Brush Clearing with Teen-Age Boys in Arkansas

In the summer of 1967, I took a job working for the Neighborhood Youth Corps in Little Rock. It was not a job I wanted—just one I could get. I was living in my mother’s apartment. She had assured me that I was welcome there. But I would need to work and bring in money if I meant to stay. I had worked at some job, been gainful at some mode of employment, every single day since I was twelve. Not to work, not to have a job, and to be idle was an unrecognized human state in my family. We were working people.