7This story chronicles the remarkable and inspirational lives of Corrine Hooper, the granddaughter of slaves, and Lila Jackson, her daughter, from sharecropping in the cotton fields of Texas and Oklahoma during the brutal Jim Crow era, through the upheaval of the civil rights era and the unspoken segregation of Los Angeles in the 1970's.. Their stories are that of hardship and resilience, of tragedy and hope. These are the women on whose backs American prosperity was built. Despite poverty, unspeakable racism and devastating loss, through sheer determination they persevered, never losing faith or hope, and always caring for their families. While the characters in this book are fictional, they are based on real stories told by my mother-in-law, who grew up sharecropping in rural Oklahoma.