<hi rend="bold">Oral History Interview with Viola Turner, April 15, 1979. Interview C-0015. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007):</hi> Electronic Edition.

<hi rend="bold">Oral History Interview with Viola Turner, April 15, 1979. Interview C-0015. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007):</hi> Electronic Edition. From Macon, Georgia, to Durham, North Carolina: An African American Woman Remembers Her Childhood and Early Adult Years in the South Turner, Viola, interviewee Interview conducted by Weare, Walter Funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this interview. Text encoded by Mike Millner Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers Southern Folklife Collection First edition, 2006 304 Kb The University Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, North Carolina 2006.

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Oral History Interview with Viola Turner, April 15, 1979. Interview C-0015. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) Series C. Notable North Carolinians. Southern Oral History Program Collection (C-0015) Walter Weare 424 Mb Chapel Hill, N. C. Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 15 April 1979 Oral History Interview with Viola Turner, April 15, 1979. Interview C-0015. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) Series C. Notable North Carolinians. Southern Oral History Program Collection (C-0015) Viola Turner 88 p. Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, North Carolina 15 April 1979 Interview conducted on April 15, 1979, by Walter Weare; recorded in Durham, North Carolina. Transcribed by Dorothy M. Casey. Forms part of: Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007): Series C. Notable North Carolinians, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Original transcript on deposit at the Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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Library of Congress Subject Headings Southern Oral History Project Topics English 20th Century & Race Relations Georgia 2006-00-00, Celine Noel and Wanda Gunther revised TEIHeader and created catalog record for the electronic edition. 2006-03-05, Mike Millner finished TEI-conformant encoding and final proofing. Interview with Viola Turner, April 15, 1979. Interview C-0015. Conducted by Walter Weare

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.

Short Abstract

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.

Interview with Viola Turner, April 15, 1979. Interview C-0015. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) Interview Participants VIOLA TURNER, interviewee WALTER WEARE, interviewer UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER [TAPE 1, SIDE A]

[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]

WALTER WEARE:

I thought we would begin, then, maybe at the beginning. You were born in Georgia, is that correct?

VIOLA TURNER:

Macon.

WALTER WEARE:

In what year?

VIOLA TURNER:

1900. February 17, 1900.

WALTER WEARE:

Maybe you could tell us a little bit about your family. I remember your father was a cotton sampler, wasn't he?

VIOLA TURNER:

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.

WALTER WEARE:

This was in Macon?

VIOLA TURNER:

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. And my mother was a very smart little lady. I look and think of her even today, and wonder how she could have been as smart as she evidently was. Evidently it was just born in her. She was aggressive, ambitious, determined, and, probably because she had a child so early, she came to realize how unfortunate it was not to have continued in school. Because, I think she was about the sixth grade when she married my father. But that's all I heard all of my life, as far back as I can remember, "You've got to go to school; you've got to stay in school."

WALTER WEARE:

VIOLA TURNER:

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.

WALTER WEARE:

Did you have any brothers or sisters?

VIOLA TURNER:

No brothers, no sisters.

WALTER WEARE:

Do you think he would have felt the same way about a male child?

VIOLA TURNER:

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 feeling well, and he was in bed. She got up and came in just in time to see him evidently about to slay me, I don't know what, and the law was laid down then. So I grew up knowing that my father would not strike me, because a man did not strike a girl. But if there was a boy, a brother—that I always hoped I'd have—that dad would whip him.

WALTER WEARE:

Did your mother whip you?

VIOLA TURNER:

Interestingly enough, my mother whipped me just about every day of my life.

[laughter]

And my father only had to look at me and I didn't give him any trouble at all, knowing full well that he wasn't going to whip me. Only once in my span of living did he almost whip me and I liked to die for it. My mother was not as large as I am. She was always hoping to weight a hundred and ten pounds. Oh boy, that little lady was tough

[laughter]

. But she whipped me every day of my life about something.

WALTER WEARE:

Did she ever work outside the home?

VIOLA TURNER:

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.

WALTER WEARE:

She wasn't a seamstress?

VIOLA TURNER:

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 anything. The thing I remember most: I remember two jobs out of the home. One was with a doctor. Ear, eye, nose and throat specialist. A Dr. Cunningham from Virginia—strange I can remember because I was quite young, but I do remember him. I remember him so well. But I know now that my mother probably went to work there as a maid. At that time, I didn't know. All I knew was my mother was working with Dr. Cunningham.

WALTER WEARE:

He was a black doctor?

VIOLA TURNER:

No, no, no. He was a white doctor.

WALTER WEARE:

In Macon?

VIOLA TURNER:

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 that child for a while, or whether the people, when they met her there, they wanted her; but some way or another, before too long, my mother went with that family to take care of this boy. I remember the names, because the last time I went home in the sixties, that family was still in Macon, and I hoped that I would get a chance to stop and see anybody in that family that was still living. was a Jewish name. So, I know now they were Jews. This kid was named P.D. I don't know what the initials were. P.D. . But anyway, my mother nursed that child through the illness, and evidently she endeared herself to them to a point that they kept her on, and she stayed with them. She worked with them for a good while. Again I time, because I don't know if it was two years or one year, four years or five, but long enough for me to know that family as such. Because then I would leave school and I would go to that house and go home with my mother when she worked.

WALTER WEARE:

morning and put in a full day?

VIOLA TURNER:

Not a full day. She didn't ever leave home before I to go to school. Mother always saw me off to school. And Mother always saw me back home, one way or the other. Then she would work at intervals. For instance: she wanted a piano, because she wanted me to take music lessons. My father saw no point in a piano. Now, of course I can understand. [C.B. interference] But my father was making ten dollars a week, and that's all he was earning. But my mother was determined that I was going to have a piano. So whenever she was determined to have something, she got a job. And then I got the piano. And I took music lessons. Because that's what she wanted her child to have. She did that sort of thing off and on until I was a good-sized teenager.

WALTER WEARE:

Do you remember any other jobs that she took, other occupations?

VIOLA TURNER:

The only thing that I know about is the one with the doctor, and the one with the . Because, now, for instance, with the . With the she worked through a period then she come home. Then I suppose she might go for a while then come back to that. After that she , she sewed. I know now, and of course I've known this a long time, but I didn't know it then: my mother was not a well person, she was not a strong woman, and my mother died at thirty-two. Sixteen years. I was born when she was sixteen and she died when I was sixteen. So, no doubt, she did not go out any more for working because, possible, she couldn't, she wasn't able to do it. So people would come and bring sewing, and she sewed . I have my own opinion of what she died of. After what the doctors said, I guess I will never know, because at that age, the father did all the talking and that sort of thing. I always will feel that my mother had a heart condition. Now the reason I feel that now: when I was a kid growing up, my mother seldom was able to go to concerts or exhibitions, where the school would have these big affairs at the end of the year. my mother would be sick when it was time for me to get there—and I was in everything. My father usually had to take me. And my mother would be talking with me or something in the afternoon, and that night she would awaken me, and she'd be deathly ill. I guess a part of my nervous temperament is because I'd be a nervous wreak. Now and then that would be when my father was out of town on his job—see, his job as a cotton sampler took him out of town all of the time; going around to the various places, cotton centers. And the neighborhood had just one telephone and I'd dash out of there and run over to the Johnson's to use the telephone. And we'd call the doctor and he'd come. And all I ever heard was that my mother had acute indigestion. That was always the diagnosis. Then, of course, when she referred to her illness, "I'll have to be careful of that; I don't know whether I'd better eat that; that may not be fit for me; you know, I have acute indigestion." I don't believe `Course I don't know what it was. In later years, before her death, during her last illness, we couldn't get her to take the medicine. As a matter of fact, that was why she was in the hospital: she wouldn't take the medicine the doctor gave her. She didn't do anything anybody prescribed for her. So took her to the hospital. She was in the hospital a couple of weeks, maybe ten days. I can recall going there two The last Sunday was before Christmas. We walked in and the very first thing she says, "Want to go home. Take me home; I'm going to die." And she would not cooperate with anything but, "Take her home." We did, and she was dead a couple of days after that

WALTER WEARE:

Was she treated by a white doctor?

[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]

[TAPE 1, SIDE B]

[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]

VIOLA TURNER:

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.

WALTER WEARE:

You went from Morris Brown, then, to Tuskegee; you said that was your first job?

VIOLA TURNER:

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 Oberlin for further training. I had to have more education, and I understood that. I'd heard that all my life. So she was just picking up my mother's theme song

[laughter]

. But, I was in Morris Brown, say, for about two weeks, of the business school. And I was staying with this Mrs. Thompson, and I got a telegram signed, ‘R.R.Moten, president’. And Dr. Moten was the president of Tuskegee Institute, and the telegram said, ‘Report for work at Tuskegee such and such a time.’ I hadn't made application. I don't know anything but R.R. Moten's name and Tuskegee. So I carried it to Mrs. Thompson, and she said, "Did you send it?" And I said, no I hadn't done anything; I didn't know where it came from; I didn't know how they knew my name; I didn't know anything. How did he send it to Atlanta instead of to Macon? So she says, "Well, accept it. Oh, yes, accept it. You need the experience. Experience there will be better for you than the summer here. So accept that, get the experience, then we'll work out the program for the fall."

WALTER WEARE:

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?

VIOLA TURNER:

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 the regular academic, four-year degree. Of course, she was really just talking to thin air. `Cause all I wanted to do was get out of Morris Brown when she appoints me. Then of course, after a while, I fell in love with the woman who was heading up the business department. And before that year was over, I had really been caught up in business, and had evidently found where I should be. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I spent all of my extra time with Mrs. Thompson and in her other classes. So much so, that before the end of the first year, I was helping her in classes like single-entry bookkeeping, that sort of thing. I really had found the right thing for me, but purely accidentally.

WALTER WEARE:

Was the faculty mostly black or white at that time?

VIOLA TURNER:

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."

WALTER WEARE:

Do you know where she was from, or where she went?

VIOLA TURNER:

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 her to reach the point that you knew that she was going to have to leave Morris Brown. Because somebody was going to finally be trained to the point that one of the good old presiding elders or ministers were going to be able to do their politics and get them in there. So, she left there and she went to Fort Valley, Georgia, a school there. But while she was there—and incidentally her husband was a minister, who had always given her a good deal of trouble, but she had taken it through the years. And she used to say to me after she got to the place she would talk with me confidentially, "I'll stay and I'll take this sort of thing so long as he never makes a false move about Lula." Now that little girl—I think it was her sister's child, and the mother died in childbirth, and Mrs. Thompson took that baby—was a kid then, I guess, ten or eleven. And she always felt that her husband would probably at some time, make the wrong move towards the child. Evidently he was one of those sort of people from the various experiences she's had. And another little bit on the society in Georgia: she belonged to the elite of Atlanta society. And Atlanta society—the black society—maybe they took the cue from the white. Usually you found that to be true. But they were very sedate people. They had status that was very important. If you made their society you had to have made it for some very specific reason. No doubt hers was that she was a highly trained woman. She was heading up this department and her husband was one of the ministers in the city.

WALTER WEARE:

Where did she go to school?

VIOLA TURNER:

Well, she went to Temple University, and, what is the female attachment to Harvard?

WALTER WEARE:

Radcliffe.

VIOLA TURNER:

Radcliffe. She had gone there and to Temple, those two places. She was quite a lady, golly! But anyhow, she made the society. Now, among the things that you could not do in Atlanta society: you could 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

[laughter]

, and I was very close to her. She used to take me out to her home and I'd stay out there with her. On one occasion I was helping her to entertain the group of very delightful ladies.

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.

WALTER WEARE:

This Atlanta society: was it color as well as position? Was there a correlation between lightness and darkness?

VIOLA TURNER:

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.

WALTER WEARE:

If you were very dark, though, and you had considerable achievements, would the darkness keep you out?

VIOLA TURNER:

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 would've kept you out. You might even make the edges, the fringe, but to the very inner circle, you probably still were shut out some. Because I lived through enough of that to recognize that it was important.

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.

WALTER WEARE:

Is this the public schools in Macon?

VIOLA TURNER:

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]

, until we got to sixth grade. Now, all Macon had for blacks was from the first grade to the sixth grade in public schools. No more. They didn't get a high school until I left Macon.

WALTER WEARE:

What year was that?

VIOLA TURNER:

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.

WALTER WEARE:

You were talking about your friend, that you went to school with, and the color difference.

VIOLA TURNER:

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 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 get before you could say she was black. With no bones about it, "Come up here on the front, all of the pretty ones up here. Put all the dark ones in back." And she could get away with it. She was dark herself. But she made no bones about it. "Come up here; get back here; I need you; I want the pretty ones up here." It was the sort of thing that some resented. I was one of the poor souls that resented it all my life

[laughter]

. My mother used to say, always, when I wanted to go see somebody, wanted to go see May. There was a little girl that was just as white as it was possible to be, lived right down the street from her; I had another very good friend who was as pretty as she could be, one of these kind of copper-browns with braids that went down to where she sat on them in school. But when I would go in to say, could I go see somebody, I want to go see May, my mother would say, "Why don't you ever ask to go see Julia; why don't you ever ask to go see Effie?" "Oh, Mama, I want to go to see May. They'll be up here." Effie and this child lived further out. There were more reasons than one that I wanted to go see May, but anyway, I wanted to go. Every once in a while my mother would say, "One of these days, you are going to come in here with a big belly." She'd get to that part and I'm looking right at her. "Yes, you know what I mean, and expect me to love him and accept him, and I'm not going to do it." And I'd say, "Mama, you are prejudiced. You are just as prejudiced." She said, "Don't care if I am. I'm not prejudiced, but I'm not going to accept nothing like that. And I'm telling you. I just don't understand. You never want to go and see anybody. May, May, May!"

[laughter]

WALTER WEARE:

Was you mother a light-skinned woman?

VIOLA TURNER:

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 know all of his life, and I lived with his mother and father. They had a standing statement they'd make on me." Viola, have you met ?" "Yes." "What does she look like?" "Oh, she's pretty nice looking. You know she's a dark, chocolate color. You know, with that sort of ruddiness under the skin." And you'd see these , start grinning. "What and the heck are you grinning for?" "You can describe more shades of black than anybody I have ever seen in my life. Why is it? You just don't want to say black?" "No. I just appreciate the difference in coloring. You light folks (they were both very light), you look at all of us and call us all black. We're not all black; we're every shade under the sun; and I try to tell you the shade of everything."

[laughter]

So, my mother was two shades removed from black.

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]

I used to say, "Poor, my mother, would've had a fit. Can't you ever go out and find something better?" But no, it was born in her, evidently. She had lived with that sort of thing, and you know what had happened to her? She was humiliated time and time again, because she grew up in a period where half of the kids. . .my mother wouldn't have pictures made and I often wondered if that was one of the reasons, too. But I had one class picture of hers, as a kid growing up, which I lost in moving around. And, on there, you could count the dark or the black children on it. Everything on that was any shade of white going on up and coming on down to me. Browns and lights and mulattoes. Then a few here and there. And, of course, that was simply because in different areas in Georgia—and I guess in all of the states; I know it was true in Mississippi because I lived there a while—there were areas where there had been such a proliferation of these white children mixed with birth, you know. And consequently that was so close to the time when this was happening, that there was just loads of very fair children in the schools. Light browns and browns, and I guess, maybe—I hadn't thought of it until now—if I'd been in the public schools, I may have seen more. But being in, what was a special school at the time for the children, probably everybody who could spend a dollar a month, put their children there. Probably if you'd gotten into the public schools, you'd have seen loads of blacker children, I don't know. But, oh yes, there was feeling, a great deal of it.

WALTER WEARE:

Would you have been considered in those days a brown-skinned woman? Would that be the term they would use?

VIOLA TURNER:

For me?

WALTER WEARE:

Yes.

VIOLA TURNER:

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 was the Indian mixture and everything. I never could quite understand from my mother when I was small, why it was that I didn't have all of that hair that so many of my friends had.

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]

[TAPE 2, SIDE A]

[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]

VIOLA TURNER:

My hair was shorter than everybody else's.

WALTER WEARE:

Did your father have any of these feelings about color?

VIOLA TURNER:

No. No, he had none, I don't think.

WALTER WEARE:

Was he about your color?

VIOLA TURNER:

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 a child. And then this aunt, that I referred to, not the great-aunt—the great aunt was one color and stayed that color all the time, this coppery color. But the other aunt was lighter when she was a younger woman, but when she died, she was darker. It was still a brown, but a real brown-brown, darker than I was.

WALTER WEARE:

She told you to go with those people, not with these people?

VIOLA TURNER:

No. My great-aunt. That was my great-aunt.

WALTER WEARE:

Was she talking about color then?

VIOLA TURNER:

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 old family in Atlanta, but with their children, the son of this family. So when I knew her, she was living in Albany, Georgia. And she worked with them, and she left there with them, when they came to Atlanta, and she lived with them there. She died in Atlanta. I went down at the time of the funeral. So, I knew the young Winecoffs. She lived right in the home with them. They had one of these great big mansions out on Peachtree Road, way out. I went there on one occasion. Called from the station saying I was there, just wanting to speak to her, and she sent down for me, and I spent the night there. Woke up the next morning and opened my eyes and there was Mrs. Winecoff like you are opposite me, and I'm in the bed, you know. I closed my eyes up and we played cat and mouse

[laughter]

. Finally she reached over and touched me and says, "Vee, Vee." And I said, "Yeah?" And she said, "Wake up, wake up. I've been sitting here waiting for you to wake up." And I thought to myself, "I know it; I've been looking at you

[laughter]

, but I wasn't about to wake up." But that's another story. But anyhow, out of that, I gave you all that background to tell you that this aunt, people would give her things; I'm sure the white families did, things she couldn't do a thing with. At that time she had a suite of rooms right up in the house, where I'm telling you I was in the bed. And she'd have a trunk of things. But anyway, she'd put all these things in these lockers. Because sometime she's going to see me. So, on one occasion I went there and she opened up the trunk, and she had some of the prettiest shoes you ever saw, four, or five, or six, or seven pairs. For me to just see if there was anything there I could wear or wanted. And, of course, being young and just out of school and working for myself, I wanted every pair I could get my feet into. So, sure enough, I could wear most of them. And this was her satisfaction. "Uh huh. I knew if I saved them, you'd come by here. `Cause you don't have n-i-g-g-e-r feet."

WALTER WEARE:

She meant large or what?

VIOLA TURNER:

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]

. So she really was just steeped in her prejudices. But it didn't hurt too many people because she didn't do anything but stay right there with those folks until she died.

WALTER WEARE:

How would you explain it that you didn't internalize those values?

VIOLA TURNER:

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]

, the way I tell you about that. And then, to show you how really persistent it has been, I never could look at T.V. programs or go to a movie where they had the attack, you know, with the whole army of Indians, and six whites would be up there, and shoot them all down? I'd get so indignant, I'd just have to leave the movie, and cut off the T.V., not look at it. I don't know why I have these sort of reactions, but I just have them. So, I just decided that somewhere there must have been somebody back down there that said, "They didn't treat us right, and you defend us every time you get a chance of it."

WALTER WEARE:

Before we get you back to Tuskegee, you mentioned a while ago that young people wouldn't believe today the things about race relations?

VIOLA TURNER:

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. again, when I say, my mother was a smart lady. I guess there were a whole lot of smart mothers, and fathers, too. I really can't pinpoint when I knew there was a distinction made, that I was being discriminated against. I had to be quite aware up in my teens. Because, O.K., here how I lived: a little street called, Tatenall, a trestle with a cross over the street with the railroad going between Atlanta and Macon, central of Georgia. Very tall, and Tatenall began with that trestle and came up the street about a good half-block—maybe it would be a short block—to chestnut street. Then Tatenall went up another block, and that was the end of Tatenall Street. It ended up there in what they called Tatenall Square. And when you passed the Square you were at Mercy University. Now this street, Chestnut, went all the way up and all the way down.

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 the rest of that block to the corner, whites; and on this side, where we lived, all the way up there except one house, whites. I don't know whether that one in the center was always ‘tenented’, I guess you would say, by blacks, I don't know. But we had a fire, and when our house was being repaired, we moved up to that little house. So that meant we lived in the middle of that block until this house was repaired. Now, there were white families and white children here, black families and black children. Now, all of the children met out here and they played up and down that street, all but we. Most of the children were boys, and my mother said that little girls shouldn't play with little boys, so I didn't get to go out there and play. But the little boys, white and black, they played. And the only playmate I had in the neighborhood, that was near my age, was a little boy that lived next door this way. His mother was a teacher at the school where I was attending, and his father was a tailor. And we used to could play together. She used to let me, because they were very strict about who he could play with. So we became playmates to some extent. But now, most whites there, would just as likely be over talking to my mother, or my mother would be over there talking to them. I don't mean they went in and sat down to visit, either way. But they'd sit on the porch or meet out in the middle of the street and have conversation. You never thought a thing about it. I didn't ever think about them as white people, or black people. They was just people and "Hello, Mrs. so-and-so; hello, Mrs. so-and-so", and you went your way. So I didn't get it there.

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. These are things I can remember. There may have been other things. But interspaced in between there, there was a big white bakery—I do remember that—and a black church right over here. Then you go a block down here and here's the city hall, where everybody goes for their concerts in the spring, blacks and whites. Then you go one more block, I think it's a whole block, or a half-block or something like that, and you're right at the biggest street, main street in Macon, Cherry Street, where everything runs up and down there. So now, you have got blacks and whites in between here. Now, I pointed one church over here. Now you turn, what they call Cotton Avenue, and there is the big Methodist Church, and on this side there is a big Baptist Church, and then you go up the street and there's a street that runs this way, whites live on there, and the street that runs this way, white schools. Then, of course, you make a turn here and there's Ballard over here, the Congregational Church in the same property. And on the hill, across the street, is a dorm because in the earlier days AMA had a dorm for kids who came in from the country and had to live in. So there was a dorm there.

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 the path. And you don't realize, until way late, something focuses. I know when I really learned that I wasn't being treated properly

[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.

WALTER WEARE:

Were they consciously protecting you?

VIOLA TURNER:

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.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:

When did you first find out?

VIOLA TURNER:

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 . . . .

WALTER WEARE:

Heiman Perry?

VIOLA TURNER:

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 ballots on one occasion, to show us how to vote, what you would do. And one of the discussions came up at that time: there was to be vote about cyclorama. I think the cyclorama then was supposed to be depicting the Civil War. Memory's right good, huh? Because I wasn't sure; it's been years since I thought of that. But at any rate, it was discussed greatly at Morris Brown. And 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.

WALTER WEARE:

You never had any bitter experiences, any meaness?

VIOLA TURNER:

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 Clarksville, 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 Clarksville 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. I had another job, and I was going out there to this job. And he sold me a bill of goods that I couldn't go to Oklahoma; I had to go up to Clarksville, Mississippi, and work for

[laughter]

. And he was a salesman. And then he had been, really, almost like a father to me, since I'd left home. So he put me in a car and drove me up to Clarksville, Mississippi. And, whatever day it was—I still want to say it was Sunday, and it could have been. At any rate, that weekend there had been a killing in Clarksville, Mississippi. And, as the story went—and it must have been reasonably true—it seemed that these white officers had gone to some place there to pick up a black man, and they judged they had good reason. But, blacks in the South when I was growing up, and for a long time, usually felt—and I don't know if they've got that sort of feeling now—but back when I was growing up, and if you heard any of this sort of thing, you heard that black man felt he had no chance. If he got into a situation where—as they said, Mr. Charlie was coming for him—all he considered was killing him. Because he knew he was going to die, so he was going to take somebody with him. So, evidently, that was the philosophy here. When these two white men walked up on the porch, this man walked right out and killed them. So when I get there, Clarksville is seething with automobiles and people riding around with rifles, sitting up in the car, hanging out of the car like this. And that was the first time I had ever seen anything like this.

[laughter]

WALTER WEARE:

Was that man lynched them?

VIOLA TURNER:

No, they didn't touch him. Clarksville 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, and they served you, and everything. So I was taking my meals there. This was right after I got there, so you can imagine how Clarksville affected me, when I first got there. There was a lynch mob, looking like it was going to be. Then, I got around here, very shortly thereafter, and this place is busting with the news. This little black woman has killed a big white man.

[laughter]

And so the town is . Well, see, now I'm really scared. I wonder what am I doing in Clarksville? I need to go somewhere else. But the lady who ran the place says—she's telling the story—the man had decided he was going to strike her, and she had a little pocket knife and when he raised up like this, she ran right up under him. But she stuck him right in the heart. Or someplace. Anyway, he died. She whirled out of the place, gone. So the cops were looking for her. And the story goes—and these people were pointed out to me at another time—there was a white family there called the Doggetts, D-O-G-G double T or something like that. And, like in so many places, Clarksville was their town, so-to-speak. They were the big people in the town, and they said when you did this, that, or the other thing. So, then, Mr. Doggett finds out that this is one of his servants, one of his people. When they loved you, they loved you, and when they didn't, they didn't. So she was one that had the Doggett approval. So he tells the sheriff, "Oh, don't worry about Mary (I don't know what her name was), just drive on down, and when the train pulls up at Mount (that's a Negro town), get on there, and you tell Mary I said come on back here to Clarksville." So that happened. He goes down, gets on the train, goes in and finds Mary and says, "Mr. Doggett says ‘Come on back to Clarksville’." So now, this is still the story that you're hearing. So, she's in jail. A couple of weeks after that, I'm in having dinner, and the lady says, [whispering] "That's Mary!"

[laughter]

Mary was back in town and walking down the street. That's right. That's all that happened to Mary.

WALTER WEARE:

So that big family had. . . .?

VIOLA TURNER:

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.

WALTER WEARE:

You think if a black man had committed the murder, it would have been altogether different?

VIOLA TURNER:

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 Clarksville.

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]

[TAPE 2, SIDE B]

[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]

WALTER WEARE:

You say you and Cassie played together?

VIOLA TURNER:

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. . . .

WALTER WEARE:

You didn't actually collect the silk?

VIOLA TURNER:

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. And just as silky. I though of it many times later. After that I lost all contact with Cassie's mother, who wrote my mother and told her that my grandmother had had the stroke.

WALTER WEARE:

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?

VIOLA TURNER:

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]

I shouldn't even tell you this; this does not reflect too kindly on my father and it isn't too bad, either. But, really, to me, I just laugh and say that really is the difference between my mother and father. This little piece of land belonged to my grandmother, then it was my mother's. All of these things I presume to be the truth. Apparently, some place along the way, my father felt he needed some money and he sold the plot. Again, I'm just putting two and two together, but I don't think I could possibly be wrong. I don't know anything about, don't think anything about it. I doubt if I even had ever thought it was probably my property at that stage of the game. But, when I became eighteen and came home—did I come from school? I believe I had gotten out of school. But, anyway, it doesn't matter. I came home. And on this occasion my father wanted me to go somewhere with him. So, of course, I said yes. And he took me to an office in what I now know had to be the county seat of Jones County. And I signed some papers. And I, of course, in time—especially after I got into business myself—I realized that my father had sold that property, and whoever had bought it had taken it with that flaw in the title, waiting for me to become of age, that it could be cured with my signature. And I went down and signed the papers. I have often wondered, I said, gee I wonder if it was the people who owned the farm that went right up on my grandmother's lot. That would have been a nice rounding out of their property. That's probably what they did. And I said, boy you all would have had some trouble if you had been dealing with . You'd have never got it that easy.

WALTER WEARE:

So it was lost?

VIOLA TURNER:

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.

WALTER WEARE:

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?

VIOLA TURNER:

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]

But, I think so. Here's the way I would define it. As the town grew, and spread out, I have a feeling that it spread, where there was a black street, more black streets came. So, after a while, you'd say, now where my father lived with my step-mother, the street coming up there was Vineville Avenue. Now Vineville was all white. Very fine houses. And then, running into Vineville came Ward Street. And Ward Street ran on out, and then it was a long, long way. In time, all of that was black. And then when you left Vineville and Ward here, everything that went that way was black. So that becomes a really, truly black community. Now, when you continued on out Vine, I'm not so sure what happened on that part of the street, further. Because, I had left home by this time, and I don't really know too much. But, what I do know, the girl that I told you that I loved so dearly, and that also was possibly one other reason why I found her so attractive: her parents lived, if you continued out Vineville long enough, you would get to almost, well, farm land. Still it was considered in the city of Macon. I don't know where the county line was. Maybe some of it was county, but definitely some of it was city. And when you got out there, then again there was a sparseness, so that this might be black property here, and wide, wide space of it. And over here, this would be white property. But, as time moved on, the University, Westland College, that was almost downtown when I was a kid, had moved way out in that same area. Now, I don't know what happened to that property, how it became; did it get black and white or white and black. I do know that this girl's mother and father had a lot of property.

WALTER WEARE:

May?

VIOLA TURNER:

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 could have a good time, eating fruit. As well as enjoying May. But the last time I was in Macon, May had become the principal of one of the schools there. And when I went out to see her, the school was right across the street from her house. She was living in the same house she lived in when we were children, on this side of the street. And across the street from her was this great big, lovely school building, and she was the principal of the school. And I know that that was all the property when I was a kid growing up. So, evidently—I don't know if she did in her later years or whether her parents sold that property to city, and that school was built there, and she was the principal of that school. So, I don't know how that whole community has really developed. Whether that all became all black or whether, the fact that Westland College went out in that same sort of area and at one time the properties were big property by one group of people, by another family. . . .

WALTER WEARE:

Those black businesses that were downtown, did they move out, too?

VIOLA TURNER:

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.

WALTER WEARE:

Was Macon large enough, when you were there, to have street cars?

VIOLA TURNER:

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.

WALTER WEARE:

Were these streetcars segregated as far back as you can remember?

VIOLA TURNER:

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.

WALTER WEARE:

But you do remember riding it?

VIOLA TURNER:

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.

WALTER WEARE:

You don't remember blacks going to the back?

VIOLA TURNER:

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]

. And I don't recall ever feeling a feeling of where I had to get. Now, I don't know whether I was so indoctrinated that I just automatically went to a back seat. I can't believe that, and I'll tell you why. This may be the case for it. On that trolley that came up Chestnut and went down Patenaude, they would hardly have many white passengers on there. Because, the people in the block up here, if they wanted to, they could go up another way and catch another trolley, which might take them more where they were going. I have no idea where they were going. But this one took you right downtown. But if it only picked up passengers coming up Chestnut and then down Patenaude, probably by the time I would get on it, it would be filled up and you'd just go on to the seat wherever you're at. Otherwise, I cannot understand why I wouldn't have known something about it. I can't recall anything about going to the back of the bus.

WALTER WEARE:

Do you remember parks being segregated? Did you ever go to parks?

VIOLA TURNER:

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 Sunday that they took a notion, or it was a beautiful day or something. And we just had a wonderful time. [telephone call]

WALTER WEARE:

So you're not sure about the parks?

VIOLA TURNER:

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 every