Sleeping in Dixie's Feather Bed

by Lou Ellen Watts

Born in the Depresions, Lou Ellen Watts grew up in Goergetown, South Carolina, in a South that was rigidly segregated. Blacks were in a tumble-down section of town, whites like her family in simple homes near th paper factory that employed her father. On the coast, fabulous mansions of the rich and famous like statesman Bernarch Baruch and baseball's Tom Yawkey rose in splendor among the swamplands. This is the story of how Watts moved through high school and college virtually ignoring the grewing Civil Rights movement and how, at one multi-racial summertime experience in northern Michigan's Interlochen Music Camp, she was jolted to life--and a new view of equality she desired for her own life and for America.

Genres: Nonfiction

168 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2018

Reviews

[Kimberly]

Lou Ellen Watts tells of her experiences growing up in the south as a young white girl and her journey to understanding racial equality. Through her childhood and teen years, she was witness to racial slurs and inequalities, but was sleeping in complacency and the state of "it is what it is and it's always been this way". But as she begins to be exposed to more racial inequality, the demeaning of fellow human beings for no reason, and more, she understands this is not right and there is no difference between people just because their skin is a different color.

Lou Ellen throws in the history that was happening at that particular time in history as it relates to the book and a few of her own recollections of what the world was like at that time. It felt like sitting down with a beloved relative and listening to them tell of their life.

[Marla]

I nice little true story of a shite woman who grew up in the changing south. The first third of the book is about her childhood in Georgetown, SC. Her parents worked at the paper mill. I enjoyed reading about her life back then. She moved with her parents, then went over to college, and worked at a summer camp - and it made her see the country and it’s racial issues of the time. This book tells HER story.

[Beverly Hollandbeck]

A delight to read, but also thought provoking. I read it over a two-day period. It was hard to put down, and part of the charm for me was comparing her childhood with mine.