I listened recently to an episode of This American Life called The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar. It was about a wealthy white family whose son went missing in 1912 and was “found” a few months later. Only it wasn’t their child, it was the child of a poor single mother named Julia Anderson who worked as a field hand and didn’t have the resources to go up against the powerful Dunbar family. She was vilified and torn to shreds in the papers & during a sham trial, and was worried about getting lynched if she didn’t just drop it and leave the area. The Dunbars essentially kidnapped her child from her, and she was powerless to do anything about it.
The truth was discovered by a descendant of the boy raised as Bobby Dunbar, and it has caused considerable rifts in her family, as they are now shunning her. The descendants of Julia Anderson, on the other hand, have embraced her with kindness. It seems they knew the truth all along. It is a fascinating story from an angle that doesn’t get much attention when dealing with Southern narratives.
This whole story has struck a nerve with me because it is hard to find stories about poor whites in the South that don’t depict them as the villains, or inbred, or depraved, or just the overall worst kind of humanity.
I think they make easy scapegoats in Southern stories, especially from the last 150 years, but I know from my own life and family/friends oral histories this isn’t always the case and that class warfare among whites could be/can be brutal. Many upper class while folks would tell you straight to your face, and with a straight face, that they trusted their black maid or gardener with their complete household, but would never dream of employing “that cracker trash” as help or even letting them within 50 feet of their homes, for that matter. Doesn’t mean these rich folks weren’t/aren’t racist, they just think they are better than everybody else, white or black, because they have means.
Ah yes, the South is a complicated place, I acknowledge that, but my main interest is exploring that it isn’t always all of the white people against all of the black people all of the time, and there are lots of cases where the poor whites came out on the bad end of the stick, too.
The white versus black path is a well-traveled road in literature, there is quite a large amount of that available, but in searching for more stories like the case of Bobby Dunbar, there isn’t too much.
I have read quite a few diaries, narratives & biographies that have a decidedly Southern focus, and you can find loads of little tidbits in there about politicians and wealthy white folks pushing poor whites around and using them, as in the case of Eugene Talmadge, but as far as real published family stories, be they based on truth or fiction, they are apparently scarce as hen’s teeth.
I read about Georgia Tan and her Tennessee Children’s Home and how she exploited the poor, kidnapped and sold children away from their families, and was even in cahoots with a lady Judge…that’s a good example of what I am looking for.
The only other story I can think of at the moment that fits this is Rambling Rose, written by Calder Willingham, about a poor girl who has been victimized and is hired by a wealthy family to serve as a housekeeper. The family certainly sees themselves as socially above her. She causes much upset in their lives, and even though the rich family is quite kind to her, they are pretty glad to be rid of her in the end.
And please, no Flannery O’Connor. She is from my neck of the woods, and I can’t stand her. Her writing is mean-spirited and just plain unkind to this class of people. She feels like a snob to me. I may revisit her work one day and see if I feel different, but right now, just…bleck.
Does anyone have any suggestions or come across something like this? It can be a book or a movie.
Just asking since I know there are so many readers here.
