Nana Biography

I said to myuncle, “I know someone in this tournament. Let’s go out to the first and see him tee off.”  so we go out and here’s this gorgeous blonde man. He was really a ravishing looking man. He recognized me.  We went out together several times, and he invited me while I was here to come and see his family before I left. Was completely pulled over by California and blonde, blue eyes, and people there that weren’t just just in Kentucky. 

I felt Kentucky was very confined. I should go back and say, one of the things that bothered me was the Negro problem. My stepfather was very, very bigoted on most subjects, and I began to resent this, I would have arguments with him. This is where we parted ways. The fact was, I didn’t approve of the way he handled the Black people who worked for us. He wasn’t cruel, he just put them down. One of the things I remember so well was on Christmas Day.  People who used to work for him would come out to the house on Christmas Day morning, as was the custom, and say “Christmas gift for Mr. Shelby “and my father would say “come Pruitt. Have a seat on my sofa. It’s Christmas, and I’ll fix you a drink. “ so then he would wink at my mother and go in the dining room and pour a very stiff bourbon drink, thinking that was funny. Poor Pruitt with his wooden leg was sitting there, maybe 65 or 70 years old, and forced to drink this because he was going to be polite and get Five dollars maybe. He would drink this drink and I knew what was happening. Then he sort of stagger out of the house. I would be sad to complain to my father. I think that’s terrible, and he would be laughing. These things built up. There were lots of them, lots of them, lots of cases of embarrassment that I began to see. Now I’m not sure if many of my friends felt this way, but when I came out to California, and got in this atmosphere where it wasn’t the same. 

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