Lalee's Kin: the Legacy of Cotton

The principal character in LALEE’S KIN is 62-year-old LaLee Wallace, mother of a family of eight children in Tallahatchie County, in the Mississippi Delta in the South of the United States. LaLee belongs to the numerous undereducated labourers who left school at a young age to earn a living in the cotton industry. As a result of the advancing mechanisation in agriculture, most of them have now become unemployed. Due to their low level of education and their poverty, their situation has become pretty desperate. Another important character in the film is Reggie Barnes, who has been appointed chief inspector of all district schools. He is determined to break the vicious circle and devotes himself to improving the pupils’ level of education.