Dickson, Robert

Robert Dickson was born in 1929 in rural Pontotoc County, Mississippi. His father was a sharecropper and a timber cutter. Robert dropped out of school at age 16 to marry his 15 year old sweetheart. A year later their first daughter was born. In 1947, wanting a better life for his family and determined to break the cycle of poverty, he moved his family to Mobile, Alabama. He found work in a paper mill, when he had only twelve dollars left. Twelve years later, after making three moves to start-up paper mills, he accepted a job as a foreman at a paper mill in Demopolis, Alabama. When he retired i...