Leo Hart

Leo Hart had served in the Army during World War I where he contracted tuberculosis. After a struggle to recover his health, he continued his education and eventually earned a master's degree in education. Hart became a school administrator and counselor in the Kern County school district in California. He became interested in the plight of the children of the Okie migrant farm workers. The families had moved from the Dust Bowl in the Oklahoma Panhandle due to the unbearable conditions they lived under there to a better life in California.

As a counselor, a day didn't go by when Hart didn't hear about the abuse that the Okie kids suffered under. The other students resented them and viewed them as almost sub-human. They were ridiculed for the way they talked and the shabby clothing they wore. Hart recognized that the kids were in the main illiterate...