when we all stood, joined hands and sang “We Shall Overcome.” I have 3 versions of that song today on my Ipod. My love for that song and what it means to my homeland has everything to do with that county Sheriff taking me to the county Freedom banquets.

Big Daddy lived out and taught a progressive brand of politics that was about doing and not talking. It was about simply taking the right reality and putting it into action. And you know what? When I worked for Nancy Pelosi, I saw my father’s politics in her politics all the time. I certainly saw it in Jim Clyburn’s. And when Senator Clinton says that the best rule of politics is following the Golden Rule then I hear Big Daddy all over again. A San Francisco liberal, a South Carolina African American, a New York Senator with mid-west sensibilities and a Mississippi Sheriff born in the 1920’s all getting elected in their corners of the nation, speaking out from their perspectives but advocating the same hope and vision and progressive principles about our nation and world.

Now that’s a thread of continuity and commonality our nation needs to reconnect too. When partisanship takes the place of progress and ideology becomes an obstacle instead of table to sit around we’ve lost our way. Our nation needs hope and vision and know-how. We need doers, not talkers. We need to stand on that common ground, there’s room for everyone, where Californians, New Yorkers, South Carolinians and Mississippians can all agree and then agree to find solutions where we don’t agree.

We also need good politics. That’s how we choose our leaders and set our course. We need good politics where people engage, and not leave it up to others. We need Politics that are tough and fair, strong and caring, competitive and contemplative, about winning and coming together. I campaigned all the time with Big Daddy. I learned mainly by watching but he also had some favorite sayings that are worth sharing, but they must be translated or explained for full impact. He loved a good political race, he played hardball, and homeruns he hit were always fair.

So, here it is, translating Big Daddy, rules for life and the campaign trail:

“A pick up truck beats a Cadillac every day of the week out here in real America.”

TRANSLATION: Don't get fancy. Don't get fancy with your words, with your plan or with your attitude. Folks are looking for one of them to lead.

“Every tub has got to sit on its own bottom.”

TRANSLATION: In the final analysis the candidate has to carry the day. The candidate is who the voters want to hear from. Only the candidate can ultimately speak for the candidate.

“If you're driving down the highway and see a car coming toward you in your lane then you're going to change lanes.”

TRANSLATION: Don't get in the way of your friends. Stay out of other people's races. Stay in your lane and don't bring undue criticism and opposition by being nosy or getting involved where you shouldn't.

“If you come up on an old yella mangy dog and that dog is barking the word 'God' then let him bark."

TRANSLATION: Don't challenge, denigrate or dismiss the faith of anyone. A person's faith represents the core, the essence of who they are. It’s one of their most personal choices. You tear that person down if you tear down their faith. Hell, join them. It can probably do you some good.

“Be careful what you say about someone, you're probably talking to their cousin.”

TRANSLATION: You're probably talking to their cousin.

“In politics if you take a swing at someone you better be prepared to take one right back.”

TRANSLATION: I actually learned this one from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. I share it with candidates and young political operatives all the time as I travel the country. It's a great way to remind yourself to be prepared because it’s true and it helps you think through an action. It helps you think down the road to where your decisions are taking you. I also know that Big Daddy was very aware of this principle too.

“Preach it three times. Before you do it, when you’re doing it and after you do it.”

TRANSLATION: It's not just enough to believe it or even do it. People must know where you stand on an issue. They must know your actions. Just doing something without getting the news out is a waste of good time. I run across people running for office all the time who have done good things but no one knows. They’re even indignant that others don’t know of their good work. Well, they lose no matter how much time they waste being indignant. Tell your story and tell it often.

“No one ever had to apologize for something they did not say!”

TRANSLATION: Don’t talk if you don’t have too. If it doesn’t help you, remain quite. If you’re unsure if it helps you keep your mouth shut. You must know for certain what you’re saying and why. Don’t take chances saying something you likely can’t fix.

"The person with the khaki pants, sweaty shirt and straw hat, driving the old farm truck is probably on the local Bank Board. The slick guy with the pin stripped suit, silk tie, tasseled shoes and new car probably charged his clothes and is, more than likely, a couple of payments behind on his car.”

TRANSLATION: Big Daddy was never impressed with those who put on airs. He had a lot of things to say about it. Being flashy was artificial to him. He wasn’t against spending money and living good but he was against anyone who seemed to take pleasure in using material items to show off or feel superior to others. We all know that flashiness is a waste of time in politics.

"Take the blame. Be responsible."

TRANSLATION: Don’t pass the buck. Never, NEVER pass the buck. Stand up and take it when things go bad.

"Spread the credit"

TRANSLATION: And when things go good, let people know who all was involved. Share the wealth and it will be returned to you over and over again.

“The Golden Rule is the best rule to follow in politics.”

TRANSLATION: I recently heard Senator Clinton say this. It stopped me in my tracks. Treat others as you would like to be treated – that’s the rule, isn’t it? Just imagine if that rule was applied prior to every action, statement and decision in a political campaign. Big Daddy preached to golden rule all the time. He lived it.

“The world would rather see a sermon than hear one.”

TRANSLATION: Now this is about doing instead of talking. This is from Congressman Jim Clyburn who relates a beautiful story about being in college and deciding, against his father’s dreams, he was not going into the ministry. When we took the long drive home and told his preacher father there was a long pause then his father said, “Well, son, the world would rather see a sermon than hear one.” That’s powerful. St. Francis of Assisi said preach often, sometimes use words. Our political system would be much stronger with more action and less talking. Big Daddy was all about doing and not talking.

“Don’t kick a person when they’re down.”

TRANSLATION: When people are at their lowest, no matter what they did, no matter how bad, it is not the time to pile on. Show them attention, love and support. Let them know they matter. This was Big Daddy’s philosophy not just in politics but for how the inmates were to be treated at his jail. Not your normal take on how a Mississippi Sheriff may run things. And he kept running his jail and Sheriff’s department because his county would give him 70 – 75% of the vote nearly every time he was on the ballot.

“Remember Your Raising.”

TRANSLATION: I heard that Big Daddy said this once. Cissy Ross Pierce was getting ready to move to Korea with her soldier husband who was being stationed there. There was a big going away party on our farm with all the families of Pea Ridge in attendance. At the end of the party, Big Daddy hugged Cissy and simply said “You remember your raising while you’re over there.” I was a little boy at the time and wasn’t there. But I’ve heard this story a hundred times by Cissy Ross who did indeed live in Korea then she and her family returned home to Mississippi and rejoined our community. I think it would bode well for all of us if we took time every now and then to remember our raising.

There you have it – Big Daddy translated along with a peppering of Clinton, Pelosi and Clyburn. Those old Mississippi sayings have impact. They matter in 2007. I don’t think Big Daddy considered himself a post-modern philosopher, but what he taught and lived is relevant today. Up out of Pea Ridge, from deep in rural America, echoing back to the 20th Century the voice of a county Sheriff lives on. I hope I embody, to some degree, what he believed and what I find so evident in those I work for and with here in Washington. We truly are one nation, but only when we take the time to consider the power of our values and ideas and how they connect us rather than divide us.