"We were all rough off." Dennis Lackey, a small landowner in Kilpatrick, explained; "We didn't know, even the people who were a little better off, or had more, maybe the landowners. They were just another family. And the people who rented, they didn't feel inferior because they were sharecroppers....That was one thing we prided ourselves on. We never knew anything about a class difference. One reason for it is because everyone was poor. We didn't look up to nobody and say I wish I had what they got, because we were all poor." Since owners in Kilpatrick were not much more financially stable than the cropper, only a small economic difference existed between them, and this could be why they socialized more together. Many owners and croppers stated time and again, like Ruby Rowe, a small landowner in Kilpatrick, continued; "We were all poor, but we didn't know it. We didn't know what we were missing until we got older.
In We Were All Rough Off, I attempt to broaden our understanding about sharecropping and tenant farming in the South. Enormous research has been compiled regarding the more popular areas of the Alabama and Georgia Black Belt and the Mississippi and Arkansas Delta regions, but limited research had been conducted regarding the Appalachian region or the hill country. The community I researched is small and cannot represent all the southern hill countries; however, it is a start. I performed oral interviews with many people who lived in the small town in north Alabama where my grandmother grew up. I am hopeful that future researchers will become more interested in these areas as we learn more about their differences.
