OPINION: A five-cent pickle and a priceless legacy: Remembering Annie Yates Luster

By Selika Sweet, M.D., FAAFP

JA Guest Writer

As I get older, I find myself thinking more about how much time I have left on this earth and what I still want to do. When I came across a list of 100 things to do before you die, one suggestion caught my attention:

Research one of your ancestors.

My thoughts turned to my great-grandmother, Annie Yates Luster, my father’s mother’s mother, and the store she operated on Clay Street in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

While attending a funeral in Vicksburg, I stepped outside for fresh air and noticed a distinguished gentleman with dark brown skin, a slender build, and glasses. I wanted to approach him, but I hesitated. I didn’t want the handsome man to think I was flirting.

Finally, I took a chance.

“Sir, do you remember my great-grandmother, Annie Luster, on Clay Street?”

He studied my face for a long moment. Then he reached out and took both my arms.

“Of course I do! She went to our church, Mount Herodon, right next door to the store. No one went hungry, even if they didn’t have any money.”

Then he began to laugh.

“It seemed like every Sunday I only had two cents, and a pickle cost five. She would tell me I could have it and pay her whenever I got the money. We all traded with her. Miss Annie was an unsung hero.”

He had remembered those three cents for a lifetime.

At another program at the Vicksburg Convention Center, I asked an elderly white man the same question.

“Do you remember Annie Luster?”

“Of course I do!”

His aunt had been a nurse with the health department. Whenever someone in the neighborhood “came down with something,” she made sure Miss Annie knew, because Miss Annie would see that they took their medicine.

Something in his expression made me suspect he meant a sexually transmitted infection. I smiled at myself, remembering my own years in medicine and the many times I had urged patients to get treated and take their medication as prescribed.

He remembered something else, too: his family bought their Thanksgiving turkey from her.

These men remembered a woman who fed them, checked on them, and trusted them to pay when they could.

Our family store stood on Clay Street, high on the hill above the Mississippi River, in a building constructed shortly after the Civil War. It was the only African American business on that street for about a century.

Miss Annie supplied fresh chickens to Hotel Vicksburg. Behind her store, she operated a chicken processing business that provided food and jobs for the community. She also provided housing. Her customers were often her neighbors, and she knew more about their lives than they could afford to share at the counter.

Years later, my mother discovered how far those connections reached.

During the crack epidemic of the 1990s, our family home was repeatedly burglarized. With drug activity nearby and little peace of mind, my mother felt she could no longer stay. She moved to The Glen, a townhouse community off Old Canton Road in north Jackson, where she was the only Black resident among the 25 units.

At her first homeowners’ association meeting, an elderly white man named Elmore recognized her and greeted her with a hug.

“Grace, I remember you. I used to work for Dennis’s mother, Carrie, and his grandmother, Annie, at the store.”

After the strain of leaving her home, his delight in seeing her helped her feel welcome.

Mother did not feel equally accepted by everyone. She believed Elmore’s wife resented their affectionate reunion and never warmed to her. But his greeting remained a bright spot in her memory. Years after his employment at the store, he still remembered our family with pleasure.

Annie’s daughter, Lula, also served the community through the Pillars Motel. Its sign, “COLORED MOTEL,” told Black travelers they had somewhere to stay when so many establishments refused them. Guests included truck drivers traveling on Highway 80, James Brown and his band, and civil rights leaders.

These businesses helped people feed their families, earn a living, and travel somewhere to rest. Preserving their history helps us understand how Black communities sustained themselves through segregation.

Yet it is that five-cent pickle I keep returning to.

I think about it when I remember Kohen Wiley, the one-year-old killed when a police officer fired into a car outside a Walmart in Senatobia during an encounter involving allegations of shoplifting diapers and baby clothes.

I think about fifteen-year-old Latasha Harlins, shot in the back of the head at a Los Angeles store after being accused of stealing orange juice. She had money in her hand to pay.

And I think about George Floyd, whose encounter with police began with a report of a suspected counterfeit $20 bill and ended with an officer kneeling on his neck as he pleaded that he could not breathe.

Each case has its own circumstances. Together, they compel us to ask what happens when suspicion overwhelms the obligation to protect human life.

A child’s life is worth more than anything on a store shelf. An accusation should never erase a person’s humanity.

Miss Annie understood the need to earn a living. She ran a store, supplied a hotel, and employed workers. She also understood that a child who was three cents short deserved kindness.

That does not settle every question about theft, policing, or public safety. It does remind us that compassion belongs in the conversation. We should expect businesses and public officials to protect lives while addressing property loss.

The gentleman at the funeral could still laugh about his two cents because Miss Annie let him leave her store with his dignity intact. Long after the pickle was gone, he remembered how she made him feel.

That is a legacy worth preserving.

My great-grandmother belongs in Vicksburg’s history of Black enterprise and community leadership. I want the world to know her name, the work she did, and the people who remembered her generosity.

Too much of our history survives only in conversations at funerals, church gatherings, and family reunions. When we lose the people who carry those memories, we risk losing the stories with them.

I began this project hoping to learn more about an ancestor. I found people eager to tell me about a woman they had never forgotten.

Annie Yates Luster. My paternal great-grandmother. Their Miss Annie. An unsung hero.

Ninety-nine things remain on my bucket list. I am grateful I started here.

Ask about someone in your family. Talk to those who remember them. Write down their stories and pass them along.

You may discover an unsung hero of your own.