Book Excerpt, STREET BOYS IN JACKSON        

            Some of the things I was involved in were not in vogue for a seven or eight-year-old boy.  Some nights I would not go home until one or two in the morning.  In Jackson there was a legal curfew of 11:00 P.M for those under the age of 15.  If you were caught on the streets of Jackson after 11:00 P.M the police would take you to headquarters and call your parents, causing them to have to come and get you. If this happened three times your name was given to Mrs. Williams, a Juvenile officer at the sheriff’s office, that woman was tough. I went before her twice and she got tougher each time.  After the third time, she said she would have us sent to Columbia, Mississippi Reform School.  I had to dodge police officers, Fulbright and Sheily every night for two years, because I could not stand another whipping from Dad for having to go to the police headquarters to take me home.  I sure wasn’t planning on facing Mrs. Williams again, and I wasn’t planning on being shipped off to reform school in Colombia.

Sheily and Fulbright would start shaking business doors at 11:00 P.M to make sure they were locked, and that nobody had broken in. They would start one on each side of Capitol Street at 11:00 P.M. I knew where they would be at each hour after 11:00 P.M., so I would make my plans to not be where they would be at that time.

My business was to continue selling peanuts and newspapers. Dad would pack 30 bags of parched peanuts in my box each morning; sometimes I would sell mine before noon. On those days I would go to the Jackson Daily Newspaper building on Lamar Street at 1:00 P.M when the papers came out and I would talk to Tommy, the head of the street sales. Tommy got to know me and when I would show up, he would always give me the best block he had not already given out.   I would either draw 50 or 100 papers to sell. If I got a good block, near good stores, I would draw 100. If I drew a bad block, I’d draw only 50. All I had to do was sign a statement stating how many papers I drew and where I was to go sell them.  Tommy never made me put up a deposit or pay upfront. The papers sold for $0.05, so if I sold all of them, I would make $0.02 a paper or $1.00. I would return the unsold papers and pay Tommy for those sold. Tommy told the other boys if they would be like Marshall, who usually sold all his papers and would always show up before 7 to pay up, then they wouldn’t have to put up a deposit either.