Everett Ingram

Everett Ingram was a familiar figure in East Opelika, Alabama, when he was interviewed. He was born in Russell County to Prince and Fanny Ingram, one of eight children: Jerry, Clara, Rubin, Jep, Lula, Eugene, Lucy and Everett. They were enslaved by Bill and Lucy Ingram. His grandparents had been sold to a Dr. Walden at Uchee when the area was still Creek country; his grandmother ran away toward Columbus, Georgia, out of fear, and gave birth to Everett's mother in the woods along the way. His grandmother, a healer and midwife, had so many children that he heard she "brought a mighty heap on the block," close to a thousand dollars. His grandfather was put in a speculator's drove and sold.

His mother was the cook and weaver, and the household raised silkworms on mulberry leaves and dyed cloth with indigo. Children ate from wooden trays under the trees. He remembered the overseer whipping his mother and father, and Saturday-night dances and moonlit corn shuckings.

Union soldiers came through the yard in May and told them they were free. He said they hung his mother up by her thumbs in the smokehouse, her toes barely touching the floor, because she would not agree to give up her older children. She never did, though his father later took the two oldest away with him. Everett later married Hattie Graves and joined the church.