What, Why, How: Ethel Morgan Smith

What:

My mother used to bring home old newspapers and Newsweek magazines after the white family she worked for threw them in the trash. I learned about the Civil Rights Movement from those old magazines. The newspaper-The Clayton Record (as in Clayton, Alabama home of the notorious Governor George C. Wallace) wasn’t interesting, mostly farm information, marriages, births and obits. No black folks were ever mentioned. I would entertain my sisters by standing on our kitchen table and not just...