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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 G-0020, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
In 1976, historian Mary Frederickson interviewed white civil rights activist Mildred Price Coy about the development of her egalitarian ideals, her involvement in various justice movements during the twentieth century, and the societal changes she witnessed. At the time of the interview, Coy and her husband, Harold Coy, were living in Mexico with a group of expatriates who had fled McCarthyism and the Red Scare. Coy begins the interview with a history of the Price family. Though Coy had repudiated many of the social ideals she learned as a child, she still seems to feel great pride in the fact that she descends from several generations of southerners. She describes how her family dealt with the economic destruction following the Civil War and theorizes how that experience influenced how her grandmother raised her children. During Coy's childhood, her father moved the family back and forth between nearby towns and the family farm. Though they owned almost as little as their tenants, she remembers feeling superior to the children whose parents worked her father's land. Coy describes her father as a very lonely man who could not connect to his peers or his family. She did enjoy a warm relationship with her mother, however. Her parents shared a commitment to education for their children, and though both had been raised in religious families, faith played only a small role in Coy's childhood. Coy says that as she and her siblings grew older, the girls tended to become more racially liberal while the boys remained very conservative. Because there was no high school near their farm, Coy's parents sent her to live with her uncle in Miami, Florida. After graduation, she attended the North Carolina College for Women for three years, which she remembers as being very supportive and thought-provoking. She transferred to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, but she did not have the same connection to UNC that she had to the women's college. After graduating from UNC, Coy worked for several years in various rural school districts around North Carolina. Louise Leonard McLaren then recruited her to work as a secretary for the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA). Her first job for the YWCA was in Lynchburg, Virginia, where she worked with local female shoe workers who, while unwilling to join a union, seemed to appreciate her presence. Though she acknowledges that the YWCA did radically change southern society, she does not believe that it went as far as it could have. Coy went on to found the Southern Schools for Workers with Lois McDonald.
NOTE: Audio for this interview is not available.
Mildred Price Coy discusses the development of her egalitarian ideals, her involvement in various justice movements during the twentieth century, and the societal changes she witnessed.
NOTE: Audio for this interview is not available.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
You were born on October 10, 1899 . . .
That's right.
. . . near Madison, North Carolina?
No, I was born in Wentworth. That's the county seat.
When your father was working . . .
Yes, my father was working for the county court.
And then did you move back to the family farm when you were
We left there when my father lost his job. We moved back to the farm home five miles from Madison.
How old were you when you moved back?
I was about seven.
So you spent a good bit of time in Wentworth and started school there?
Yes.
You were still in the area where the Price's and the Moore's had lived for a long, long time.
All in Rockingham County.
And I wondered what you heard as a child about those two families, what you remember coming down about those families, as far back as you can remember, like the influence of the Civil War on both of those families.
You mean my mother and father's families?
Right. Maybe start with your mother's family. Did you remember either of your grandparents?
I did not. They'd both died. My grandmother died before I was
What about on the other side of the family, the Price's? Do you remember either of those grandparents?
I remember my Grandfather Price died when my father was about fourteen, fifteen. And my grandmother lived years and years. And when I lived in Miami, Florida, my grandmother kept house for my uncle, with whom I lived, because his wife had died. And my Grandmother Price was from Alabama. And she was born into a family that had a lot of slaves. And when she was quite young she met her husband, who was a tobacco. . . . He drove down to Alabama from North Carolina in a buggy, selling tobacco. He had a tobacco factory up there, a small one. And he told her that if she would marry him, they would go back to North Carolina and he would buy her a piano; she could play the piano.
About the time they got to North Carolina, the Civil War broke out, and so he couldn't get her a piano. And
Civil War was over, and he got her a piano, and she sat down to the piano
and she played "Weber's Last Waltz."
Were they hurt by the Civil War? Did they lose property?
They lost all their slaves, of course. And my grandfather had a very ugly attitude towards the freed slaves. He was called over to Greensboro by the Freedmen's Bureau, and I don't know what he had done to the slaves, but one of them reported on him. So when he came out of the courthouse, she was standing right beside the door, and he spit tobacco juice in her face.
This was a story your grandmother told about him?
I don't know who told me, but it was common knowledge.
Do you think she shared the same feeling about the freed slaves?
She certainly did. She was a very conservative woman. I'm sure she did. She didn't have any social idea. She didn't know what it was all about, although her father sent her to school. She wrote a very nice hand. She did murder the King's English at times, as my father did, too. But no, she didn't have any social ideas.
Where had she gone to school?
I don't know where she went to school. I never heard that. Harold wrote that family history, and he knows more about my family than I do.
In such a large family they might have had a tutor. I don't know.
Her father had money, and so he might have had a tutor come there. She was very pretty. She had curly hair. She was a very pretty girl.
Was she sort of a typical southern lady?
She wasn't. She never put up any pretense of being a lady.
So did she have to work very hard herself?
I don't remember. She was a compulsive woman. I guess she worked. She didn't mind working, but she never got any money for it.
She would work in the house and clean and cook and . . .
She didn't clean much. She lived with her children. She'd go around; she'd go to California and live with a daughter, and she lived with us, and she lived with a son in Winston-Salem and Leaksville, where he lived for a while.
Do you think she had a lot of influence on her children?
I doubt it. I don't think she did. She was too tart; she wasn't kind woman. Although she wasn't mean, she wasn't kind. She lived with my uncle's children to keep house for him in Florida, and oh, she treated them so badly. No love; there didn't seem to be any love there.
What about your own father? Do you remember hearing stories about his life as a child?
Harold remembers.
Grandma Minnie sent him to the University. And what did he do there, do you remember?
He got sent home, anyway.
Anyway, they sent him home. I don't know that he did. I don't think he had an ounce of meanness in him. He wasn't gentle, but he was incorruptible. Anyway, they sent him home and she beat him. She just beat the liverlights out of him when he came home. And then they took him back. But he couldn't finish; there wasn't enough money.
So he came home, and then he bought the farm from his sister and his brother on mortgage. And the farm wasn't any good; the land was worn out.
By the time he started farming.
Yes. And he farmed, but he wasn't interested in farming. When he went to Wentworth and he got the job as County Cleark or something, he didn't want to go back to the farm. But when he lost his job there, my mother begged him to be a lawyer, to study law, and he wouldn't do it. But he could have, because he did read some pretty good things.
Why do you think he didn't study law or . . .
I don't know. My father was quixotic. He never talked to us about his problems or to my mother. At least I'm. . . . He just kept everything to himself. So he wanted to go back to the farm, a very dull life.
Who helped him work the farm?
Four of the older five were boys, and they helped him on the farm some. Then he had tenants. He had a thousand acres, and he had tenants work the farm.
Do you remember being in contact with the tenant families?
Yes, I knew all of them, some black and some white.
About how many were there?
I imagine there were about eight or ten.
Families.
Yes. One of the tenants was our washerwoman. She had a little cabin.
Were you aware of how your father interacted with his tenants? Was he a kind person to work for or a good person to work for?
He had so little money himself. We felt superior. We never were friendly in a warm way. They were beneath us. We thought that we were above all these people.
Do you remember being aware of other families in the area who were having the same sorts of problems, either worn-out soil or difficulty making a living, difficulty getting cash?
Yes, everybody was poor, terribly poor.
Did your father, do you think, talk to those people or talk to the other men in the community who were facing the same sorts of things that he was?
I don't know whether he ever got down to earth, but he talked to them all
the time. He didn't know really much about farming. He took some farm
magazines, but he wasn't really interested in farming. It was dull for
him. He had to do it. But he wasn't really a farmer. Every Sunday
afternoon he'd like to sit out. We had a big lawn and big trees. He used
to say, "This is the prettiest place in Rockingham World's Work and the
Literary Digest. So they'd sit out there and talk.
But my mother never went out to talk with them. Just the men sitting out
there, talking.
What were they talking about, politics?
About politics, I guess. They were all Democrats.
Was he interested in politics?
Yes, he was terribly interested in politics.
Did he ever run for office?
He did in Wentworth. He ran for that County Cleark, but I believe that's the only thing. Oh, he was Superintendent of Roads for a while there in our section of Rockingham County. And he had good roads there; he was a hound for good roads. And it's a good thing he was; they were the worst roads you've ever seen. And so he got everybody out to work for nothing for one day on the roads.
Do you think he wanted to make a career of politics?
I don't know. I don't think my father thought very deeply. He probably did, but he didn't talk to his children or his wife very much. Maybe he talked to her and we didn't know about it, but he was a cold man. I was telling Harold, he never wrote me a letter. I stayed four years in Miami. I came home twice, I think. But he never wrote to me. And the first year after I was down in Miami, they came to Madison to meet me—I came back on the train—in the wagon. Something had happened to the surrey or the buggy. Anyway, they came in the wagon.
We didn't ride in wagons, you see; we thought we were better, too good to
ride in wagons. And so we were riding on home, and he turned around and
said, "Why, Mil, you're talking like a Yankee."
It was the situation. He wasn't an outgoing man.
Was he sad? Was he bitter?
No, he wasn't sad or bitter, but he never said very. . . . You know, in that section a long time ago, they used to have a lot of quail. And hunters would come down from the North, and they'd stay at our house. And I was in the room one day with the hunters and my father. No other children were in there. I don't know how I happened to be. And my father said, "My greatest mistake in life," he told the hunters, because he knew he'd never see them again, "I haven't taught my children to love me." We just adored my mother, but the less we saw of him the better. And we had a long table in the dining room. My mother would be at one end, my father at the other. And he would serve the plates. And we had plenty to eat, but it wasn't any variety. He'd ask each one of us, "What do you want?" Well, we could only have ham and gravy. That's all we had.
"Mil, what do you want?" "Ham and gravy." And
Do you think that the four older sons were closer to him than you were?
I wouldn't say that. Maybe my oldest brother Tom, because he was so proud of Tom.
Also, when Tom had been growing up, hadn't there been more money in the family? Hadn't things been a little bit more comfortable?
He sent them to a private school, Oak Ridge Institute. But the next one,
named after him, we called him Jimmy (James Valentine was my father's
name), and he was very smart. He got awfully good grades everywhere,
both in the school in Oak Ridge and in Chapel Hill. And one time he
didn't get a good grade on something, and when he got home my father
said to him, "Valentine, what was the cause of your downfall?"
So he set high standards for his sons.
Oh, yes.
You said that you were much closer to your mother, and I
Her father was a really wonderful man. Her mother was all right, too, but her mother was one of these Methodists who believed that Methodism should be spread throughout the world, and how lucky the slaves were to have the influence of Methodism. They were lucky. Wouldn't you say that?
Yes.
Was her mother an evangelist herself?
No, but she did read the Bible every year. If you read three chapters every day and five chapters on Sunday, you could read the Bible in a year. She had it all worked out.
She was a kind woman. She was a schoolteacher. And she was my grandfather's second wife. His first wife had died of tuberculosis. And she was good. But she was very religious, very much of a Methodist.
What do you think she had planned for your mother?
People didn't make plans. The southerners didn't make plans.
Did she see your mother as being what you might call a southern lady?
No, she didn't. I don't know what she thought. My grandfather sent my
mother to Guilford College for one year, and he wouldn't let her go
back. He could have supported her and let her go back and finish, but he
said he couldn't give the same education to his other daughters,
How did your mother and father meet?
They lived just seven miles from each other. And when my grandfather's flour mill burned down, my other grandfather, Grandfather Price, sent him a whole wagonload of everything he could find. So they were neighbors, just seven miles.
Was your father older than your mother?
Yes.
By much? Do you think that made any difference?
I think he was about seven years older than she was. I think he was around twenty-six or twenty-seven when he married; she was nineteen.
You said she didn't join in the conversations about politics with the men on the front lawn. Was she interested in politics herself?
She was very reactionary. She didn't know anything, you see. And everybody was reactionary, so she didn't feel as though she'd lost anything.
Did she really run the household? She had ten children, did she?
I should say she did. She worked all the time. And as soon as we girls
could, we helped in the housework. But she worked all the time. She was
a strong woman. My father used to work in Winston-Salem. I've forgotten
what he did there. He worked there for a while, and he got a salary. It
was something to have a salary. And he'd bring her books from the
Winston-Salem Library. He brought her Mark Twain's books,
How did both of them feel about education for their children?
Oh, that was the prime thing. Had to have education. When my brother Enoch went off to the University, the thing they had to have to enter the University was matriculation fee. And that was a horrible thing in our house. Where is the matriculation fee coming from? So Enoch drove to Reidsville a set of calves, and he got money for them and then he could enter the University. That was his matriculation fee.
Do you think both of your parents felt the same way about educating the sons and the daughters?
Yes.
It was as important for the girls to have an education?
Yes. He wanted his girls to be teachers. And one day he was lying when he
was sick, not very long before he died. And my mother and my sister
Branson were sitting out on the back porch. And my mother thought we
should take a business course. There was no money. So he heard us from
his bedroom, and he called my mother. He said, "Patty, no daughter of
mine shall be a stenographer." So then we had to give up the idea.
What do you think were the major differences between your parents? They came sort of out of the same background, but they were very, very different people. Why do you think they were so different?
My mother had a big heart. My mother was loving and kind, and she had some sense, too. She was brought up in a kindly home, and she never argued with my father. I never remember their ever having words. I don't think he was particularly harsh with her, but he was with his children, but she never said anything. But she didn't like him. I know she didn't like him, because she'd make fun of him when I was old enough to realize. He'd make such rules around, and we'd laugh about them behind his back. She wasn't very loyal to him behind his back, and you can't blame her.
She was much closer to the children and took much more delight in her children than he did, do you think?
Oh, yes. He was proud of his sons, but he didn't think too much of his
girls
Do you think she was sort of like a pet, then?
He didn't show it too much—he was so cold—but you knew that he loved her. He sent her to Salem College as long as they'd let her go there without paying too much money. And then she got a job teaching.
How do you think your parents felt about having so many children?
God only knows. I don't know. I don't know whether they thought that was
a good idea or bad. We never talked about problems.
We talked a minute ago about the relationship that you had with the tenants who lived on the farm, and I wondered if you were close to the children of those tenants. Did you play with them?
No, they weren't good enough.
So there was a very strict division between?
Yes, they were just beneath us, blacks and whites.
Did you have any kind of close relationship with any of the servants who worked there?
You mean like the servants who worked for us? We never had any except when my mother had babies. We never had any servants.
So there were never any people working in the house who you got to know very well.
No. Aunt Patsy always came when my mother had a baby and worked, and she was so good. But then the very minute my mother was able to get up and go about her work, Aunt Patsy would go. They didn't pay her anything much either. Marthey, one of the tenants, a black woman, did our laundry. And you should have seen the laundry we had, and she did it for a dollar a week, wash and iron. A dollar a week. We could have done the laundry. My mother could have taught us to do the laundry. But we were too good to do the laundry. We could do housework, but laundry was beneath us.
Who were your companions as a child? Who did you play with?
We played with each other. My sister Branson, she and I were always
playing together. Part of the house had an old stairs, we called
Was there any difference between the people who lived in town and the people who lived out in the country? Was there any feeling of town people being more sophisticated or something like that?
I don't believe there were, because the people in Madison didn't believe in education much. I think our family was just about the only one who sent the children off to college.
I see.
Maybe some of the rest of them did. I can't remember. But on the whole, I
wouldn't say that it was a very intellectual community.
Why do you think your parents had this drive to send their children to school, to educate their children?
I don't know, but my father was just a fiend about educating his children.
Do you think it was possibly because he hadn't been able to
Probably. He had some good traits. I think he thought it out that his children could never get anywhere living there on the farm; they must have an education.
Your brothers and your sisters ended up in very different places, politically and economically and in a lot of different ways. I wondered if you had any ideas about why that happened.
I had one younger brother. My brothers were southerners. They had
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
My brothers were very sweet to me. I felt very close to them. So I'll
just go a little bit ahead. When I found out about things, when I began
to find out about race and war and everything, I thought they'd be
interested, but they were terribly distressed and called me a
nigger-lover. And we lived in Greensboro then. And one of my brothers
came and he said, "Now, Mil, the best thing for you to do is to get
married. That's the best thing for you to do." Well, I didn't have
anybody to marry
Influencing them.
Yes. Because I found out about it, and I thought they'd be interested. And I was so excited about it all; here was a whole world I knew nothing about. But my brothers never did change. They never did get a world view of things. They were all smart; they made money. But they never did.
Do you think by the time you were making all of these discoveries they had already acquired too many vested interests to . . .
They're just like most of the southerners. They're not interested.
Southerners are just like the American colony here in Mexico. Do you
think they really care about the Mexican people? I wouldn't want that to
get out here.
Your brother Tom, at least, certainly left the South, didn't he, and travelled?
All of them except my brother Paul left.
So it wasn't just that they were very provincial southerners.
Yes, they were provincial southerners. My brother Tom was always terribly nice to me. He did try to talk to me once when he lived in California and Harold and I stopped by there to see them. He told me a little bit about his life. And I never did have any arguments with them, but they never changed. They never got a world view. Never did. Even though my brother Jimmy lived in Bolivia, he never understood it.
Do you think that the reason your sisters and you could move in very
different directions was perhaps because you were closer to your
My mother was a conservative. She once told me when she lived in
Greensboro, "Mildred, you can bring your black friends here if you want
to, but I will not shake hands with them." This was the black YWCA
secretary I worked with in Chicago, and she was coming to North
Carolina. But my mother did shake hands with her
But it didn't change her mind?
My mother was always conservative in her political views.
How did she feel about the changes that you went through politically and socially?
I didn't argue with her much about it. There wasn't any point in it. When I went back to Chapel Hill when I raced to tell everybody about it, the professors there weren't interested and urged me to give up the idea. So I rather kept my trap shut. I thought everybody would be as interested as I was when I was at Asheville, you know. I thought they'd all, "Why, isn't that interesting? Why, I never thought of that." But they didn't. They just argued with me about it, so I didn't run around talking.
So most of the support that you had in the earliest years came from your sisters?
Yes, only it took them a long time. They went to New York. They'd met up with other people. Lois MacDonald was a great influence.
I wanted to ask a few more things about when you were a child. I wondered if the church was an important part of your life when you were growing up?
No, we didn't have a church. We lived out in the country. We'd go to
Madison some Sun. . . . My father would drive over there
Did you spend much time in your family on religion? Did you have family prayers or anything like that?
Only when the preacher came.
The preacher came, and then we'd all get down on our knees.
Did religion mean anything to you as a child, or church was something interesting that you did every once in a while?
I didn't really question anything, but I was glad to have the beautiful Sunday school cards that we'd get. And I read the New Testament. I won a New Testament when we lived in Leaksville-Spray, and so I read that. And Ruth, my oldest sister, and Branson and I slept upstairs in a room together, and every night I read a chapter in the New Testament. I doubt that I knew what I was reading. But it had my name on it; I still have it here. And I read that every night. Ruth didn't say anything; Brans didn't say anything. I just read it, and then I went to sleep. I couldn't possibly tell you why I read it.
You weren't made to read this or anything like . . .
No, nobody read the Bible in the house.
Had your mother sort of rejected religion because her mother was so religious?
No, she didn't ever reject it. But she wasn't religious, really. She wasn't a fanatic.
It was just sort of something she did socially every once in a while?
She didn't do much socially. If my father wanted to go to church on Sunday, she'd fix herself up and fix as many children as they could crowd into the surrey and drive over there to Madison, five miles away.
You said that your family was different from the people around you because they were so interested in education. Were there any other ways in which they were different that you remember? Was that the main difference, that they were determined to send their children to school?
To tell you the truth, I don't put much stock in this, but my family had a better background. My grandfather and grandmother on my mother's side were respected people in their own community. And my Grandfather Price had a factory. And I wouldn't want the people around there to say it, but they did have a more enlightened background. Other people were just poor whites from the South, and you know that type. They were poor whites; that's all. We never associated with them socially.
You only associated with your relatives or the friends of your father's.
Yes.
Was there any feeling of real distinction between those people who were
able to hold onto their land even if it was mortgaged, who owned their
own land, and those who worked as tenants? Was that
That was one distinction; I don't know whether it was the major one. They just didn't have any education. No education. And of course we thought the blacks were so inferior, it didn't matter to us one way or another whether they had any or not. We always had friendly relations with the blacks.
Friendlier than with the poor whites?
Were the social distinctions made in religion as well? Were the Presbyterians "better than" the Primitive Baptists?
The Primitive Baptists were mostly backward people. The Presbyterians were supposed to be better.
Why did your family go to the Primitive Baptist Church?
So they could see everybody. My brother Valentine had a little trunk, and my mother would empty his trunk and make cakes and fried chicken and good ham, and then everybody would have an outdoor meal up there.
So it was a community sort of thing.
Yes. We didn't go very often.
When you think about your family background, as you said you were doing
last night, did you come to any conclusions about where your own values
and ideas that eventually led you off into all sorts of progressive
causes came from in that family background? Or was it a
It didn't come from my background. I was trying to think it out last night with Harold. I think I was kind. I think I was brought up. . . . I don't want you to ever think I'm bragging on myself, but I was kind. I couldn't bear to hurt anybody. I didn't ever want to put anybody in his place. So when I found out about blacks, I really realized that I'd always felt superior; why should I feel superior? It took me a long time to think this through; it took me several years to get it straight in my mind. But when I first found out, I was so moved to think that I had been a party to treating them the way we did. And I don't think I told you in that letter, but this Mr. Eleazer said to the group, "Now you don't have to eat with these people. You don't have to eat with blacks. They're just good, kind people, just want to be friends." And some of the southerners there—they were mostly little women southern workers in factories—left. They wouldn't stay in that atmosphere. But that was an eye-opener to me, and I was so excited. My face turned red, and I was just so excited about it, that "Here's something I can do." Because I've always had more or less an inferiority complex. I thought, "Why, I can be worth something. I can do something. I can tell people that we've been wrong."
I wondered if you had any feeling about your position in the family influencing your childhood, at least?
No, I didn't.
You weren't the youngest or the oldest, so it really didn't matter.
No. And I wasn't dull, but I wasn't a very deep thinker. I read, but I didn't read good books very often.
I wanted to ask you about your schools. You started to school when your family was living in Wentworth?
Yes.
Do you remember that school that you went to, the first one?
Oh, yes, Miss Berry was the teacher. And I was her pet. And she came from
a family in Reidsville. And Miss Berry would teach me to read. She'd
take me up on her lap and teach me to read. And then every summer I
would go to Miss Berry's house and stay a month, and Miss Berry had her
sister and some brothers, and they called me "Little Mil." And they were
always very sweet to me, but they were very reactionary people. But I
didn't know they were reactionary, because I was myself, I guess.
How old was this teacher?
I guess she was in her twenties. I don't know.
She was a young woman, then.
Yes. And she had a boyfriend there in Reidsville, Mr. Hutchinson. And she
had to sneak around and go out with Mr. Hutchinson, because her family
didn't like him
Did she read the Bible in school?
Oh, yes. Everybody read the Bible. They were Methodists.
Did you like the school that you went to in Wentworth?
It was a one-room school. And after Miss Berry left we had a teacher, and we had to sing "The Old North State." You know that song "The Old North State"?
No.
We had to sing that every morning. It's "Carolina, Carolina, Heaven's
blessings attend thee." And I was just a little thing, and I didn't know
the words. So Miss Crossen said, "Mildred, you'll have to sing." And I
was a timid little beggar. I said, "I don't know the words." She said,
"Well, you open your mouth. Just keep your mouth open then." So then I
went home and told my mother, and so
Were any of your sisters or brothers in school with you at that school?
All of them were. My father sent Ruth to the Reidsville Seminary. And my brother Tom, my oldest one, I think he sent him to Oakridge very early.
But the others were in this school with you.
Yes, everybody was in the same room, just one room.
But you were still timid, even though your sisters and brothers
Yes, I was timid. I'd just cry at the drop of a hat.
That's hard to imagine.
No, I didn't finish it in Wentworth. We went back to the farm. We didn't have a school to go to. Miss Berry came and taught us, and we had a little office building out in the yard, and she taught us for a while.
And your father arranged this, that she would come back with you?
Yes. She'd already gone back to Reidsville, but she did come down there and live with us, I think maybe for a year, and taught us.
So it was like having a tutor.
Yes. One thing I learned there, she taught us this; all of us would say
it together. "The night has a thousand eyes, and the day but one, Yet
the light of a whole life dies, when day is done."
You'd learned these lessons well.
Yes.
Did you ever keep up with her? Do you know what happened to her?
Yes. I got a letter from her; I wish I had kept it. She's dead. But she
did write me the sweetest letter not so terribly long ago. She taught in
Roxboro, North Carolina. And our school didn't begin until long after
other schools began. And so she let me come to
Did she have the same kind of influence on you perhaps that your mother did? Was she a kind person?
She was very kind, and she didn't have any children of her own. No, she didn't know anything. But she was sweet.
Was she ever interested in hearing about what you went on to do?
No. I never would tell them. I never told any of them. I never said anything to them about it.
When it came time for you to go to high school, arrangements were made for you to go to Miami?
Yes, because there was no place for me to go. My brother Enoch, who is a year and a half older than I am, rode the horse to Madison; that was five miles. But I couldn't ride the horse. We didn't have a horse, anyway, for me to ride. But that was when my father and mother decided that I should go to Miami and live with my uncle.
How did you react to that decision?
You never reacted; you just did what they told you to do. There wasn't
any reaction on my part.
Had you ever met the uncle before?
Yes. He came up there in a Ford. He had a Model T Ford, I think. And I went back with him and his son Dick, who was about my age. And it was a very bad thing to send me down there, because he had tuberculosis then. And my mother let me go down there and live in this small house in Miami with my uncle, who had tuberculosis. He was just spitting like nobody's business. Finally it got so bad in my third year—I guess my next to last year—I wrote my mother and I told her, I said, "Uncle Ashby spits around everywhere around the house." And I knew he had TB. And so I went to live with a neighbor who was awfully nice. I lived with her for a year. And then he died, and then I went back and lived with the children and tried to help the aunt with the house. That was where I lived for the last year.
Your uncle's wife?
My uncle's wife had died years before. She died before I ever went down there.
What was the school like that you went to in Miami?
It was a typical high school.
I wondered what the experience of going to Miami was like for you personally as far as leaving home and going farther away than you'd ever been before, right?
I had some friends down there. I immediately became chummy with them,
because one of them knew my cousin Albert Price who lived in
Winston-Salem. And her mother and she used to go to Winston-Salem and
she knew him, so she immediately became my friend. And then she
Why had your uncle moved to Miami in the first place?
I don't really know. He was married to a woman from Reidsville, McGee, and they were educated people. But my uncle, I think he did well to marry her, but she died and left him with these little children. He wasn't so terribly smart, Uncle Ashby.
Were you close to his children?
Yes, we lived right there in this little house, but I was very good friends with the two little girls. They were younger than I; I think the next one was four years younger than I was. But the boys (I just hope they'll never read this. Maybe they're dead now; I don't know what's happened to them) weren't very prepossessing. You just didn't feel that they were like their sisters. He had three boys.
So then you graduated from high school
Yes, and then I went to the Women's College the next year. Brans and I
went together. She hadn't finished, but they let her in anyway. And the
tuition was so cheap. You could go there for almost
In the meantime your father had died, and your mother had moved to Chapel Hill.
My father didn't die until I'd been in the Women's College two or three years.
So your family was still on the farm when you came back to go to school.
Yes.
Why did you go to the Women's College?
Because there wasn't any other place cheap enough. And so that was the only place for us to go. We didn't want to go to any of these little religious schools that might have let us in. He wanted us to go to the Women's College.
When you came back and your father said you were talking like a Yankee, what had the view been that you had gotten about the North or the rest of the country other than the South as you were growing up?
I didn't get any different view, because people in Miami are the most
reactionary people, I believe, in the United States. And everybody was
reactionary. I didn't get anything any different. And they're still that
way. I went back down there with Harold in 1947. I thought I'd go back
to Miami. I was working for China Aid then. But we went down there for a
little vacation, and I saw my friends of high school days. And one of
the first things they said to me was, "Mildred, you wouldn't know Miami
now. It's just full (they meant of
Had you had any contact with Jewish people when you were in Miami?
There were some in school, but I thought everybody was just alike. I didn't pay any attention to it.
So you basically didn't have any different experience than you had had in North Carolina.
Except people had more money, and I didn't have any money. And my uncle was very poor. But they were always nice to me, and I'd go to their house and stay, especially if they didn't have any companion for their daughter. I'd go there and stay a week or two. They were always sweet, and I loved them. I just cried when I finally left. I went home once or twice when I was there.
Didn't it upset you to be away from your mother for that long?
No. I wrote to her, and she wrote to me. Nothing upset me if I couldn't do anything about it, you see. There was nothing I could do about it, so I just accepted it.
You said you cried when you left Miami. Were you sort of apprehensive about going to Greensboro to school?
No, I didn't know I was going to Greensboro. I wanted to go to Vassar. I used to write "Vassar" all the time I was in high school; I'd write "Vassar" on my pieces of paper. I wanted to go there.
Where did you get the idea of going to Vassar?
I don't know. I just saw about it in some magazine or something. I wanted
to go to Vassar. But I never applied there or
When you came back, did you have trouble getting back into your family or friends in North Carolina?
I didn't have any friends in North Carolina then. So Brans and I went off
to the Women's College the next fall. And we loved it there. Oh, we just
thought it was great. You know, the first night we were there, they were
trying to break in the new girls. So we went over and sat on the hockey
field, and there were some benches there. And they taught us this song
Were you easily broken in? Was it easy to adjust to living there and going to school?
Oh, yes. We just loved it. We just adored it.
What did you like best about it?
We made some friends right away that were from Wilmington. And Brans has
a wonderful sense of humor. And she had a trunk. And nobody had trunks,
but she had a trunk. And so they would come over to our room and listen
to Brans talk about the trunk.
How had Branson gone to high school?
She lived with my uncle in Leaksville, and so she went to high school there. My father had to farm us out to get to high school.
Did you and Branson . . .
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
I wondered if you would describe the atmosphere at the Women's College when you were there. Was it restrictive or was it open? Were you able to go where you wanted to?
No, it was restrictive. They let us go to the First Presbyterian Sunday
school on Sunday. Dr. Faust was the President, and one time—I've
forgotten the issue—he got up in the main assembly. He said, "Young
ladies, I will tolerate no radicalism." And I don't know what it was we
did.
He was on the faculty when you were there?
Yes, he was on the faculty. Did Mary tell you about the hams?
No.
Mr. Lindeman was teaching a class, and he talked about the Cone Cotton
Mills. He says, "Instead of giving good wages, they give
Do you remember anything about the reputation that he had in Greensboro or the school?
Everybody that knew him just loved him. He was great. The first breath of fresh air we'd ever had there.
Did he have a reputation as an eccentric or anything like that?
No. I remember his telling us once that Dr. Faust just nearly drove him crazy trying to get him to come down there to teach. He wouldn't let him alone for a day till he got him there.
Did he say anything about what his impression of the school was once he got there?
No, but he talked to us. He was circumspect. But he did like to make us think, except, of course, Lindeman was never very much of a left-winger himself. He was an awfully sweet person. Did Mary tell you that the Ku Klux Klan ran him out?
No.
The year I was at Chapel Hill the Ku Klux Klan ran him out of Greensboro. And so I was so horrified that I wrote him a letter, and I said I never heard the like in all my life. And I remember he wrote back to me, but I don't know what he said.
Do you remember the reaction of the people on the campus when he left?
No, I don't remember any of that. Brans could tell you more about that. I don't really know, because I wasn't there.
Were there any other people on the faculty who particularly influenced you?
I don't believe there was another soul. Miss Galanda was our history
teacher, and I sat at her table. And she had us trace the Roman Catholic
Church through the hundreds of years.
I wondered if you were exposed to new kinds of materials or new kinds of literature when you were at Women's College. Did you start reading any particular authors who influenced you?
I had a course in modern American literature. I remember Robert Frost. The teacher taught us "Death of the Hired Man." I was very much impressed with that. I almost memorized it, I liked it so well.
What were the main student activities that people were involved in there? Was there a student government?
Yes. My very good friend who was one year ahead of me, Lena Kernodle was
her name. She was from Washington, D.C. She married a druggist there in
Greensboro. She's dead now. She was awfully nice. She was the most
popular person in school, and I certainly did like her. And when she
left, I remember that I loved her so. Oh, I was just crazy
Was there a YWCA there?
Yes, there was a YWCA, but I don't think anybody paid any attention to it. No, I don't believe there was a. . . .
Did the students at Women's College ever discuss social issues or political issues? Was there a debating society?
No such thing as discussing race. You wouldn't do that. The school would have been run out of the state. No, we never discussed social issues.
What about any feeling about women's suffrage?
We were all for that. Anna Howard Shaw came there, and we were just crazy about her. She told us we should take part in things. She was a great woman in her time.
Did you ever do any work for suffrage or get petitions signed?
No, I was just for it.
Were most of the women at the school for it?
Most of them didn't care.
But there was a group that did care and was sort of involved in what was going on around them?
I don't know. Maybe there was. We had a sort of a clinque there that we went around with, and we discussed everything, but I can't remember if we ever discussed anything worthwhile.
This was right after World War I. Was there any feeling about the United States' participation in the War?
No, we were all for it. Anything the government did was just dandy. We never discussed anything the government did. It was more or less like things are now. I know that government's come in for more criticism, especially since Nixon, but still. . . . We never did really get into any deep questions.
Then your last year you went to Chapel Hill. Why did you transfer?
My father had died, and my mother moved to Chapel Hill. And my younger brother and Mary went to school there, and Teeny, and so that's the reason I left. Brans stayed on in Greensboro and finished, because she didn't have as good a background in various subjects they wanted at Chapel Hill, so they wouldn't let her in at Chapel Hill. So she went back to the Women's College and finished.
So you lived with your mother in Chapel Hill?
Yes, she had a house there, and she took in some of the students for roomers.
Do you remember the way she felt about making the move, moving off the
farm and coming to Chapel Hill? Was it a really
She was anxious to do anything to get something to eat. And I remember as we drove off in the old Ford—she and my brother Enoch and I, and maybe Wright was with us—she cried when she looked back. I didn't cry, but she did when she looked back at the house where she'd lived. But she made the best of it. She was glad to leave the farm.
Had you gone home very much during the years you were at Greensboro?
We didn't go home very much. It wasn't very far, but we didn't go home much. We had to spend the summer there.
When you came to Chapel Hill to school, you said it was sort of difficult after having been at the Women's College. How were women regarded at Chapel Hill then?
To tell you the truth, I was so innocent of how to get along with men. I
had never been with men to that extent. And it looked to me as if all
the pills in Chapel Hill liked me, but the ones that were smart and all
the girls liked, they didn't pay much attention to me because I was just
a country gal. But all these pills. . . . And then the boys we had
rooming in the house, they teased me and they told me about these boys.
They'd say they were on track, and they always guided their track
running "so they'd run by this house just to see you."
Did you have any girlfriends at Chapel Hill? Were there many women in your classes?
Yes, but I didn't have terribly much to do with them. They all belonged to sororities. I wasn't a member of a sorority. They had a sorority, all the girls. There weren't very many. And I didn't belong to it. They didn't ask me, and I couldn't have belonged to it anyway because it cost money. No, I didn't have any close friends there.
What about your studying? You were majoring in history?
Yes, Frank Graham was my professor.
Did he influence you very much?
No, he didn't. He should have, though. He was so sweet. But the only
thing he ever did
Oh, really?
Yes. And he never really taught us the facts of American history.
He never raised any questions about race or of class?
Oh, Lord, nobody raised any questions about race. I didn't even know there was such a thing as a question about a race in Chapel Hill.
Were you surprised later when you heard about what Frank
No, I wasn't surprised. It was sort of gradual, you know. Frank Graham
Was he a good sport? Was he a fun teacher?
No, he wasn't a fun teacher, but he was nice; he was good. He was so much better than the other people. I had to take education classes, and terrible, terrible classes.
What about the other people in the History Department? Did you run into any of them?
I don't think so. I don't think I took another course. There were several things I had to take because I moved to a new school. I had a good English teacher—I can't think of his name—poetry and literature. He was very good, but I didn't apply myself.
Did you take any sociology? Did you have any contact with Howard Odum or the Institute for Research?
I knew Dr. Odum, but I don't think I took any sociology there. I'm pretty sure I didn't, because when I went to Chicago I started taking it and I realized that I had never had any.
Did you know about Odum's work or any of the people . . .
Oh, yes, everybody knew about Odum's work. They were all very proud of Odum. And my mother's cousin was there. He was Dr. Branson, and he did quite a lot about tenant farming.
Did any of those people influence you? Did they start raising any kinds of questions that made you think about different things?
No. None of them. Southerners, they're so scared, especially at a state school, they're scared the legislature will cut off the money.
Did Odum receive any criticism that you remember for the kind of work he was sponsoring?
I don't think so. Everybody liked Dr. Odum. I never remember his receiving any; they were all very proud of him.
Back to when you were there in the twenties, I read that you were involved in a group called the Christian Endeavor Society?
We went to the Presbyterian Church; that's the organization. And I played the piano for them.
Was the church a big influence at that time in your . . .
The pastor—I can't remember his name—he'd go to the philosophy class. I used to go there sometimes. And he was pretty good. But that didn't have any influence on me. I'd just go over there and play the piano. I think Harold made that up about that Christian Endeavor. I just played the piano for it. I played the hymns. I didn't have any interest in it, particularly.
What were your own political views when you finished college?
I didn't have any.
Not at all? You weren't even a "good Democrat"?
I couldn't say that I was. I just didn't take any interest in it. I wanted the Democrats always to win, but I didn't have any.
Did you hear anything while you were in college about the Women's Trade Union League or the settlement movement?
No.
Did you ever read Jane Addams' work?
I knew about her, but I don't think I every read anything about her.
Jacob Reis or Ben Lindsay or any of that?
All those I knew about, but I didn't have any interest in it.
When you finished college, do you remember having any sense of what you wanted to do or where you wanted to go?
No, I knew I had to teach school; that was all I knew how to do. I didn't know how to do it, but I mean it was the only thing I was trained for.
So that was as far ahead as you thought. You had an obligation to teach for a couple of years, didn't you?
Yes, I had to teach to pay back my tuition.
Did you have any plans further than that?
No, I didn't. I didn't get along very well teaching in Wilson. A Mr. Coon
was the Superintendent, and oh, was he ghastly. His wife taught, too.
But he was so terrible. I didn't know how to teach; it
Did they assign you to a school?
No, a man came there and recruited teachers. There was a high school student who had a car. I even remember this boy's name, Bugs Cozart. He would wait for me when I got through teaching and take me home in his car. Well, I didn't think anything about it. It didn't occur to me that somebody couldn't take a teacher home in a car. He was a senior. And so I didn't realize that I was doing anything wrong. Nobody told me I was doing anything wrong. He'd just take me home, and I'd get off. And so Mr. Coon brought it up in a teachers' meeting. He didn't call any names. But that just nearly slew me.
Did you talk to him about it?
Oh, no, you never talked to him about anything. He wrote me a letter when I said I'd teach there, and he said, "Now, I don't want any card-playing, dancing people." I taught a history written by Muzzy, and Muzzy taught that the South was in the wrong, too. So I went to a woman's house one night and told her what it was teaching. Oh, she was just horrified that I would teach that the South was in the wrong. She was horrifed. Well, two or three things like that happened, so I didn't go back. I taught in a place called Roland for one year, and then I got recruited for the YW.
Where did you live when you taught in Wilson and Roland?
One of my school friends, Ethel Bynum from Farmville, was there, and she
and I lived together, and we lived in two people's houses.
Did you ever get in trouble for playing cards?
No, I never did.
So you did have some fun when you lived there.
Yes. And then I went to Roland. I know what they wanted me to do in
Wilson. They wanted me to teach the grammar school grades. They wanted
me not to teach in high school anymore. And I didn't want to do that. So
then I went to Roland. The Superintendent of Schools in Roland didn't
know how to speak the English language.
So I was very happy when Miss Leonard [Mrs. Louise Leonard McLaren] came by, and asked me if I didn't want to work for the YW. I was very glad.
How did you meet her?
She was a friend of Lois MacDonald. Lois told her to try to recruit Brans. And Brans said, "I don't want to do it, but my sister Mildred might." So she sent her to me.
So she came up to Roland and talked to you about it?
I think I was at Chapel Hill, and she came by Chapel Hill.
What was she like then?
She was just the way she always was. She was a typical Vassar
Was she enthusiastic about the YWCA per se?
Yes, she loved it. She liked to work for the YW. There were so few organizations like that.
Did you immediately say yes, that you would love to be recruited as an industrial secretary?
She said I should go to New York that summer of '24 and study at the YWCA School, and I said, "Well, I have no money." I think I got a hundred dollars a month in Roland, and the school just lasted nine months. But she said, "Well, maybe you can get along some way or other." I've forgotten how I got along, but I know that ten cents meant a great deal to me at that time.
So you went to New York during the summer of '24?
Yes.
Was that an experience for you, to go to the city?
Yes. I couldn't understand all those foreigners in New York. They all had such big feet; I remember that.
Big feet.
Yes, at least
Where did you live?
I lived in an apartment house. Some of the YWCA secretaries rented it out. They were away for the summer, and I lived there.
What kinds of things did you learn at the YWCA?
Oh, I learned so much. They had a group there in New York—maybe it was
the Fellowship of Reconciliation; I can't remember—and they'd take a
group around every Saturday to a different group. They took us to the
socialists, to the communists, to the Christian Fellowship; they took us
around to every kind of thinking group; the pacifists. And every one
they'd take me to, I'd think it was right. It just seemed to appeal to
me. "We don't want any more war," so they took it to this. And then
they'd take you to the socialist group, and I'd say, "Well, that sounds
interesting. I'd like to know about that."
Was this sponsored by the YWCA?
No.
Contacts you made through the Y?
Yes. They put a bulletin board up on the wall in the YWCA, and then you'd decide to go. And you'd pay a little something, and they'd take you around.
Did they run a school themselves at the Y?
Yes, they did. That was where I studied that summer.
And you attended classes there?
Yes, on how to be a YWCA secretary.
Oh, they told you about programming, and how to recruit girls, and . . .
Was all that sort of practical, very pragmatic sorts of things that you would need to know when you went into a town to set up a program?
Yes.
Rather than being political or social?
Oh, no, no. They didn't want you to be political. You could be social-minded. And they were all for blacks. And when I got to Lynch . . .
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
Louise said, "Now, you go to the YWCA conference in Lake Junaluska, and you can tend to the bookstore there to pay for your way."
This was right after school ended, your year at Roland?
Yes, when I went back to Chapel Hill I saw Louise. She said, "Now you go
to Lake Junaluska and see what the YWCA conference is like." She said,
"You can take care of the bookstore," so I did. And that's when I heard
that speaker, Dr. Eleazer. See, I was ready for all these organizations
in New York, because the seed had been planted in Asheville
Do you remember specifically what Eleazer was saying?
Yes. I thought I told you in the letter. Did I tell you what he said about Livingstone?
No.
He said, "Blacks are fine people. You don't want to eat with them. You
don't have to eat with them. They're fine people. When Livingstone, the
missionary in Africa, died in the southern part of Africa, the blacks
took his body on their shoulders and walked up to the Mediterranean."
Oh, I was so impressed. He said, "They're good people. At the end of the
Civil War, do you think they did any harm to their masters? No. Many of
them stayed right along there with them." Goodness, I was so excited. My
God, what is this? And then the next day, he talked about war. He said,
"There isn't a bit of sense in war, spending all that money on
armaments. Why, it's terrible, terrible to have war." I was still more
excited. My face stayed red all the time. And then the third day, he
talked about workers and how poorly paid they were, workers in
factories. And I never had known any workers in factories. When we lived
in Spray my brothers worked at a cotton mill there, but they just did it
in the summer. So those three ideas, Mr. Eleazer planted them, and then
when I went to New York these organizations told me about what they were
doing. So then when I went to Lynchburg, I was pretty much of a red.
When Eleazer said these things, you described your own reaction as being very immediate.
Yes.
And yet you said earlier that it took a long time . . .
It took me a long time to think about the blacks, I mean intermarriage and association with them. It took me years to understand everything in my own mind.
What about eating? He mentioned that specifically, "You don't have to eat with them"?
Yes.
Was that a particular problem as far as . . .
Most southerners just couldn't stand the thought of eating with the blacks.
Was that a problem for you or in your family?
We never tried to. We never even thought about it; it was absolutely out of our culture to eat with blacks.
Were you able, when you heard him talk, to integrate things that you had seen like the way poor people lived, or the hierarchy in the society that you'd grown up in?
I don't know whether I ever thought those things through.
It was more like a revelation than any kind of rejection of something else.
Yes. And when I went home from the Junaluska conference, my brothers were
there—we lived in Greensboro—Brans was there. And so we were all sitting
around in this living room in Greensboro, and I said, "We shouldn't
spend our money on the armies and on guns." And my oldest sister Ruth
says, "Mil, the Lord helps those who help themselves."
Yes.
What had the reaction been of the other people who were at the YWCA conference at Junaluska?
Some of the girls wanted to go home.
You said that some women were there from the factories?
Yes, all of them. I worked in the Industrial Department of the YW. I'd go to visit factories all the time in Lynchburg.
So some of them actually picked up and went home.
One or two of them did.
What about the others? Were they open to new ideas? Were they afraid of new ideas?
They just were sort of apathetic. But some of them learned. Now some of the girls at Lynchburg, we became very good friends. They didn't want me to go around telling everybody. They would caution me, but we were always good friends.
What about the women like yourself? Was there anyone there who was in training like you were?
Yes, everybody. All the YWCA secretaries. They all agreed; they got Mr. Elezer. Not a one of them was a reactionary. They all were just like Louise.
They were all in sort of the same frame of mind about . . .
Yes, everybody. They were all Christian socialists; that's what they were.
Were they able to integrate the over-all goals or ideas of the Y, which,
as I understood them, were sort of. . . . Well, Christian
Not much. Do you know that song "Follow the Gleam"?
Yes.
They were sort of "Follow the Gleam"-ish. Louise was the leader of it, and she was always very nice.
Politically, at that time, you would describe her as a Christian socialist?
I never did describe her. They all voted Democratic, and they didn't have anything to do with the socialists, any of the left-wing parties.
So then when you went to New York and you were introduced to left-wing parties for the first time by the Fellowship of the Reconciliation, how many other YWCA secretaries were interested in political activity?
I don't think there were any others. I lived with a woman then from Virginia, Fay. Fay didn't know very much. I don't know what her attitude was. She was goodhearted. She could make the best chocolate cake. And when I got to Lynchburg, I found the YWCA General Secretary, the head of it, and she sort of cautioned me about telling my ideas. Lynchburg was a terribly conservative place; I guess it still is.
When you went to New York for the first time, how long did you stay there?
I stayed there in the summer about six weeks.
And in that time, it seems that you changed pretty quickly.
I began to see things, but I still hadn't got it clear in my mind. But I
still began, slowly, to catch on to the intellectual world. And then
Louise told me, after I'd been at Lynchburg one or two years, she wanted
me to go to that Christian-Jewish conference in Olivet and I did, and I
met some Jews there. I never had known any Jews. So I learned a lot at
Olivet. Reinhold Neibuhr was there, and they talked. I didn't half the
time know what. . . . They were talking about the Jewish situation in
Poland then—it was terrible—but I was bored to death with that, because
I didn't know any Poles and I didn't know any Jews. And I remember a
rabbi. I was getting ready to leave, and he said, "Why are you leaving?"
I don't know what I told him. He said, "Why don't you stay around and
listen a little bit more?" So I did, and then he was the one that said
to me, "Why don't you go to school some more?" And I said, "Well, I
finished the University." He said, "Well, my dear, you don't know
anything."
When you finished the training in New York and you came back south, was it prearranged that you would be a YWCA secretary in the South, or did you want to come back?
No, but they wanted me to go to the South, because they needed secretaries. No body wanted to go to the South.
Why?
It was so reactionary and so dull.
Louise Leonard, though, was always particularly interested in the South, wasn't she?
Yes, but she was assigned to that region, because she could
What was the program like at Lynchburg? Were you setting up the first industrial program there?
No, they had some people before me. But they left; they didn't stay long.
We had classes in trade unionism. I don't know that we had any classes
in race. It was sort of to get the industrial workers interested in the
world, mostly shoe workers in Lynchburg. And we'd go on hikes, and we
had plays so we could raise some money to go to the next conference. And
every conceivable activity. We had classes every Thursday night. They'd
come there, and we'd have discussions and classes. And to this day I've
been afraid of Thursday night, because I was always afraid nobody would
come on Thursday night.
How many people usually came?
I guess around fifteen or twenty.
How did they react to trade unionism? Did most of them belong to unions?
No. Oh, Craddock-Terry owns the whole shoot; at least they did then. Owns the whole business in Lynchburg, and they were scared to death of unions. But we didn't urge them to start trade unions. They were scared to death they'd lose their job. It was a ticklish business. But we just. . . . What they were, you know, and sort of general trade unions.
So it was really very elementary, like "There is this thing
Yes.
"You might think about it
Yes. And of course we didn't have anything to do with blacks. The blacks had their own YWCA.
Did you ever do anything together?
Yes. The black secretary used to come over to our staff meetings. Oh, she was so pretty. She was so lovely. And a friend of mine was a Girl Reserve secretary. And I was so afraid, at even that time, that this black secretary would call me by my first name, that I continued to call her "Miss Whatever-her-surname-was." I was so scared she'd call me Mildred. And this secretary, who was a William and Mary graduate, called her by her first name, because she had far less race prejudice than I did. I still had race prejudice, you know. But Anita Rucker, this girl that I lived with. . . . She lives in Westchester County now.
You lived with her in Lynchburg?
Yes. And my mother came up and lived with us one year. Anita said, "You know, I like the negroes. The only thing is, I wouldn't want to have a little black baby." I remember she said that. "That's the only thing I wouldn't want to do, is have a little black baby."
How did you react to that?
I thought she was right. I wouldn't either.
I didn't say anything, but. . . .
But she would even think of intermarriage?
We didn't mention intermarriage. She just mentioned that one day. I'm just trying to show you how long it took me to get myself straightened out. It just took months and months and years even.
How did your mother react when she lived with you during that year, to what you were doing?
She didn't see any blacks.
Was it all right for you to be working with factory workers?
Yes, anything to make a living. I was paid fifteen hundred dollars, I think, a year there, and I thought that was a princely salary. Anita and I sold candy and everything to try to raise money for the activities of the YW. And then there was a family there in Lynchburg that liked me, the Woodsons. Mr. Woodson had a candy factory. And they had one daughter who helped with the YW volunteer work. And Mrs. Woodson would say, "I like the negroes"—I don't know whether she said "niggers" or "negroes"—"I like them. I think they're all right. I think we should be very kind to the negroes." People in Lynchburg on the whole were very conservative, but they were a little bit more educated than the people in North Carolina about race.
Do you think some of that came through the church, maybe? Was it a Christian sort of thing?
No, the church absolutely never did anything about race. Never. I hate to say it, but they didn't.
Did you develope a close relationship with the factory women you were working with?
Yes. Oh, we had a very close relationship.
Were they about your age?
Yes. There was one much older. All of us called her "Miss Lily." And I
had a very bad case of appendicitis my first year at Lynchburg. And I
called the girls "the girls," or "my girls" maybe I said. So one day the
doctor was there, and Miss Lily, a great big tall woman—she was at least
twenty-five or thirty years older than I was—came to see me. I
introduced her. I said, "This is one of my girls," and I thought the
doctor would die laughing. Miss Lily.
Were these women unusual in their community?
No, they were just shoe workers.
I mean, were they leaders among the shoe workers, do you think? Why did they come to the YWCA?
No, you couldn't be a leader among the shoe workers. There was no organization. They came to the YWCA because they wanted to do something interesting, something different. We had classes.
Did any of them really change their ideas or get disgruntled with the situation they were working under or become very unhappy about the wages they were making?
No, they didn't. I remember Edith McDonald was one of them, and she and I were very good friends. She said, "Craddock-Terry's good to us. I can't say that we need a union. Craddock-Terry's good to us. They are good people." I didn't try to argue with her. But there weren't any unions in Lynchburg.
Did you talk to them about women in the work force, or was
I didn't know enough to talk to them about that. I did talk to them about race. I did teach them something about race.
How did they react?
They saw I was friendly, and I didn't try to take them too far. But I think we did have some talks on race. But we didn't associate, because they had their own YWCA.
You said that when you first went to Lynchburg you were hot and ready to go in this new work, and some people cautioned you not to move too far too fast.
Yes, the General Secretary did.
Did you ever receive any criticism for the work that you were doing? Did you have opposition in Lynchburg to the kind of work you were trying to do?
No. I was so benign. Nobody could ever oppose me when I was so benign.
Did you have any contact with the employers of these women?
They were so nice to me. They told me I could come into the factory—of course this was against me, but I didn't realize it—any time I got ready. Always, just walk right in, go anywhere I want to in the factories.
Why do you think they were so nice to you?
Because they thought I was harmless. I was just coming over there to see the girls and ask them to come to the YW.
So the YW was perfectly acceptable?
Yes, they sure were. They gave money for it all the time.
Even though you talked about trade unions, or did they not know you talked about trade unions?
I don't remember what I said, but I was very careful about what I said.
Did you work with business women?
Yes, I did. Industrial women and business women. We had a group of business women.
What was that group like?
They were very much like the other, except they felt superior. And I can't remember just what we talked about.
Did you ever try to do anything with the two groups together?
We might have, but I don't remember it.
Did you ever have any trouble from the YWCA board? Was there a board of people from the community?
No, only one time they didn't like what I said. I had read in some paper
about what was going on in Russia, and it seemed terribly interesting to
me. It was all so different. I had never read anything about Russia; I
hardly knew there was a Russian revolution. And so one night I went to a
board meeting, and I told them about Russia. And I was so happy I was
able to tell them about this new thing. Oh, they were simply horrified,
so I never mentioned it again.
What about your own political activity during that time? Had you kept in
contact with any of the groups you'd met in New York?
No, I wouldn't have gone to it anyway.
So you sort of broke off that political contact that you'd had for a while.
I didn't really have any political contact.
I mean when you'd been introduced to political groups in New York, you didn't continue.
I didn't know any of them, and I never heard of them again.
When you were working for the YWCA, in addition to Louise Leonard, did you have contact with any other people who were particularly important or interesting to you, any of the other secretaries who you remember? Did you meet Katharine Lumpkin at that time?
She was a friend of Louise and Lois; I met Katharine Lumpkin. I don't know whether she was a Trotskyite or not, but she was sort of that persuasion. I can't remember how long ago it was. I knew Katharine, and I liked her. I remember later on when I lived in New York, I think she was with the Trotskyites. Not that I had so much against the Trotskyites—I didn't know too much about them—but I think she was.
So she was never working in the South at the same time you were?
Oh, this is Katharine. Well, I don't know about Katharine. I was thinking about Grace. I met Katharine and I remember how nice she was, but I don't remember anything much about her.
What about Lois MacDonald? Did you continue to have contact with her?
Yes. Until they moved out in the country we used to see them. They lived right across the hall from us there when we first went to New York.
What about when you were in the South working for the Y? Did you see her then?
She came down and gave a series of lectures on cotton mills at the YWCA conference. Louise asked her to come down, and she gave a series of talks.
Do you remember at the time feeling any kind of disillusionment with the YWCA? Did it go far enough? Did you think it was a worthwhile organization?
I did. I never was disillusioned with the YW, and I'm still not.
So you thought that, given the social situation, they did everything that they could?
I think so.
It seems that you were quite close to Louise Leonard during this period. Do you remember her ever getting disillusioned with the Y?
I don't remember, but I know Louise grew in political thinking, she and
Mac. I don't remember the details, but I remember that when we lived in
New York—I don't think she was working for the YW—I think she and Mac
both turned to the left somewhat. Mac has a habit of writing long, long
letters in longhand, just over pages and pages. I could hardly finish
the letters.
Do you remember Louise Leonard thinking about doing something other than the Y like setting up a southern summer school?
Yes, I remember when she was going to do that.
Do you remember anything about making the transition from the YWCA organization to this kind of workers' school? Why did she want to create a new organization?
I guess she wanted to teach all kinds of southern workers, men as well as women, and she had some people in New York that were interested. And so I think she thought it would be good to have a school in the summer. She was married to Mac then. I don't know what she did in the winter; I guess trying to get ready for the summer, to raise money and things like that.
But you don't remember talking to her and ever having her say something like, "The YWCA, because of its tie to employers within the community and because it gets money from the employers, can never do anything as far as really changing the social situation." Was she ever that explicit about what she was trying to do?
She was all for trade unions, but I don't know. You knew that Leo Hilberman taught for her.
. . . the southern summer school. There was one student there named Willie. I can't think of Willie's last name; he was a cotton mill worker.
Helms?
Maybe it was Helms. Did you meet him?
No.
Willie talked in the worst southern accent I've ever heard. And Leo Huberman was just crazy about Willie. Here he was, this cotton mill worker, and he just talked so southern you could hardly understand him, but he had the most advanced ideas. One day Leo was carrying on a discussion, and he talked about workers having guns: should they have guns? And so they argued and argued. Some of them thought they should. Finally he said, "Well, Willie, what do you think?" He says, "Leo, the workers should not have guns." Of course, that was what Leo wanted him to say. I never forgot that.
When you were working for the Y, did you get an over-all optimistic view about changing people's minds?
Yes.
You said here that after you were exposed to Mr. Eleazer that you had the ambition to change people's minds along social lines. When you left Lynchburg, were you basically optimistic about that happening?
I've always been an optimist. I didn't know what to do in Chicago except
go to school and learn something, though I didn't learn much, to tell
you the truth. I haven't gone at it with an axe the way I used to, but I
always liked. . . . My prime puropose in joining the Unitarians was to
see if we couldn't change people's minds. That's why I joined the
Unitarian Church in Westport, Connecticut. I didn't have any other
organization to work through, and I think it's better to work through
organizations. And so that's why I've been working with
When you left this conference and the rabbi told you that you should go and get more education, how did you come to going to Chicago? How was that decision made?
He said, "Why don't you go to Chicago?" I said, "Well, I have no money." He said, "If you want to go, you could go." And so I stayed one more year in Lynchburg and saved all the money I could, and then I met at that conference a YWCA secretary named
END OF INTERVIEW