Jim Crow Childhood

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"But now as far as the attitude, I went into the Army at age 20. And I -- I guess I have been familiar with the number of forms of discrimination that blacks were subjected to. I've lived all of my life in the south. I was born in Johnson City, Tennessee, but I moved to Atlanta in 1928 from Shreveport, Louisiana. And I can remember in my early days, I think I was even seven years old. I was slapped by a policeman. I can remember thinking that he did it for my own protection, because I was running along the side of a truck that was throwing confetti out, and I thought it was candy."

Editor's Note:

W.A. Scott III was born in Tennessee on January 15, 1923, but he spent most of his childhood in Atlanta, Georgia. His father, William Alexander Scott II, founded the Atlanta Daily World on August 5, 1928 when he was 26 and his son was five. The Daily World began as a weekly paper, changed to bi-weekly by 1930, and then began daily distribution on March 13, 1932. It quickly became among the most influential black community newspapers in America.

In 1934, when W.A. Scott III was only eleven years old, his father was murdered outside his home in Atlanta. W.A.'s uncle Cornelius Adolphus Scott (1908 - 2000) took over the operation of the newspaper until his death when the paper passed to W.A.'s daughter, M. Alexis Scott.