I am a sharecropper’s son. I grew up on a cotton farm working another man’s land with his mules and plows. We lived so far back in the country that the sun set between our house and town.
I learned at a very early age to love and respect the land, forests and streams that God loaned us. We did not own the land and had no hope of ever owning it.
No one ever owns land no matter how much he buys. He never will, and in the end he’s no better off than those sharecroppers I worked beside.
There is a difference between us and whoever these people are who are buying Chatawa. We have a love for God’s creation.
We do not want to tear it up for personal gain so we can change the name and hope people will not remember who destroyed it. They won’t forget, and I strongly believe that neither will God.
— Charles Roland, Chatawa
