Speaking Truth to Power - Anita Hill [23]
Fortunately, I grew up during a time when social forces were such that I might have a better opportunity to realize my family’s and my own expectations. In ways small and large, from school lunch programs to student grants and loans, they enhanced my opportunities for a better life than the one enjoyed by my parents and grandparents. I no doubt have benefited from affirmative action programs, which looked at my race, gender, and background and determined whether I would be admitted. But I am not ashamed of this fact, nor do I apologize for it. Such programs provided me with the opportunity to prove myself, no more, no less. After admission, my success or failure would be determined by my efforts. I do not consider myself either more or less worthy than my colleagues in the same programs.
My parents raised their children to love and leave home because they knew they had no other chance there at a better life. And in just the same order they’d been born, every two years, almost like clockwork, each of my brothers and sisters left home for school or to enter the military. There were few employment opportunities to keep us home. Okmulgee County had, at the time of my birth, a population of approximately 40,000, of which about 7,000 were black. The primary sources of jobs were related to agriculture and were relatively limited. The peanut plant located in Okmulgee, the seat of Okmulgee County, served as the station where most of the local farmers brought their crops for weighing and processing. It provided seasonal work for a few. Work that was dirty and dangerous. Prior to the time of OSHA regulations, several accidents occurred at the plant, one of which, involving the only son in a neighboring family, was fatal. The entire community grieved. As each offered the family condolences, many questioned whether it might have been prevented.
The other notable industry was the slaughterhouse, the success of which was linked to the fact that many of the local residents raised their own beef and pork for food. During the brief period between the time that home curing became unpopular and supermarkets with abundant supplies of meat became popular and accessible, the slaughterhouse prospered. Even the glass jars produced at the local glass plant are, to me, associated with the rural lifestyle. Each rural household of which I was aware used countless numbers of fruit jars from July to September to put up the summer’s fruits and vegetables, jellies and jams. Once a flourishing industry and source of jobs, each year the plant employed fewer and fewer individuals. In 1994 the plant closed.
By the economic, social, and cultural standards of most Americans, the family of Albert and Erma Hill was poor. Yet I never knew it, for our lives were rich with family, friends, God, and nature. Even now, as I look back, I do not remember poverty, because we lacked the kinds of hopelessness and despair that choke many of the poor today. As I think of the family that entered the hearing in the Russell Senate Office Building on October 11, 1991, I see not only those present but those who came before us as well. Having lived through our struggles together in a life that was anything but easy, we expected adversity, and we expected to withstand it.
CHAPTER TWO
For months after accepting the admission to Yale and sending in my deposit, I was 110 pounds of nervous energy. I don’t recall that my knees shook, but I remember lying awake wide-eyed many nights during the spring of 1977, wondering what it might be like.
In the summer of 1977, just before my twenty-first birthday, I traveled to Connecticut