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The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone Arsenal, page 39
School Held in the Church. McKinley Jones and Albert Robinson said Black children went to school mostly in the winter when they didn't have to work in the field, “maybe two or three months a year. In September and October there was the cotton. In November the corn. In February we started to plant. The girls went to school more.” McKinley Jones said there were two teachers??"Lucy Humphrey and then Miss Patton, who was added in 1937. Jones said Lucy Humphrey was “the main one”. “We had to sit there??"we were supposed to study.” When asked if they were disciplined, McKinley Jones said, “You better know that's right!” He said the teacher had long switches. She made the bigger boys go get the kind she liked. There were no desktops for the children to write on. The children sat on the slats of the pews and held whatever they used on their laps. The teachers taught lessons to the 9th grade. McKinley Jones said he lived on the far side of the creek from the church, so when the creek got too high, he couldn't go back to school until it went down. McKinley Jones said his mother sent sandwiches to school with him for lunch, made from whatever they had. Jones and Robinson agreed that the children brought from home “whatever they had.” The Store and the Lodge Also on the property of Jim Holding (B-52), immediately west of Union Hill Cumberland Presbyterian Church, was a two-story structure that was Jim Holding's store. Jim Holding's home was nearby, “down the hill” from the church. The store/lodge was built like the church, but straight up.” The children bought cookies and candy there. Albert Robinson said that when he went to church, his mother gave him “a little bit of money” to take to put in the offering. He said, “Afterward, my mother would talk to the storekeeper, Mr. Jimmy Holding, and check up to see if I had spent any of the money at the store instead of putting it in the offering.” Meetings in the lodge were held upstairs. Children were never allowed upstairs. The inscription on the grave monument of Henderson Holding that is in Inman Cemetery refers to this lodge (Supreme Royal Circle of the Friends of the World). The fathers of McKinley Jones and Albert Robinson were members of this lodge. They said they had been young and hadn't gone to lodge meetings, and it was “kind of a secret??"they wouldn't tell us anything.” When asked if he meant like the Masons, who are sworn to secrecy about some parts of their organization, Jones responded positively. What Jones and Robinson did know was that if a member of the lodge were ill, the others would take turns sitting with that person. The needy were helped. Money was collected, and when a member died, some of the money was sent to the family of the deceased, an endowment, to help pay for the funeral. Both men said their fathers and others referred to the lodge as “Sisters and Brothers of Arnold.” Both informants agreed this implied that 39 - (4072)