My Ancestral Voices

During the Jim Crowe Era in Alabama, African- American children were told by their parents and teachers that they had to be ten times better than their white counterparts, just to stay even. Striving to be ten times better became the standard of behavior for Dr. Joice Christine Bailey Lewis who achieved success with ten times fewer resources and against ten times greater odds. What sustained her during the most diffi cult times was the evidence that her people had survived the hardships faced during two periods of slavery: the enslavement of Africans and the era of Sharecropping. Raised on a sharecropping farm and having no money to go to college, Dr. Lewis, nevertheless found a way to achieve a doctoral degree and experience success as an educator.