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| Bertha Green Coleman Photo Credit: Dr. Antoinette Harrell |
Bertha is one of nine children born to Aldophus and Ella Corean Jackson Green in St. Helena, Louisiana, in 1931. She recalled a specific event that happened to her brother in 1956 in Amite, Louisiana. Bertha was at her mother's house when she received the news about her brother Hammondee Green's death. The tragedy is encoded in her memory forever. Eighty-nine years old Bertha can't erase how her brother died in Amite, Louisiana.
"He was home on a furlough when it all started, " said Bertha. My brother wouldn't say yes'mam and no' mam. He went into the cleaners to get his clothes, and this is where it all started, she said. It wasn't until he came home from the services that things got worse.
For the first time sent, he was killed in 1956, his only living sister Bertha, his grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and nieces and nephews gathered to commemorate this death. They placed flowers on his grave and talked about some of the things they heard some of the older folks in the community said.
His family members were dressed in royal blue tee shirts with white carnation flowers to lay on his grave. Some with tears rolling their eyes and other faces that reflect the pain they feel just knowing that their ancestors were brutally murdered. His grandson said my grandfather put his life on the line for this county, only to come home and be killed.
We never said anything because mama told us to be quiet and not to say anything because she was afraid that others in her family would be killed, said Bertha. Mama didn't want to lose any more of her children. When the funeral home called his mother to come and identify his body, his mother Ella didn't go. She sent her two sons and grandson Aldophus to go to the funeral home. Aldophus was only eleven years old at the time, but he recalled seeing his uncle lying on the table with a bullet hold in his forehead and burned marks on his body. Hammondee had been castrated and his testicles stuffed in his mouth, according some of the older people in the community.
"I didn't get a chance to meet my grandfather," said Robert Jackson. He did a chance to meet his great-grandchildren. Robert and his nephew wrote a poem for their grandfather. Everyone was silent and listened to what was being said. Major Colman, Jr. noted that people in the community told him how they were told the story. We're here today because of what some of our family members had to go through said Coleman.
