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Comments prepared for broadcast over WLIB Radio in New York City. -6- In my stare, Arkansas, the Land of Opportunity, a lady appealed to me a few weeks ago, seeking help in obtaining summer work for her sons. She is the mother of twenty-one children. The oldest child is eighteen years old. She explained that until this year, the older children worked on the farm where they lived and earned extra money to supplement the family income. She said that they helped to plant cotton, cul- tivate and gather it. "But today", the lady continued, "Everything has been changed. They have brought in machines to plant the cotton, in a way that it does not need thinning, and are using a machine to sprinkle a chemcial that kills the grass and weeds where it does not need chopping." She said, "the cotton growers are using machines to cul- tivate the cotton and machines pick it, machines which leave nothing for the people to do." This lady, "Said we have farmers all our lives, and don't know anything else to do." "What is going to happen to us, and hundreds like us," she asked. -more-

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Land of (Unequal) Opportunity

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University of Arkansas