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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
K-0434, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern
Historical Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill”
Mooresville, NC, resident Terry Graham and taxi service operator describes his changing town in this interview. He worries that the town has "just outgrown itself" and is at risk of being swallowed up by nearby Charlotte; already, businesspeople from the racing industry are infiltrating the town, says Graham, and he worries about the effects of the closing of Burlington Mill on African Americans. The future for Mooresville as Graham sees it does not look bright for its lower-income residents. Perhaps the most significant change Graham describes is desegregation. He remembers a relatively uneventful process: though the white and black community disagreed about whether it was the white school or the black school that should undergo the conversion to an integrated facility, that and other questions were handled peacefully, even when Martin Luther King's assassination roiled the community. This interview offers a glimpse of a town in flux, sprawling toward an uncertain future.
Terry Graham, Mooresville, NC, resident and taxi service operator, describes his changing town and its relationship to Charlotte. He also discusses the desegregation of the local schools.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
This is March 22, 1999. Mr. Graham, I wanted to start this morning just asking you some questions about where you were born and where you grew up and kind of just hearing about you. So, so, tell me where you were born.
I was born out in a little town about 8 miles out west of Mooresville in a little place called Mayhew Town, which is in Iredell county.
So is it north of Mooresville?
Just west of Mooresville.
Just west of Mooresville.
Mooresville, yeah. And I went to church out there at Morris Chapel United Methodist Church.
Okay, so what is, is it -is that area still called Mayhew Town?
And it's still called Mayhew?
Yeah, it's still.
Well did you have any brothers and sisters?
Yeah, I have one brother and
Are they still living? Go ahead …
Yeah, one lives here in Mooresville and the other up Troutman - a rural area out there.
So tell me about then you first went to school, when you were living in Mayhew town.
When I first went to school?
Uh-huh.
Well, I didn't go to school in Mooresville, I went to the Morris school out on Brawley School Road. I went out there for three years, I guess, and then we moved up to Troutman and I went to South Iredell. I finished school up there. That was a Rosenwald school. And when I first went there it was two rooms; they built one room, another room, made it three rooms.
Uh-huh.
And it went to the eighth grade but we didn't get credit for eighth grade, no certificate or nothing, for eighth grade. That's where I finished.
Okay.
And I went in the service up there in 1943-came out and came to Mooresville in '46 and started the taxi business and this Dunbar school that you were wanting to talk about, I remember when it was built, but I didn't go. I had some children that went there. And our first principal, we had, at Dunbar, he was a black man but he passed as a white man, and he ate in the cafés 'til they found out that he was principal of the …
Really …
Dunbar school.
Is this Mr. Woods?
Woods, yeah, uh-huh.
Okay, okay. And then…
So they stopped him from eating in the café.
Oh my goodness, that's an interesting story.
Yeah. So um…
Well, going back to when you were going to school up at Morris and at South Iredell, what kind of - were there some classes you liked in particular? Or tell me some of the classes that you took.
I liked the mathematics and geography. Those was two subjects that I really liked. I was a little poor in spelling, but …
Oh, I was too.
Reading, I did very well in reading but I was poor in spelling. We had
real good teachers at that time
So what kind of things did ya'll do
It's probably just as well, huh?
Yeah.
So, did your family own land
Yeah
Wow
Well, yeah
So, let's see, so, did you play any sports when you were in school?
Hum?
Or did you play baseball or …
Yeah, I played baseball. I was baseball. I loved baseball.
Oh, sure.
I took my training in Camp Leaf, Virginia and went to Omaha, Nebraska for advanced training and from there to Africa and from Africa to India and back home.
Yeah. Actually, my grandparents actually met in about 1945 in India.
Yeah.
They were both over there. She was a nurse and he was an enlisted man.
Well, I was in India, around Bombay and Calcutta.
Uh-huh. I bet that was a neat experience.
Yeah.
To be in a different place - a lot different that Mooresville, I guess, yeah.
Yeah, most different. Africa - it was nice in Africa. Africa was nice but India - it was dirty in India.
Yeah, just a lot of … yeah.
It's a nice experience - I'd like to go back over there now and see how it looks.
I'm sure, I'm sure it's probably not as different as we'd like to think it was, yeah. Well, um, so you said that, so you moved to Mooresville, about, in the early 1950s …
I came to Mooresville in 1946, the last of 1946. When I came out of the army I came on down here and started my taxi business. October of ['96?].
Was there - was it kind of a neat idea, the idea of moving into town? Did
you like that idea- was that kind of appealing to
Well, yeah, it appealled to me. Overseas there they had a lot of taxis
but different from ours here -I mean they call it [hack?] and the old
cars,
Wow, so was it difficult at first to get your business started?
No, my uncle had started it in 1926, I believe, when he started. And he passed it - his son-in-law had it when I come home and they wasn't doing no good with it and that's when I bought it and started out.
So you bought it from your …
Yeah, it's been in the family all this time.
That's neat, that's neat. Well, now, let's see, oh, I'm trying-I don't want to jump around too much. So, I wanted- so you said that your children had gone to school at Dunbar-
Um, yeah. That's correct-
Yeah, and they all graduated before '66 or before the
Yeah, yeah
Okay, so tell me about, so, when they were going to Dunbar - what is, what was, kind of - I'm trying to phrase my question well here - what kind of things did you … did they play any sports or play in the band?
Yeah, um, they played basketball.
Uh-huh.
But in fact, they didn't have a baseball team
Uh-huh.
But they played basketball. I had one girl who was real good in basketball. And the boy was fairly well …
So, was there a big - did a lot of people in the community go to the basketball games on Friday night?
They always had a nice crowd, yeah.
Do you remember the kind of things your children enjoyed
I don't know. I had one daughter she went to college one year. She wouldn't go back.
I know that feeling - whew. Yeah.
But I didn't have any of them get any scholarships or anything.
Did you have opportunities to go and visit the school when your kids were going there?
Yeah, yeah, we went to school. They had certain days, some days they had to go and eat, the parents go and eat with the children.
Uh-huh. I haven't been able to talk with anyone who can tell me kind of what Dunbar was like …
Uh-huh.
So I wonder if you would kind of tell me …
That's the reason I wanted that girl to come over and …
But you went to visit, so you can tell me about that.
She could tell you more about it than I did.
Really, I didn't visit like I should, because running the taxi business I didn't …
Oh, I understand that. I was just wondering - you were talking about - you know I was wondering how many rooms it was or kind of what it looked like.
Yeah-
Just things like that. That's all, that's all.
I couldn't tell you how many rooms it was, at first, but I guess, let me see, one, two, three - I guess about five rooms at first.
A pretty big size.
Yeah, and then they added on to it. But it was pretty large 'till they tore some of it down here after desegregation.
Uh-huh, uh-huh. Okay, let's see - when you first moved to
Mooresville, and so we're in the late 1940's, or
1950's, did
They had a little movie here, then. But that was about all they had. I mean, a couple little restaurants. One on west end and one on east and people went on the weekends. Through the week … I opened up a restaurant in 1950 and we ran it until 1956 when my wife took sick and closed it down. And that took up a lot of time that we didn't get to go to the school to see what was going on. Because the kids would run over there right across the street. They'd run right over there and lunchtime, and try to steal potato chips and cookies …
Oh goodness - from your restaurant?
Yeah. We sold hotdogs and hamburgers and Mr. Woods didn't like them to come over there and eat because he wanted them to eat in, but they'd slip over there. Let's see if that girl will come on … [gets up and walks across room to look out door]. No, she didn't show up.
If you could just tell me her name at the end I could call her and set up a time when I could come talk with her -that wouldn't be hard for me to do.
That wouldn't be hard for you?
No, no, not at all.
Uh-huh.
So- the restaurant- you had mentioned about how Mr. Woods …
Uh-huh.
Would go to one, some of the restaurants …
Yeah.
And he would pass for being white.
Yeah, they were all segregated. Most of them had a little section where the black could go and be served, yeah, and had one or two seats where they could sit down, but not no whole lot that … They could get sandwiches and carryout.
What about at the movies?
At the movies?
Uh-huh.
Yeah, the movies were segregated. We were upstairs at the movies - up in the balcony.
Okay. I was talking to a white fellow who's a principal now and he said that remembers when they first stopped separating that, he says, a lot of the white people wanted to go sit up in the balcony too because they liked being able to sit up there.
Uh-huh.
Alright, let's see, so you mentioned that your - that some of the students at Dunbar would come over to your restaurant during lunch …
Yeah.
What were some of the things - you had talked about how when you were out of school you would go work on the farm or you know, would go and pick, so do you maybe have a general idea what some of the things that your kids, in their age group, what were some of the things that they did after school? Did they go hang out somewhere? Was there a special place somewhere?
Well, yeah, they had a little place where they could go and have music. But my children mostly come over and stay with us.
Uh-huh.
We had a little old jukebox in there, and they could dance a little but in there and …
I bet that was a good time.
Yeah.
Neat, neat. Well, I wanted to kind of ask specifically about the time that, that the public schools began to desegregate, which is about 1965, 66, 67 about then … I wondered if you had any memories - what the talk was about it in the black community and what, what concerns where there that you could identify or what seemed to be going with that at that time.
At that time, I don't know, there was a whole lot of talk around then. I guess the biggest concern was that the white didn't want to come to Dunbar they wanted to close Dunbar …
You're jumping on to one of my questions, asking about what that was like.
Yeah, what that was like. They tried, of course we fought it. Uh, they
had all the excuses. They had the excuses that they didn't
want their children riding across the railroad to get to Dunbar and all
that and so we told them our children had to ride across the railroad to
get to their school, so that kind of
It didn't really…
Really, nuh, uh-uh. We never had no big deal with segregation. I guess we just liked to be by ourselves and it just kind of went along that way, I mean. We was raised here and we know about what to expect. It wasn't like people coming in here, and not knowing what, what was going on, but it went along [de?] segregation went along pretty smoothly - we had no big trouble.
Uh-huh, was there ever-was there any kind of fear that there would be - that there might be may be some violence …
Naw …
Or was that ever a worry?
Biggest fear came when Martin Luther King, when they killed Martin Luther King. That was the biggest fear.
In '68, I believe.
That hit Mooresville, that was the biggest fear. They thought everything was going to go haywire then- but, it blew off, a week or two, I mean there's no more bother.
Uh-huh. Well, um, now when they first decided to desegregate the schools they did a freedom of choice plan. I've been-kind of have been reading the old newspapers and it said that that the parents could choose - you know, that a black family could choose whether they wanted their children to go to the white school or go to Dunbar. And I just wondered - I know that your children had already grown at this time …
Uh-huh.
But, uh, did you hear any kind of talk-about whether or not that was - did people want to sign it, you know, the form - or was there any kind of worry about that?
I don't remember whether that happened or not.
Uh-huh.
I think it just went along. Yeah. They just decided where they were going to what schools they were going to …
Uh-huh.
And it just went along that way. Beause they left Dunbar as an elementary, they had Park View as elementary and those were the two elementary schools and then the high school. Then they finally built a middle school, and they built South, South school after that. But, other than that, I mean, it just, I can't say that we had any troubles. It wasn't no big deal over it.
When the white students started getting bused to Dunbar, was there an issue - did the black and white students ride the bus together?
Yeah, they rode together.
Again, that seemed to go smoothly and…
Yeah, that went along smoothly. I don't think anybody much ever got, you know, out of control over it.
Uh-huh, were there any kind of meetings about this time?
Yeah, they had meetings talking about it.
Yeah- did they- did you ever get to go to any of the meetings?
No, I didn't because …
Because your kids were already grown …
And I was working and …
Were the meetings usually at the churches?
Yeah, they were at the churches and at the schools. Yeah.
Uh-huh. Did you ever hear about any problems at first, when the schools integrated, at first, when they desegregated - were there ever any, kind of any talk of any problems with any teachers, or …
No, there wasn't no problem. Well, the only problem was about the teachers was they didn't hire black like they did- everybody thought they ought to have hired more blacks than they did. And of course, that's still today.
Sure.
So, but, other than that, I mean, that was the talk, I mean about hiring black teachers.
Uh-huh. Did any teachers or did you know about any of the teachers from Dunbar - did they go to teach at the …
In the schools?
Yeah.
Students from Dunbar?
Or the teachers who were at Dunbar …
Hum?
When Dunbar …when they first integrated, did most of the teachers at Dunbar stay?
Most of them stayed, yeah.
They stayed.
Uh-huh. And we've had some children that's graduated from Dunbar that teach and taught here - most of them are retired now.
Uh-uh.
We've had some that went to college and came back and taught here.
What do you think about Mooresville in 1990 - is it - what, 99?
Yeah.
Tell me what you think about -do you think its changed in some ways?
Change?
What do you think about Mooresville?
Mooresville's just outgrown itself. That's the thing. I stayed on the planning board for 15 years and things when I started on there they were talking about what would happen in 20 years from then and we went around and made surveys and talked. I went to Belk's [Department Store] to the manager there and asked him what he thought would happen in twenty years from now and he told me then - [Hwy] 77 wasn't even down over there at that time - but he said Belk would be over on 77 in 20 years from that day-
Uh-huh.
And it happened. They plan way ahead. I mean, white are way ahead of us. But we can't get our people to take interest in politics and know what's going on.
Um, so right now, the city government is kind of set
up-there's
Uh-huh.
And then the city council …
Yep.
So are there any, are there any black members of the city council right now?
Yeah, well, [several?] on the city council. We have three on the planning board. And we've got black in probably every position there is around. They've always had enough - I mean, just to keep the problems down.
Right, right. Well, I've kind of skipped around again, but I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about the church that you've grown up going to or the church you've gone to since you've come to Mooresville.
Hmmm…
Or did you go- have you gone to different churches?
Hum? Have I gone …
Like, have you gone to the same one since you've been in Mooresville?
I go to the same one I belong to but I visit all the churches. Yeah. We - I belong to the United Methodist Church and our preacher has three churches. He has one here in town and two out in the country. And we visit the white, and the white visit us. Now we've got a program coming on, next, week after next … [Removes church bulletin from television cabinet]
Okay, oh I see, right here, the joint service of faith.
That's Sunday, but this is the holy week service, there, see how it's lined up …
On everyday…
Huh?
They have a different one everyday.
Yeah, every night - go to a different church everynight. And it will be at our church next, on Wednesday night, and that's a white preacher. He'll be the speaker there, that night. We go around, I mean, we have a joint Easter service, we have a joint, uh, Martin Luther King Day and usually the white and the black are all together, yeah.
Where do they usually have the Martin Luther King Day service?
Well, they go around different …
Different churches.
Yeah. They'll be one church one year and another another. Same way with Easter program. Have it one year at one place and the next year at another.
Uh-huh. I'm sure that's a nice thing to have all of the community together.
Yeah.
Well, tell me what your children are doing now.
What my children are doing now?
Uh-huh.
Well, two of them are retired from Burlington.
Okay, okay, so they stayed …
Two daughters …
So they stayed in Mooresville?
Naw-
Or they-
One stays about five miles out of town. She retired last year and then my other one she retired, uh, I reckon just before Christmas. And she lives out on the Amity Hill section, out there. Son, he's still working, he works over at the freight line.
I was talking to one woman who came, a white woman who came to Mooresville about the time that Burlington was bought - or it used to be owned by …
Mooresville Mills …
There was a family-oh, the Abernathy family, I think she said …
Yeah, uh-huh.
They had owned it. She kind of talked about how when Burlington bought that …
Uh-huh.
Bought the mill - did things in town kind of seem to change?
Change?
With that, or just kind of more people moving in, kind of …
Yeah, it changed. When Burlington come in, Mooresville mill, they didn't work too many blacks, they worked some but not too many, but when Burlington come in, I mean, it gave the blacks a chance of getting in the mills here. Now, I worked at Cascade mill before Burlington bought Cascade out, Cascade, before I went in the army I worked at Cascade. Now it, it was Celanese plant. They used a lot of black up there - they had more that than they had at Mooresville mill.
Huh, that's interesting …
Beause Celanese owned that and they hired a lot of black people. But Burlington was hard, they wouldn't hire black people till, I mean, Mooresville Mill until they sold out …
Sold out.
Yeah.
So, now, would you say within the black community, is Burlington still the largest employer?
Yeah, but Burlington's closing up.
Oh, okay …
Yeah …
The one that I passed when I came in here?
Uh-hum. That's Burlington.
And they've officially closed …
Yeah, they're going out of business next month.
That's right- they're going out of business, yeah.
Uh-huh. Yeah.
So as of right now, would you say, right now, not realizing that it's going to close next month, but uh, would you say right now that they're the biggest employer within the black community?
Yeah, yeah, but these race car drivers are coming in here and taking over now.
Uh-huh.
They're buying up everything.
Is there any- does anyone see any plan for being able to - what's going to happen after Burlington closes? Is there any plans?
Burlington - well, there's people already looking at it …
Oh, to buy it.
Yeah. I don't know - they're not sure whether its
going to be a warehouse or some
I'm sure that everybody …
Yeah.
Will hope that they buy it.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
What about the growth out at the lake - you know, a lot of people living at the lake - is that, do you feel like that kind of changed Mooresville?
It's really changed Mooresville. Mooresville was dead till that lake came out there. It was dead till that lake came out.
It probably brought a lot of money.
Uh-huh, yeah. Those people out there at the lake have got money, I mean, they spend money.
Uh-huh. I'm sure they do, of course, even everybody who lives on the lake even down in Cornelius and down near where we are …
Yeah.
It's the same story. Yeah.
Yeah, that lake brought Mooresville out. Mooresville was dead till that lake came.
Is there, is there kind of getting to be a worry in Mooresville that the growth of Charlotte …
Yeah, Charlotte.
Is just gonna take over …
Yeah, Charlotte will take over, yeah. Mooresville's just a sleeping bed now for Charlotte.
Uh-huh. Yeah. Has there been any talk on trying to, you know, work on preserving Mooresville? I know that in Davidson …
Yeah.
That has been a big talk - about not wanting Charlotte to come in and take over.
Well, I don't know. I ain't uptown like I used to be - I don't know what the talk is up there. But I know it's growing. It's growing. It's a sleeping town for Charlotte, I know that. And some of these days Charlotte's will be taking over …
We're going to wake up and not know what happened.
Uh-huh, yeah.
Well, that finishes up all of my questions, Mr. Graham, and I wanted to
know if there was anything you wanted to talk about-
No, you wouldn't catch that in the newspaper. But those are
the things that happened back in those days. But no big problems
happened over it, thank goodness.
Yeah.
Because there's nothing else but black driving taxis now. No big deal over, over that. Just went along with the mood - because if we didn't make any money, we just didn't make none, that was it.
So, right now, are you the only taxi service in Mooresville?
No, I've got a competitor, but he's not doing much
- he's hauling most of the ones that I don't want
to haul.
Oh, I see, okay, that works out well, doesn't it. Yeah-
That's the way things go, I guess, down the road. I've got the best business and I'm satisfied.
So are you semi-retired - do you consider yourself retired?
I'm retired.
You're retired. All right.
Yeah. I stay home until about one o'clock and leave out and go see if the boys are doing all right around and go to the nursing homes and hospital and back home, that's it.
That's a job in itself, I'm sure …
Yeah.
Going to visit people is.
Yeah.
Well, I think we can finish, wrap this up then.
Okay, well, I hope that I gave you some of the things you wanted …
Yes, sir, yes you did.
END OF INTERVIEW