HerStory

HerStory

Unlawfully incarcerated at the age of thirteen is an amazing, true pivotal Civil Rights and Black History Story that is most unbelievable, but so very true.  This is my autobiographical testimony of what happed to me in 1963 when through a series of different demonstrations and protests, I, Emmarene Kaigler Streeter, along with sixteen other girls, ages 11-15 were arrested in Americus, Georgia for participating in an organized Civil Rights demonstration.  We were transported to two different jails outside of the jurisdiction of Americus City Police Department before I became ill and was transported after dark, with two armed policemen alone, back to Americus, Georgia.

 The longevity of our incarceration in the stockade in a racist town in Southwest, Georgia made it possible for Mr. Danny Lyon to be smuggled onto the property by Mr. Artie (Bo-Bo) Brown to photograph us inside of the stockade.  We were blessed to survive under horrific, unsanitary, dangerous, and terrifying conditions.  We, girls of the stockade, were later dubbed in 2007 as the Stolen Girls of the Lee County Stockade by Ms. Donna Owens of Essence Magazine. The lack of having not one drop of water during my incarceration in the first jail and not one drop during my confinement in the stockade, being without proper toiletries, being without any electricity, having only four rare, almost raw inedible hamburgers with a splash of ketchup each daily, one broken, un-flushable commode that was filled with feces, no running water, no toiletries, and only the hard cement floor to sit, eat and sleep on for many days that are revealed as you read. 

My being incarcerated in a small room inside of the old abandoned Lee County Stockade in an isolated wooded area of Lee County, Georgia, and being away from home for many days than have ever been recorded,  during the summer of 1963 was a most unforgettable, very traumatizing, and emotionally disturbing, experience for me a thirteen-year-old Black Girl. My faith was tried and tested in that wretched stockade. I learned many important lessons such as believing in my supreme being, the importance of family support, and bonding and sisterhood or camaraderie inside of that Lee County Stockade.