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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview C-0013-1, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Asa T. Spaulding was born in rural North Carolina in 1902, but his scholastic aptitude soon removed him from the farm where he spent his childhood. After a high school education in Durham, North Carolina, Spaulding earned a degree from New York University and received training as an actuary at the University of Michigan. He returned to Durham to take a position at the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, a historically African American company where he spent his career seeking balance in his professional and personal life. He was president of the company from 1959 until he retired in 1969. Spaulding spends most of this interview describing his early life. He describes his rural community; he remembers applying his disciplined mind to his studies in New York City and Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he experienced some, but not much, racial discrimination; he recalls the transition from reliance on black burial associations to larger life insurance companies and his role in modernizing insurance practice; and he reflects on the nature of citizenship and humanity. Spaulding was a hard worker and a spiritual man who valued his time spent teaching the Bible. A self-reliant man, he cast his vote for Richard Nixon in 1972 but condemns him for his greed. This interview sheds light on a pioneering career and a set of beliefs behind a successful businessman and spiritually fulfilled person.
Researchers and students might also consult the two other interviews with
Spaulding in this collection, C-0013-2 and C-0013-3. Those interested in
learning more about the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company and black
business in the South might turn to the interviewer's book, Black Business in the New South: A Social History of the North
Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company.
Asa T. Spaulding, the first African American actuary in North Carolina and former president of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, recalls his early life and weighs his contributions to the insurance business and society at large.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
You take a look at that. I don't know whether
you've come across that kind of information anywhere or not.
I've never seen this.
And I have excerpts from his will, where it's recorded and everything.
Annabell, who he's talking about, is his sister, Debra. She's my mother's sister; Annabell was my mother.
That goes all the way.
So what relationship would that make your mother, then, to Henry Berry Lowery?
I don't know.
I believe the figure he was talking about was legendary in the county….
Oh yeah. Well, he was not only legendary; he was a real person. But there was a lot of legend around him. And he is writing a book, around this whole Lowery family. He (Dr. Earl Lowery) was in Roberson County at a funeral, of my mother's oldest and last-living brother. And he was there for the funeral and he got to talking. And he was telling about he was working on a book. I told him when he was finished with it, I wanted to get a copy of it, because I wanted to trace my family connections.
Does the Lowery family see itself as Indian on black, or a combination of the two?
No. They didn't ever consider themselves black. As a matter of
fact, that's why they have their own separate school. Even
way back when they had segregated travelling on the trains, they always
sat in
So they declared themselves Indians. Your mother, then, saw herself as Indian?
Well, she was one of them, and yet she married my father, who was about my color. But the way she got into Columbus County was: her first husband was A. McL. Moore. He was one of the Moores from down there. And he was a preacher. And I understand he was quite a speaker. And they used to invite him up there (Pembroke) to preach, at the churches. And that's where he met her. And they married, and he brought her back to Columbus County. Later he died. And my father was her second husband. And there was quite an age differential between her and him (twelve years). She was 100 year old—would have been a hundred-and-one if she'd lived three more months— when she passed in 1965.
Your mother?
Yes.
When did she pass?
In nineteen and 65. I have that information somewhere. But it's been within the last 14 years. My father was eighty— he was always overweight— when he died in February, 1956.
Do you remember your mother telling, then, about this Lowery family?
Well, I visited Roberson County with her.
But when you were growing up, would she tell you about them?
No. Well, you know, there's one thing about them—I guess the Indian characteristic— they didn't talk much.
When you were growing up, were you aware, though, that she was Indian?
Oh, yes. Because…is this on?
Yes.
Well, put it off for the time being
I have so many pictures that are really of historical value, with no dates, or no places on them. Because I did not, at that time, ever think that I would want them to refer to for any particular reason. And now that's very important. Because, in my autobiography, if you take pictures, people have to know: when, why, where, who. And while I knew the people at the time, and all, some of them have been so long, that their faces are not so sure. And when you meet so many people in so many different parts of the world, it's hard to reconstruct them after twenty-five, thirty, or forty years.
You have photographs of your family going way back?
No. Of people along my way, where I've been, and people
I've met. Just like Chief Justice Warren, when I presented
him to receive the citation from the National Conference of Christians
and Jews. I remember it happened, and I think it was at the New York
Hilton. But I'm not sure. And then others, in the city, and
you'd go through the
This is the man from Continental Oil?
Yes. See, because he came over on his own private plane, with
communications. As a matter of fact, he could fly to different parts of
the world and conduct exec. committee meetings from his plane.
They'd be meeting in Houston, and he'd be
presiding on his plane
And he wanted to know who I'd got to get him. I said, "Nobody. I wrote him a letter, extending an invitation, and he accepted it." That was just a mystery to him. Well, he came. He made a good speech. He was well received. Had a question-and-answer period. And I know it was a refreshing experience to him, because, you know, when you do something that you've never done before, and you feel like that, that it's out of the common. I look upon it as a soul refreshing experience to have. You know, it broadens you. It's a new facet of your life. And that's the way it seemed to him. And after that, a very warm relationship came between him and me until the time that he retired. I had Christian A. Herter, who was Under-Secretary of state. I had Andrew Brimmer, first black member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. I had a good mixture of black an white
This ability you spoke of, that it was not unusual for you to be working with blacks and whites. It was not a new experience for you. And you related that that might have something to do with your background in Columbus County—your father and the hunting camps. Do you think that's so?
I'm sure it did. As I look back, see, they were building
blocks and I didn't know it. And one thing led to another.
And the opening of one door led to another. When I first started, and
the type of people that I got there, it became easier and easier for me
to get top-flight people to accept invitations. Because, when they were
told what
Shaw, now, was a Baptist institution?
Yes.
And all the Spaulding family was Baptist?
No, some were Methodist. I came up as a Methodist until I came to Durham. I was a Methodist until I was sixteen. And Dr. Moore, the one who was responsible for me coming to Durham, was Baptist, and superintendent of the White Rock Baptist Sunday school. Lived next door to the church. After I left Columbus County, he was my "other father." Because I never did live in Columbus County any more, except the year that I went back there to serve as principal of the school. I was on my own from sixteen.
You left there at age sixteen? And what year were you born?
1902.
So you left there….
October the first, 1918. I remember it so vividly. Because I was going further from home than I'd ever been before.
And you spent these first sixteen years, then, mostly working on the farm. Tell me a little bit about the school.
It was a one-room school. And all classes, study-hall and
And the term was built around the harvest season?
The harvest.
How many days would you actually attend school?
Well, I think it opend around the first of October, and it actually ran through February. But at the time they didn't have the requirements that until you were sixteen you had to attend school. So, you didn't go full-time until you finished harvesting your crops. Or, you might go a certain number of days. And if there were something that had to be done on the farm, you stayed out and did it.
Do you remember the teacher? Do you remember the name?
Yes. I had several. One was Jonathan Spaulding; another was Josephine Spaulding; a little later, Josephine Freeman; another was L.L. Spaulding. He finally became a professor of Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte.
It sounds like there were as many men as women. Was that unusual then? I tend to think of elementary school teachers as always being women.
Well, not there. Because it was a matter of the people who went away and got their education.
And Dr. Moore came back and taught, didn't he? Was that kind of a tradition, to go away….?
I don't think he taught there. He came back every year and spoke at the school, to the students. That's where he inspired me. He and C.C. Spaulding would come there every year and speak at the school there, and at the churches.
Do you think that there were more men teaching at the elementary level, than one might expect, have something to do with there not being economic opportunities for black men in the larger world?
That might have been. But they did have women, though, when I went back there. I had three teachers and they were all women. I was principal of the women teachers.
The teachers tended to come right from that community?
One came from Clarkton, which was about six miles from the schoolhouse. And the furthest away, a lady, Spencer—I've forgotten her first name—came from Lumberton, I believe it was.
Now this community was essentially rural. There were two towns there, Whiteville?
Whiteville was the county seat in Columbus County. Clarkton was in Bladen County. But it was only nine miles from this community. You see, Whiteville was on the southern tip of the community; Clarkton was on the northwestern tip. Rosendale, which was no more than a railroad station, was directly north of where I lived. Whiteville was directly south.
Was there a name for this rural community? Was it distinctive in the sense that it had a name that you'd know it when you got to it?
Well, it was more or less the Spaulding and Moore area. In the earliest part of the ancestry, those were the names, but others began to come in. You see, what happened, just like my mother got down there, you see. The movement in those early years, even before slavery—in other words, they're not nomads as such, but people who were drifting down? Just like in Europe, you know, when certain tribes, or certain groups would come in as invaders and all. So where the people from Roberson County go down there. My mother was the first one to come into that community.
Do you know anything about the community before she got there?
No, I don't know. Because, see, I wasn't born.
Where you heard more conversation would be at church after service.
People would
To visit?
To visit. He would look forward to that, and they'd look forward to his coming, to break the monotony.
Was that his tradition that he created?
Well, it was traditional with him. I don't remember anyone else who'd do it.
Not associated with the church?
Just friends, you know. Some were of the Methodist Church and some of the Baptist Church. Had two of them there. We would go to the Methodist Church every Sunday, except the fourth Sunday. On the fourth Sunday, we'd go to the Baptist Church for Sunday school, and for preaching services, we'd go to the Baptist Church. Because the preacher would come down from Lumberton and preach at the Baptist Church on the fourth Sunday of the month. And they, the Baptists, would come to the Rehobeth Church, which was a Methodist Church, the first Sunday, when they had their preacher. See, the preachers at that time had four churches. One on the first Sunday, the other on the second, and around, make the circuit.
A circuit-riding preacher.
That's right. That was in the early nineteen hundreds.
Is this one of your earliest memories, going to church, or being with your father on these buggy rides?
Oh, there's a little trick I played on him. I don't
remember what year it was, but I guess I was about eight. This
particular
He forgave you for that?
He forgave me. And I rode with him the rest of the round. That's one of my earliest experiences of that type of thing.
What age were you when you started school? Did children start at a particular age?
Oh, no earlier than six.
Were children assigned duties already, on the farm?
Oh, well, that's one thing about rural life, you know. You have a greater sense of responsibility on the farms at an early age than anywhere else. I notice they mature earlier, and they have a sense of responsibility. They can take on and do things that I didn't find taking place when I first came to Durham.
Can you remember the first chores you had?
Oh, get up in the morning and feed the mules and horses. Get up around
five o'clock and go out and give them their breakfast: the
corn and the fodder, whatever, and see that water was drawn for them.
That starts early. Then the matter of getting wood in. We cooked with
wood and heated with wood, which would come off the land there. It was
divided amongst
How many children were in your family?
Five. Three boys and two girls.
Where did you rank in age?
I was the third. I had an older sister and brother, and a younger brother and sister. I was the middle.
We might want to talk about them later, but I want to pursue this matter of life on the farm a little bit. What kind of crops?
We raised corn, cotton, tobacco, hay, that we'd feed the cattle with. We'd plant a cover crop. We'd plant oats and peas. You'd sow these peas, you know, and cut the vines.
Field peas?
Yes, field peas. And of course truck gardens. We had everything that you eat. All the vegetables. We raised our own hogs. Another chore was feeding the hogs. One of the boys was responsible for seeing the hogs were fed. Another of us would see that the mules and horses were fed. We always had two mules and a horse, at least two mules. And, of course, the cattle had to be cared for, and water drawn, you know.
And what about your sisters? Was there a division of labor?
They helped in the house.
Would your mother assign their duties, and your father assign the duties for the boys?
Well, I guess it kind of just grew up. Well, he would tell who would be
responsible for the mules and horses. There was a division of labor.
Well, see, the mother and sisters would help. At that time you had to
chop cotton. Both thinning the cotton out as well as keeping the grass
out of the crop. It was interesting when I went to Central America the
first time,
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Did you have when I was born on there?
Yes, 1902. And we were talking, I think, about the grade-school experience, and life on the farm. And you were talking about your mathematical skills and you developed that: in part from being in school, but also from your father's general store. You worked parttime in the general store; you worked on the farm; and you're also going to school. What age did you begin having these three roles?
Well, my role at the chores around the home, I'm sure, started as early as six years of age. When we were responsible for feeding the mules and the horse—always had at least one horse—and the cattle. We raised cattle enough to provide beef as well as milk. And my mother always had a garden, and she liked flowers in the yard. She had some very beautiful flowers, all kinds. And also I remember having in the yard a big pear tree. And I've never seen a pear tree more heavily laden, sometimes so much that the weight of the fruit would break the limbs. And, of course, pumpkins, and Kershaw. I don't see any of them now.
A kind of melon?
Yeah. But all of the different fruits and vegetables.
Did you raise enough of this to sell, or was it just for your own?
Our own consumption; and share with neighbors.
Did your mother and sisters preserve this food?
Oh, yes. She liked to preserve. And another thing, she liked to quilt. It's something maybe some people in this generation don't know what you mean by quilting. But they would have their frames, you know, and quilting. And sometimes they'd have neighborhood quiltings, where there was a rectangular or square frame. They would get the cloth they were using, or scraps, whatever it was, that they would baste to it, and use on top. And different ones would be on different sides, and they would meet in the middle, or start in the middle, I don't know which. But anyway you would be stitching. And all of them beautiful quilts, different colors, because of the different scraps they would be using. I remember that all the quilts that we used were homemade. When we left to go away to school, she'd give us a quilt to take with us.
Was this a form of entertainment, in part, as well as a necessity?
It was a hobby with them. It was both useful—it had utility and value—as well as hobby. She would give a quilt away. Another way of how farm people entertained themselves: I remember they used to have corn shuckings. After the corn was gathered and put in the barn, or piled in piles before it was in the barns, the neighbors would come. And, of course, you'd have a feast. You'd feed them. And then they'd go out there that evening and have the corn shuckings. They'd shuck the corn in the barns. People looked forward to it.
Would men do the shucking?
Men and women. It was just a neighborhood thing, that people would come
together and enjoy themselves helping each other. This matter of
neighborliness is another thing. They were accommodating. They
didn't look for pay. And I remember for years, when people
from Durham would
Do you remember other things that people did as a form of entertainment? What about dancing?
The dancing was not so prevalent during the time of my childhood. I left there in 1918.
Was this because of religious restrictions?
There were some people that were so deeply religious that if a person would dance, they'd want to put him out of the church.
What about music?
They had music. As a matter of fact, I remember one of the members of the church had a violin. He'd play at church, a violin selection, sometimes. And they had the church choirs, and pianos.
Would there be groups that would ever get together and play music and sing; and would any of this be distinctly cultural, having to do with the spirituals?
No, not at that time. As a matter of fact, we didn't have music teachers down there as such, except when one of the teachers at the school or someone had gone away and learned music enough to play it for the choirs and things of that nature. They had no set-up for music teachers as such, where the children went to learn music. And many of them, their singing was by rote, rather than by reading music.
Do you think that any of this music was created in that community? That
it's genuine folk music, created by the people themselves? Do
you
No. I have always said I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket with a lid on it. So, I'm not musical myself. My wife is very musical. I guess amongst the many things that attracted me to her was the fact that she was musical. I like music. But I just never could sing. And if I were to try to sing by notes, where it would be a matter of lifting your voice or softening your voice, I'd be just a likely to do the opposite, unless I was following someone singing. So, it was not until I left there that I developed music appreciation. One of the things down at National Training School, it was then, 1918, was: two things they had down there that they don't have in schools much now. And that was music appreciation, and you did engage in singing, in the music room. That was part of the curriculum.
That was Dr. Shepard's?
Yes. And the other was the bible. They had a bible course and all of the students had to take it. I never will forget Mrs. Patty G. Shepard. I think she was an aunt of Dr. Shepard's. She had us to learn all of the books in the bible, and divide them into the different parts. The first five books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch. There were different divisions, you know. And certain passages of scripture that you had to learn, memorize. Certain psalms that you had to memorize.
This training had started early in your life, though, you said, through your grandfather on your father's side.
Were you expected to attend church every Sunday?
Oh, yes. We attended church every Sunday. And I'm not saying
it was as much religious fervor as it was you got a chance to meet the
people in the community, to socialize. See, if you're working
six days a week, and
Was church then a central institution?
Yes, and when the people would meet there after church was out, they'd stand out there in the church yard for at least thirty minutes. Speaking to different ones, you know, and exchanging views, just kind of bringing them up to what's happening in the community.
Were there activities during the week, too?
No, except when they had revival meetings, usually in August.
You mentioned the circuit-riding preacher: was there one preacher who was famous in the area, that everybody would turn out to hear? You mentioned one Baptist preacher.
Well, the Baptist preacher, a lot of people liked to hear him. The Methodist as well as the Baptist always went to Sandy Plain Church on the fourth Sunday, to Rehoboth Church on the first Sunday. And, of course, I think the Baptists claimed that they had the better preacher of the two, the Methodist or the Baptist. Those were more or less social gatherings because at that time you didn't have movies in the area.
Was there a kind of rift, religiously, also between colored on one side and Indian on the other—did they have their different preachers?
No. The Indian group was a very small group. Had their own church. The colored, at that time—I'm going to use these words interchangeably because that's the way it was; they were referred to as colored. They could go to the Indian church but the blacks couldn't. They had a few distinctly blacks in the community. They had moved in. Some had followed saw mills into the area. And some would migrate into the area. And generally that's the way it was. You could almost go any place and see someone from down there, and know they were from Columbus County.
By their physical….?
By their physical appearances. All of them had good hair, long hair, and black. Most of them had long, straight hair.
Could the person make the decision, then, whether they were going to be "colored" or "Indian"?
Well, really, the coloreds didn't
Let's say, hypothetically, if you had decided, for whatever reason, that you were going to identify yourself as Indian, rather than colored, would you have been able to do that?
I didn't attend the Indian church from choice.
But by appearance.
I could have gone. At that early age, I had kind of an antipathy on this
matter of race differences, or color differences. Because, while my
mother had very different feelings about it, I remember I'd
get into discussions with her on the matter. She did not argue much.
She'd listen and whatever she had to say, she'd
say it and that was it. As I said, she was not very vocal. Part of that
Indian trait. The Indians in Robeson County at that time were called
Croatan Indians. And that's when John White's
colony, when the members went back to England for fresh supplies, and
when they came back, and the ones that had been left there had moved.
And they didn't find any of them. The settlers. The legend is
then, sort of the John White's history recorded, that they
had carved on the bark of the trees, the word Croatan, C-R-O-A-T-A-N.
And when they returned, they knew that there was a settlement further
down the river of Indians. They were called Croatan, and they found,
according to legend or history—whichever it
is—some of these English settlers had intermarried with these
Croatan Indians.
James Junior married a girl, Priscilla Berry, who was one-half Indian,
and moved to the site about 1736. I'll read part of this
geneology if you want me to. "His majesty James Lowery arrived
in Hampton, Virginia in the summer of 1666, with his wife and three
sons. Family records show he was born thirty miles from London. One of
his sons, James, married a girl from Williamsburg, Virginia, where the
Judge also held court. They moved to North Carolina about 1708, where
the Little River joins the Cape Fear. (And notations are here where it
can be found, documentation). They had two sons, James and John. John
signed the Cherokee Treaty in 1806, because he was an interpreter of
several Indian languages. Through his father's influence,
James obtained a grant of land from George II in 1732, in what is now
Roberson County. However he never moved to Roberson. But his son, James
Junior, married a girl, Priscilla Berry, who was one-half
That geneology would tend to be white and Indian?
That's right.
Is there any kind of record, oral or written, about when blacks came into the area?
Well, there are not too many blacks that lived right in
the—for want of a better word; I don't know
whether they'd like it or not—colored
Would there be persons named Lowery or Sampson who would identify themselves as black?
I don't think so.
I see. As you travelled through that county, is it identifiable physically?
As you approach it, you begin to see that you are running into the area.
You would not find those who call themselves colored and those who call themselves Indian living next-door to one another?
I don't know. Because, you see, I visited that county very
seldom. The last time I was there was for the burial of my
mother's brother. That was about two years ago. And the time
before that was several years. And then when I visited that county with
my mother, it was before I left Columbus County, before I was sixteen
years of age. I never did go back there with her after I left Columbus
County. But her brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces would come
down to Columbus County to visit us, from time to time. As a matter of
fact, her brother, Dr. Fuller Lowery, has preached at the church that we
attend, Rehoboth Church. But so far as the life-style and the changes in
it…well, after I left Columbus County, and after my mother
and father died, there wasn't much occasion for me to go back
there. February the 17th, 1977, I believe it was, I was invited back
down there to give a banquet address at the Holiday Inn Motel, where
they had a hundred-and-forty people present. For want of a better word,
When was this?
If I'd known I was going to be asked, I'd have checked the date.
Just roughly.
It was, I would say, about ten years ago, more or less. And the leading citizens of the community were there, black and white. And they came from as far away as Chadburn. Just trying to think back on it, I think probably twenty percent of the student body was black, and/or Indians. And the others were white.
The Indian community, though, has been more exclusive? It's kept more to itself?
It's kept more exclusive. But now, down at North Carolina
Central University, one of them is a professor, Maynor. And has been
there for a number of years. And one finished law school down there, and
became a member of the state legislature. All of this has happened
within the last ten years, though. So there has been more loosening of
their lives, and
Do you think the name of the town of Whiteville bears any relation to this legend about the ….
About John White's Colony? I don't know. I never thought of that before. But that is the county seat.
Was there a colored family named White when you lived in that area?
Well, there were people named White. Colored and white people named White.
I'm thinking of one particular family, George White, the last congressman before Oscar Depriest from Chicago in …
Yes, from that general area. And when I was there, there was a family there. And the head of the family was John White, and he was as white as any white person you'd want to see. And so was his hair. In other words, if you were to see him. And yet, he married a brown skinned woman.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
The family cemetary down there, or the community cemetary now. You will
find the names of the people who were buried there as far back, I think,
and maybe beyond, but as I recall, 1777. Long before the Civil War.
Which means that they had established families, with their full family
names recorded on their tombstones, with date of birth and date of
death. There may be some that go even further back in there. But when
I've gone back down there, it's usually to spend
the day. Go down in the morning and come back in the afternoon. And
it's about two hours and a half drive now. It was a little
longer when the roads were not quite as good. And I'd go
there to a funeral, some relative or something, and while
Small land holders?
Yes, they were land holders.
Do you think there was a time, earlier perhaps, in the nineteenth century, when there was not so much stigma about the three groups intermarrying?
Well, I know there was some black and white intermarriage. Well, they were colored then. Today they would've been called black. I remember a man who's name was Andrew Mitchell, Sheriff Mitchell they called him. He looked like a sheriff, too. And he got married to a white woman. I can remember that. She was dead. But I knew him. As a matter of fact he'd been in my home. And his daughter would easily pass for white.
But the woman who was white, was she from the community or nearby? Or was she an outsider?
I don't know. Because, frankly, I'm not sure—and I've not done the research to try to discover it—where many of the people who were in that community came from. Now the person who I thought was going to write—Professor L.L. Spaulding, who I was talking to you about. I've learned more from him about the community. The Rehoboth Church, which is over a hundred years old, formerly had a white pastor. In the early years. And I remember him telling me that some of the people who came in there, looked like Indians. One woman who really looked like a big Indian squaw, she could weigh, I guess, two hundred pounds. Tall, and long hair that she wore in plaits. She was a light brown complexion. And I think he said that sometime in the early history some Syrians came through there and maybe there was some mixture. Why the community had people who were so similar in their complexions and all.
I was wondering if it were ever seen as a kind of refuge for people.
It could've been. We don't know. Because, you see,
after America was discovered, after John White's settlers
came over here, people began to travel. And nomads would come through
there. There was a lot of timberland there. And sawmills would come
through there and spend a couple of years
What about whites outside this community, as they saw this intermarriage and so forth? Was there tension if someone who was intermarried, for instance, would go into Whiteville?
Well, at that time, I don't think in that particular area. I can remember—and as C.C. Spaulding pointed out when he went out to Sanford, North Carolina on his first trip from Durham as a salesman; he stopped at Sanford—they didn't have separate white and colored waiting rooms. They had one common waiting room. And he was in this waiting room and went to the ticket counter, you know, to get his ticket. When this drummer saw the dilemma he was in and how, when they got ready to go on the train, to show his appreciation for giving him the quarter to make out the balance to buy his ticket, how he reached down and picked up one of his bags and went into the train, helped him put it on the train. And they sat together from there to Raleigh. It was after that, during the Reconstruction period—1896, I believe, to 1900.
It would be a little earlier than that. But the hardening of race relations does, indeed, tend to come in the nineties.
That's the information I have. The matter of race was not a big problem as it was in other places. I know it was not as hard then as I found it when I came to Durham.
So that when you went into Whiteville, you don't remember ‘colored only’, ‘white only’?
Oh no. I don't remember.
And what about the papers at your father's store? White and black?
Well, it was for the people in the neighborhood, all of whom were
colored. And now you would say black
What about political activity? Would your father vote, for example?
Oh, yes.
No problems?
No problems.
Was he formally educated?
Oh, I guess he had the highest education that was provided down there, whatever it was at the time he came along.
He went to the same school you did?
I think so, because that was the farmers' union school there, in that farmers' neighborhood, where the people in that area went to school. About five or six miles west, I guess it would be, they had another school up there. Now, in that particular area, there were more blacks. Not only calling blacks, but blacks. Now, going south or going east toward Wilmington, I guess you could go ten miles, and the people there, my complexion more or less. More or less the same as the people in the area I was born.
In that letter you were quoting, it said something about
grant's settlement? Was that a term ever used when you were
growing up, to refer to
No.
It's an earlier time.
You see, if I remember correctly from history, when settlers came to this country, you see, the Indians were the only ones were on it. And when the English settlers came, when they would land, they took. They claimed in the name of the king. And the way they became owners of the land were through grants from the king. He gave them title to the land. That's what this is talking about here. King George gave this grant of so many thousands of acres of land to Judge Lowery. And he passed it on to one of his sons, who settled in Robeson County. See, he was in Virginia. And this son migrated to Robeson County.
And the Robeson County experience then, seemed to be more Indian and white experience. And Columbus County as more black-white, but some Indian as well. Was your mother educated? Had she gone to school?
I'm sure she didn't have any more than a seventh-grade education.
But she could read and write?
Yes, she could read and write.
You worked, then, in the general store, went to school, and worked on the farm until you were sixteen, and then came directly to Durham?
Came to Durham. Dr. Moore came down there during the summer, after
I'd been finished with seventh grade. He asked my father,
"What're you going to do with that boy?
Where's he going to school?" At that time I was
considering going to—it was called Biddle University; now
it's called Johnson C. Smith University. The name was changed
because the Smith family made a large donation; but it was Biddle
University. Some of the people from down there would go there. This
professor Lloyd Spaulding who taught me
Was that true of Shaw, as well?
I'm not sure.
That was true of Dr. Shepard's training school.
In 1910 he founded it as the National Religious Training School and Chautauqua. And the next change was the National Religious Training School. The Chautauqua was dropped. And then for religious scruples, because he had to seek funds from private sources. This woman, I think it was, this family, she had great wealth. She agreed to make a substantial contribution if he would drop the word Religious. Well, he had to keep the doors of the school open. And it became the National Training School. That's what it was when I came here in 1918. So from 1910 to 1918, it had changed its name three times.
When did it become North Carolina College?
After the National Training School, the next step was the Durham State
Normal School. I think that was for either two years or four years. I
don't know which. But then the legislature agreed to
establish it as the first liberal arts college for Negroes in the state.
He had persuaded the legislature to make it a liberal arts college. Then
it was the North Carolina College for Negroes. Well, times were
changing. They dropped the Negroes and it became North Carolina College
at Durham. Because, you see, they had North Carolina State College in
Raleigh. To distinguish between the two, this was North Carolina College
at Durham. After North Carolina College
What persuaded you to come to Dr. Shepard's rather than Biddle?
Oh. Dr. Moore. Professor Lloyd Spaulding had told my father that the University would accept farm produce instead of payments for tuition, board and lodging. He could send a hog, or beef, corn, other produce, because they'd use it in the dining room.
Did that, in fact, happen?
No. Dr. Moore came in there. That was what the first plan was, where I would go. And in the meantime Dr. Moore came down on one of his usual visits. I happened to be in the room. He said, "What are you going to do with that boy? Where's he going to school now?" "Well, he's thinking about going to Biddle." "Why don't you let him come on to Durham? I'll take charge of him." And so forth. Well, naturally, because he was to me, a hero, who came from Columbus County. He was one of the seven organizers. John Merrick, and Dr. Moore, and other five. You have that; I don't need to repeat that. You know the story of what happened there. Five dropped out in the first year. John Merrick and Dr. Moore remained. And that's when they brought C.C. Spaulding into the picture. So by that time—that was 1900 to about 1918—the company had quite a reputation. And Dr. Moore and C.C. Spaulding had taken a trip to Cuba. And they had the storm on the ocean, and they were afraid the boat was going to sink. I was familiar with that. So, naturally, it was a great motivation. I grabbed this opportunity.
Was the whole community familiar with the Durham story at that time?
Yes. Because, as I said, they would make their annual visits there, both
Dr. Moore and C.C. Spaulding. C.C. Spaulding would leave members of his
family down there to visit with their grandparents. For a week,
Dr. Moore was seen then by the whole community as a prominent figure.
And not only that. Well, you know the story of the establishment of the Rosenwald Schools in this state? Are you familiar with that? He was a leader in that. He took the money out of his own pocket to finance the effort. Charles R. Moore and George W. Davis, both of whom could pass for white. To provide better Negro education. He had much to do, working through others, to get the State Supervisor of Negro Education office established as part of the Department of Public Instruction in North Carolina.
When Dr. Moore persuaded you to come to Durham….
He didn't need to persuade me
Was his motive just to get you to come to Dr. Shepard's school?
No. It was to come here and I would go to the high school. See, they had
a public high school here, which was known as Whitted School then. W.G.
Pearson, one of the old citizens of Durham, was the principal of the
school. So, I went on over there and registered. And was to repeat the
seventh grade, because they figured that coming here with the limited
school terms that I had had, and I was a seventh-grade student from a
rural area, that I wasn't ready to take on the eighth grade
in the city. So, at the end of three weeks—I was probably a
week late entering the school, getting here the first of October, and
public school is already open. So I entered a week or two late. But at
the end of three weeks, I think it was, they had the first test. And I
remember it was in mathematics and the teacher was a Miss Coleman. I
think she was a graduate of Oberlin College. She was good in math. And
when the papers were graded, she found that I had the highest grade in
the class. She said that I was ready to do eighth-grade work.
When you left, you were given a diploma that was equivalent to what?
A high school diploma. And by that time, they had a black, or colored,
school committee in Columbus County in the school that I attended. And
they knew me and they knew of my record there. And they wanted me to
come back and be the principal of the school. They took it up to the
superintendent. And of course, the superintendent usually followed the
recommendation of the school committee at that time. And he approved
their recommendation. They contacted me. I had already registered at
National Training School in the business department when I got this
call. And of course, at that time, Dr. Moore had passed. That was 1923
and he died April 29, 1923. This was September. Frankly, I
don't know what persuaded me to go, except here's
an opportunity to get some money. It may have been to go back down
there. I can't recall, you know, whether it was to go back
home, and be a principal of a school. And of course, they were anxious;
they really put pressure on me to come back there. And I went.
Interesting thing there, some of my eighth-grade students were bigger
than I was. These big country boys. I remember one there, he was six
feet two and probably weighed a hundred-and-ninety pounds. Another was
at least six feet two, but was not as heavy. And one of the first
students that I whipped—at that time we could use corporal
punishment. I'd go out in the woods there and select my
switches and had them in the corner. They had to have study hour as well
as class. You were in the same room at the same time. You had to be
quiet. And he kept the conversation going, and I spoke to him and asked
him to cut it out.
And you stayed there as principal how long?
One year. I think school closed in March. And I came back to Durham. See, Dr. Moore, my first summer here, took me to the office one morning. After I had done my chores around the house and had his car out in the driveway and dusted it off. He got ready to go.
You lived with him while you were here?
I lived across the street from him. But I later did live there. He said,
"Why don't you go on and go with me
downtown." And I went on. And he took me upstairs to the second
floor of the old building. And he turned me over to John T. Merrick, who
was the son of John Merrick, the founder. And he was supervisor of this
particular department, department. And there was an addressograph
machine sitting in the hallway with a stool. He took me there, and that
was my first job. I was assigned to John T. Merrick's
supervision, to cut addressograph plates, for premium notices to be sent
to policy holders. I've told you this before. His first
instructions to me. Now, your plates were cut from the applications for
the insurance, you see: the names of the person, the date of birth, and
the address. If it's a man, address it as Mr.; if
it's a married woman, Mrs.; if it's a single
woman, Miss. Because these people living in the country seldom get mail.
And when they do get it, it's addressed as
‘John’
Would it have been possible in North Carolina to be certified?
Well, I don't know. We had a CPA in Georgia, in Atlanta.
Trained in Georgia?
I don't know where he was trained, but I know he was certified in Georgia, J.B. Blayton taught at Morehouse College, and had a CPA firm.
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
I had never been conditioned to feel that I couldn't be. If there was something I wanted to be or wanted to do, I felt it was only necessary to put myself to do it. So that's why I went to—I had discussed with Dr. Shepard—New York Univesity School of of Commerce, Accounts, and Finance was one of the best business schools in the country. I applied and I was accepted. That's where I ran into discrimination.
Did NYU give you credit for your Howard experience.
I don't recall whether I got all of it. (I recall that thing
now.) I think I got credit for most of it, because I(know I)finished NYU
in three years. I took some extra courses while I was at NYU, because
there were certain subjects that I wanted. I took more than was
necessary to graduate. And another thing: I graduated magna
cum laude, and was the second black to be admitted to the Delta
Mu Delta scholarship society, which was similar in the school of
business—was the equivalent—to the phi beta kappa
in liberal arts college. You had to be there at least three years and
maintain the average—whatever it was—for those
three full years, in order to make it. I never will forget: a letter
came, and I looked on it and saw the Delta Mu Delta key insignia on the
back of the envelope. I had heard about Delta Mu Delta, but I
didn't know—in other words, I wasn't
conscious enough of it to be striving to do that. Because my attitude
always in school, was to take whatever the curricula required and try to
do your best in every subject. Because it's put there for a
purpose. And anything that you learn can't do you any harm
and it might stand you in good stead. I remember my classmates, my first
year at National Training School. We had to take Latin. First year
Latin.
This is at NYU?
No, at National Training School. Oh, how they talked about it, how they referred to it as a dead language, no use for it. But, I found it interesting. I found it challenging. And I found that it helped me to understand the meaning of words without having to go to the dictionary. Therefore, I took all three years. First year Latin, Ceasar and Cicero. I was tops in all of them. The same thing in geography, history—well, every subject I took. I had the same attitude. And that's why I maintained the highest average in the school. The entire school, the whole time I was down there. I won a trustee tuition scholarship. So, there again, I went to NYU, and had the same attitude, in my study habits. And, although at NYU I had to work in the cafeteria during lunch hour and got my meals free. And I worked in the post office as a subclerk in the evenings. And I had to find time in between to do my studying, and come out as I did.
Now, as I recall, you were telling once before about your living arrangements.
Oh, yes. You see, when I went there, I had applied for admission. They had one dormitory for school of commerce students—Varick House. And I had applied and sent the deposit, and was accepted. If I've told you this, I won't repeat it.
Well, I think it's important to report it.
All right. That's where I felt this matter of discrimination
probably more keenly than at any time before. And when I presented
myself, and had my trunk and all there, delivered there, and went in to
obtain my room, they questioned whether or not I had reservations. I
told them I had, and I had my receipt for it, and I showed it. And the
house manager, or whoever it was—I found out later he was
from Charlotte, North Carolina—
The sense of the contract was no longer valid.
That's right. Because he had offered the refund and I had accepted it. So then I had a half-sister that lived up on 144th Street. I remember the address: 242 West 144th Street. I went up there and stayed with her the whole time I was there at NYU.
That's some distance from NYU, isn't it?
Oh, yes. NYU was down on 4th Street. I had to used the elevated train
back and forth over there. So, you see, I'd get from the post
office anywhere from eight thirty, nine, nine thirty at night, and would
have to get up in time the next morning to catch that train, to be down
on 4th Street by eight o'clock. I'd get off the
elevated train and
Aside from NYU, did living in New York City have a large impact on you as a country boy coming to the big city.
No, no, no. Because when I came here and went to Whitted School that first day, I was countryly dressed, for all that means. And the city boys were well dressed. And I remember I had heavy brown shoes on. And they had these ribbed, between a clay color and a more yellow—try to imagine—brown shoes, and wore long, ribbed stockings. And they wouldn't have anything to do with me, neither the boys nor the girls.
Was this typical dress from where you came from in Columbus County?
Well, naturally. You know old farm boys. I had a Sunday suit. See, we had
our everyday clothes, and we had our Sunday clothes
I see, what were the city kids wearing?
I think they were wearing long pants.
White shirts, or anything like that, to set them a part?
Well, they wore their ties and their shirts and all, yes. They dressed better then then they do now. See, this dress, the way they're dressing now, started a few years ago. Where was it? In New England, on the street somewhere, where they'd dress as shabbily as they could? to this country. And then the denims and all.
So, you weren't overwhelmed by New York City then?
No, I wasn't overwhelmed.
Of course, you had been to Washington already. Did it have an impact on you, nonetheless? Harlem?
Well, I enjoyed going to the movies on Saturday afternoons, or Sundays.
This is the Harlem Renaissance?
That's right. The Resaissance Theatre was there, and the Savoy Ballroom, and another place over there on Lennox Avenue, Small's Paradise. Of course, I didn't have the money to splurge, but I took in some of the things. But I didn't have much time. I had never had any time for sports. When it was National Training School, four o'clock classes are out, I had to come back home and do my chores around at home. In the morning, I was up at five o'clock to fire the furnace, sweep the house, mop it, dust it, the sidewalks out in the front of it, get the car out, and dust it, ready for Dr. Moore after breakfast. And as soon as I had breakfast—I had my meals there—I had to leave for school. So I didn't have much time here for it.
What were the sports? Were they the same as now?
Oh, they had football; they had baseball. Down at the Training School they had a good baseball team, as well as a fairly good football team.
And back in Columbus County, were there sports?
We had baseball only.
Were these community teams, or school teams?
Just the school teams.
Would there be community teams, and leagues?
It hadn't reached that point at that time.
While I'm thinking about it: the North Carolina Mutual apparently had a team for a while. Was there a kind of city league in which they played? Who did they play?
That was a softball league, I think it was. The girls mostly.
But in rural North Carolina, in Columbus County, there were not organized baseball teams?
Well, you see, this was long after that.
But this is an interesting point about entertainment and how people spent their free time.
Well, at the noon hour down there at the school, they had a baseball team. But I couldn't make it. They had better players. See, they had what they called captains. And you take this bat. I don't know how you do it. And whoever came out on top would choose his player, and the other would choose another. And they'd always choose the best players. And they had some pretty good players, some good pitchers and base players, and good batters. But I just wasn't that good.
In New York, then, you didn't have time to….?
Only on weekends was I able to go to a movie or show, or something of
that nature.
And you worked in the evenings at a post office?
That's right.
I was trying to get at any impressions you might have gotten in the twenties, of New York City.
When I went to NYU, there were not many black students there. I don't think there was any class that I had where there were more than two, including me. There were some where I was the only one. But I was always a good student. And during study hour or in the library, I had no problem at having plenty of students wanting to study with me.
Harlem at that time was seen as….
Now, on Sunday afternoons they had the intercollegiate association. See, you had Columbia University, New York University, and City College. And the students would have a forum on Sunday afternoons, from three—I don't remember whether it was one hour or two hours—from three to four, or three to five. And we'd have programs, and people participated, and discussed subjects of interest. Just like they do now. But this was the students in these universities, most of whom lived in the Harlem area, you see. And I think it was held on 125th Street, if I recall now. Regular meeting place. And we always looked forward to that.
Was your picture of Harlem a positive one, then? This is a period when Harlem is generally seen as flowering.
That was a glamour time there. Lou Leslie's Blackbirds, you know, of 1928. Florence Mills, the great singer. And all the bands would come there and play at the Savoy or Small's Paradise or the old Apollo Theatre.
What about the literary set? Were you aware of people say, like Langston Hughes, who was writing at the time?
Oh, yes. In one of my classes of literature, we had to study Langston Hughes and Counte Cullen, the writers of that day. And Claude McKay.
Did you meet or see any of these persons while you were there?
I met none of them.. I don't think I ever met Claude McKay. And I was just trying to—Langston Hughes. I don't think I ever met him.
And DuBois was in New York at this time.
Oh, yes. DuBois was there. I remember Fred Moore, the publisher of the
New York Age. And Watson. I think the first two
blacks to
In the election of '28?
I think it was. Because in 1924 I was at Howard.
So it would've been Hoover against Al Smith in '28.
I think it was. That's where I registered and voted. My first
presidential election. So that brings us up to that point.
My last class in the afternoon was from three to four. And he was my instructor, my professor. He was a part time teacher there, while he was a consulting actuary for some of the insurance companies. And he also wrote books and published them. As a matter of fact I used one of his texts of casualty insurance down at the Wall Street Division. And I had done well in his courses. So he focused his attention on me.
His name was Ackerman?
Yeah. S-A-U-L. Saul B. Ackerman. A-C-K-E-R-M-A-N. And this was about
three weeks before school closed. He made an announcement that he was
going to do something that he had never done before, and it was to have
exemptions from the final examination. And there were four students who
qualified for exemption. And he read the names, and I was one of them.
And when the class was over, he asked me what I was going to do after
class. I told him I had to go to the post office; I had to be there at
six o'clock. He said, "Well, I'd like
very much for you to drop by my office. There's a matter
I'd like to discuss with you." I said I'd
be happy to. So, I went in and he asked me to be seated. His first
remark was: he knew he had learned of my connection with North Carolina
Mutual, of my working there during
This is what year now?
1930. I finished at NYU first of June, 1930. I borrowed the money to go there, with the understanding that it would be deducted from my salary.
The money was borrowed from the Mutual?
From the Mutual. And it would be deducted from my salary each month until
it was paid off. I signed bills receivable for it. So that was it. Now:
my experience at Michigan. I remember the first morning I walked into my
class. There was a young man from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I was sitting in
the seat next to the aisle on one side; he was sitting in the seat next
to aisle opposite me. I walked in and took my seat. I was the only black
in the class. He gave me his back. And I saw what he did. But I paid no
attention to it. The first week, of course, they'd make the
assignments. The course was in mathematics. And the method was to have
you go to the board and put your problem and the solution to it on the
board. Of course, it couldn't have been a better course for
me (laughter)
This is the professor saying this?
No. This is the fellow from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Student. And he said, "I just am so embarrassed. You know, I wish you could go home with me Christmas and could meet my parents." And so forth, and so on. And from then on, the ice was broken, I mean all the bars were down. And the other fellow was from Amarillo, Texas. Art Roberts. We got to be such chums.
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 3, SIDE A]
The two years that I was there, we developed a fast friendship, and we kept it up. I came back to North Carolina Mutual, and he went to Bankers Life Insurance Company of Iowa. And we kept up our correspondance for years and years. I remember when I went to Iowa on my way to my family to California in 1954—which was twenty-two years later—I called him on the telephone. I didn't have a chance to visit with him. And he was so sorry that we couldn't get together. Because, naturally, we were motoring you see, and we wanted to get where we were going. But I just felt that I should call him while I was there.
This is the fellow from Tuscaloosa?
No. This is the fellow from Amarillo, Texas.
Did you ever hear from him again?
Tuscaloosa. We kept up correspondance for a while. But it petered out. I
don't know whether I was the fault or he was. I know that I
wasn't going to Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Were you the only black student in the actuary program there, or in those classes?
There was an Indian student, an East Indian student in two of the courses. There was a Korean student in one of my courses in mathematics. And frankly, I don't remember any other black students in any of those courses at Michigan.
What about in the student body as a whole? Would you see blacks on campus?
There weren't many. Very few. And most of those who were
Now you didn't live on campus?
No. I lived with a private family.
A black family?
Yes.
How was that arranged? Do you recall?
Well, they had certain available residences, approved residences, for the students on campus. And this was one of them. It was a very nice home. A nice arrangement, not too far from campus. I stayed there the whole two years that I was there.
Did you feel more isolated though, in that area, than you had in New York? By that I mean socially.
No. Because on the campus, you see, it was only in the evenings. During the day I was over on the campus. I took my meals in the Michigan Union there.
Had you tried to go to, say, the theatre in Ann Arbor?
Oh, we went to the theatre. That's what I say. This fellow Roberts and I went to the theatre all the time together.
What about restaurants? Did you notice a color line being drawn?
No. Because of the campus environment; any students who were students at
the University of Michigan. I attended a big white church right on the
campus. And the minister—oh, he became a bishop shortly
So there was a substantial enough black community in Ann Arbor to have a church?
Yes. Although I don't think he had more than a hundred members, more or less. And a lot of the black families who were there, so many of them worked at the University in some capacity.
When you took your degree there, did you come immediately to Durham?
Yes, I came here. And at that time, Mr. Dilts was still a consultant. And in the meantime, while I was at Michigan, the consulting actuary firm from Height, Davis & Height from Indianapolis—I think they came in here the same year —when I say ‘came in here’: North Carolina Mutual—the same year that I went to the University of Michigan. And the company was having problems with its mortality and expenses. And it was just making it through. I mean, as I recall, the surplus was less than a hundred and fifty thousand dollars at that time. They were concerned. So this actuary had quite a reputation; had done a lot of consulting work. I don't know who put him in touch with us. But anyway they came in and put out a new line of policies, industrial policies in particular. But they'd never done any consulting work for a black company before. And they brought the same kind of policies with all the benefits that the white companies were using. And we had an entirely different clientele. And they had a two-year contract with us. So the year that I came back—that was in June of '32—I began to get orientated and get the department set up, and arranged to go to Metropolitan for further study and all preparatory to it. As of January the first, 1933 I became actuary of North Carolina Mutual.
Had you served an internship? Was that the practice?
Well, at that time, if you call it, those last six months all they did was check what I was doing.
But that was here, not at their company.
No. All Mr. Dilts did was have conferences with us to see how I was getting along, and anything I wanted to ask him. But, you know, up until that time we had never filed an annual statement with the insurance department in which the gain and loss exhibit was completed and balanced. The first annual statement that you will find in the insurance department of North Carolina with a complete gain and loss exhibit in balance, was the one that we filed for December thirty-first, 1933. And it so happened that my first year as actuary was the year the examiners from the insurance department came in. And when they checked my valuations at the end of that year, they couldn't find anything wrong. And they found the gain and loss exhibit in balance.
Would an actuary typically be doing that kind of work? It sounds like you were also doing the bookkeeping.
No. We had a statistical department, and I worked with a statistician
those six months. When I came in, those first six months was to try to
find that fifth point on the compass that the Chinese talk about, which
is the most important—where you are. And then North, South,
East, and West. So I began to delve into the records and to check on
things that they were doing, and so on. Then after I got into it my
first year, I went back over old annual statements and made studies of
what had been done, and how and why, and things that I thought could be
improved upon. And then our mortality, as I recall, was about one
hundred and thirty percent of our expectancy. Or I believe one year was
about a hundred and forty one. I
What was the chief cause of mortality?
I don't know whether I want to release this particular thing
or not, but he increased the premium rates twice in one year. What they
would do was make adjustments in the premium rates rather than improve
underwriting. I came in here. I studied our mortality. I got all our
death claims and reviewed every one of them as to the age of death,
cause of death, plans of policies, beneficiaries, relationships of
beneficiaries to the insureds, who paid the premiums to see if they were
speculation on sick members of the family. See all of that was going on.
We really didn't have a well-functioning underwriting
committee. And in order to determine that this was it, is why I reviewed
all these death claims. Both ordinary and industrial. And then charted
it to show what was happening. And where death had occurred within the
first year of insurance, and the second and the third, on up to the
fifth year. And where they did, what the cause of death was. And then
look at the application and the examination or lack of examination.
Because I had studied numerical rating system and underwriting at the
University of Michigan, and was quite familiar with it, and with looking
at that application and seeing whether or not the plan of policy applied
for was the plan of policy that should have been issued. Or, whether or
not, it should have been rated up, or whether or not it should have been
rejected. And when I finished with those studies—I
don't know what the year was; I didn't try to
remember because it was all in the record—it resulted
in… You see, prior to that the medical director alone
approved all the applications. And this resulted in setting up an
underwriting committee, consisting of the medical director, the actuary
and the claims
Are these for ordinary policies?
Ordinary or industrial.
Would you generally have time to look at all of those?
Where the beneficiaries were distant members of the family. See, to have an insurable interest, you must suffer a pecuniary loss in the event of the death of the person. And ordinarily that's husband or wife, or father or mother. And where you find that some cousin has applied for a policy on a younger person, and you go back and check on that, you find that's a person who's already sick, or may even be in the hospital. And death may occur within a matter of months rather than years. And those were the kinds of things that were sifting through. So we set guidelines. If the beneficiary is other than husband or wife, father or mother, or son or daughter, those applications have to come by my desk.
You think in some cases there was collusion between agents and….
Oh, there was! You see, if they were writing them, and no question was
ever raised, people do a lot of things. So first we had to find out the
causes, and secondly, we had to educate our agents. And I wrote articles
that appeared in publications on these things, and would list and show
what was happening in these cases. It was a part of our education. And
after doing that, the next thing we had to do was educate our agents, in
underwriting. And as these things developed, our mortality began to come
down. And another thing we found, at that time, they hadn't
discovered antibiotics. And pneumonia, heart trouble were the principal
causes of death.
The feeling was that the person had been sickly at the time of the policy.
That's right. And what really was doing, was requiring the applicant to be a co-insurer for part of the risk, for that first year. Or, at most, for the first two years. After that the company assumed the full risk. That's what it amounted to. And if a person is in good health—and most of us after a while, feel like we're going to live forever, you know—you don't pay too much attention to that. Surely I expect to live another year. And it's better to do that than to have my policy rejected.
These were Depression years, though. You came here right in the heart of the Depression. Was there fear that the company might not survive? Was this an extra burden?
Well, no. I didn't have a fear that the company would not
survive. Because we had been through the bank closing holidays. The
Mechanics and Farmers Bank was one of the two banks in Durham that
re-opened their doors when the ban was lifted. Some of the others went
into receivership. North Carolina Mutual's management had
always been conservative. Any mistakes that they made were mistakes of
the head, not of the heart. Because after operating for nine years
without an examination, one thing they
How do you explain that during these lean years that people were either able to buy new policies or keep them up? These are still mostly industrial policyholders?
Yes. Well, our production, our increase was not as great. As a matter of fact, there were two years there where I don't think we put on any increase. We merely held our own.
How important was the black community in Durham, at that time, in your volume? What percentage would you say?
We had pretty good volume.
Were these persons working for the tobacco factories?
Yes. The tobacco factories suffered less, you know, during the
Depression.
I had to revise all of the policies of Height, Davis & Height.
Because they came here with double indemnity and triple indemnity and
fifty percent bonus for keeping it enforced for five years in event of
death by accidental means. And as many of our people with these old
broken down cars and accidents they were having, and the way they were
killing each other, the courts were holding that anything was an
accident to the person
The endowment feature encouraged them to keep up the policy?
That's right. And what that was was a certain amount of
co-insurance. Because if they died earlier, the pure endowment was not
payable. And it was on the law of averages that it accrued to the policy
holders as a class. But it was a means of preventing abnormal mortality
experience, or above normal mortality experience. There were many
innovations that I brought into the company policies I hand't
even seen anything like. But they were things I learned about in
Michigan. I knew about pure endowments, and
Were there complaints from the policyholders?
No, but I had a hard time selling it to the insurance department. I got in quite a controversy with the actuary of the insurance department, when I wanted to change the mortality tables. I wanted to get out some preferred risk policies for the better class risks, and I wanted to go from the American Experience Table, which was the original table, from Shepard Holman, I believe back in 1866 or somewhere back there, it was. And we were using it. And I felt that we had developed our underwriting to a point, and that there were risks that to even look around us, we could see were good risks, and would have a more moderate mortality table. I wanted to use the Metropolitan Intermediate Table of Mortality, of 1912—which was a long way from 1860-something. And the actuary, he didn't know. And I had my mathematical calculations and demonstrations, and I insisted that we could do it, and wanted to do. Well, to make a long story short, I won my argument with him. I'd never had another argument with him the whole time he was with the insurance department. The Burial Association in Chicago had called me in to do some consulting work for them. And they wanted to convert from Burial Association into an old-line legal reserve life insurance company. It had never been done in the state of Illinois. And I went there. And being a black actuary, they didn't know whether or not the insurance department of Illinois would take my work, or go through with the conversion.
This is in the thirties or later?
That was in 1944.
This was a white burial association?
No, it was a black burial association.
And so the president, their accountant, their general counsel, and I went down to the insurance department with them with the proposition that I had worked out. Whereby it could be done. How the Burial Association's policies would be assumed when it was converted into the life insurance company, and how the adjustments would be made and so forth and so on. And I had a line of policies for them. So we went down there and brought in the general counsel for the insurance department, the policy analyst who goes through and analyzes the policies, you know, to see that all the provisions conform to the insurance laws of the state of Illinois. There were four of them, including the actuary. But these other three were in there. We'd gone through the whole policy, analyzed it and the method, the steps to be taken. When they had finished all that and were ready for the actuary to come in and give his final approval to recommend to the insurance commissioner, the door opened, and here walks in the actuary for the insurance department of Illinois. He was the actuary that I had the controversy with in the North Carolina insurance department, and that I won. So he asked the others, you know, what their counsel was, and they told him and so forth. And he turned to me and said, "Asa, do you recommend this? Do you feel it's a sound thing?" I said, "Without reservations." He turned to them and said, "If Asa Spaulding recommends it, I'll approve it." Those people who were with me were shocked.
What I want to do now, in connection with my autobiography, I want to get
that documentation from the Illinois department—copies of the
papers of approval—because I intend to use it in my
autobiography. Because my information is that after that was done, the
method that I worked out became the standard procedure for the
legislation for the conversion. Because Illinois was full of burial
associations. It became the standard procedure
Did you become, then, a kind of consultant to other firms?
Oh, yes. And I understand that within about five years ….
[END OF TAPE 3, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 3, SIDE B]
Do you think that's true?
Could've been. I wouldn't want to make a judgement on it.
This one, apparently, was interested in reform.
Well, I know the insurance departments were so concerned that they did require them to convert.
Did you have the same kind of impact in the South, or in North Carolina, for example?
Oh, I never had many arguments with any of the insurance departments that I didn't win.
I'm thinking about other firms, now, who wanted to convert.
I don't think we have any burial associations in North Carolina now.
There were no other black burial associations in North Carolina?
Oh, yes. they had some more in Illinois. The Metropolitan Mutual Assurance Company of Illinois: it was a burial association.
All of them were converted. But Jackson Mutual Life Insurance Company was the first one. It was Jackson Mutual Funeral System.
But in North Carolina they had passed out of existence by this time?
Didn't have too many. As a matter of fact, I had no interest
Would black policyholders working class people, would they resist maybe going from the old traditional burial society fraternal organization over to a more secular kind of insurance company?
No. Because these fraternal organizations insurance plans: I don't hear too much about any of them.
I'm thinking now when you were here in the thirties.
Well, they had the fraternal organizations. Remember the Royal Knights of King David; but it went out of business. The insurance companies put them out of business.
I'm just wondering if there was some reluctance on the part of the masses to make this change?
Well, they liked rituals. But people don't pay that much attention to it now. It used to be, every time a Mason died, they'd have the rituals. It's seldom done now, very seldom. People have gotten away from it, the ceremony.
How important was the….?
They served their day and generation. I look upon the things that have happened throughout our civilisation in the nations of the world, and the rise and fall of nations. Each one had a role to play. It's part of the changes, part of developing a nation and a people, and a society and everything else. I started years ago to having a brotherhood day and goodwill day on Sundays at our church.
This is White Rock?
Yes. I remember in 1963, I invited Abraham Harmon, ambassador from Israel, to be the brotherhood day speaker. And he made a statement that I will never forget, in going back and reviewing history. He said, "It is never given to any man to complete the great tasks of life, but it is given to every man an opportunity to make his contribution toward that completion." You take it in political life; you take it in legislation; you take it any way you want to. The people, just like the national insurance—you know about national insurance? And how long we've been arguing about that? And presidents that have come and gone? And is still with us? At some time it will be; but the person who starts with the idea may never see it. And whether you take it in political life—just like in business. I served my day and time. As I look at North Carolina Mutual, I think there was a day and time for every president that North Carolina Mutual has had. I think he had something special to offer at that particular time. And I think it's fortunate it's that way. It would be tragic if the thing stopped at the passing of a person. If there wasn't somebody else to pick up the mantle and carry on. Would we get anywhere? So, as I look back and study organizations and things of that nature, I was a fraternity man. But to me, now, I just don't have time to fool with it. I feel there's too much time spent for too little. There are other things that are more worthwhile and can contribute more to society, than the time and energy spent on some of these things.
Did you think this philosophy in the beginning, came in part from your background and values, the kind of traditional values?
Well, I'll tell you. I think really my continuing to teach
this bible class that I have in Sunday school had more influence on my
life. At the truth, and all. Starting with my grandfather, the bible has
had more
In '76 he would have run.
He could have been reelected for his second term without ever resorting to the tactics he did.
It was '72, yes.
I mean there was no one on the scene who could have defeated him, but
yet, he was so possessed with this overriding ambition that he put his
dependence in the wrong things. He opened the doors to China. Many
things that he did. And he had the possibility, if he
could've just kept himself disciplined. First man to bring
the presidency shame and disgrace. Tragic. Both to him, and maybe, to a
certain extent, the country. And another passage,
"‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my
spirit,’ said the Lord". The most dramatic
experience that I've seen of that was the Shah of Iran. Two
years ago, nobody would have thought it was possible. And the ambassador
from one of my very good friends,
When you came to Durham, you came under the tutelage of people who would reinforce this, perhaps. Is that true or not? C.C. Spaulding, Dr. Moore, especially. And that raises an interesting question about Durham, this notion that Durham was special, a middle class here that was different than say, a middle class in Harlem, or a middle class in Atlanta.
It's been historically true that the major officers, and not
only them but the clerical staffof North Carolina Mutual, have all been
church-going people, have taken leading roles in church life. That
doesn't mean that they lived a perfect life; nobody does. But
they had an ideal; they had a goal; they had a certain sense of values.
The frailities of human nature are just such that even if you try to
take biblical characters. Paul said, ‘Behold when I would do
good, evil is ever present.’ He was always having to fight
it, have a struggle. Anyone has a struggle, because there are so many
temptations. And you take people who get themselves involved
financially, and bind themselves in the of the law. Just like the
president of this bank up here, Northwestern. And just like Smith Bagley
now, the Reynolds family. Greed doesn't pay. And I have said
over and over again,
And these values were here when you came in to Durham, were they not? As you travelled and say, went to Memphis, an important town for black insurance, did you see a different life style there among the so-called black middle class?
Uh huh. Well then, North Carolina Mutual has always said, it was not organized to try to make millionaires, it was organized to be of service to its people. That's why it was organized as a mutual company, rather than stock. Go to Memphis, those are stock companies. It was suggested to the officers years ago to convert North Carolina Mutual into a stock company and make a million. They'd have no part of it.
I'm interested in the fabric of life here, the social life, how people….
Social life is important here, but it's not all. You find some cities where people strive to be the social leader. People like social life here, but it's not the all-goal in life. It has it's place.
What kind of outlets would there have been say in the thirties or forties?
Families, or certain people, they would have parties and things, then, and still have them now.
But with segregation, there were no restaurants by and large, and no theatres.
No. Well, you see, you had your own black theatres. Had some nice theatres here in the thirties, very nice theatres, and very nice shows—first-run shows. I mean, the movies.
Were there other forms of entertainment? Were there stage shows, vaudeville?
Oh, they would have their dances. And the sororities would have their parties, you know, and dances, and things of that nature.
What about music here? Did the big bands come in?
Uh huh.
Both jazz and…
Yes. But where they got too rowdy I didn't go to.
Was there a kind of distinction then in entertainment that working-class people might prefer one type of music?
Well, I wouldn't categorize it that way, but a lot of working-class people were just as sober and sane.
I'm trying to get at this texture of this fabled black middle class in Durham, if they had a distinctive social life and community institutions that would set them apart.
That's a judgement decision, or opinion, and I'm not sure I can read the innermost thoughts or feelings well enough to make a statement to go down in history, as categorizing it.
Well, there's this outside view. Frazier wrote about it, saying that in Durham, you find none of the life and leisure you find in Harlem, but rather the Protestant ethic, the work ethic.
That's true. I'm a firm believer in the work ethic.
How that translated itself into everyday life. Was there, as he was suggesting, less excitement in a way?
Well, I'm a firm believer in balance, a balanced life. And you
can take that any way you want to. You can look at it from a business
standpoint—a balance sheet. If it's out of
balance, that corporation is unhealthy; it's not well
managed. And it can be out of balance in many ways: in forms of
investments, or as liabilities exceeding its assets, or the proportion
of assets of one type or another. You have a different expense
When you met him in '76 something happened?
No. Just to size the man up. The way that he came into the church that
Sunday afternoon to the services. This whole thing just covered
Medals?
Medals, yes. And two .44's, one on each side. And he sat through that sermon, and the way he looked, a solemn, mean look on his face. Not moved by anything. I said, ‘Is this a human being? Is it possible for him to have any empathy for anybody?’ And then I heard of some of the atrocities that happened under him, and I saw on T.V. the other night, Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure", and in the end how things turned out. And I thought of that statement, ‘The measure you meet is the measure that will come back to you.’ If you really study life and people, the rise and fall of nations, and things like that, it seems to me like I see a thread running through there that says something. I didn't want to preach a sermon.
I think that's a good way to end here.
I mean, Johnson was the one who needed to be on the scene.
You don't think that Kennedy's assasination may have assisted him in some way. That is, that Kennedy was seen in part as his legacy?
Well, I think the thing that helped Johnson so much was his tenure as majority leader of the Senate. And he knew where all the bodies were; and he had helped so many of those Senators, and their positions, and their chairmanships and all, that he could just crack the whip and they jumped.
He had a lot of debts to call in.
That's right. And then being a Southerner, too. He was not a
Yankee. Although when he ran for president he was from the Southwest
Let's come back to that. As I mentioned, as I was checking over what we had done yesterday, there are some things that occured to me that scholars would be very interested in. One has to do with land. Land is so precious and so important, and as I listened to the tape, I failed to ask you how people got the funds to buy this land, and who they bought it from?
I don't know what the practise was back then, when settlers came here. Whether they had to pay for the grants, or the grants were just made to them to claim.
I'm thinking about after the Civil War.
Oh, after the Civil War, well, yes, that's a different situation. Back in the early years. See, 1666 was pretty early.
Yes it was.
Let me see if I can't find something else. Does that letter tell you anything about how much land he gave to different ones?
No.
(searching through papers) I have some more information. I can show you the pictures of the two younger people whose grandmother and my mother were sisters. And they're living in Baltimore now. They came over to Washington, the Washington-Hilton, to have dinner with me.
Now these persons appear to be absolutely white, uh huh.
Now their grandmother and my mother were sisters.
They're quite aware of their ancestry are they?
Oh, yes. As a matter of fact, they're living in Baltimore, and
they had seen news about me in the Washington papers and all. And they
Yes, that's the man's name who I thought we ought maybe to read into the record because he seems to know as much as anybody. He's the one who's drawn up this geneology that you read from yesterday. Why don't you read his name and his address there, and also quote….
I can read the whole letter if you want me to.
All right. He talks about a book there.
Did I show you this yesterday?
This is another geneology?
Is this the one I showed you?
I think the one I saw was…. it's the same?
It's a copy.
END OF INTERVIEW