Author’s Note: This story is based on the life of my father, Dorsey McHenry White, Jr., who grew up on the Due West Plantation in Glendora, Mississippi. Drawn from the many stories he shared with me, it is a personal history rooted in his memories of family, work, and community on the plantation.
When driving down Highway 49E headed north, you might miss it if you didn’t know the history. Just beyond the trees and fields lies a place called Due West—named for its location three miles due west of Glendora, Mississippi. It was more than just a plantation—it was home. Five generations of the White family lived there. Around the 1940s, it spanned roughly 3,000 acres and was owned by the Sturdivants. Due West stood out from other plantations because the Sturdivants protected the Black people who lived there and didn’t allow outsiders to abuse the laborers.
My father, Dorsey M. White, Jr., and his relatives—the Whites—were born and raised on Due West Plantation. Among them were my grandfather, Dorsey White, Sr., his brothers Ladell Sr., Theodore, Timothy, and Adlee, and his sisters Beulah and Savannah. The White family had lived on Due West since at least the late 1920s. My father was delivered by his grandmother, Cora White, a registered midwife on the plantation.
Even earlier, my father’s grandfather, Tommie White, had begun to establish the family’s roots there. He rented land from the Sturdivants and had his own plow, tools, and mule.
The women worked hard in the fields, chopping and picking cotton. They also grew vegetables—corn, turnip greens, mustard greens, collard greens, onions, okra, butter beans, snap beans, tomatoes, cabbage, cucumbers, and watermelons. They cooked for their families and baked pies and cakes, including multilayered Rex Jelly cakes. They washed clothes using rainwater collected in barrels, a rub board, and homemade soap in a No. 3 wash tub, which also served as a bathtub. The men farmed the land and raised chickens, cows, and hogs.
My grandmother, Addie Mae White, rose every day before sunrise to prepare breakfast: homemade biscuits with Brer Rabbit molasses, fried bacon, eggs, grits, and coffee. She fed the chickens, milked the cows, churned butter, and gathered eggs from the hens. Years of labor—chopping and picking cotton, washing clothes, shelling beans—had weathered her hands. She taught her children to treat everyone with respect and to live within their means. “Get what you can afford—and if you can’t afford it, don’t bother trying to get it,” she would say. She also taught them how to improvise: “You won’t have everything you need, but take what you have and make good use of it.”
My father was the fourth of five children and the oldest son. The twins, Martha and Mary, and his sister Connie were born before him, and his younger brother Tommie—named for his grandfather—was born after him. Connie and Martha both died at about two years old from yellow jaundice, an incurable disease at the time, both passing before my father was born. Their deaths were a quiet tragedy in the household, a reminder of life’s fragility on the plantation. Mary disliked farm life. She married and moved to California, where she worked at a laundry, and she passed away in 1955 at the age of 27 from sickle cell anemia. She was remembered as gentle and thoughtful. My grandmother traveled by bus to California for her funeral. Tommie, the youngest, who passed away in 1996, had a playful spirit and a love for life that balanced the solemnity of their early losses. As the oldest surviving son, my father carried a sense of responsibility from a young age, aware of the weight of family expectations and the legacy of endurance passed down through generations.
When he was about seven or eight, my father’s chores included feeding the chickens and hogs, watering the cows, bringing in wood for the stove, and helping in the fields. He had a three-foot-long crocus sack with a strap that went over his shoulder. His parents taught him to pick a few pounds of cotton as a child, and as he grew older, his sack became longer. It was hard work, often in punishing heat, but they learned to endure it.
At the age of eleven, my father had a red saddle horse named Dr. John, which he learned to ride on the plantation. He was the only boy on Due West with a red stallion—a fast runner whose speed increased the higher he held his head. He also had a pet billy goat that followed him everywhere. Those animals gave him moments of joy in a life otherwise shaped by long hours of work and responsibility. When he was around twelve or thirteen, his father managed to buy him a Schwinn bicycle, which was considered a significant expense back then.
His parents valued education and allowed him to attend school as much as possible. His mother taught her children their ABCs and numbers at home. He attended first through eighth grade at Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church on the plantation. Rev. S.M. Harts of Clarksdale served as pastor, and Ms. Rosa Watkins was his teacher. Before that, the school only went through sixth grade, since most children left school early to work in the fields.
Students attended school in split sessions. During harvest season, school paused and resumed in November, continuing until March. Girls often attended a little longer—until late April or early May—before returning to the fields to chop cotton. My father was in the first class of ten elementary students to graduate from the plantation school in 1950. The closest schools offering ninth grade were in Clarksdale and Charleston. He attended ninth grade at Myrtle Hall in Clarksdale. His parents arranged for him to board with a family friend of his mother’s. During the week, he stayed in town, and on Fridays he rode the Greyhound bus home to Due West, where his father picked him up at the Glendora junction.
Next: Part 2 — Fairness, Farming, and Moving On.
Discover how education, independence, and everyday life shaped both struggle and joy on Due West.
