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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-0015, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
In this part of an extended interview, Viola Turner, treasurer of North Carolina Mutual Insurance, reflects on her childhood in Macon, Georgia. Born on February 17, 1900, Turner was the only child of her African American teenage parents. Her remembrances are of those of a joyous childhood in which her mother encouraged her to excel in school. In her vivid depictions of Macon, Georgia, Turner describes a town in which segregation was not acutely visible. She was largely unaware of racial discrimination during her childhood. Nevertheless, she discusses at length her perceptions of skin color and the ways in which some of her lighter-toned African American friends were often treated differently than those with darker skin. Educated at the American Missionary Association schools and Morris Brown, Turner's first job was as an administrative assistant at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in the summer of 1920. Shortly thereafter she took a job working for the Superintendent of Negro Education for the State of Mississippi, which she held for six months before going to work for the new branch of North Carolina Mutual that opened in Oklahoma City in 1920. Turner eventually settled in Durham, North Carolina. The latter portion of this interview focuses on her descriptions of entertainment and race relations. Specifically, Turner describes her interaction with various black performers and her experiences attending both black and white theaters in Durham. In addition, she explains her friendship with Eula Perry—who could easily "pass" for white—and the reactions their friendship elicited from various observers.
Viola Turner, who served as treasurer of North Carolina Mutual Insurance Company, describes her childhood in Macon, Georgia, and her experiences in Durham, North Carolina. In remembering her life experiences in the early twentieth century, she focuses particularly on education, race relations, the importance of skin color, and segregation in business and leisure activities in the South.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
I thought we would begin, then, maybe at the beginning. You were born in Georgia, is that correct?
Macon.
In what year?
1900. February 17, 1900.
Maybe you could tell us a little bit about your family. I remember your father was a cotton sampler, wasn't he?
God, you do remember things! Yes, he was. Which I, even yet, don't quite
know what that was. I know what I saw him do. My mother was sent to
Macon from a very small place—I don't think you'd even call it a
town—Clinton, Georgia, to go to school, to live with an older sister. I
don't know whether she had been there a year or so or not. However, I do
know that my father had come up from Fort Plains, Georgia, a young boy,
really. And somewhere along the way they met. He was not in school. At
fifteen, at some point in fifteen, let's see am I right? At the age of
fifteen they were married. At the age of sixteen I was born. Isn't that
something? My grandmother must have been thoroughly disgusted at the
whole thing. But, at any rate, they were really two children,
so-to-speak, with a daughter. My father was, I suppose, a cotton sampler
then. I don't know. But the two things that I knew about him and making
a living was that he was a cotton sampler from early spring through the
late spring. . .I'm still wrong. From the early fall
to the late spring. Then he was a hotel man, a waiter, from the spring
through the summer.
This was in Macon?
That's in Macon. That's when I grew up. I knew him then as the hotel man
in the summer and the cotton sampler through the fall and winter.
No, my mother. "You've got to be a school teacher." That was all I heard. "Go to school. Stay in school. Be a school teacher." My mother was a sweet, loving man. Nobody had a dearer father than I had. He gave me lots of attention, both of them did. I had a lovely childhood. Poor—I didn't know it, however—but very lovely. But my father, I'm quite sure, he didn't see the point in all that education my mother was talking about. It was O.K. If she wanted me to go to school it was O.K.
Did you have any brothers or sisters?
No brothers, no sisters.
Do you think he would have felt the same way about a male child?
Probably not. Probably he would have had a little different feeling
because there was certainly this sort of feeling in the family. But the
mother chastized. The father didn't touch. You could speak to the child,
but you could not whip the child, not the girl. But if you have any
boys, then you can whip them. That was the law in the house, and it
seemed to happen because at a very young age—something like three—my
mother had stepped out somewhere and she came in just in time to see my
father whip me, because I had been making noise outdoors and he was not
Did your mother whip you?
Interestingly enough, my mother whipped me just about every day of my
life. [laughter] [laughter]
Did she ever work outside the home?
Oh, yes. Some of everything and anything. Because she was determined that I was going to have things that she wanted me to have. Maybe things that she'd wanted, I don't know. She was from a farm. My grandmother had a little country home. But my mother could sew. She sewed beautifully. She kept me very well dressed. She took a great deal of pride in that. I'll show you one of my pictures that I think is just precious. It's the only one I have.
She wasn't a seamstress?
No, she only sewed at home. She tried to stay home as much as she could.
But when she decided that there was something that she wanted—and when I
look back on it, everything she really wanted was something that was for
my benefit—she worked out. I think she would have done
He was a black doctor?
No, no, no. He was a white doctor.
In Macon?
In Macon. Interesting about the things blacks and whites did when I was growing up that many young people today could not imagine or believe. But anyway, he was a marvelous man and he was a very fine person, apparently. My mother worked with him to the point where I feel quite sure she was assisting him in his operations. He operated in that office which he said. He took my tonsils out there. I remember, and I was small enough that my father walked me out of his office on the elevator, in his arms. `Course that doesn't me that I was so young, because I was a small child, you can imagine. But at any rate, I was small enough. But he took out my tonsils right in his office. My mother worked for him for a number of years. The way I space that: I was going to school and I would come from school, very often, straight downtown to this office and stay until my mother left to take me home. And that went on a long time.
Then, the other job my mother had out of the home: Dr. Cunningham had a
patient, a baby. And I don't know what was being done. But something
about a very young child. And when that child went home, I don't know
whether Dr. Cunningham wanted my mother to go and help with
Not a full day. She didn't ever leave home before I
Do you remember any other jobs that she took, other occupations?
The only thing that I know about is the one with the doctor, and the one
with the
Was she treated by a white doctor?
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
No, she was the head of the business department. And, you see, even all of that was brand new. I didn't have in mind to go to school for any business training. I was going to college to go to college, not that I knew much about anything more. But I found out that I wanted to go to Morris Brown, and I saw this school of business administration, and I decided that that's what I would do: I would go away to that school the old-day business school. And then, the only thing I had there: I'll go over there and I'll teach business. I'm still working on this thing that I'm going to be a teacher. But when I got there, Morris Brown was really lucky for me, and for anybody who came in that time. Because this woman who headed up that department—oh, for about four or five years, not much longer than that—she used to say to me (we became very close) that she wanted me to come back and assist her after I graduated, with the understanding that I would further my education. She said, "You haven't got enough, but you've got enough to get started." So that was the way my program was started. Didn't any of it go in that direction long.
You went from Morris Brown, then, to Tuskegee; you said that was your first job?
Yes. Actually what happened, I graduated. They were going to have summer
school at the Morris Brown in the business department. So she kept me
there that summer to assist her in the summer school. With the
understanding that I would be put on for the winter, with the further
understanding that I would immediately start making application to go to
[laughter]
It's intriguing that you mentioned there was a woman teaching at Morris Brown. Were there many women teaching there at that time? Was she exceptional?
Yes, she was exceptional, but not because she was a woman. There were
other women teachers there. At that time, they were really—I didn't
recognize it then, but I did later—trying to get their college
department going. I think maybe that year I went there—it was certainly
not more than the second year—they had their first set of graduates from
their college department. And they had a woman there, a Mrs. Hill, that
I am quite sure she must have been the driving force in that area.
Because she tried very hard to get me to come out of the business school
into the
Was the faculty mostly black or white at that time?
At Morris Brown, it was all black. However Mrs. Thompson, you would've believed she was white. She was a highly trained woman and she used to say to me, "This is only a stepping-stone for you. You won't stay here too long. I won't stay here too long." And of course, I couldn't understand why. She said, "Well, the first thing, I'm not Methodist. The second thing is, the first time a presiding elder gets somebody who graduates from one of the colleges, they're going to take me out and put them in. And the same thing is going to be true with you. This is a stepping stone and you'll go from here. That's why you've got to get the additional education, so you will be able to move on."
Do you know where she was from, or where she went?
She was a South Carolinian; Charleston, South Carolina. And one of the
other regrets of my life is: when you're young, there are so many things
you look back on and wish you had done them. I wish I had really kept in
touch with her as I should have. Youth will not do it. You'll do it for
a little while. Now, I kept in touch with her long enough for
Where did she go to school?
Well, she went to Temple University, and, what is the female attachment to Harvard?
Radcliffe.
Radcliffe. She had gone there and to Temple, those two places. [laughter]not leave a husband, no. You could
suffer and everybody would rally around and help you to go over it. But
these little pecadillos, you had to accept and ignore, because it was
not done in the Atlanta society, that you could leave a husband. I knew
that simply because she was a member of the society
When she finally got to the point where she could talk to me about these things, that she couldn't have talked to with her own group of people, or wouldn't have, she said that she was trying to stay. And she would. She could take, and would take anything, unless at some place this minister made the wrong move in the family.
This Atlanta society: was it color as well as position? Was there a correlation between lightness and darkness?
Well that, of course, I'm sure was a part of it in the earlier years, and maybe even at that time, because that was in the twenties. Yes, I imagine you did have to be certainly a few shades lighter than black. If you were very talented and your husband or your father or some member of the family had managed to rise above the average level, you probably were accepted. But it always was to your advantage if you were fair, or at least light brown, or you didn't have too much curl in your hair, that sort of thing. All of those things had a great deal to do with status.
If you were very dark, though, and you had considerable achievements, would the darkness keep you out?
I have an idea. . .you see, at that age, I can't really speak with
authority. But with feeling and emotion, I can say it very likely
I had my dearest friend—her portrait is on that second shelf up there—same age, I think there's a week's difference in our ages. We started in ballet together in the second grade and we went through twelfth together. I loved her better than anybody in the world.
Is this the public schools in Macon?
No, I never went to public school. American Missionary Association, connected with the Congregational Church. They set up schools all over the South, and they were schools that originally started with the first grade and went through twelfth. They were called normal schools. And you had black teachers from the first grade through the eighth. And from the ninth through the twelfth you had white teachers from the North. They were usually Yankees. Our principal, when I was going through, was a German, Von Tobel. And your tuition was a dollar a month. Of course, you had to have that at least to be able to make it. So my mother worked, because I was going to the end. I never went to public schools at all. When I got there, they had cut off the first grade. They only had the second to the twelfth.
Each year, after I went in in second, they dropped a grade until they got
to the sixth grade. And, of course, in those early years, every year I
went home and told my mother, "I passed from second grade, and my
teacher passed, too." So I thought that my teacher and I were passing
together [laughter]
What year was that?
Oh, let's see, that must have been. . .I'm trying to remember whether it was when I left to go to Morris Brown, or whether it was while I was in Morris Brown. I went to Morris Brown in the fall of '17. We'll say they got the first high school somewhere between '17 and '20, somewhere in there.
You were talking about your friend, that you went to school with, and the color difference.
Oh, yes. This girl, May, was big. I think buxom would be the word, where
you're not fat but you're big-framed. So, she was twice as large as I
was. But we were the same age. She could play the piano far better than
I could. She had a lovely voice; I didn't have any voice, a little wee
voice. I could read music and I could carry a tune, but all I was good
for was to fill in, you know. I was dramatic. I'd been reciting all my
life; I was great on recitations. I loved to dance if they was doing
something where you had to hop, skip, and dance. But invariably, I was
[laughter] [laughter]always on the front row, I was always the first to get picked. I mean, between myself and May.
May would always be in the back row; May always was only picked if they
did have to have good voices. And, as a child, I resented it. I didn't
even understand it. I could never understand why May and I couldn't be
together. We sat together in school until we got separated for talking,
which we did every year. But, nevertheless, I recognized it very early
the distinction between May and myself, with the teachers, black
teachers. Not just white teachers, just everybody. And it followed right
through. You could see, even when I got to Durham. Bess Whittington was
our chorister at the St. Joseph's choir, and Bess was very good at that.
Bess was the closest dark you can
Was you mother a light-skinned woman?
Heck, no! Just as close to black as she could be without being black. The
darkest brown, as May. These folks here, the man I've [laughter]
But there's no question about it. She was prejudiced. She liked the
darker folks all right, but she didn't want me to bring one into the
family. And that's the only kind of man that I ever really and truly
liked. I had other sort of boyfriends—all kinds—every color under the
sun, over a period of time. But when I really got very serious, they was
always dark, and [laughter]
Would you have been considered in those days a brown-skinned woman? Would that be the term they would use?
For me?
Yes.
Oh, yeah, I would be brown-skinned. And then when I was smaller, I'd
often wondered why the thing used to offend me so. Looking at myself, I
don't see how they did it. They used to call me yellow. That offended me
greatly. I liked being brown, `cause I thought brown was so pretty. I
didn't think my particular brown was so pretty, but I had two or three
friends, girl-children growing up with me. `Course what they had went
along with it that I didn't have. I always used to hold my mother
accoutable for that, poor thing, she had nothing to do with it. But,
really all of the brown children, the color that I thought was so
pretty, they had this very pretty long black hair. So, you know, that
And even relatives. I had a set of relatives on my father's side, and I'd go down there to visit with them. My mother always played the role of combing the hair, and when she'd get through with my aunt's five or six children—they had all grades of hair, all kinds of hair,. but even those with the roughest of hair, they had braids that would have (I'm sure I must have exaggerated it in my mind), it looked like they was as big as my arm.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
My hair was shorter than everybody else's.
Did your father have any of these feelings about color?
No. No, he had none, I don't think.
Was he about your color?
I guess when we were both younger, he was probably lighter. Maybe I was a
little lighter then, I don't know. But anyway, I always thought while
growing up that I was between my father's and my mother's color. But,
you know, and you may know this, I think some people—and I've often
wondered if that's Indian pigmentation or what—but some people grow
darker as they grow older. And it certainly happened in my family. Now,
when my father died, my father was darker than I was. And, to me, it was
the most shocking thing. When I went home, even when he was ill, it
seemed to me that he looked darker, but I didn't pay much attention to
it, didn't get too upset about it. But at his death when I went home, he
seemed to me so much darker than I was. But I think I'm darker now than
I was, too, as
She told you to go with those people, not with these people?
No. My great-aunt. That was my great-aunt.
Was she talking about color then?
Oh, sure, sure. She was talking about color then. I always wondered why
she loved my mother, `cause my mother, by her standards, was a little
dark for her. But she loved her. More than she did any of the other
relatives that I ever knew. She loved Fannie. My mother's name was
Fannie. But, no. Most of the time that was really what it was. It was
color. She didn't care anything about dark people. And, to give you an
idea just how bad off she was, she worked with whites. I don't know the
history of Aunt Viola Dodd, I don't even know how she got with them. It
would be an interesting one if you knew. She had, way back in her time,
some time of school. Now, I don't know how in the world she could've had
the training for it, or anything. Of course, I know they didn't require
much. I can tell you how little they required for you to teach school.
But being my great-aunt, which meant she had to be at least my father's
age, or a little bit older or a little bit younger. She could have been
the last child in a group, so she could have been that age. But even so,
she had married and she'd had two children. But somewhere along the way,
she started working with a wealthy white family, and they were the
Winecoffs of Atlanta, Georgia. Where she ran into them or how, I don't
know. But she was not with [laughter] [laughter]old family in Atlanta, but
with their children, the son of this
She meant large or what?
I don't know any more than you do. but now, who ever decided there was a
difference in feet? That's how prejudiced she was. She was saving them,
because I didn't have those kind of feet, and she knew I'd come and be
in, and she was saving them 'til I got there. So I left there with four
or five pair of shoes. Because I had the right kind of feet [laughter]
How would you explain it that you didn't internalize those values?
I don't know. All I can tell you is that I resented those things from
childhood. I had a feeling. Anything I didn't like from my mother, not
to like particularly my best friend. Or to make any little remark that
indicated for some reason that she chose other children over her. And I
would say it right out. Always did. So, I have no idea where those
things came from, or how. But, as I said, I recall always I could come
up with some fantastic story about my background, where you could almost
see the Indians riding in the dugout [laughter]
Before we get you back to Tuskegee, you mentioned a while ago that young people wouldn't believe today the things about race relations?
I don't think so. You, know I thought of this often, trying to pinpoint
when I really became aware of the fact that I wasn't acceptable
everywhere.
Now, I lived, when I can first remember, in a little house here on
Tatenall. And then we moved to the corner house. So I lived all my life
on Tatenall. I had been on the corner of Tatenall and Chestnut. Up on
this corner of Tatenall and Chestnut, whites lived. Across the street my
school teacher, that I thoughtpassed every year, her family, the
Johnsons, they lived on this corner, and that corner, opposite them,
whites. Now up that block and all the way down this short block were
blacks. Now, on
Now, I go to the AMA school and you have black teachers and you have
white teachers, and we are right downtown, right straight through
downtown. Now, downtown, you get here and you go a block this way, and
there are a black tailor shop, two black drugstores, and an undertaking
establishment.
You see, you're all intertwined there. Now, we have black theatre. And
when I get to the point where I can go to the picture show, all I've
ever heard is the Douglas Theatre. And you are not like you are today.
You only got to go to the theatre once in a while. Your Mama didn't let
you go every week, or three times a week. You went once. And all you're
doing is looking forward to going to the theatre. So, I must have passed
white theatres and never even thought about them. I'm too busy getting
to the Douglas Theatre, you know. So, I don't realize that I can't go in
this theatre over here. `cause I'm going over here to this one. And
they're all white down there, near enough to each other that you don't
ever get out of [laughter]
Well, all through that period, O.K., and this is interesting. I've been intending to go back and try and find out, because there's something I should know, and I don't know it. I didn't know I should know it until recent years. The opera house in Macon is a historic building, and it has some history that I wish I knew what's it's all about. But my father took me to that opera house, everything that was worthwhile to see. I saw Ben Hur there when I was a kid. Oh, yes. We got a lot of horses on the stage. All sorts of things. I saw Black Patty. I don't know if you ever heard of Black Patty. Great singer, there. All sorts of things. My father took me because my mother would be sick this time, you know, to go to something like that. And I went to the Jim Crow section and never knew I was being Jim Crowed. They were smart people. Now, I always thought I had to go up them steps and go to that top. `Cause the seats up there were very nice and everything; it wasn't shabby when you got up. It was the fact that you had to from here to here to here to here to get there. As a kid, who thought anything about climbing steps?
Now, the next thing about it, when your father told you, you couldn't
afford, I thought it was a matter of money. The reason I was up there. I
had no idea that I couldn't go downstairs. I didn't
even question it. You didn't have radio, you didn't have T.V. So, you
didn't question many of the things your parents told you. And when my
mother said, "We're scraping up the money for you to go see so-and-so",
why, I thought I was getting the great treat of my life, and never
questioned anything about why I was going up all those steps to get
there.
Were they consciously protecting you?
Oh, I'm sure they did. I'm sure all of the parents probably were doing the same thing. Because if they didn't, children being children, we would have talked about it, if we'd known about it. I don't remember talking about it anytime when I was a kid: why I can't go to see so-and-so, why can't you do so-and-so. I had no idea.
When did you first find out?
You know, when I really became fully aware, I'm quite sure there must have been some incident somewhere along the way that made me know that I couldn't do something. I imagine that it was so nebulous, or happened so rarely, that I didn't get the things together. I just can't imagine that I was seventeen before I had some awareness of it. But, actually when I was fully aware was when I got to Morris Brown. Now, there were people in Atlanta. Atlanta was really the business center of black America. A man named Harry Pace and another man—can't think of his name now—they had an insurance company . . . .
Heiman Perry?
Heiman Perry. Standard Life—at the time it was changed to something else
so I was getting confused, but that's right. And another man, Ben Davis.
If you know anything about Atlanta, you know. Ben Davis was a newspaper
man. He was speaker of the truth, loud, wide and handsome. And he was
also a politician, and apparently a very smart, smart man. I never knew
him. I don't recall that I ever saw him. I saw Heiman Perry, and I knew
Harry Pace because he came to the school on one occasion, to really talk
to us about the power of the vote, and the need to exercise your
franchise, and that sort of thing. So that's when, really, my attention
was focussed on the fact that I had rights and that I had a need to
recognise that I had them and to protect them. Even, I remember, they
brought paper why you should vote against, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
And what it all meant, and the significance of this,
that, and the other thing. Of course we couldn't vote. But we were right
there indoctrinated to know you did have some rights, that these are
things you have to know, and should know about. And I think, as I
recall, they did have a vote over it, and it was defeated by the
citizenry of Atlanta. But that was really and truly my first recognition
that I had been living in a dream world.
You never had any bitter experiences, any meaness?
At intervals I would try to recall: did I ever have any? I have an idea
that I'm not typical. And I say I'm not typical because I have a feeling
that the kids that only got what the State of Georgia had to offer them
at that time, and their parents didn't make some effort to see that they
got more, or surround them with more, they may have had a lot of
situations that I don't know about. It's possible; I don't know. I don't
know of it. Atlanta is the first time I had that kind of awareness. But
the first time I ever saw the evidence of mob violence, or that sort of
thing, was in Clarksdale, Mississippi. And that was—oh, when was that?
That had to be around '24—'23, '24, somewhere along in there, '24,
'25—and I went into Clarksdale on Sunday afternoon, I believe it was.
Or it may have been Saturday. At any rate, I was on my way to Oklahoma,
and I stopped in Jackson, Mississippi with the Coxes. Mr. Cox was the
agency director, and I wanted him to know that I was leaving Alabama and
that I was going to Oklahoma. [laughter] [laughter]
Was that man lynched them?
No, they didn't touch him. Clarksdale was an interesting place. I had
another experience there—talking about lynching. When I went there, the
place Mr. Cox got for me, the lady could house me, but she couldn't feed
me. She was working, herself. So, there was a little cafe, or
cafeteria—what did they call it? I guess it was a cafe. These people
were in it for the money, [laughter] [laughter]
So that big family had. . . .?
Yeah. He told him to go get Mary and come back home; she had nothing to worry about. And apparently Mary didn't have anything, because that's how I saw Mary. The lady in the place called me and says, "There goes Mary." So that's the kind of place the South is. You can't explain it.
You think if a black man had committed the murder, it would have been altogether different?
Well, I think this: it all depends on what Mr. Doggett would have decided. Now, if Mr. Doggett decided that he didn't want John in jail, or John did exactly what he should've done, or someone's always imposing on John, it would've been the same. But now, whether Mr. Doggett had any John's in his life I don't know. But that's what it would've been, if he's influence with the man and his family. Incidentally, they were supposed to be expert marksmen. They had made many, many medals and things for their marksmanship. Both the man and the woman, so the story went in Clarksdale.
But that's the truth all over. It was, in those days. If you were in the favor of some people, you had very few problems.
And then there were other relationships that were perfectly lovely. For instance, I went to my grandmother's every year of my life, for as far back as I can remember, until she died, which, as I said, was when I was around twelve. And my playmate, in Clinton, was a little girl named Cassie. Cassie was a little white girl and they had a farm. My grandmother just had a small plot of land. My guess is maybe it was an acre of land, I have no idea what it was. She had a great big garden, a few trees, and enough land to raise a bale of cotton. But this other farm was a big farm that ran right on up to the back of this little piece of land of my grandmother's.
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
You say you and Cassie played together?
Every day. If we were at her house at the time for lunch and a nap, her mother put us in a room, on a pallet, gave us lunch, and we slept for a certain period of time. You always had that day break. If we were down to my house, my grandmother did the same thing. She fed us, we took our nap, and then we went out and played for the rest of the day. We did that summer after summer after summer. Now, the thing we had going for us, that was such a thrill—I guess we would have still done the same thing we did. But, Cassie—I don't know this. I don't know if she had relatives or someone who had been to China or where in China, or what. But some way or another, Cassie had silkworms. Uh huh. The first silkworms—maybe she had cucoons—but every year, during those years we played together, my grandmother had a big mulberry tree in her yard. Right by the front door, almost. So we fed the silkworms all summer long, and just about the time for me to go home, in the summer, they would be weaving their cocoons. And they would go to sleep, and they stayed in their shoeboxes all winter, and my grandmother would leave them alone. And by the time I would come back, the moths would be coming out of the cocoons. They would leave the eggs, and the eggs would make the little worms. Then we'd feed the eggs all summer—all the little worms, all summer long. That went on year in, year out until my grandmother had a stroke and my mother moved her to Macon. And I lost all contact with. . . .
You didn't actually collect the silk?
Oh, no. We didn't do anything but grow the worms and feed them the
mulberries, that's all. But we kept them going, you know, year in, year
out. And, you know, that silk is as pretty as it can be. It's a natural
color.
Do you suspect, that, had you continued to live in that area, and you and Cassie had reached a certain point in your life, that it would have been the end of the relationship?
I've often wondered about that. It probably would have been. And yet, I don't know. I was trying to think if I had any relationship with any white, at a period like that, where there was a change. No, I guess I don't really know. But from what I have read, and what I have heard, I would believe that possibly there may have come a time when I was supposed to be saying, ‘Miss Cassie’, and she was going to say, ‘Viola’, and that would've been the end to the friendship. Because, even then, I had too much spunk for it. So, I have an idea it might have. And yet, I have no way of answering that because we lost contact at a time when it was just one of those normal things, a death, and I never went back. `Didn't go back for many years.
[laughter]
So it was lost?
Oh, I'm sure it was. I never even raised the question. When I finally realized from just the little business training, I said, uh huh, that's what my daddy did. That's what I went to that place for. That's why I was signing something. No. I never even let on that I knew anything about it.
I want to take you back to Macon, just for a moment. You were talking about segregation, and, in some places, the lack of segregation in Macon. Where you lived, was that typical, where there would be whites and blacks kind of interspersed? Was there a defineable black community, what we would now call a ghetto?
I have tried to decide what was a ghetto. I'm not sure that I really
still know. Except when you talk about Harlem, or someplace like that.
[laughter]
May?
Yes, May. In this area. And I used to love to go out there. I say,
another thing I think I enjoyed going out there: I could ride my
bicycle, to go that far. And then there was always a fruit tree out
there or something I
Those black businesses that were downtown, did they move out, too?
Not in the—when was the last time I was there? '65. In 1965 the black businesses—whatever was still there—was still in that same location, right down on Cotton Avenue, almost right diagonal across from the city hall. And the things that I remembered were there, an undertaking establishment was still there, and I think—and this I'm not sure of—that drugstore, the most popular. There were two drugstores down there in that area. One was quite a nice drugstore, and I believe that drugstore was still there. But I'm not sure. But there was still black business right in that same area. I stopped there. The North Carolina Mutual's office was one of the buildings, put up by Elks or Masons or something, and their office was still in there. And in that area, there was still black businesses.
Was Macon large enough, when you were there, to have street cars?
Oh, yes. They had trollies. Macon is a very old town. Shortly after I came to Durham, my father sent me a paper celebrating either their hundredth or hundred-and-fiftieth birthday—I've forgotten which. But it's a very old town. They were slow. Macon was kind of like Durham. It had an opportunity to be an Atlanta but couldn't make it. Like Durham has had opportunity to be everything and didn't make it. Macon is like that: slow, sleepy, dull, but it has beautiful, wide, lovely streets.
Were these streetcars segregated as far back as you can remember?
To tell you the truth, I don't know. And one ran right by my house, curved and went right down Chestnut Street. And I don't have any awareness that I ever picked any place to sit on that streetcar.
But you do remember riding it?
Oh yes. That's a funny question. Golly, I'd like to see some other Maconite right now and ask that question—that grew up with me.
You don't remember blacks going to the back?
I don't recall any of that. And the thing that makes that so interesting
to me, now that you bring it to my mind: I not only rode on the one that
came right by the house, but one of our pasttimes, as kids growing
up—after you got up to the place where your mother let you go out a
while in the afternoon, on Sunday afternoons—we could take a nickle, get
on the trolley, say up at my corner or down to the next block, and you
could ride all the way downtown and get a transfer, and get on another
trolley down there and ride all the way around the west of the town, and
come back within a half-block of your house. And that was our Sunday
entertainment, when we got a chance to do it. You didn't get a chance to
do it every Sunday. Your mothers never let you do everything every
Sunday [laughter]
Do you remember parks being segregated? Did you ever go to parks?
There, I think again, I go back to my parents. They were very smart
people. We had picnics all the time. As a matter of fact, I guess I had
more parties than anybody in the whole wide world. Because, all you had
to do was get up in the morning and say, "Let's have a party." And my
mother would say, "O.K." Any maybe she'd bake some cookies. Now if there
was anybody around to invite, like Kitchin, a girl who lived way down
the street. She was the only person close to me. Or Kenny, across there.
I could invite them over for the cookies. If not, we had the party, my
mother and my father and myself. And, of course, they were my brothers
and sisters and another day, they may be my cousins. And I would get up
in the morning and announce, "Cousin Fanny, what are we going to do?"
And they indulged that. They would be the cousins all day. Cousin
Philip. Or they might be my brother and my sister. And they went along
with those fantasies and junk. But the picnics: my mother would fix a
basket and we would go down to the city park. Any
So you're not sure about the parks?
Oh, no. To tell you the truth, the only park I know anything about is the city park. All I can say: we had access to it. Because my father and mother would decide to have a picnic. And it ran right by the side of the river. I don't know if it ran beside it, or ran through it, or what. But there was a river down there. Then there was just this big, wide-open space. And I think everybody had access to it. I never had a reason to think otherwise. By the time I got up to any age, I was not enthusiastic about parks. I had other things that were far more interesting, so, I don't know. The only other parks that I know about in Macon at the time, were just little patches, you know, in the city. Maybe right over here in front of the city hall, there'd be a little place about as big as my back yard, and there might be a little pool with an alligator in it. And you walked around in there and looked at the alligator, that sort of thing. Everybody did that. But the city park is the only thing I ever knew about then. And, as I said, I spent many a day in there. That's the same place where the fairs came. You went to the fairs. And I don't know about any discrimination about that sort of thing. I guess there wouldn't be, would there?
Was this a county fair?
I don't know. Yes, it had to be the county fair.
There was a practise in the state fairs that there would be a white state
fair and then a colored state fair on the same grounds, but afterwards.
Do you remember anything like that? Where the whole fairgrounds would be
turned over to blacks after the whites had had their fair? That was true
of
I don't recall that. But don't quote me. I don't know. Yes, you can quote
me: I don't know. [laughter]
Do you remember what you typically had for breakfast or dinner?
Oh, yes. All sorts of good food. My mother was a good cook, and my father
knew foods. So I knew good foods. We were laughing about this not very
long ago, some friend of mine. I said, you know, I don't remember when I
learned to like olives. All my life I think I've liked olives. But I'm
sure there was a time when I didn't. You see, my father working in a
hotel, he knew foods. I don't know where my mother learned it. Maybe she
learned it off of my father. They were young together, grew up together.
But I had good food all of my life. And, also, they must have had
exposure that I don't know about, that made them do a lot of things. For
instance: we ate very little pork. You had a pork roast once a year.
That was a real treat. My mother cooked that pork roast in the winter,
with sweet potatoes around it, oh boy! It was a dish. But you only got
it once. The only other [laughter]Always, you had the grits in the breakfast, and the rice at
dinner. You might have everything else, but those two things also were
cooked, always. I didn't know one living thing—and of course this used
to tickle a lot of people, particularly people who were from the deep
South—that I had never seen chitterlings. Didn't know what they were
when I got to North Carolina. Had never seen people eat pig ears, and
pig feet—except for pickled pig feet that I used to buy for the dogs, in
the store. Only thing I had ever had of the pig would be all that I
mentioned, and my mother used to cook pig tails with little white beans.
And I had had that. But all these other things, I had never heard of
them before I got here. And Mr. Cox said, "You mean, coming out of
Georgia, you didn't know about it?" I'd never heard of it. As a matter
of fact, I'd never had coffee except when I was at grandmother's. My
mother drank, and served in her house, Postum, and I drank that at home.
But, boy, the first letter back from grandmother's always said, "Dear
Mama, I am having a wonderful time. Grandmother gave me coffee."
Oh, boy. I'll tell you what I think is funny: I remember that on Sundays,
Sunday breakfast could be special. Because, aside from bacon and eggs,
which was pretty standard—bacon, and eggs, and grits—most Sundays you
had pancakes. But that was just like a side dish. Pancakes and syrup.
And I say syrup because I met a man in the store last week and we got to
talking. I said, did he ever have cane syrup? Down in our section, your
syrup is made from sugar cane. There's nothing like it. It's better than
anything you get up this way. But anyhow, so you'd have maybe a stack of
pancakes and cane syrup over here. And your regular breakfast. You could
have either or both. And [laughter]
Your father didn't, in a sense, serve white people much of each year? Did he ever express any kind of bitterness about this role that he had to play?
No. My father was really just a sweet man. I never heard him complain
about anything. Never heard him gripe about things. Now, I could not say
the same about my mother. She didn't do much complaining, but boy, she
could fuss up a storm about many things. And my father would take one
look at her and get his hat and go around the block [laughter]
You mentioned that your father pretty much ran the house, is that correct?
In that he was the chief earner, that he brought the money in all the time. But if I give you the impression he ran the house, I was wrong.
Big decisions, now.
Fannie made them. She was the maker of decisions. She was the moving
force of the family. And he was not a protester. He let her do, you
know, have her way. There was not much argument. He just didn't have
that drive that she had. I'll give you an example. This is purely
personal. It has nothing to do with what you're doing. But, when my
mother died, she had gone out in this section where I told you about,
where most of the families
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 3, SIDE A]
He didn't know that, nor did I know it. And to show you the difference,
the reason I say my mother was the dynamo. He was just a darling, sweet
person, but he was willing to go along with her program, that's where he
was marvelous. Just for being a lovely parent and considerate of you and
all that kind of thing. I wouldn't ask for anything more. They were a
good combination. It wouldn't have done for either one of them to be the
same as the other. If one had been too explosive, the other one would've
done nothing. They were a beautiful combination for me. Did you know, my
father married again? And my stepmother was a very lovely person. I
liked her very much. I never had to live with her and that probably kept
me liking her. Entirely different from my mother. But at least she had
had two years of college education at Spellman, which meant she was
highly advanced above my mother's
He didn't get angry when your mother bought the land the first time?
Oh, no, no, no. But I know exactly what happened. One day I get a letter and he wants to know if I want the piano, or have any need for it. I wrote him back and said no indeed, if you want to sell it and get a price for it, be my guest. His wife just wanted this, or didn't want that, and so I feel quite sure that she didn't want to move out, what at that time, appeared to be that far. And so he just went on and sold it. But it kept him in hot water all of his life. I'm quite sure it shortened his life, very likely. With a brand new, young family, and a home, mortgaged to the hilt. No better compensation than he'd ever made, I'm sure. Probably less.
All of this may be significant, because, as you probably know, a long and
controversial
No, I don't think I do. Not fully. If I just took my family, I would say, yes. Because, certainly my mother was. She wasn't a domineering woman. If you just came and visited with the family or you were there a while, you would have probably thought that my father was the dominant force, maybe. I mean, tall, very nice person, very agreeable person. My mother could be a very agreeable little lady. But the things she wanted, the ambition. He didn't have the ambition. Unfortunately. Maybe deep down he agreed with those sort of things. But he wasn't the kind who could voice, "I want a piano; I want my daughter to take music lessons." That wasn't the usual thing in that time. It was the people, back in that time, who had a little money. Not the people who lived on this side of the street, over here. The man was a postal mail clerk on the train. His wife did nothing because he could support her. They had the only telephone in the neighborhood, the area. There was a piano in their house, and everything else. A couple of their girls were teachers. The others had married and gone other places. All doing very well. More or less moderately affluent, well some of the affluent of that neighborhood, and of many groups of us at that time.
The children you went to school with in the AMA school, as much as you can generalize about their families, were their fathers generally with the family, generally employed?
Yeah, they were with their families. Most of the folks that I knew, other
children. I knew the mothers and the fathers. Different stories about
some of them. Some of them you could say, well, like you would know the
Julian Kerr and the O'Daniels. There were some of those in my classes.
You knew that this group here had some relatives over here, you know,
and that sort of this. But that was not true. This girl here, her mother
and father were farmers. They had a large family and she was the baby
girl in that family. [laughter]in the family, that made you
able to connect them with anybody in any other family. They were all
brown-skinned people. I guess the lightest girl in that family was about
my color. The rest of them shaded down. There were no unusual features
in that family. Most of them were Negroid and that sort of thing. They
had talent. So far as I'm concerned, they were the best livers I knew
anything about. Anybody who had all the lovely fruit trees around, you
know, that sort of thing
But now, I can't even think of—and this, again, is a question I never thought of before. I don't know of but one child that I knew, growing up with, where the mother and the father were not together. And that was a very queer and strange situation. This little girl got lost on the train between Macon and a place up near—I've forgotten the name of the place—but near where Franklin Delano Roosevelt had his summer cottage.
Warm Springs?
Somewhere up in that area, this child was travelling from one place,
going towards another. She was let off in Macon. Nobody met her. And she
was just there, lost in the station. A man in our neighborhood, a Mr.
Day was a hackman, he drove a hack. Someone told him that this child was
there, and he took her home with him. He and his wife had no children. I
was very fond of them and they were very fond of me. My mother used to
let me visit with them, oftimes. Actually to the point I've called him
Poppa Dad and her Aunt Emma. And this little girl—oh, I'm sure she was
also terrified. But she
Was there a feeling that maybe your family background and that of those right around you, particularly at the AMA School, that that was different somehow from others who may have been less fortunate?
It could have been. The fact that I was thrown into that area. It could
have been. I don't know. I know this: that my parents and what they had
to work with, they were certainly not superior. I mean, they had no
advantages. They were not in the Johnson family, by any means. So far as
material. It was true, I guess I would say, of everybody on that street.
Because this side of me, the man was a tailor and his wife taught. And
the grandmother was a seamstress. And beyond that, I think there was one
of the daughters in there, was a teacher. When you went down the street
the other way, I can't remember but one family down there. But that
family—I think that man was a railroad man, or in the mail service. I
don't know. But next to the Johnsons, I know that man was a railroad
engineer, which is way up off a black man's job. But he didn't look at
all black. He was just as white as he could be, Mr. [laughter]
Was there no section of the town that would be identified for poor blacks only?
Not in that area.
Was there another side of Macon?
There was a side of Macon that I never knew and I didn't realize how
little I didn't know it until last year a lady came here, and to my
great surprise, let's see, she was eighty-nine. Anyway she was old
enough for me to consider that she was old. Now, at seventy-nine, I
can't consider many people old, can I? And she was from Macon. And this
friend called me and said there's a lady I've met from Macon, Georgia
and I want you to meet her. So, of course, I'm very enthusiastic about
that and I went to see her, and I met her. And she was very delightful.
I was worried to death. The only thing I could think of to do was to
take her to lunch up at the cafeteria. And when I went to pick her up, I
was worried about what I should wear, because I wear slacks all the
time. I said, what the heck, I'll just wear what I'm comfortable in. So
I put on a pant-suit and went and got this lady. And she had on the best
looking pants you'd ever want to see [laughter]
Did blacks and whites live together there?
Evidently. Well, I don't know whether they did or it was all a section,
and then another section of the blacks. But you used to go down to the
bench where you could see this. My father had taken me down there on
more than one occasion and the people that I saw were effectively
whites. I don't know whether that really means anything. I realized I
didn't know a thing about East Macon anyway. As a matter of fact, there
was something else I learned, and this, I'm sure, must have happened
since I left Macon. I surely would have known something about it.
Apparently there was some excavation or something going on.
You mentioned that you saw live stage shows?
Yeah, I saw many there. But the one that always stuck out in my mind was Ben Hur. Because when they had the chariot race with the white horses and the black horses racing, they were on stage just racing away for all they were worth. And of course as a kid, you can imagine. I couldn't imagine how that was happening. But I know now there was some stationary thing down there making the motion. But they had the white horses and the black horses.
Do you remember what else you saw there? Did vaudeville ever come there?
I'm trying to think. Did I see vaudeville there? Now, I'm trying to get that mixed up with New York. I believe vaudeville is what I saw in New York in the early years. I mean, my earlier years.
Musical productions?
Yes. I saw what was an outstanding minstrel show there. And the only
thing I can remember about that, aside from seeing the outline of a
minstrel show, was the name, Lubock State, I think. Which was supposedly
indicative that it was the outstanding minstrel show of the time. I
remember seeing that the first time I'd ever seen these people sitting
around with the banjos and
Were these all black performers in the minstrel show?
I have no idea. I imagine they were black-faced whites. You know how the minstrels took off and made themselves look like us to entertain.
At this point, though, they did become black performers. I was wondering if you could remember.
I don't know that. I really don't. That was in the early years. I must have been twelve, thirteen, fourteen. Somewhere in there.
What about instrumental music?
No. The only thing I remember. . .no, just a minute, I do remember. I can't remember the name, though. These performances that I saw were at the city auditorium. I remember a white pianist. I can just see the outline of the player, but I can't remember it.
I was taking music then and doing like this, trying to get the fingering
right. I wish I could think of her name. But at the city auditorium,
that's where all the school performances were. And when I was growing
up, they would have a combination of schools together for your
performance. And nine out of ten times you would do something where you
would call in artists in there. For instance, the Mikado we did. I was
among the kids that were in that. I used to remember little portions of
it. When you hear it, you know, you find yourself going into it. One of
the things I remember so much, they had a prima donna—I don't know who
she was. I believe that lady may have been local. At any rate, she
really had the opera voice, And the only thing I remember about that was
that she'd stand up and she'd say, "So-o-o ha-a-appy." And all of us
from the [laughter]
Can you remember any black professional groups at all? Anywhere that you saw? People coming to town?
I think when I tell you this, again some of these things are hazy to the point that I may misinform you. But, as I recall, there was a Patty, who was a white singer. And then there came along a black Patty. Now, I know I'm right. And I think the name was taken on the basis of there having been this white singer who was Patty. Now, where I'm confused: I don't recall whether the performance I saw with black Patty was a show, an opera, in which she majored, or whether she was featured in one of those minstrel shows. I saw black Patty and heard her sing in the opera either in a show that featured her or in the minstrel and she was a feature. I can't put the thing together like that. But I saw and heard her and I have a little picture of her.
Were you aware of ragtime, and later on, jazz?
Yes, I became aware, I guess, that was ragtime. Because for me to have a
piano in those early days, it became very popular with anybody who could
play a piano. There were three, I guess they were men. They were young
men. I think of one in particular and I can't even think of his name
now. But he came by and asked Miss Fannie could he play on the piano? He
was the [laughter]
Classical music, she wanted?
Yes. I had a lovely music teacher. She tried very diligently. I played in
a couple of recitals. For a long time [laughter]
We'll pursue that again, in Durham maybe, as the blues becomes more popular in the twenties and thirties. From Macon to Tuskegee, now. This is when you graduated from Morris Brown, in what? 1919?
Now, let me see. I'm going to tell you when and where I ended up and you
can get the dates straight. I left Morris Brown and went to Tuskegee.
[END OF TAPE 3, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 3, SIDE B]
So that's really how I got to Mississippi. After I struggled with my poor father again, because he nearly died at the thought of me going to Mississippi. All Georgians felt it was a horrible experience to go to Mississippi. He had endured Alabama, but to go to Mississippi—he felt quite sure he would never see his daughter again.
So, how long did you stay at Tuskegee?
I stayed at Tuskegee from summer until. . .whatever it was. It was '20. I can't remember the month, but it must have been January. It was just a matter of months.
But Dr. Molton didn't pick you up?
Oh! Would you like to hear that part? [laughter] [laughter]
Did you ever meet Molton?
Oh, yes. I met Dr. Molton on an occasion. But I didn't make myself known
to him. I just met him as a new employee coming in. Because, his office
was in that office. And our office was upstairs. He wasn't even in
Tuskegee when I got there, but what had happened: that's what you would
be interested in. One of my class mates, a man named Mathis—presumably
he made application for work at Tuskegee. But at any rate he was there.
And they were so satisfied with his work that he was asked if there were
any other people in his class that he could recommend or suggest. And he
recommended three or four of us. And that's
Did you feel the presence of Booker T. Washington there, just in the short time you were there? Anything you remember?
No. It took a little time, but I'll tell you what I did find there, and
really the way I began to feel Washington was, of course, at first I was
amazed at what I saw. The physical plant: I just couldn't believe what I
beheld. I had never seen anything like that anywhere, at the time. But
it took being there a while to get the feeling of people, who knew Mr.
Washington, or who had come under his influence enough. As you listened
to them and heard them talk, then you began to realize. Then finally I
got to know some members of the family, who lived right across from
where I lived at Penny Cottage. What I did get the thrill of much
earlier than I got appreciation for what Mr. Washington had done, was
George Washington Carver. He was on the campus when I was there. And you
couldn't come around him that you didn't take note of it. You might look
at him and say, "Who is that funny-looking man?" Or you might say, "Who
is that man that's always picking up what looks like a weed?" Then you
look and he's got it in the buttonhole or something. After a while, when
you'd been there a while, you'd say, "Oh, look, there's Dr. Carver." And
you'd always try to get up close enough for him to say something,
because he would always say something to you, you know. I remember the
last time I saw him. I had left Tuskegee and I was in Jackson,
Mississippi, and coming down—I believe that street's called Pearl
Street. But at any rate, I was almost to our office and he was coming
down the street like this, and just before he got to me, he reached
down—and the first thing that came to my mind was, what on earth can he
pick here on this paved street, you know? By the time I got to
So you'd actually met him at Tuskegee?
Oh, yes. I met him there and saw him many times. You know, I knew where his office was and the people who worked in his office.
That would be your outstanding memory?
Really, the one that I think I'm most proud of. Because, I learned to respect him there, not having any idea how wonderful he was. But in a little time, it wasn't long, I realized what a marvelous thing it had been for me to have known the man, and could just walk up and speak to him. And he'd talk to you like anybody else. Then, later, to meet him on the streets of Jackson.
You're about nineteen now, and going off from Tuskegee to Mississippi?
To Mississippi, yeah.
To Clarksdale now?
No, no, no. Not Clarksdale. I went to Jackson to work for the Department of Education in Mississippi. I haven't gotten to North Carolina detour yet.
Right. So you're going to meet George Cox somewhere?
Right. He meets me at the train when I get off at Jackson, Mississippi.
Are you still working for this superintendent of education?
No, I haven't started working for him, when I get to Jackson. When I
leave Tuskegee and I get through the hassle with my father about going
to Mississippi, then I get over to Mississippi, and Mr. Grossly has to
go out of town the day I'm to arrive. He asks Mr. Cox to meet me at the
station, and to take me to the place they have selected as a place for
me to live.
This is George W. senior?
George W. Cox, senior. The young one, whom you met. Her husband is George Cox, junior.
So he picks you up?
At the station and takes me out to the place where I'm supposed to live and then gives me directions about how to get to the office the next day. Or somebody picks me up—I don't know which way that happens. So that's the beginning of my knowing Mr. Cox, and my work with the Department of Negro Education. He's the superintendent of Negro education in the state of Mississippi. That's where I'm working.
How long did you work there?
I stayed there until June, I believe, of that year, '20. No. Yeah. I
stayed with him until June. I left Mississippi around
September. In the meantime Mr. Cox and Mr. Grossly had offices that
opened on each other. And Mr. Cox was with North Carolina Mutual. And
North Carolina Mutual is going to open up in the state of Oklahoma. So I
leave the Department of Education in Mississippi, and I go to Oklahoma
City when they open up that state with the North Carolina Mutual.
So Mr. Cox hired you away from the Department of Negro Education?
Yes. Yes, and no. Let me put it this way. What actually happened, the
reason I was quite willing to leave and go with him: I met a young man
in Jackson, Mississippi. And we immediately fall in love and get
married. He's going to open up for Mr. Cox, the office in Oklahoma City.
So
Is this Mr. Thompson?
No, no, no. This is Mr. Taylor.
Taylor?
Yeah. I stayed in the ‘T’ family all the way [laughter] [break in tape]
That distressed me to see such a handsome house set in such a small area. Now they did have what is a clubhouse now. That was their property. There was nothing on it when I first came. They put the clubhouse up later. As a matter of fact, evidentally it wasn't his property, or he sold it. And then that little house on the other side, that is their house. But that great big, handsome thing should have been set back in somewhere.
We've left you what: as a married woman, leaving Mississippi going to Oklahoma. But before we do that, there are a couple of things that we were thinking about last night, that you talked about yesterday. Just little points, but historians may find them very interesting to check out. You mentioned a man who was a railroad engineer who lived in the block near you.
Oh, in my home town. Mr. Raefield.
How do you spell his name?
I would have to spell it as I imagined it was: R-A-E-F-I-E-L-D. It could have been R-A-Y. But usually you see those things, they're R-A-E.
What street would that have been on?
Tatenall.
It would have been very unusual, I think, for a black man to be an
engineer. Because railroads are beginning more and more to displace
people.
The only thing I can remember, well two things, one I told you about: that he had a bad drinking problem. But the other thing I remember about him was that he looked like a white man.
He was not a
I'm pretty sure I'm correct that he was an engineer. I grew up with that
feeling, you know. Some way or another I got that sort of knowledge.
Now, it could have been misinformation, but I can't imagine so. I don't
know how I would know it any other way. And the only two things I
remember about Mr. Raefield, and it was not how he looked. He had a
tabby cat, a huge tabby cat. And I guess that's the reason. Because I
love all animals, and I like cats very well now. But as a child I was
very much afraid of it. But tabby was that tall, and he had to be, oh,
like that, before you got to the tail. He was a huge cat. And all of us
had picket fences. Came right up that street. At least I remember the
Bradleys, the Raefields, and the Johnsons had picket fences. And we had
a picket fence over on this side. And the trolley moved right up and
turned at the Johnson's house. And tabby—and this is what seems to me
strange now; I just thought it was wonderful and watched it as a kid.
Mr. Raefield was not at home every night. Just the way the train ran. He
was there some nights and other nights he wasn't. But tabby would come
out of his house and get on the picket fence and go up to the corner,
which was a house beyond his house. His house was the second house. And
sit on the Johnson's corner of the picket fence. Mr. Rayfield would get
off of the trolley car on that corner. And he would follow tabby until
tabby would jump off the fence. That was the way he knew that was his
house. So, now, I know that I learned that part about why he knew
You mentioned your music teacher. Was she white or black?
She was black and a beautiful woman. I believe her father was a minister. But what I remember about the family: it was a family of five or six girls and they were all beautiful girls. Miss Rosa was my music teacher. I thought Miss Rosa—because, you know, again, how children think of age; so I have no idea what age she was. I'm quite sure I thought she was much older than she was, because when I went home in '65, I was invited to a party that really was a bridge club of one of my friends that I had met. Oh, they must have had, oh, something I can't even conceive of. But like four or five tables of bridge. When you get over three I can't imagine it. Two is my figure. But at any rate. Then, she had invited in other friends, apparently to meet me. Or to see me again. I'm a hometown girl who's come home. But this time I have made good, so she had invited in other friends. When I looked in there, one of the first people I saw was Miss Rosa, and she was just as pretty then as I had thought she was when I was a child. She didn't look as old as I thought I looked.
Did she live by you?
When I was growing up?
Yes.
No. I lived, as I told you, out near the University. Not too far, a
couple of blocks, on this little short street. She lived in what I know
now was more Negro section. Because I would come down at another end of
the same street. I mentioned to you Vinveville Avenue that ran all
through. I would cross that and then I would go on Monroe Street, I
believe. And when I would
Would they have any white neighbors in her area?
No. That's why I say it was another section. Because everything in all the sections I'm naming now: Monroe Street, First Avenue, Second Avenue, Third Avenue, Fourth Avenue, Fifth Avenue—those avenues, all I knew—all those were Negro residences.
But she and her husband were professionals?
Oh, yes. There were plenty of professionals in and out of that area. You
see, in Macon, when I left Georgia, when I came. . .where did I first
really notice it? I guess when I got to Durham. It was the first place I
had ever been where I ever saw a white letter-carrier, was in Durham.
And I was the most shocked person in the world when I looked up and saw
a white letter-carrier putting out mail in our mail boxes. But every
letter-carrier I had ever seen was black. There were Negro hotel people,
postal workers in the post office. Even when I was in my teen age, there
were boys in school who maybe could work down at the post office, you
know, got little jobs. And then if they got good enough and a little
older, they worked in the post office. I'm trying to think of other,
sort of work, people did. Lot of hotel folks, lot of mail carriers. If
some others come to me, maybe in talking, I'll think about them. But I
had never been in a place where you didn't see blacks with a whole lot
of different types of jobs. And when I got here. Black letter-carrier?
In Macon, now, you're speaking of?
Oh, yes, going back to Macon. There were professional men: doctors.
Would they tend to live in the same area as your music teacher?
Yes. You see, she was married to a physician. Her first husband—she had two husbands; both were physicians—was a physician, and he must have been considerably older than she. Because, as I said, in '65, when I went home and saw her, she was a perfectly beautiful woman. And she looked then like she could've been sixty-five. I don't know what she was. But her husband had died many, many years ago, and she had married another doctor. And she was now Mrs. Rosa Frasier, and he was a very much younger doctor. So, he was probably the man of her age—that she married in later years. And I think that she and this physician had children. She didn't have any children by the first one.
Was your impression of Durham, then, that there was not as great a variety of jobs for blacks.
We didn't ever run into them. And I think that Durham was so small then,
you'd have to run into almost anybody. There certainly was a difference.
And we felt it so strongly because Mrs. Cox was a Mississippian,
Were whites doing those hotel jobs?
I have no idea. I wasn't going to the hotels at that time. However I
tricked them. I went there on one occasion and they never knew it. [laughter]
How was that?
Well, one year, Betty and Mrs. Goodlow, now, and I were living together. And Adam Clayton Powell, whom I know you know by name, came here to preach a sermon at White Rock Baptist Church. The Baptists have a way, if they need a minister, they call different ministers in to preach, to decide if they want him.
[END OF TAPE 3, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 4, SIDE A]
Let me go back and see whether or not the story leading up to Adam. . . I believe what I was about to tell you came before Adam and that's how we happened to know Adam. Do you want to hear that at all, about the hotel?
Yes.
O.K. Well, because it really leads up to Adam instead of Adam leading up
to it. Don't let it run 'til I get that straight. [break]
Adam was being called to preach at White Rock. Adam was very handsome,
and he wore beautiful clothes. He was well trained. So, there was no way
under the sun for him not to make an impression on all of the girls in
town who saw him, all of the women in town who saw
him. And, of course, he went to White Rock to preach. It was in the
summertime and he had on a beautiful white suit, which did all things
for him. I can't recall how we knew enough, or what contact we had, that
made him come to see us. But, he did. So, I'll have to leave it at that.
We lived not too far from White Rock Baptist Church. Just a little place
out there that the Mutual had turned into an apartment. And Betty and I
had this apartment. So Adam came down to see us. And we're in the
kitchen fixing a little food and drinks and things. And he sat down
there with us and we chatted and had quite a time. He had already seen a
girl that he was impressed with, who was related to Professor Pearson
who was the principal of the high school here, at that time. Portia
Whitted. And he had known her somewhere else, but that was the girl he
was primarily interested in here. So, he had no interest in us, nor we
in him. But as he sat with us and chatted and talked about Portia and
other girls he had met, he told us that his girlfriend was coming to
Durham and that he wanted us to be nice to her when she came. Because,
she was travelling with a show. There were two sisters, Isabelle
Washington and Freddie Washington, and they were travelling with Miller
and Lyle. Miller and Lyle were quite outstanding showmen. Lyle was the
comedian. Miller's daughter is still in show business. She's a musician,
I think. I've forgotten her name. But, at any rate, Miller was a sort of
man that Lyle. . .what was it? A straightman. He was a foil for Lyle.
They both
Tobacco warehouses?
Yes. Big warehouses.
Can you remember the bands?
Oh, every one that was ever popular came here at one time or another. I didn't go to many of them. It wasn't one of the places I went to much. Many of the young people in my group. Few of us went. Everybody was permitted there. You could buy the tickets.
Blacks and whites?
Well, if the blacks were bringing the band in, it was their show. The whites could come, but they more or less were spectators. And the only times that I ever went—I went about twice—was as a spectator. I'd go upstairs and look. Most of us would.
But, on this occasion, Adam said they were coming and he wanted us to be sure to be nice to Isabelle. Because, apparently they had not made a trip like this, and certainly not to the South before. She sang and her sister Freddie was a dancer, and had a male partner as a dancer. So we assured him when they got here we would show. . . .
Where were they going to perform?
They were performing at this warehouse.
Any warehouse?
In a warehouse, yes.
There was nothing like an opera house here, or anything like that? An auditorium?
There was a theatre. The Center Theatre, where, at that time, I don't
think they had anything. A little later on, they brought a few things in
Where we knew they were coming, we made arrangements to have dinner for
them. Because we did have a beautiful contact. The woman who ran the
North Carolina Mutual's cafeteria was quite, quite good. She was a
cateress, really. She did a lot of parties for whites in Durham. So we
had gotten her to fix this dinner for us. And then Betty was going with
Joe Goodlow, the fellow that she married. So, Joe took us to the show.
And we got in touch with Isabelle and Freddie and told them that we were
preparing dinner for them. We got in touch with them before the show.
Then we went to the show. We were to pick them up there, which we did.
We told them we were preparing dinner for them, and did they have anyone
they would like to invite. And they wanted to invite Miller and Lyle and
Freddie's dancing partner. So we had this dinner for that group. All
because of Adam's request. So while they're at our little apartment for
dinner, they were all so enthusiastic about it, and Miller and Lyle were
the stars of the show. They said, we want you to go to the show with us.
And we all said, you know darn well we can't go. He said, if they have a
show you can
Which hotel was this?
Washington-Duke. The only real hotel we had at that
time.
Freddie and Isabelle were black performers?
All of these were black. See, that was always the way of the South. They wanted a show. They not only took them there and put them up, they all had reservations in the hotel. But they were not going to permit any Durham blacks to come to the hotel. I mean, have accommodations there.
And the show was to be in the hotel?
The show was in the hotel. That's where we saw the show. I think I'm
correct; I could be off to some extent; this was my first visit there.
But I understand, it was either the end of the very large dining, or it
was the end of a large ballroom. It was a room upstairs. It was not
downstairs where
Mr. [laughter]
Of course, White Rock turned him down.
Why?
He was too handsome and too young. [laughter]
I heard the story that the women—particularly the older women— said that boy was too flashy for White Rock.
That's right. And too young. And that sort of thing. Flashy was probably not the word. That he was just too good-looking, and that he was going to bring pandemonium here among the girls, and all that sort of thing. That was the thing. They liked him. He could preach; there was no question about that. He really could preach. He could get right down to whatever level they wanted. And he could bring it right on up. He had them shouting in the corners. Adam was something. I liked him very, very much, and was very unhappy about the end he came to, much of which was his own darn fault. He should have had sense enough to know that he couldn't get away with the same things everybody else was getting away with. That's exactly what he felt he could do. But he was smart. He was brilliant.
You kept in contact with him?
Yes, for a long, long time. Because later I was going with a fellow that
I was very, very fond of—we almost got married; but thank heavens I met
Pops in time. Adam liked this man very much. He was an athlete, quite a
tennis player, and played the
You're talking about the all-black team? The Globe-Trotters?
Yes. Well, I was very much caught up with one of those Globe-Trotters at
one time,
This was Mr. Turner?
Yes. Nearly everybody called him Pops. But at any rate, Adam knew him. And Pops knew Adam for that matter. He said, "What about Sedge?" I said, "What about him?" "You're going to marry somebody else?" "Uh, huh." "Why?" I said, "Because I believe he'll make me a good husband. And I think I could make him a good wife. And I don't want to make a mistake again." Because I'd sworn I'd never marry again. "So you think Sedge would be a mistake?" I said, "Uh, huh. I think so." Adam never came to see me again. Never. He didn't leave like he was angry or anything. He did ask me very pointed questions like that. And I told him, it's a hard decision to make but I think I'll be making the right one. When he said goodbye that time, I never saw him again. It was a number of years before he got into trouble with the government. But he never came to see me again. I guess he didn't forgive me, I don't know.
While we're talking about this entertainment coming to town: there were movie theatres here, were there not? Black movie theatres?
Yes, there was one.
Do you remember the name of it?
Yes. When I first came here—the Wonderland Theatre, I think it kept the
same name, although everything else changed about it: the location, the
ownership and everything. At any rate, the first operator of the theatre
was an interesting man. I hope somebody has told you his story. I don't
think
Go ahead and talk. I think I've got some information.
Well, his home is right at the street. It's still there and his widow is
still living. King Watkins travelled over this entire South, showing
pictures of some kind. I guess, more like slides or something. But, at
any rate, he called himself the King. And he carried himself like [laughter]
Was it The Regal?
No.
The Wonderland?
I think you've gotten straight. It was The Wonderland and the next one that came was The Regal. The Regal is the name I've forgotten. His was the Wonderland.
Where was he from?
Who knows? I never knew. I don't know whether he was a
North Carolinian. But, anybody who grew up in that period of time had
run in or heard of King Watkins, somewhere else, before they got to
North Carolina. The Coxes had seen or heard of him in Mississippi. He
travelled all around the South at periods of this time. Now I didn't
know anything about his history as such, but I knew him as a man. And he
was the most interesting person that you ever saw. He would meet you
with a flourish and a bow and catch you by the hand and tell you all
sort of foolishness, you know. But in this manner of:
Would he book other entertainments into the theatre?
Yes. He did in the early years. I can't explain it sufficiently, or accurate, I guess is the word I want to say, because I don't really understand. Except, that where you would go to the various towns, he had some kind of movie that he was showing. Stills or something. But the conversation he carried on when he showed them was the show, really. Because he would tell you what he was showing, then he would embelish, you know, what he was doing. He had all that flair for showmanship.
Would he bring in musical groups to the theatre?
No, I don't recall. I don't recall anything [laughter]
But here in the Wonderland Theatre is the first time I saw Uncle perform,
was in this theatre. And the first time I saw Ella Fitzgerald, she was
here to perform in this theatre, with Chick Webb. I didn't see that
performance, but I saw Ella because Ella came to the building, a little
country girl, thin, and sat out on the bench on the third floor where
people sat when they were waiting for someone. And they left here, and I
think I'm correct, they went on to Alabama, and either there or very
shortly thereafter, Chick Webb died. Ethel, how I remember her? Well,
she also was young and slender. And she was singing up on the stage and
King Watkins. . .the man with [laughter]
Betty and another girl who's dead, Felicia, and when Eula was here, the
four of us—Felicia worked with Bankers [laughter]
Would other Mutual people go to the Wonderland?
Everybody went there if they went to the movies at that time. I don't how much they went. That's how we went. We'd come from work and go in there. Meet and sit in the back. We saw some pretty good shows.
Can you remember other groups that he brought in besides Ethel Waters?
That's the only thing I remember. I didn't go regularly, as you can well imagine. You couldn't avoid rats too regularly. That's the only one I can remember, but I'm quite sure he brought many other things there, very likely. I think that Ella and Chick—whatever his name was—must have been there, because that was before The Regal. Now, The Regal Theatre was entirely different. Mr. Logan ran it. And he had a real connection with—I think I'll remember their names right now, but it's a theatrical group. They have theatres in Mephis and theatres in Charlotte, theatres in Washington. And I used to remember the name of the folks, the name of the people who ran those different theatres. Mr. Logan had that same connection. The building that his theatre was in was a new building. Dr. Darnell had built that hotel. And he went right in to a lovely building. And the theatre was a lovely building. Then, Mr. Logan was an entirely different type of man. So he ran a different type of theatre. And then, the times had changed, too. Durham had grown some and could support a theatre with all the people you know.
First-run films would come to the Regal?
I'm sure they were. I know this: we were all theatre buffs in those days. We probably knew what was coming and looking for them. And then, his connection justified that he would have good pictures.
Did The Regal and The Wonderland overlap? Did they exist at the same time?
Maybe for a very short while. I don't think so, though. If they did, it
was not very long. Because, I don't ever recall where you would think
[laughter]
Is this the story with Eula or another story? About where you went to the white theatre?
Oh, no, no, no. That was really a white theatre. Downstairs on the first
floor and they had a little balcony, you know a little second story.
What do you call it? Little tier. The first floor and another little
tier. No. That was when I was just exerting my womanhood. No. At the
Center Theatre
[END OF TAPE 4, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 4, SIDE B]
But now what I do about that sort of thing: I don't go to games. I don't
watch fights or any of those sort of things. Because I don't ever get to
the point where I can differentiate between the real and the unreal, you
know. I have spasms over anything. As an example, and the reason why I
did not go back to the Center anymore: I went to this theatre once, and
they were showing, among other things I imagine. I don't imagine I went
there just [laughter]
Tell me that story, though, about you and Eula when you went to the all-white theatre.
Well, there was something there that we wanted to see. Again, I don't
recall what it was. So, we got togetherand either one of us must have
said they'd like to see so-and-so. And, of course, the other said, we
should see it. I don't know whether Eula said come on let's go, or I
said come on let's go. Very likely I said come on let's go. She may have
been a little reluctant. Any rate, we agreed we were going. So, I called
her up and arranged to see her. Dressed up, not overly dressed, but put
on, probably a little dress. And when
Eula Perry? She could pass for white.
Oh gosh, yes. She's whiter than any white person you know even. I tell
her all the time, "You're so white, honest to goodness, you're
sickening." And it's a fact [laughter] [laughter]
Well, now, in all the theatres I've ever been in, I don't recall ever
seeing light stay on during the picture. But up in that little balcony,
these little lights up here stayed on right straight through the
picture. Now, whether or not there was anything unique or unusual about
that—it could have been that I was unique or unusual in that position.
But any rate I said to Eula, "When are they going to turn those lights
off?" And so she would say, "I don't know." Well it didn't matter so
much because we were sitting back like this. But, now, on both sides of
us, were whites. I think maybe I was the only one there. Except Eula,
and maybe somebody like Eula. But, being me, there's no way under the
sun, that I could stay in any one position the whole movie, or anything
else, you know.
You were afraid that your hands would give you away?
Oh, they wouldn't've given me away. [laughter]
But you and she had a good time, though, with Jim Crow, and race relations?
Oh, yes. We had marvelous times. We really did in more people.
What was that story about the butcher shop? Wasn't that with Eula?
Oh, yes. All of these would be with Eula. Because even my other friends
who were fair, none were so fair as Eula. And although Durham, even
today, I would wager you I could walk somewhere with Eula and somebody
would take a second look. But it wouldn't be the same. Up until very
recently. I'd say up until the sixties, there was no place that I went
with Eula that at least two or three people, somewhere along the way,
looked. And you'd see not only knew we were worrying somebody. We really gave them a
headache. We'd put on an act. We could've collected money for it some
way, could we? The butcher shop one: do you want me to repeat that to
you? O.K.
This was during the period when you were having difficulty getting all of
the meats and things that you wanted. And this time Eula and I were not
together. I walked in to a store, and Eula was standing at a meat
counter in the store. And I saw her from a distance. And the counter was
one of those counters where they used to put the glass up, and you could
not reach over the counter, but you could look through. It'd be just
about chin-level, something like that. And, of course, the salesman was
in the back. So I walked sort of carefully so that Eula wouldn't spy me
from a distance. Because I really wanted to walk up on her and surprise
her. And I was successful. I walked right up to her and was right by
her, and she didn't realize who it is. She just knows somebody has come
up. So when I get there, instead of doing what any person would have
done, you know, I got right up there and started to push her like this.
Now, the white salesman over here, he sees this black woman crowding
this white woman, see? [laughter]do!’ And then suddenly he realizes, not only does he
see it, but he's got to do something about this. He cannot stand back
there and let this Negro woman do this white woman like that. But he's
got to go down and come, you know? So when he finally reaches the
termination, that he simply has to do something about it, and he stops
and comes around there. Well, Eula and I are well up this way to the
counter. So by the time he comes and gets down here, he still has a good
distance to go. So we keep the performance going, 'til he gets almost to
us. We say, "Ha, ha, ha, ha!" and just embrace.
It would be great to have that on film, wouldn't it?
That would have been perfect. Because we really went into it. When Eula saw me—oh! She put on her indignation look, you know.
And you went into this act?
Oh, I acted like they say we act, you know. [static] And Eula would stand
back and look, ‘What can I [laughter]do with this woman?’ I gave
it the show. But we got away with that a lot of times with people, you
know. It was always so interesting. The person that usually would take
offense and would show it was a man. Women might cut their eyes, or make
a frown or something, but I don't think we ever pulled a good one on a
woman. Because that would be just about all we would get out them.
Sometimes if they were passing you, they'd turn around and look two or
three times, but the men. They always felt they had to do something
about it. They thought, this we can't accept; I've got to take a stand.
So we always invited them.
Do you remember other things?
Nothing quite as good as that one. Always would be like going down the street, and you'd see a man that would get right up on you, and then the way you would know. You see, all the way down the street you could look in a mirror, then get right up on you, then just as they'd pass you, they would think, ‘what did I see?’ and they would turn around like that. And sometimes you could anticipate it enough that maybe you were just walking and just close to each other. And if you got the feel ‘this is one of those’, immediately before they could turn back like that, we had our arms around each other, or something—around the waist—or something familiar. Anything, just to irritate them. They couldn't do nothing about it. I don't know of any incident that we enjoyed any more than the meat one.
I think you told me one about a water fountain, one time.
Oh, well, I don't remember what I told you about that, but we used to pull the water fountain one—I know I did—almost anywhere, anytime. You know, like walking up and, `Oh, white water! I didn't know. . ." and then you'd ask the question of the clerk, "What kind of water is this?" You know, you'd just get dumb on them. "I want to see what it is anyway!" And you push. "Oh! This isn't anything but old water!" And you'd go and slog into it and drink, you know.
You'd get the ‘white only’ fountain?
Oh, yes. Occasionally. They didn't keep them going much. I guess everybody pulled the stunt on them about the white water. I didn't see too many of those. But you'd see them every once in a while. And always I had to get an explanation. And then, finally, if you got enough of an audience, you'd turn it on and just be shocked to death that it was "Oh! just plain water! Oh, shucks!" And then you'd go and drink some of the water. Any place you saw a white sign, you tried to make them understand that you couldn't quite understand. I don't recall that they stayed around too long. I guess there were a lot of us that were so ignorant that they'd say it wouldn't do them any good to keep them out.
Was Durham as segregated during this whole period as any Southern city you'd travelled in?
Well, to tell you the truth, I had to leave home before I really became
aware of how segregated I was, and the things you couldn't do and could
do. So I really can't make the proper comparison of Macon. But I'm sure
other people could. The only thing I can think—well two things. And this
is true all over the South. And the reason why I've always felt that
despite all of our handicaps we were far better off than most of the
Negroes that lived above the Mason-Dixon Line. Because they got lulled
into a false notion that they had everything going for them. And we
knew, in front; certainly our parents knew in front and those who
And I never had any experience in the stores, when I was growing up. But
again, I didn't do much shopping in stores. My mother did it. And again,
I think I was still in a sort of unique position; that maybe I'm not a
real fair explanation of Macon. My mother, and my father, wanted so
badly a little boy, that until I was almost school-aged, I didn't have
no clothes that weren't like little boys' clothes. And even to the
point, that after I became definitely a little girl in my mother's and
father's life, all of my coats and hats were bought from the store that
I told you my mother worked
So your mother was planning to have more children you think?
I don't know whether they hoped to have more children. But I know this: my mother could not have any more. I don't know why. I've often wished I did know. When I grew up, children didn't ask questions about things. You just accepted what your parents said. And when I used to worry her to death about a little brother, for a number of years she used to say, "Maybe." Then, when I got older, she said, "Well, your mother can't have a little brother." But not until I was grown, almost, did that question come to my mind. Well, maybe she really couldn't have; I don't know. They never had any other children. So evidently there was some reason why she couldn't have children any more.
In comparing Durham and Macon, you got this experience in between in Mississippi, Oklahoma, Arkansas, would Durham be as segregated as Clarksdale? Is there any kind of spectrum?
Durham had one unique feature that I doubt I would have found anywhere
else. I didn't find it in Georgia. Alabama sort of had that same sort of
thing happening to it. But I think it was because of its location just
like Durham. Mississippi? Durham had this; and Tuskegee, a little town,
had the same sort of thing. When I came to Durham, I think the first
time I went into a store. Possibly within a week after I'd been here. As
a matter of fact, I think it was within the week that the Sunday was
going to come up. There had not been a Sunday before I went into the
store. I went into the store with Mrs. Cox on—if my memory is correct—a
Saturday evening. Into the best department store in Durham at the time.
And I saw a hat that I thought was simply beautiful. And I thought it
looked very good on me. And, oh boy, I would love to have that hat. The
saleswoman walked over to me and said, "Oh, that hat looks so good on
you." And I said, "I sure do like it; I'd like to have it." She said,
"Well, why don't you get it?" I said, "Well, I can't afford it." I think
it was something like close to twenty-five dollars, which I couldn't
really have afforded under any circumstances. But, she said, "Where do
you work?" I said, "At North Carolina Mutual." Well she says, "You can
have the hat." She went right up to the counter and wrote up the ticket
and I walked out of the store with the hat. I had not had a paycheck
from North Carolina Mutual. She didn't know me from a bunch of turnips.
I wasn't going to make but eighty dollars a month. And that hat cost me
twenty-four dollars and ninety-five cents, or something like that. And
you could do that all over Durham. Just walk in and like something and
say, "Where do you work?" "North Carolina Mutual." And you had an
account before you could get out of the store. Well, you can do almost
that same thing in Tuskegee, Alabama, if you worked at Tuskegee. At
Tuskegee I was making fifty dollars a month. I paid my board and
lodgings and laundry—you got your laundry done—I think, and now I'm not
quite sure I remember this.
These are white stores with white clientele mostly?
These were the biggest stores in town, in each case. The biggest
department store in the town at the time. But, you see, what they
did—and I don't know whether it was good business or not; it may have
been. I guess so, in the long run. If they didn't have any con artists
come in there and buy the stuff and leave town, and had no employment—I
don't know how many of those sort of things they lost. But what they
did—unfortunately for so many young people who came in like that—they
got those folks head-over-heels in debt. There was a constant calling up
of North Carolina Mutual, trying to get the money. The truth of the
matter: half of those kids were not in trouble because they didn't want
to pay their bills, the folks had just sold them too much merchandise
for the money they were making. Just like Tuskegee, if I had lost my job
within
That was class or association?
That's right. That was your people's love of money, and seeing that they could get it. They had themselves a captive group to purchase, you know.
Were there other little advantages like that? Could you get a Pullman Car, for example, if you wanted to?
Oh heck, no. The only way you got one of those is if you happened to be—and again I was very fortunate there. For instance, working as closely as I did with Mr. Spaulding and Mr. Merritt, too, but with Mr. Spaulding with even more pull. I'll give you Mr. Spaulding on the one hand and Mr. Merritt on the other. Mr. Merritt knew the man in the ticket office, Mr. Bobbitt, and had known him for years, and years, and years. And if I wanted to go somewhere, Mr. Merritt could call Mr. Bobbitt and I would get first class accommodations. And, of course, at that time, the only place I wanted to go, was to go home. And oftimes, I'd have trouble getting verification for that same reservation, getting back to Durham from Macon.
But you could leave here on the recommendation?
END OF INTERVIEW