Overcoming racism and poverty during the Great Depression, an Indigenous youth reaffirmed his cultural identity and grew up to be a leader in his community.
Otis Dees with Dr. Deidra Suwanee Dees
With a borrowed jacket to enhance his dungarees, Otis poses for his fifth-grade school picture. Photo: Blacksher School, Alabama
While growing up in the discriminating South of the United States during the Great Depression, which endured from 1929 to 1939, my father, Otis Dees (1917–1984), reaffirmed his cultural identity amid racism and poverty. As his daughter, I recorded his story to share with others for him, posthumously.
Of Mvsoke and Scottish heritage, I grew up picking cotton on ancestral Mvskoke land that is now the State of Alabama, but I became a writer because of my father. Daddy instilled in me the importance of preserving our family history, which was passed down orally by him and other Elders in our family. I carried Daddy’s stories in my childhood memory from as early as I can remember and began documenting them when my grandmother gave me a diary on my twelfth birthday.
Dr. Dees’s journal collection. On her birthday each year, May 8, Dr. Dees invites her children to select a journal from the box, turn to May 8, and read aloud the entry she wrote on that date. The first journal facing upward holds the stories of her father, Otis Dees. Photo: Dr. Deidra Suwanee Dees
I put together Daddy’s school record from first to tenth grade as he told it to me in his own words. The record ends in tenth grade because the Great Depression caused such deep poverty that Otis, along with many other children of the era, had to drop out of school to work to support his family.
My father taught me the stories of survivance in our family history: how Mvskokes survived stolen land and generational oppression.
The story of my father is inspirational and warrants being shared because it reveals how he overcame childhood racism and poverty and went on to reaffirm his cultural identity. He taught me the stories of survivance in our family history: how Mvskokes survived stolen land and generational oppression. Despite the challenges that my father faced, he grew up to become a strong Mvskoke leader in our family and community.
Heleswv heres, mvto (Good medicine, thank you).
*****
First Grade
September 18, 1923
When school was over at the one-room schoolhouse, I grabbed Birdie’s hand and we headed for home. We ran and we ran and we ran, trying to get past the White boys, ‘cause they all laugh at us and beat us up when they can catch us. The White boys say we’re no good ‘cause we’re Mvskoke Indians.
Robert Davis said he was gonna take me behind the schoolhouse tomorrow and scalp me! I told the teacher when Billy Ray said the same thing last week, but she’s White too. So she didn’t do nothin’ about it, of course. I don’t think she likes me, neither.
As we ran past John Gulsby’s house, he yelled so everybody can hear, “Otis Dees is a poor Indian Redskin!” I told Birdie to try and keep up with me, and I ran faster than I thought I could.
When we got home, me and Birdie got a drink of cooold water in a big giant dipper from the well. Then we fed the chickens and the cow. Mama told me to ring a chicken for supper, but Birdie had to cook it; Birdie had to cook it. Mama couldn’t cook ‘cause she was too sickly to get out of bed. I think she might be gonna have a baby or some kind of grown-up stuff like that.
The house that Otis grew up in, built by his father in the late 1800s. It consisted of only four rooms and was without running water, electricity, or telephone. Photo: Dr. Deidra Suwanee Dees
.
Second Grade
October 8, 1924
Daddy broke his hip last spring when the mule bucked the plow when he was plantin’ cotton. Now I gotta do all the work on the farm. I just wish I can get paid for it. But I’m old enough to know that Indians ain’t got no money.
December 10, 1924
“Otis, Otis! Come here, Otis!” Mama hollered. I knew she had something for me to do from that calling. I climbed down from the dogwood where me and Birdie was climbing up to the top, and I ran in the kitchen to see what she wanted. “You take this sugar to Coosah, Otis, okay? You feed all this sugar to the horse — you hear me?”
“Yes ma’am,” I told her, intending to do what she said. As I headed to the barn, my nose caught a scent of the molasses sugar in my hand. I thought how good that sugar would taste! Like candy the White children brought to school in their lunch pails. Like lollipops in The Big Store that Indians can’t afford.
When I was out of eyeshot of Mama, I pushed my face right in the pile of sugar and took the biggest bite I could get. Rocky, gritty, then melting like syrup, sliding down my throat — sugar rush.
I shoved my hand under Coosah’s mouth. “Here’s your sugar, ole boy,” I told him. “Pretty boy, gentle boy.” I rubbed Coosah’s face while he was nibbling and slobbering.
He looked up and nudged the side of my head, wetting my hair. It looked like he was asking me, “Where’s the rest of my sugar?”
I halfway ducked, caught myself. I really shouldn’t be bothered by Coosah’s slobber. After all, I guess it was a small price to pay for stealing the horse’s sugar.
Third Grade
November 18, 1925
Daddy looks more sickly than I ever saw him. He told me Mama had two babies last night. He said the negro midwife, Ms. Della, tried to help but the babies both died. Daddy said it was kindly strange that while he was sleepin’ in front of the fireplace, a haint [used by old-timers as a type of ghost] that looked like a fireball woke him up and shot up from between his toes and went up the chimney. And that was the same time that the babies died.
Otis’s mother, Pauline Bell Dees; father, Charlie Suwanee Dees; and possibly older sisters, Ruby Dees, Willie Dees, Pearl Dees pose in front of Cousin Dunn’s house at a family reunion, circa 1909; Otis had not yet been born.
February 19, 1926
Joey Cramer who goes to school with me — his mama said she was tired of all that politicking going on down there at the White church. She came over last Sunday and picked me up by the arm and slung me up in the back of the wagon with Joey, and off we went to the White man’s church. Some of the men made me sit on the floor ‘cause they said Indians ain’t allowed to sit on the benches with Whites. That made Ms. Cramer as mad as a hornet. But we sit on the floor all the time at home, so I didn’t pay them no never-mind.
The preacher told a story about a baby that was born in a faraway land. He said the baby was born to die so all the people can go up to heaven . . . even Indians. He told all the people who wanted to go up to heaven to go up to the front. I ran up to the front of the church house and I said, “Preacher man, Preacher man, I wanna ask baby Jesus to take me to heaven.”
But it didn’t do me no good. You see, Ms. Cramer caught that TB [tuberculosis] that was goin’ around and she died that winter, and that ended that. I don’t care nothin’ about going to the White man’s church anyhow, so I didn’t pay them no never-mind.
Fourth Grade
September 22, 1926
I wanna learn some schoolin’ but I just can’t catch up to the fifth graders. I wish I can read as fast as them. My oldest sister Ruby always says I should be thankful for gettin’ to go to the White man’s school. Sometimes I get tired of hearin’ her say it, and I don’t pay her no never-mind. The government didn’t pass the law so Indians can go to school until Ruby was eleven. She must’ve caught up ‘cause she’s in ninth grade now. She sits in the desk on last row with tenth and eleventh graders.
My cousins Jesse and Wesley said we could come over to play last Saturday. I’m glad they did ‘cause I wouldn’t have nobody to play football with. Me and Birdie went over to Jesse and Wesley’s and we played football all day long. On accident, I hit Jesse in the head with the football, and I know his mama’s gonna whup me when she sees his black eye.
Joey Cramer and some sixth graders let me play marbles with them this morning at school. The reason why is they wanted my marbles that Jesse gave me. But I won their marbles! I don’t expect they’ll be asking me to play again.
Fifth Grade
December 12, 1927
Mama’s still kindly sickly, but she’s goin’ vistin’ Aunt Queenie in the big city down in Mobile. I helped her hook up Coosah to the wagon to go catch the train for her trip.
I earned twenty-five cents last week pickin’ cotton for old man Gladshaw. I was savin’ it up to get a second-hand football. But Mama asked if she can borrow it for her trip, so . . . I gave it to her.
December 21, 1927
When I came in from school today, Daddy told me Mama died . . . in Atmore . . . coming back from Aunt Queenie’s. The White man at the train station told Daddy he wanted to take Mama to the hospital but Indians ain’t allowed in the hospital. He said Mama died right there in the train car.
I’m scared.
I’m glad I lent her my twenty-five cents. I don’t mind now that I’ll never get it back.
Right after Daddy told me about Mama, visitors come up in the front yard, and me and Birdie ran under the house to hide. We don’t know all the people what come, but they said they was our relatives. I never seen so many Mvskoke Indians in all my life. Daddy seen us hidin’ through the cracks in the floor and made us come out from under the house. He said we had to have a proper introduction to our relatives.
It didn’t bother me before, but now it’s hard for me to think about disobeying Mama when I stole’d Coosah’s sugar. I think that was the only time — the only time — I ever disobeyed Mama.
Sixth Grade
Dees Creek is still flowing today. Photo: Google Maps
This two-seater outhouse was constructed fifty yards from the house and is still functional today. Photo: Dr. Deidra Suwanee Dees
September 28, 1928
Jack Kindle, who lives behind us, said one of the boys down the road got a indoor outhouse. I don’t figure I’d want one of those due to the bad smell. Ain’t nothing wrong with our outhouse. Only thing is — it’s a long ways to walk at night when it’s cold and I don’t like usin’ no slop jar.
There’s some negro boys that live across Dees Creek behind us, where Ms. Della lives, and they came across the creek today. I hid in the bushes so as I can get a good look at ‘em. The teacher said, “Don’t go near them ‘cause, if they touch you, your skin will turn black as soot.” I took a good close look at them boys and there weren’t a one of ‘em black — they was all kinda brownish color like me.
Manac Creek is located near Otis’s homeplace. Photo: Dr. Deidra Suwanee Dees
.
January 18, 1929
A White man rode his horse from the county seat to our house with saddle bags full of papers. He told us we gotta get new birth certificates on account of the fire that burned the courthouse down in September. He said all the papers inside burnt clean up. But Daddy said birth papers ain’t important to Indians. That’s something the White man made up just to find out how many of us there is. So we didn’t pay him no never-mind.
Seventh Grade
November 25, 1929
Johnny Blacksher goes to school with me. His mama cooked some fried fish and said I can come over and eat dinner with ‘em on Sunday. I wondered why — ’cause they ain’t Indians. They had the best fish and everything — mashed potatoes, sliced tomatoes, fried okra — kinda like Mama used to make. Johnny’s mama even gave us a Coca-Cola in a see-through glass bottle. Since the big stock market crash, a lot of people can’t buy things like that. We ain’t ever afforded ‘em. Daddy says they ain’t no good for you no way.
Daddy asked if the fish was from the ocean in the Gulf of Mexico, the saltwater kind. I told him Johnny said his uncle caught the fish in the Alabama River near the bluff where Red Eagle and his horse jumped into the river to keep from being killed in the Red Stick War.
Daddy said, “You shouldn’t never eat that saltwater fish.”
He said one time he went to town and saw a peddler who had some saltwater fish on sale. It was all the fish you can eat for five cents. Daddy said it would’ve been a good deal, but he couldn’t eat none of that fish on account of it being too salty.
Eighth Grade
November 29, 1930
When I came in from huntin’ today at almost dark, there was two horses hitched to two wagons in the front yard and one automobile. We ain’t never had no automobile in our yard before. One of the wagons was like the covered wagons, like the Wild West kind. Like the kind the cowboys says the Indians shot up with arrows for no blame reason. They’re just ignor’t and they don’t know anything. But the cowboys — stealing our land and taking our food and changing us to poor Indian trash — sounds like a good enough reason to me to shoot ‘em all slap up.
When I went inside to see what all was going on, Ruby met me at the door and told me Daddy had died. I know Daddy was very sickly for a long time, just like Mama. Birdie was in a awful way. Our relatives came to get him ready for the funeral. Daddy was laying on his and Mama’s bed. I’m fourteen now and I’m supposed to be a man about it. But I swear, I had to get away from the house and go in the woods and just let loose. I especially didn’t wanna let Birdie see me cryin’. Indians ain’t allowed to cry.
Ninth Grade
September 1, 1931
They built a new schoolhouse ‘cause the old one burned down last summer. The new one’s got lots of rooms and it’s built out of red bricks. It’s even two stories high with upstairs classrooms.
Now that I’m in ninth grade, the White boys don’t pick on me half as bad. I think it’s ‘cause I grew bigger than all of ‘em. They quit fighting me ‘cause I started winning.
Tenth Grade
With clothes of his own, Otis poses for his tenth-grade high school picture. Photo: Blacksher School, Alabama
December 7, 1932
I’m playing high school football for the Blacksher Bulldogs. We’re beatin’ all the schools in the South. I got my first football letter at the end of last season. All the White boys call me Square Dees ‘cause they say I can knock a square hole in the line of defense.
Me and Birdie really miss Daddy. I wish he could’ve been there so he could of seen me play football with all the skinny White boys. The ones what used to call me names and make fun of me for no reason, no reason at all except ‘cause I was born a poor Mvskoke boy.
A 2024 view across from Otis’s homeplace. The dirt road leads to his house, which is still there today. Photo: Dr. Deidra Suwanee Dees
.
A historical marker on land adjacent to Otis’s homeplace. Erected in 1993, it gives homage to his family for land. Photo: Dr. Deidra Suwanee Dees
.
Back to IYSC | Like Our Stories? Please Donate!
.
Otis Dees (1917–1984) grew up on ancestral Mvskoke land in what is now the State of Alabama during the Great Depression. In tenth grade, he had to drop out of school to work to support his family. He overcame childhood racism and poverty and became a strong Mvskoke leader in his family and community.
Photo: Carolyn White
.
Deidra Suwanee Dees, EdD, is Director/Tribal Archivist at Poarch Band of Creek Indians. She teaches Native American Studies at the University of South Alabama, a program initiated by the Tribe. She earned her doctorate at Harvard. She is the author of Vision Lines: Native American Decolonizing Literature.
