As a 19-year old, he fled a civil rights demonstration in Americus, Georgia in a stolen car and was arrested and beaten. He attended civil rights demonstrations and was thrown into local lockups. He ran away from home and the fields to live his hometown’s vibrant Black quarter, favoring juke joints and pool halls, honing his skills as a singer and dancer. His great aunt raised him, his mother having abandoned the baby to her.
The boy picked cotton on a plantation with harsh labor conditions that negated the Constitutional amendment abolishing slavery.
His childhood education was pushed aside. Born in Cuthbert, Georgia, just down the road from Jimmy Carter’s peanut farm, his very first memory is of a cotton field. Winfred Rembert’s memoir, Chasing Me To My Grave, tells a life bursting joy, agitated by trauma, and marked by dramatic changes.
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