Palmour Street – 1950’s Film of Daily Black Life in Gainesville, GA

Some of you have seen this over the years or at least heard about the “movie” made in Gainesville in the 1950’s. Included in the movie are Wes Merritt and his family (Randall & Vernon) and Kenneth and Dorothy Robinson. I also recognize Lee McMullen but not all the others. It is a college project and not an action film. I loved seeing a couple of the streets they way they were when I grew up on Race Street.

Thanks to Dorothy Robinson Smith for sending this to me for publication.

 

http://www.archive.org/details/PalmourS1957

SHOWS THE DAILY life of a NEGRO FAMILY IN GAINESVILLE, GEORGIA. ILLUSTRATES BASIC MENTAL HEALTH CONCEPTS BY SHOWING WAYS PARENTS CAN INFLUENCE THEIR CHILD’S MENTAL & EMOTIONAL GROWTH & HELP HIM FACE PROBLEMS.

“Palmour Street is in Gainesville, Georgia. The people who live on it worked hard to make this picture so that they and all of us might know more about ourselves and our children.”

Story of African-American family in Georgia. Many delightful pictures of very happy children running, dancing and playing with themselves and their loving parents. Charming film.
Shots and sequences of everyday life.

Shots:
Dad shows son his flexing muscles. Family sits on porch. Sister cradles infant in her arms.
Public health clinic. Child behaving badly. Mother bathes infant in tub. Six-year old child is scared of dog barking. Child learns to pet dog. child plays by himself jumping happily on couch. child and mother shell peas together.
Mother puts children to bed. Children dance on porch.
Mother reprimands her teenage son at the dinner table, hurting his feelings badly.
Children crawl over mother happily. Woman is cooking up her laundry in a large metal tub on the stove. She stirs it with a stick.
girl sets table for family dinner. Parents fight; child react with fear and upset. Boy sucks his thumb. Baby cries.
Father plays with his baby son; Kids take shoes off dad.
little girl goes off to school. Child tries to go with mother when she goes at work.
Children play pattycake and sing rhymes. Child hides under bed from his father. Then he cries.
going to hospital; father is hurt badly. Sadness.
“Vernon [being given a bath and smiling about it] is only 9-months old. But he knows he is safe, he is warm and his mother loves him. And that’s the best kind of a beginning any baby can have.”
Mean old aunt:
“Get off this porch! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Dancing for the devil like that. You better get off this porch.” “My mom don’t care if we dance.”
“That boy of mine got hisself into trouble again. Had me down to the jailhouse yesterday. Me a-begging the police to let him go. I was ashamed to death.”
“Don’t tell me you couldn’t help losing your job. Because I know better. It’s you and that sassy tongue of yours. ”
“Lord am I tired. Ain’t you got my dinner done yet? Don’t you come here barking at me. I had enough worry all day. Who do you think you’re talking to that way? I lean over that stuff all day, sweating my guts out and all I get is blah, blah, blah. . . .Clothes need washing; baby crying every two minutes and all you want to do is eat. Shut up! I’ll bust you in the mouth.”
“Spoiling one child. Being hard on the rest. When this goes on week after week Mother has problems with them all. ”