He Included Me
He Included Me: The Autobiography of Sarah Rice
Transcribed and Edited by Louise Westling
Copyright Date: 1989
Published by: University of Georgia Press
Pages: 200
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46nnbs
Search for reviews of this book
Book Info
He Included Me
Book Description:

A rare first-person account of life in the twentieth-century South, He Included Me weaves together the story of a black family--eight children reared in rural Alabama, their mother a schoolteacher, their father a minister--and the emerging self-portrait of a woman determined, like her parents, to look ahead. Sarah Rice recalls her mother's hymn of thanks--"He Included Me"--when God showed her a way to feed her family, and hears again her mother's quiet words, "It's no disgrace to work. It's an honor to make an honest dollar," spoken when her children were embarrassed that she took in white people's laundry. Rice speaks, finally, of the determination, faith, and pride that carried her through life. In a document that spans more than three-quarters of the twentieth century, He Included Me presents the voice of a single woman whose life was rich in complexity, deep in suffering and joy; yet it also speaks for the many black women who have worked and struggled in the rural South and always looked ahead.

eISBN: 978-0-8203-4356-3
Subjects: History, Sociology
You do not have access to this book on JSTOR. Try logging in through your institution for access.
Log in to your personal account or through your institution.
Table of Contents
Export Selected Citations Export to NoodleTools Export to RefWorks Export to EasyBib Export a RIS file (For EndNote, ProCite, Reference Manager, Zotero, Mendeley...) Export a Text file (For BibTex)
Select / Unselect all
  1. Front Matter
    Front Matter (pp. i-iv)
  2. Table of Contents
    Table of Contents (pp. v-vi)
  3. Preface
    Preface (pp. vii-xiv)
    Louise Westling
  4. Chronology
    Chronology (pp. xv-xviii)
  5. CHAPTER ONE Early Days in Clio and Birmingham (1909–1917)
    CHAPTER ONE Early Days in Clio and Birmingham (1909–1917) (pp. 1-25)

    My name is Sarah Rice. I was born in Clio, Alabama, on January 4, 1909. My father, Willis James Webb, was a Methodist minister in the African Methodist Episcopal church, and my mother, Lizzie Janet Lewis Webb, was a teacher. When I was a little girl, Mama would tell us stories of her courtship, how she met Papa, and different things about her sisters and brothers and about working for the doctor and his family who sent her to school, and about my granddaddy, Albert Lewis, who was born during slavery time.

    Mama said that my great-grandmother was half white....

  6. CHAPTER TWO Life in the Batesville Neighborhood (1917–1920)
    CHAPTER TWO Life in the Batesville Neighborhood (1917–1920) (pp. 26-47)

    We had good neighbors in Batesville, a good community life. It was a rural area eighteen miles from Eufala and five miles from the nearest store. It was beautiful farming land with rolling hills and flatlands. It was quiet out there. You would hear people calling each other, calling hogs, calling cows. In the fall you’d hear gunshots, when the men were out hunting possums and squirrel. At night we’d hear the dogs barking and cows lowing and screech owls. We were afraid of screech owls and would tie a knot in our sheet to stop them from screeching.

    Where...

  7. CHAPTER THREE Life on the Pat Brannon Place (1921–1925)
    CHAPTER THREE Life on the Pat Brannon Place (1921–1925) (pp. 48-67)

    Finally Papa decided to move us closer to Eufala, when I was about eleven years old. He wanted us to be closer to the school. I was so glad when we moved onto Mr. Pat Brannon’s place. I can see that place now, outside of Eufala, on a red clay road that bogged up when it rained. It was just a one-wagon road along a hill; if you met anybody coming the other way, you’d have to get out of the road. The hill was very steep. We lived up on another hill. You would have to come down the...

  8. CHAPTER FOUR Teaching Career and Marriage (1925–1929)
    CHAPTER FOUR Teaching Career and Marriage (1925–1929) (pp. 68-93)

    Before Papa died, he told Mama, “I have always wanted to have a home for you and the children.” They had had the one early in their marriage that they bought and lost. And he had never been able to get another one. He said, “If I should die, I want you to take the insurance money and buy you all a place.”

    When he died, he belonged to the Masons and the Knights of Pythias and another one that was outside of Alabama, some insurance company. Often you belong to one of those insurance companies up north that doesn’t...

  9. [Illustrations]
    [Illustrations] (pp. None)
  10. CHAPTER FIVE Hard Times and Florida Debut (1929–1933)
    CHAPTER FIVE Hard Times and Florida Debut (1929–1933) (pp. 94-116)

    When I decided to leave Jim Hayes, I decided there would be no more husbands for me. As long as I lived, there wouldn’t be another man. I felt like all men were the same. That’s bad, but that’s what I thought. When James David was about two years old, I went back home during the summer, to stay.

    I had gone back home on one of my visits before I quit James Hayes for good. I said to Mama, “I’m surprised at you, marrying Elder Dickerson. He and Papa were good friends.”

    She looked at me just as calmly,...

  11. CHAPTER SIX Settling in Jacksonville (1937–1943)
    CHAPTER SIX Settling in Jacksonville (1937–1943) (pp. 117-136)

    In Jacksonville, I moved into James Myers’s room on Beaver Street in a big old two-story house. But I kept asking him to get us a house. I didn’t want to stay in a room. He’d say, “Well, we’re going to get one, but we’re going to get something real nice.”

    I said, “I don’t care if it’s a hut. I want something of my own.” He never did anything about getting a house. Everybody in the house shared the kitchen and cooked on the same stove, and used the same bathroom.

    The people I was around in Jacksonville were...

  12. CHAPTER SEVEN Home on Castellano (1947–1956)
    CHAPTER SEVEN Home on Castellano (1947–1956) (pp. 137-158)

    When I was living at 1453 Davis Street, I was working for Mrs. Thompson. A low-income housing project was being built close to me, and I applied for a place in it. All indications had pointed towards me getting in a nice, new, clean house where I would have an electric stove and electric lights. From the time they started the project, I kept running down to the office to see when I could put in my application. When the time came, I wasn’t making enough. I cried all that night, thinking that here I was, a poor person, yet...

  13. CHAPTER EIGHT Get Up and Live! (1956– )
    CHAPTER EIGHT Get Up and Live! (1956– ) (pp. 159-181)

    Gradually I got involved with the local Baptist association and the Women’s State Convention. The Emmanuel Progressive Baptist Association is our local group of about twenty-two churches in Jacksonville, banded together for missions and education. It was formed because you can do more for a cause together than you can in driblets. Our pastor is the moderator of it. I decided to go out there and see what the association was all about. When I got there, they were getting ready to have their election of officers for the next year. The women had to make a financial report to...

University of Georgia Press logo