Pull up a chair: a video of a 103-year-old Black woman speaking about her time picking cotton is making the rounds on social media.
TikTok user blackbeauty_305, who goes by Denise B, recorded a conversation between her and her grandmother. The elder, who will be turning 104 on December 8, recounted her experiences picking from the thorn-riddled plants, including the long work hours and little pay.
The grandma says the “people on the farm” would wake them up super early to take them to the fields.
“[They] come in town, pick you up 3 o’clock in the morning,” she says.
“Oh no,” Denise replies. “And then what time y’all be finished?”
“About 5 o’clock, we leave for the day,” the 103-year-old continued.
Grandma picked cotton from 3am-5pm every day.. She was paid barely anything. Smh! #storytime
https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js
“And how much did they pay you?” Denise asked in the footage.
“Nothing,” her grandmother laughed. “That little bit of money.” When asked how much she was paid for working all those hours, she said, “Sometimes it wouldn’t even be $100… Which one you gonna do? Starve or what? I worked like a dog.”
She even bragged about knowing “all of the tricks” when it comes to handling cotton and explained how they would go row by row.
“Grandma picked cotton from 3am-5pm every day. She was paid barely anything. Smh!” Denise wrote alongside the three-minute video, which has wracked up over 760,000 likes.
Comments flooded the video, some expressing their awe at the 103-year-old’s experiences, while others congratulated her on a long and inspiring life.
“You should record and archive more of these conversations. She is a VERY important part of history,” one user wrote. Another said, “She is her ancestors dream. To live through all that and be free to see the world today.”
Even Lizzo chimed in, saying: “Hey grandma.”
