Two Alabama Girls, by Kerry Madden:

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Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926, and Artelia Bendolph was born on August 7, 1927. I am fairly sure they never met though they grew up just thirty miles from each other in the Black Belt of Alabama. Harper Lee came from Monroeville. Artelia Bendolph was raised in Gee's Bend, a place accessible by a ten-minute ferry ride or an hour over rough back roads to Camden.

Harper Lee was known as "Nelle," but I don't know if Bendolph had a nickname or not. There is not much written about her. She wasn't famous. The picture of her is more famous than she ever was. I know that she left Gee's Bend for Mobile approximately the same time Lee left Monroeville for New York City. Lee moved to New York to become a writer. Bendolph left to find a job in Mobile to send money home.

Harper Lee was white.

Artelia Bendolph was black.

Sometimes when you write a story, you have to cut the parts that you really want to keep. During the final editing stages, I had to cut out the story of Artelia Bendolph and the Gee's Bend section, but I couldn't get this picture of her out of my head. Arthur Rothstein took the picture of her in 1937. He was an official photographer for the Farm Security Administration, under President Roosevelt, and his job was to travel with other photographers during the Great Depression to take pictures of the rural poor.         

In 1962, approximately during the same time as Hollywood began shooting the film of To Kill A Mockingbird, the Gee's Bend ferry service was stopped by local white officials hoping to discourage civil rights protests. The ferry's closure isolated all Gee's Bend residents from their jobs, emergency services, shopping, and most significantly, voting. P.C. "Lummie" Jenkins, the sheriff of Wilcox County, said, "We didn't close the ferry because they were black. We closed it because they forgot they were black."

The ferry was closed for 44 years and reopened in 2006. About a month ago, I decided to take the ferry from Camden to Gee's Bend to see what it looked like and to meet some of the women quilters, who continue to make extraordinary quilts in a little trailer. The sunlight hit the Alabama River as the ferry made its crossing. I think I went looking for my next story.

Kerry Madden, Harper Lee: Up Close, Viking Children's Books, Penguin Books