REVISIÓN DOCUMENTAL

Dorothy Bolden was born in Atlanta, Georgia circa 1920, to Raymond and Georgia Bolden. The Boldens resided in Vine City, a predominantly African-Americans community located south of downtown Atlanta. According to Bolden, her sister and brother were born at home because their mother did not trust the local hospital to safely deliver her children.161 _Their

grandparents adored both her and her brother. Bolden did not mention her sister in interviews. Bolden recalled her grandparents frequently bringing fresh meat and produce from their

Covington, Georgia home. She remembered these parcels of food as being essential to surviving the Great Depression. Ultimately, Bolden recollected her childhood as being “sweet” and she clearly felt loved by family members.162

Bolden remembered the scarcity of available jobs for members of her family. African- Americans were not able to select the types of jobs they wanted, they took the work that was

161 _{I did not locate a record of Georgia Bolden giving birth to an additional daughter. According to 1930}

United States Census records, Georgia and Raymond Bolden gave birth to one son, Clarence, one daughter, Dorothy, and adopted three other children, Dorothy, Timothy, and Clara Patterson. "United States Census, 1930," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/3QNZ-S6Z : accessed 08 Nov 2014), Raymond Bolden, Atlanta, Fulton, Georgia, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 0009, sheet 8B, family 72, NARA microfilm publication T626, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington D.C.; FHL microfilm 2340094. Bolden spoke very candidly about herself in interviews. However, it appears as though she was careful about not giving out identifying information such as the names of family members or any place family frequented, such as church or schools. Bolden believed her mother was afraid of the hospital because “babies had been mixed up” in addition to racist practices. Dorothy Bolden interviewed by Chris Lutz, Special Collections Department, Pullen Library, Georgia State University Southern Labor Archives, August 31, 1995.

162_{Dorothy Bolden, interviewed by Chris Lutz, Southern Labor Archives, Georgia State University, August}

31, 1995. Bolden Thompson Collection’s biographical statement in the Auburn Avenue Research Library file lists Bolden’s date of birth as October 13, 1923. The Junior League of Atlanta’s Oral History Project transcript lists Bolden’s date of birth as October 13, 1920. In Lars Christiansen’s dissertation, “The Making of a Civil Rights Union: the National Domestic Workers Union of America,” Bolden’s birth date is listed as 1920. Her funeral program lists her date of birth as being four years later on October 13, 1924. Genealogy website

www.familysearch.org lists her date of birth as 1925, based on United States Census records that were taken in 1930. Confirmation of her birth is difficult as Bolden was born at home.

available. Yet, various members of her family continued to relocate from rural areas to Atlanta’s black neighborhoods. Although Bolden’s grandfather had been enslaved prior to the end of the Civil War, he managed to become educated. Her parents were not formally educated and did not own businesses in the traditional sense, yet Bolden did not identify her parents as laborers. She described both her parents and grandparents in a professional context. Raymond Bolden was a chauffeur and landscaper. Georgia Bolden was a cook and laundress. Her parents also prepared and sold meals. Bolden’s grandmother peddled flowers to put her grandfather through school. Her grandfather served his community as a teacher, minister, and principal. Bolden appears to have grown up in a loving, entrepreneurial, and self-sufficient family.163

Bolden’s childhood was financially challenging, but in her community, compassionate neighbors took care of each other and everyone was able to survive. Families shared meals and everyone watched the children. Everyone in the neighborhood was acquainted with and trusted each other. In Bolden’s recollection of her Vine City community, most of the adults were hard working and, the children were happy, respectful, and obedient to the neighborhood’s adults. The neighborhood was comprised of hard workers who took pride in their community. Bolden believed that in her community, “everybody loved everybody.”164 _{Bolden’s idyllic description of}

her childhood and her neighborhood contradicts her painful experience of living with a devastating childhood injury.

When Bolden was a toddler, she fell out of bed. The way she landed on the hard floor caused nerve damage to her eyes. At one point, she was completely blind. Because of Bolden’s compromised vision and painful headaches, she did not attend school regularly. A chance meeting between her father and a white woman led to an appointment with a specialist. The

163 _{Bolden, Lutz interview.} 164 _{Bolden, Lutz interview.}

specialist personally treated Bolden from the age of seven to nine years old. After a series of treatments, her eyesight was restored. Unfortunately, as a result of this injury, Bolden suffered health issues for the rest of her life.165 The painful side effects affected her performance in high school and later, as a young woman, kept her from working certain types of jobs.

Like many families of the era, Bolden’s family experienced financial hardship. Her mother took in laundry to supplement the household income, but everyone assisted with the tasks. By the time she was nine, Bolden had already acquired her first paying job. When Bolden began working for a separate employer, she increased her income from the $.50 per week she earned helping her mother take in laundry, to $1.50 per week in her new, but dirtier, job of washing out babies’ diapers. While still a child herself, Bolden collected soiled laundry from employers in her brother’s wagon, washed garments on a rubbing board, bleached the clothes in bluing water, dried and ironed them, then returned them to her customers. By the age of ten, Bolden was consistently working and contributing to the family. When she got to high school, her impaired vision bothered her to the point that she did not complete high school. She opted to go to work as a domestic full-time.166

Bolden left home at the age of seventeen and traveled between Chicago and Atlanta in search of career opportunities. While living in Chicago, she worked as a domestic. Later, she moved to Detroit, where she enjoyed learning how to style dresses.167 Between 1940 and 1941,

165 _{Bolden, Lutz interview. Dorothy Bolden, interview by unidentified member of the Junior League Oral}

History Committee, Junior League of Atlanta Oral History Project, Special Collections, Auburn Avenue Research Library, Atlanta, Georgia, December 7, 1978.

166_{Bolden, Lutz interview. Gayle White, “Maid’s Life Long Days, Low Wages” Atlanta Journal Atlanta}

Constitution, 31 January 1981, (Weekend). Gerda Lerner, ed., Black Women in White America: a Documented History 2nd ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 1992), 234-235.

167 _{Bolden, Lutz interview. Because Bolden’s date of birth varies, I am approximating the year she traveled}

Bolden met and married a man named Frank Smith. Bolden and Smith had a son, but divorced soon after his birth.168 _{After only a year, Bolden’s doctor cautioned her against continuing to}

design and sew dresses due to the strain on her eyes. She then moved to New York. She quickly discovered she did not like the environment, and returned home to Atlanta. Every job that Bolden had outside of domestic work involved manual labor. Bolden worked for a linen service, at a department store, as a waitress, in a factory, and as a freight worker.169

While at the freight company, Bolden met and married her second husband, Abraham Thompson. Thompson was troubled about the physical toll the job was having on her. Bolden once again returned to domestic work. During this time, Bolden and Thompson started their family. Together, they parented seven children, (including a foster daughter.) While the children were young, Bolden stayed home, only working intermittently. Once the youngest were in primary school, Bolden returned to work full-time.170

Throughout Bolden’s adult married life, the Bolden-Thompson family lived in the Vine City community, one of Atlanta’s oldest African-Americans communities. With the exception of the times Bolden lived out of the state, she had spent almost her entire life in this solid and close- knit community consisting of working-class and professional African-Americans. Vine City bordered white neighborhoods, which led to the main thoroughfare, Hunter Street, (now Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive). Bolden loved her neighborhood and was devoted to its residents. As Bolden grew older, she became increasingly committed to seeking ways to improve the community.

168_{Bolden, Lutz interview.}

169_{Bolden, Lutz interview. Lerner, Black Women in White America, 235.} 170_{Lerner, Black Women in White America, 236.}