Jacob Holdt - my friends

Lefus Whitley and Rikke Marrott

Here Rikke is interviewing Lefus and Gertrude Whitley whom I have been friends with since 1972. Lefus is best known in my book as a drunk such as on page 97. Now he is 76 years old and has stopped drinking. But his children and friends all confirm that he has never missed a day of work in his life. He started drinking on weekends as a sharecropper. Like most black farmers he lost his land to whites and since worked in construction. Although he lives two hours from Raleigh, had no car and had to get up at 5 each morning, he always made it to work. This is is a true miracle. For every time I came to see him he was usually passed out on the floor from drinking already in the early evening. I will soon make his homepage with his life story. His son, also called Lep, was a tough gangster in Harlem and one of my best friends - both then and today.

 


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