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Left to Right: Betty Weaver, Patricia Hawkins, Cornelia Johnson - “Miss Homecoming” - Corine Moon,
and Judy Evans. Standing: Elzy Stafford, Jesse Archibald, Frederick Jones, Tommy Johnson, and Julius
Horton.
LOOKING BACK
Athens High And Industrial School Miss Homecoming Court 1958
Back To Basics
by Bessie Deas
Back to basics!! As
a black person, I’m
sick of back to
basics. In my life
time, I’ve watched
our people every fif
teen or twenty years, go back to basics.
We’ve had strong leaders who have
worked, fought and died for us to pro
gress in this world. And when it seems
we’re on our way, someone says back to
basics. Webster’s says basic is a founda
tion, a starting point.
I say if we’re ever going to make it,
it’s time to move forward. We’ll never
make a home run if we keep returning
to first base or (back to basics).
It hasn’t been so many years ago, that
domestic and janitorial work were the
leading professions among blacks. We
wanted better for ourselves and our
children. Back then, most of our hair
stylists were working from the kitchen.
We needed knowledge and money to get
out of that kitchen.
Willie Morrow is the man who took
us away from all that. He worked hard
18
creating relaxers, combs, and curl rear
ranger, to give us complete control of our
hair, and to send us out in the working
world with straight or curly hair that we
could manage while looking as well
groomed as the race we were competing
with.
Not only did his product give us hair
control. It gave us control in the business
world. We finally had the basics. We
were on our way again. Black people
were producing all kinds of hair pro
ducts. Products made by blacks, used by
blacks, sold to blacks, sold by black, yes,
this time it was really a black thing. We
did it! We had the ball in our court.
Thanks to Willie Morrow, we didn’t
need the white man. We were writing our
own pay check, from black to black. We
were able to employ thousands of blacks,
we were manufacturing and selling a pro
duct and service that was from black to
black.
It didn’t stop there. All over the world
people were entering cosmetology and
barber schools, and exiting into their own
shops, into better neighborhoods and
driving nice cars.
The ordinary man and woman could
finally demand and have a better life,
and earn the kind of income it took to
maintain it. Sure, we had a few profes
sional ball players, a few singers, a few
actors that had arrived, but this was a
first for the ordinary blue collar worker
to make over a thousand dollars a week.
And most important, we were self-
employed.
But hold on! Jerri Reddin, Belks, J.C.
Penny, K-Mart, Eckerds, and the list
goes on, are taking notice.
We’re servicing our own. We’re lear
ning to work together. We’re keeping our
money in the black race. Another first
for us. Now they’re taking notice. They
see millions of dollars out there. Dollars
we’re keeping in our race. Well you
guessed it. Now they’re producing our
products, opening salon doors to us that
had always been closed to blacks.
And what about Willie Morrow,
Dudley, Bronner Bros, etc? The people
who helped to make our dreams a reali
ty. How do we repay these people? Well,
we take our dollars and spend them with
the white race; who in the past would not
produce our products, would not sell our
products in their stores, and would have
closed their salon doors before they’d
service us. As for the people who rescued
us, we made them victims and sent them
Back to Basics.
ZEBRA VOL. 2 ISSUE 7