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Mary Then and Now

Then and Now, An Autobiography in Her Own Words

by Mary Smith-Forrest

Formats

Softcover
£11.99
£9.50
Softcover
£9.50

Book Details

Language : English
Publication Date : 28/10/2010

Format : Softcover
Dimensions : 6x9
Page Count : 92
ISBN : 9781452003146

About the Book

Richness of family love . . . . Influence of a guiding mother . . . . With all the comforts of a Southern home . . . . A strong-willed father who was the foreman of a plantation . . . . . Racial prejudice ran rampant during the Jim Crow Era . . . . Heartbreaking loss . . . . and Jubilation.

 

A young African-American girl growing up in the State of Mississippi in the `40s & `50s with all the racial prejudice of the Jim Crow Era, a strong, confident, beautiful spirit developed in the midst of an abusive father.  She was raised by a lady who became her Godmother, where she lived until she moved to Michigan.  Michigan to Indiana.  Raising her three daughters.  Her church affiliation.  This woman's strong work ethic and political influence probing her into a life-long goal of both her mother and herself to earn her college degree.  Here is her story.

About the Author

Mary began writing parts of her autobiography years before she started Indiana University.  However, since enrolling in the Bloomington Campus and many of the professors read her personal statement, encourage her to put her words on paper and let her voice be heard.

She was born in the town of Belzoni, in the state of Mississippi in 1946 where she live with her parents Mr. Robert L. Smith, Sr. and Mrs. Vella Mae Howard Smith (sharecroppers) with her two older brothers and one sister with her younger brother.

 

She moved to Hollandale, Mississippi when she was three years old and lived there until the age of 17.  While in Hollandale she worked in the cotton field harvesting the cotton and going to school during the rainy days and before the time for the harvest to be gathered.

 

She left Hollandale, Mississippi and moved to Benton Harbor, Harbor, Michigan where she married and gave birth to a baby daughter, then moved to Detroit, Michigan and gave birth to two more baby daughters.

 

Then she and her family moved to Bloomington, Indiana where the daughters grew up. Her daughter Anntoinette has a Bachelor's degree Indiana University and Sonia has earned a Master Of Divinity from the American Baptist Seminary of the West in Berkeley, California.

 

She earned two degrees from Indiana University the Bloomington Campus.  A Batchelor's degree in 2002 and the Masters 2006 from the College of Arts and Sciences in the Department of African-American and African Diaspora studies.