Cotton crops paid for education of several family members

By Marlene J. Bohr
mbohr@steelcountrybee.com

A local woman grows a patch of cotton each year in her yard as a reminder that the cotton crop paid for her education and for the education of many others in her family. Robbie Mitchell said on her dad’s side, there were six siblings, and five of them were sent to college.
“My dad sent the five of us to college off a 400-acre farm that he purchased and paid for with cotton,” Mrs. Mitchell said. “Five went to college, and the other one went to work in a packing plant in Oklahoma City. My son, Roderick, and family in Oklahoma City still own the farm located in Avinger.”
Some of the family settled in Oklahoma City a couple of generations ago.
“A white man slapped one of my great aunts and she bit his finger off, so she had to flee and went to Oklahoma City,” Mrs. Mitchell said. “My dad went on to Morehead College in Atlanta, Ga. He later was teaching in Avinger when he returned, and that is where he met my mother who was teaching in Hughes Springs. My mother got her schooling from proceeds from a cotton gin that her father owned. All five of the daughters ended up teaching in Camp County.”
The education of many family members was paid for with roots in the cotton industry.
“Cotton was the basis of a lot of Negros who got higher education,” Mrs. Mitchell said.

Among a yard that holds many flowers and bushes, Mrs. Mitchell plants the cotton every year.
“I grow the cotton in my yard for its sentimental value,” Mrs. Mitchell said. “It reminds me of the high education that many members of my family received due to the cotton crop.”