103-year-old Grandma Shares Her Experience Picking Cotton For 50 Cents Per Day

A 103-year-old woman has charmed the internet with her memories of picking cotton as a teenager in Georgia and Florida – a work that lasted 14 hours a day for only 50 cents.

Madie Scott, who will turn 104 on December 8, began working in the fields when she was 12 years old, picking cotton in Georgia before going to Florida to work as a sharecropper at the age of 16.

The centenarian, who was born in 1917, recalled her memories of the arduous task in a now-viral TikTok video.

'When you get used to picking cotton, you pick it, you know how to pick it,' she said.

Madie Bradshaw talks about her years of picking cotton in videos shot by her granddaughter Shanika Bradshaw.

She began at the age of 12 in Georgia but moved to Miami at the age of 16 after hearing that sharecroppers made more money.

Sharecroppers rented land and tools, among other things, from a landlord, who demanded a big portion of their crop in exchange.

Madie described being picked up at three a.m. and working all day until she was finally able to leave at five p.m.

'I was picking cotton all day,' Madie told BuzzFeed. 'That's all there was to do. You can work in the house [babysitting or cleaning], but if you work in the field you make the most money.'  

'My sister — oh, lord — she looked at me at 11:30 am or quarter to 12, [because] she wanted to stop and rest. She had a lunch break at 12, but she wanted to stop working at 11:30,' she said. 

And it's all been well received by viewers: each video has received thousands of views, with the cotton-picking TikTok attracting over three million so far.

“Wow she’s probably seen so much in her lifetime,” @doublecheekedshorty wrote.

“She is her ancestor’s dream,” said @diamondmsaint. “To live through all that and be free to see the world today.”

Others quickly pointed out that this is merely a reminder that slavery and the difficult years that followed its formal end were not that long ago, and that Black communities are still feeling the effects.

“But their favorite line is ‘get over it’ as if ppl who experienced aren’t STILL alive,” one viewer wrote.

And @iamclassicbeatz suggested that “this is such a clear case for reparations.”