Black "CCC" Camps in Arkansas

My father, Willis Turner, was born in 1914 in the small rural farming community of Grady in Lincoln County, Arkansas. By 1930, he was living in the community of Tamo in Jefferson County with his stepfather, Aaron Shelton, who was a farm owner at the beginning of the Great Depression. I heard post Depression stories such as "we always had plenty of food because we grew our own and how my father who was a "a big boy  was hired out by his stepfather to aid other farmers." The most disturbing story was the exploits of a local merchant who sold "government food meant for the people." The story that intrigued me the most was the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) and the work it performed. My parents remembered young men signing up for the CCC Camps and often cited their work on improving Highway 65 South near Grady. To my knowledge no family members served in the CCC Camps.

The CCC was a national relief recovery program set up by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933 as part of the New Deal to address massive unemployment of the Great Depression. The major "objective of the Civilian Conservation Corp were to give jobs to hundred of thousands of discouraged and undernourished young men, idle through no fault of their own, to build up these men physically and spiritually and to start the nation on a sound conservation program which would conserve and expand our timbered resources, increase recreational opportunities and reduce the annual toll taken by forest fires, disease, pests, soil erosion and floods."1

The President's Executive Order establishing the CCC was issued on April 5, 1933. Robert Fechner,
Vice-President of the American Machinists, was appointed by the president to direct the CCC. Its organization and administration was delegated to four governmental departments: The Labor Department which "recruited the young men, War Department which operated the camps, and Agriculture and Interior Departments which organized and supervised the work projects." A CCC Advisory Council was composed of representatives from each of the supervising departments. In addition the Office of Education and Veterans Administration participated in the program.2

The public work relief program operated from 1933 to 1942. More than 2,900 camps were established and more than one million young men participated. "The typical CCC enrollee was an unemployed, unmarried male 18-25 whose family was on relief." Originally for young single men 18 to 23, the age requirement was later changed to 17-28 and expanded to include veterans.3

The young men enrolled in the CCC camps were required to serve a minimum of six months but could re-enroll up to a maximum of two years. They worked forty hours a week and were paid $30.00 a month "with a compulsory allotment between $22.00-$25.00" sent home to their family. Food, housing, clothing, and medical care were provided.4

Within the CCC's work classification system CCC enrollees performed some three hundred jobs within a ten level classification system. Among the jobs performed were structural improvements to bridges and buildings; erosion control; flood control such as irrigation and drainage; reforestation (planting trees and shrubs); fire fighting; landscaping; wildlife protection and control; and miscellaneous emergency work.5

In researching this article, it became clear why my father did not meet the requirements of the CCC. Although, his farm family was poor, they were not destitute of food and managed to grow their own food.  Furthermore, my father was a farm laborer, therefore, not unemployed. He was also married by 1934 before the CCC camps in Arkansas were established.

The CCC Camps were racially- segregated. 200,000 Blacks were enrolled in black segregated camps
throughout the country. Where to locate CCC Camps in Arkansas for Blacks was obviously a question. Of the thirteen CCC Camps in Arkansas four were black. It is interesting to note that none of the four was in Pine Bluff or Little Rock where there was a large Black population. However, there were enrollees from southeastern Arkansas in each of the camps, especially from Pine Bluff.

The four Black CCC Camps were: Company 3776 "Camp La Grue," Dewitt, Arkansas; Company 3793, Ashdown, Arkansas; Company 4734 Forrest City, Arkansas; Company 4735, Charlotte, Arkansas. Camp La Grue was organized at De Luce, Arkansas on July 1, 1935 in northwest Arkansas near Batesville. Of the nearly two hundred young men on the roster was "Son Gray of Grady". Son Gray would eventually marry my father's maternal aunt.

Camp Forrest City was opened July 16, 1935 in east central Arkansas. Camp Ashdown was opened around the 15th of October, 1935 in southwest Arkansas. Camp Charlotte was opened August 7, 1935 in northeast Arkansas.

The 1930 Census shows Aaron Shelton, age 49, living on his farm in Richland Township with his wife of 2 1/2 years, Arned Shelton, my paternal grandmother, age 30. Members of the household were four of Aaron Shelton's children by a previous marriage, Samuel, age 21; Captain, age 18, Vernice, age 16, and Alberta, age 14. Step-sons in the household were my father, Willis Turner, age 16, and his brother, M.J. Turner, age 14. The makeup of the family showed adequate farm labor support.

The war years of World War II would propel the Shelton family away from the farm to the city for jobs. In 1942, Aaron Shelton migrated to Los Angeles. There he would find work and retire from the Pacific Fruit Express Company. He died in Los Angeles on January 28, 1974 at the age of ninety-three and was buried in Lincoln Memorial Park. M.J. Turner, my uncle, migrated to Oakland, California and worked in the Navy Shipyard. He died in Oakland on April 23, 1997 following retirement from Alameda County and was buried in Rolling Hills Memorial Park, Richmond, California.  My father, Willis J. Turner, moved to Pine Bluff, initially worked for the U.S. Army Arsenal and retired after thirty years from the Cotton Belt Railroad. He died March 31, 1989 in Pine Bluff and was buried in Randolph Cemetery, Grady, Arkansas.

The CCC helped lessen the hardship of the depression for many destitute families and the war industry jobs helped my parents to emerge from the depth of the Great Depression.

Pictures of Camp Forest City






Sources:

1. What the CCC is and Does by Guy D. McKinney, Assistant to the Director
    Emergency Conservation Work, Department of the Interior, Washington, D. C.
2. Ibid.
3. "Civilian Conservation Corps, Wikipedia.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

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