In 1926, when I graduated from Chico High School in California's Sacramento Valley, I knew that there were no job opportunities for me in the town. None of the native-born blacks went to college, but even with a college degree, they would have had to leave Chico.

I think most black people in the Valley were quite contented with their lot in life, even if they had to work at jobs that whites did not want. Many of them owned their own homes and some blacks had successful careers in the Valley, in spite of discrimination in the job market.

Hadwick Thompson, the only black to farm rice in Northern California, lived in the town of Willows, west of Chico. He had attended the University of California's College of Agriculture at Davis and was a veteran of World War I, who had served overseas in France. When he came back, everybody in that little town loved him. He was invited to join the Willows chapter of the American Legion and they named an athletic field after him. Some white people never let him know that he was black. He owned a lot of acreage up there and stayed there until he died.

In Marysville, about 45 miles south of Chico, I saw Hindus for the first time. When white farmers found out that rice could be cultivated in California, the Hindus were brought to the United States to do the work until the whites learned to do it themselves. Then dead Hindus began to be found in the rice fields. Law enforcement officials always said other Hindus of a different religious sect had perhaps killed the victim. But we suspected that whites had performed the murders as they found the Hindus no longer useful.

To read more of this article, please order this month's issue or subscribe.

Thank you.