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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 R-0346, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Lemuel Delany was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1920 into a prominent
African American family. The son of a doctor and a speech teacher, Delany
describes growing up in the "black world" of segregated Raleigh and his growing
awareness of racial discrimination as he grew older. In discussing his formative
years, Delany offers information about race relations in the segregated South,
his family's history dating back to the colonial era, and his family's
interactions with an African American "who's who. " After finishing high school,
Delany stayed in Raleigh for a few years, working as a garbage man and as a
lifeguard. Because of the lack of economic opportunities, Delany moved to New
York in 1942, where he lived in Harlem. Delany remained in New York for nearly
sixty years before resettling in Raleigh. In New York, he worked briefly in a
factory before establishing a career as a funeral director. Having spent
considerable time in both the North and the South over the course of the
twentieth century, Delany draws comparisons between the nature of segregation
and race relations in both regions. In addition, he devotes considerable
attention to a discussion of his reaction to Having Our Say: The
Delany Sisters' First 100 Years, a book written by his aunts Sarah
Louise "Sadie" Delany and Annie Elizabeth "Bessie" Delany. Delany argues that
his aunts' book obscured the accomplishments of the entire Delany family by
focusing too narrowly on their own lives. As he sees it, the "real" story about
his family is one of upward mobility, beginning with an enslaved ancestor who
established a name for himself following his emancipation. Finally, Delany
offers his thoughts on the civil rights movement, arguing that the negative
consequences of desegregation as seen in the demise of black economic,
educational, and social institutions far outweighed its benefits. He further
maintains that the NAACP failed to support African American enterprise.
Lemuel Delany grew up in segregated Raleigh, North Carolina, during the 1920s and
1930s before moving to Harlem in New York City. In this interview, Delany
discusses race relations in the South and in the North, offers his reaction to
his aunts' book Having Our Say, outlines his family's
accomplishments, and explains his disapproval of some of the actions of the
NAACP and his disappointment in the impact of desegregation on African American
institutions.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
This is Kimberly Hill, and I am at the home of Mr. Lemuel Delany, and we're going to talk about his family history, and we're also here with his daughter Esther Delany. It is July 15th, 2005. Thank you for having me Mr. Delany.
Good evening Miss Hill, afternoon, good morning, whatever in the world it might be.
Good morning.
Okay.
Can you tell me some about your family and especially about growing up?
Growing up. I grew up in the segregated South. Born July the 17th, 1920. That's two days from now.
Happy birthday.
Happy birthday. I'll be eighty-five Sunday. I had a very interesting child life having been born the middle child of Lemuel Delany and Julia B. Delany, Julia Brown Delany in the city of Raleigh, which was divided between white Raleigh and black Raleigh. I lived in black Raleigh. I had very little contact with white Raleigh because white Raleigh didn't want me to have contact with them.
Where was the border between black and white Raleigh?
The border was, let me think—east and west. East and west primarily.
East and west primarily. That's saying, when I crossed over into the
west side of Raleigh, none of my natural wants and desires took place.
In other words, I didn't get hungry; I didn't get thirsty; I didn't have
to go to the bathroom. Only when I
Because you couldn't do anything about them anyway.
No, you couldn't do anything. I guess nature took over and said just don't get thirsty, just don't get hungry, don't have to go to the bathroom. Don't do any of those things. That was basically it. What else would you want to know about that?
What were your parents' jobs?
My father was a medical doctor. My mother was a speech teacher. She was a speech teacher at Saint Augustus [Augustine] College, and he was a surgeon at Saint Agnes Hospital. Both segregated from the top to the bottom. In fact I had a white doctor to tell me one time that "if there was any such thing as a black man being a gentleman, your father would be it."
If there was any such thing.
"Any such thing." Uh huh.
How many other children did your parents have?
I had one brother and one sister. I was the middle child. I was the middle child and the hellraiser among those three and the only one still living. The other two are gone on to be with their Maker. Now what else?
What kind of trouble did you get into?
All kinds. You name it; I claim it. I never went to jail. I was just mischievous. If they said, don't do it. I tried it.
Tell me a couple stories.
Stealing, I would for example go with the boys on Saturday morning in the summer out in the country, and we would steal the man's corn and potatoes and apples and oranges, not oranges but apples. I would go along with them, and I would do the stealing, and when I got, within a block of home, I knew I could not carry this stuff home. Because my daddy knew I didn't have any cornfield. He knew I didn't have any banana, no apple orchard. So I couldn't carry them home. So I would be carrying this heavy sack of watermelons or whatever they was on my back all the way to almost home, and I must've been a little retarded because I did it more than once. I did it many times. I did it many times and knew I couldn't bring it home because my daddy would've tried his best to kill me. It wasn't like it is now a days. They'd come after your life and hope some of what's left when they get through beating on your butt. You hope some of it's left.
So what did you do with the fruit? Did you give it to—
Had to give it to these other fellows that could carry it home because this was right after and right during the, right after the 1929 depression. Everybody, you made a living the best way you could. You got a living. The boys that worked had to give the money they made that three dollars a week, to their home for food and shelter and clothing. I didn't have to do that. I worked when I was eighteen years old, and I worked for the city of Raleigh on the garbage wagon. I made twelve dollars and fifty cents a week. My daddy made me put ten dollars of it in the bank. I had two dollars and fifty cents I could spend like I wanted to, which was a lot of money, which was a lot of money because a hot dog was five cents. A soda was five cents. Everything was a nickel. I had lots of money.
Even with putting most of it in the bank. You must've saved up a lot by the time you were thirty or forty.
By the time I was thirty I had found out what girls were, then I didn't
have a dime. I didn't have a dime then. It was all over. If you're going
to say when I was twenty, yes. I might say yes. But when you're talking
about thirty or forty, it was too late then.
'42.
I got married in '42. That made me twenty-two.
Then you spent it all on your wife?
Wine, women and song. Okay, you name it, I did it in that order. Wine, women and song. So that's basically what you're talking about.
So what are some of your favorite memories of your mom and dad?
Too numerous to mention. The ones that made the most impressions was that whip, that strap that he used to put on my back. He thought he was one of these people in the circus that had the lions in the cage because he didn't believe in holding you. You were running around that room any way you want and he'd pop you. If you run up under the bed, he'd reach, turn over the bed and keep going. What did they say?
The door. The door.
Yeah, oh. For example see my mother was a speech teacher. She would, my
daddy would come home in the winter time, and the door would be open and
he'd say, when y'all come in here, shut the door [pronounced do']. Mama
I haven't either.
But he had it. He also said dinner was at five o'clock. Dinner was at five o'clock. You come at five minutes past five, no dinner. He said, "I go out. I work. I make the money. I buy the food. I get somebody to prepare it for you. I can get home at five o'clock for dinner, and you all don't have a damned thing to do but be here at five o'clock. So if you're not here at five o'clock, no dinner." And that was period. That didn't mean later on, that meant no dinner. He was a stickler for that.
Did you ever show up late?
Hell yeah. I did all that. I told you I did everything wrong. I didn't do everything right. I did everything wrong. Of course you learn how, if you're hungry you don't show up late. But if you've been out stealing apples and got a bellyful of green apples, you don't particularly worry about it. Don't particularly worry about it.
Did you see your grandparents much when you were growing up?
Not much. My grandparents—my grandfather on my father's side was the first elected bishop of the diocese of North Carolina for the Episcopal Church in North Carolina. I only knew him as Grandpa. He died when I was nine years old. My grandmother moved to New York with her children, and I only saw her when I went to and from New York. Of course she lived until I was a grown man. So I did get to know her very well. I got to know her good. On my mother's side her father was just as big in the Baptist church as my daddy's was in the Episcopal church, and he lived in Hertford County, North Carolina, and his name was Calvin Scott Brown. Keep going.
What about your mother's mother?
My mother's mother was at least half Indian. Her name was Amaza what?
Drummond.
Amaza Drummond. Her name was Amaza Drummond. She was born in Virginia, and her father or either her father's brother was her, was the governor of the territory of Virginia. Her mother was probably Indian. Her mama was probably Indian. Of course everything was Governor Drummond. I don't know whether that was her father or uncle, I don't know. But they lynched him. So it doesn't make any difference. They lynched him because he wanted to side a little bit with the north during the war. Huh?
So he was the governor at the time of the Civil War?
Uh huh. [transcriptionist note: There was a William Drummond Governor of Albemarle, NC from 1663 to 1667 who was hanged because of his sympathies in Bacon's Rebellion.]
Okay.
It was the territory of Virginia. I don't think Virginia was a state. It could've been. I don't know. But he was governor. They lynched him. I know that. There was Amaza Drummond, and of course she married my grandfather who started a school in Hertford County, Walter's Training School for Young Blacks, and they changed, they finally changed the name to Sears Brown High School, and is there a high school there now, Esther?
Uh uh.
No, no high school. They've got a museum in his honor down there.
Winton.
Winton, North Carolina. W-I-N-T-O-N, North Carolina.
How often did you go to New York to see the rest of your family?
In the summer for two or three weeks and we went to camping, New York state, which was still a segregated camp, but it was under the auspices of the Episcopal Church.
What was the name of the camp?
Camp Guilford Bower. Guilford Bower. That was up in the Catskills Mountains. I didn't like it.
Why didn't you like it?
Because my boys weren't there. My boys weren't there. It was organized. I didn't like to be organized. I didn't like to be organized. I liked to do my thing which was always the wrong thing. So but my brother and sister, they enjoyed it and I was there with them. They were active part of the camp activities. I was . . .
Did you do a lot of things through the church back home?
No, I'm not a church orientated person even though I do believe in the principles of the church.
Did your dad make you go to church?
Sunday school, went to Sunday school and went to church on occasions. A lot of times, went to church a lot of times, but I never got interested in it, never got interested in it.
Trash truck, the garbage truck.
I worked on the garbage truck in the city of Raleigh when I was eighteen years old. I had a good time.
Drove his mother crazy.
Every now and then the truck that I was working on would pass my mother on the street, and I'd holler and she'd turn her back and ignore me like I wasn't even there. I had to take my clothes off when I came home in the back yard and before I could go in the house.
Tell her why you worked on the trash truck.
Why?
Um hmm.
For no reason. I wanted muscles.
And the money.
I wanted muscles. I wanted to play football and basketball and that sort of thing, and I needed muscles.
And money too.
And the money was better.
The money wasn't important because I couldn't spend but two dollars and fifty cent of it. All of my buddies were working at the drugstores and the grocery stores riding bicycles for three dollars a week, and I was making twelve-fifty. Then I took a job as a lifeguard. I worked in segregated pools and that sort of thing as a lifeguard.
Jones Lake.
Jones Lake in the eastern part of North Carolina. I was the, what, I guess I was about the second lifeguard they employed there. Fifteen dollars a week and I was moving up the ladder there. I was "moving on up" as—what was his name?—George Jefferson said.
Moving on up to the East Side.
Yeah, now where do we go from there?
How young do you think you were when you first learned about segregation?
That's an interesting question. I don't think we called it segregation.
I don't know what we called it because I lived in a black world. I had
no dealings with the white world. Even though every day I passed the
white high school
Don't put that on tape. Cut that out.
I would have.
You've got to shut up now.
Sure as hell.
[To Mrs. Delany] Come get your husband.
Now you knew he was going to do one thing wrong. You knew that.
Yes sir. But he did it. He was on the radio, and he had a good time talking about you colored folks bath tubs and toilets and all that kind of stuff. But I really didn't—
I never really experienced trouble with white folks until I got semi-grown, semi-grown, and then I had a few run-ins with them. But for example I had a car, automobile that had got damaged for some reason or another. I carried it to this automobile shop to get it repaired, and they repaired it. There was a strip of molding that was supposed to go on there, and the man kept telling me he couldn't get the strip of molding. It was a Chevrolet truck. So I took it upon myself one day and went to the Chevrolet garage and asked the people there did they have this strip of molding. They said, yes. I went back to the man and I said, "Sir Walter Chevrolet has got this strip of molding." "What are you doing questioning my, questioning me about the strip of molding." He went on and on and on and on. It got to be real nasty. So I went to his boss and his boss told me, said, "Delany," not Mr. Delany, he said, "Delany, I know he's a jackass, but he's a good mechanic, and if I fire him, I've got to hire another jackass that might not be as good. So I can't fire him." So he said, "But I know what you're talking about." Incidentally a Jew owned the automobile shop per se. But he had all these crackers working for him.
Did you ever get the molding?
I think so. I don't know. I think the man intervened and made the man get the molding and put on the truck. That was basically what that was, that kind of foolishness.
You grew up in Raleigh. Did you stay here your whole life?
No. I've been in New York for sixty years.
Okay.
I lived in New York for sixty years.
When did you move to New York?
What was it? In '42.
Then you came back.
Yeah, came back in '98.
No, you came back in between.
I came back for a short period of time, short period of time, but basically I was in New York from '42 to '98, and I was a funeral director. I buried the dead people, oooo. What a horrible thought.
I've never seen one hurt nobody. I've seen a whole lot of live people hurt somebody, but I've never seen any dead people hurt anybody.
True.
Never seen dead, they just don't hurt you. Uh uh.
Why did you move to New York?
A better way of life. Couldn't make any money here. Couldn't make any money.
At that time were you doing the lifeguarding?
No, at the time I left here, let's see. When I got married in '42, I was working for the Raleigh Bonded Warehouse for eighteen dollars a week. I took that eighteen dollars toward a train, went to Washington, DC, rented a hotel room at the Logan Hotel, went to Upper Marlboro, Maryland and got married and stayed in Washington two or three days and came back to Raleigh. I still had a part of that eighteen dollars in my pocket.
How did you meet your wife?
She was a student at Saint Agnes School of Nursing, which was for black nurses. Of course it's for black nurses or Saint Augustine's College. You know about that.
I know some about it.
Okay. So she was student there and that was the beginning of that. She was a pretty girl. Of course I didn't know any ugly girls. I didn't know any of them. I didn't play that game. I found out that you could be pretty and sweet at the same time. Didn't have to be, ugly girls could be sweet too. Don't think they can't. They can be sweet too, but if you can get sweet and pretty together, it's just that much advantage you got. So I went for both ends, pretty and sweet.
How long did you know each other before you got married?
A year or two, I guess.
We should talk a bit about your family's history with Saint Augustine.
It's basically in the book that you read [Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years by Sadie and Bessie Delany]. It's basically there. There's very little else to tell about that except that the real story to that thing is my grandfather was born a slave. He grew up in Fernandina, Florida. He came to Raleigh to go to this Normal School, which is Saint Augustine's and married and had ten children. All ten of those children got an advanced degree in their chosen profession when it was almost impossible for one child to get an education, a black child to get an education. All ten of those children got an advanced degree in their chosen profession, as doctors and lawyers and schoolteachers and musicians and what else?
Dentist.
Hmm? Dentist. And all those things. All of them got advanced degrees. Not one of them fell off the log.
That's—
That's a story. That's a story.
That's rare for anybody, black or white, even now.
That's a story. Unfortunately Sadie and Bessie's book Having Our Say
detracts from that story and they now are the story of the Delanys. You
see what I'm talking about. They now are the story of the Delanys. In
other words I used to be Dr. Delany's son. Now [people ask,] "Are you
related to the Delany sisters?" I am no longer Dr. Delany's son. "Are
you related to the Delany sisters?" I am no longer Bishop Delany's
grandson. "Are you related to the Delany sisters?" The book is deceitful
in one respect, one primary respect. That is it paints these two old
ladies as
Okay.
Give me your description of an old maid. Give me a description.
My description of an old maid?
Maiden lady.
No, old maid. An old maid. Give me your description of an old maid.
Umm. They have a job they like?
No, you're self-centered. You're self-centered. You're selfish, and you don't give a damn about nobody in the world but yourself. No that's what the old maid is. Now you can glorify it and paint it in any of those pictures you want to. These two old ladies were old maids. They were old maids. Now the book paints them as sweet little Sadie and sweet little Bessie. They were old maids. They didn't give a damn about nobody in the world but themselves.
They seem to spend a lot of time looking after other people.
Who did they look after? Who did they look after? Who did they look after?
Cut. Cut. Hush.
Okay, I remember her story about a cousin.
Yes she did. That's true.
That they gave medicine to.
They did.
Who?
Cousin Daisy, that's true.
This is because she was no threat to them. They lived in the damned mountains up there in Virginia somewhere in a log cabin. She was no threat to them.
But you don't think that they helped other people who were closer to them?
Hell no. I know they didn't. When they died with their multi-million dollars, all their nieces and nephews got $5,000, and they gave all the rest of it to Lord knows who else. No, they didn't give a damn about their offsprings. They loved their brothers. They loved their brothers. There was nothing in the world good enough for their brothers. They had six brothers. The book cites one of the, most heartbreaking things that happened to them is when this little nephew, Hubie, died.
Yeah, I remember that.
Well, Hubie was their sister's child. One of their brother's children died before Hubie died. They didn't mention a damned thing about him.
No, they didn't.
Didn't mention a damned thing about him, and he was probably the first
one after their daddy that died. Henry was the first one, and they
didn't mention a thing about him. When they died, all of their real
property they left to their sister's children, not to their brother's
children. Not to their brother's children but to
So that's why they couldn't really get along with their brother's children.
That's right. They got along speaking and all that sort of thing and out of respect for their brothers. Sure I stayed in their apartment when I went to New York, but that was all. That was all.
I can understand that. We were talking about that going on in my own family at a reunion about two weeks ago.
Yeah, but that's the way that goes. But there was nobody in the world good enough for their brothers. They worshipped the ground that their brothers walked on.
How did they treat their brothers when they were living?
My father was the oldest and he was the boss, and anything that Lemuel said you did not question. That came from the fact that when their daddy was living, he was the boss, and anything that Papa said was the gospel, truth and gospel. Once he died, my father took over. Anything that he said was gospel. When he died, then Sadie took over, and she was the next in line as far as age was concerned. She took over. She used Bessie as her mouthpiece because she wouldn't say anything. She'd just sit there and look and give Bessie the eye, and this I meant talk and this meant shut up [motions]. So that's the way they did their thing.
You agree? Sounds plausible, doesn't it?
It sounds plausible, but we don't—
You—
Shut up.
Well, I guess that's why they didn't call themselves old maids.
But the book paints them as sweet little thing, Bessie and sweet little Sadie.
They're outspoken. I guess you wouldn't say they were entirely sweet.
Sadie wasn't outspoken. Bessie was.
Yeah.
She was a rough-tongued sister. She didn't bite her tongue about saying what she wanted to say, and of course everything they said in there she said was not quite correct, not quite correct.
What things were wrong? Do you remember?
When she supposed to went out there messing with those people out there
in the streets smoking pot, and she goes out there and tells them all
"if you don't get away from here, I'm going to call the cops and, here
now, my sister is on
It was good reading.
Cut.
Now they are, let's see, the play. I have seen it maybe a half a dozen times, and the most of the play producers cannot accept the fact that even though these ladies were old, they were still proud. They did not, they want to be depicted as old women, all bent over, and the plays (most of them) they have them all bent over and shuffling a little bit. Well, they would've rather died than not stand up straight like an arrow and that sort of thing. They just didn't like to be, but most of the plays show them as 100-year-old people walking around like I do. But they objected to being bent over. In fact Sadie broke her hip because they gave her a walker that you had to lean over, and she was too damned proud to lean over the damned thing and fell and broke her hip.
You're not shuffling and bent over.
I'm bent over, pretty bent over pretty bad.
Not as much as you've seen.
See this is the way I stand now [standing up slightly bent in his shoulders].
Yeah. But it's not like in the play or anything for that.
But see this is me. Now look at this, see, I can do that. This is where I'd like to be, but I can't be here. I'm here.
But you were in a car wreck.
That's part of it.
Do you think everybody in your family has that kind of pride?
Basically. Wouldn't you think so, Esther? Basically, yeah. I have told a couple of the producers that those people didn't want to be portrayed as Bessie helping Sadie up the steps. That didn't happen. When I say, it didn't happen [and] nobody could see it if it happened because they were too proud to be that kind of thing. They were very proud old ladies now. If you want to give them very good credit, they were proud.
So did you live in their apartment as soon as you moved to New York?
Live when?
Did you live in their apartment?
Not their apartment, not their—
Oh okay.
No, I got my own. I got my own. I still haven't ever put me in that spot. No.
Were you living in Harlem?
Um hmm. Harlem USA. There's no other place. I had the privilege of
meeting and knowing just about everybody that was who's who in black
America at one time or another. I had [connections] because my Uncle
Hubert was a prominent attorney in New York, and most [members] of
"Who's Who in Black America" either knew him or were one of his clients.
When these people found it
Wow.
So I met all the WEB Dubois, the Paul Robeson, the Marion Andersons, the Cab Calloways, the Duke Ellingtons. You name them. I met them all at one time or another.
Which one did you enjoy the most?
Cab Calloway.
When they came did they tell you about all the stuff they did?
No. No. They were just there. At that time celebrities did not need or have an entourage to follow them everywhere they went. In other words, in Joe Louis's heyday you might see him walking up and down Seventh Avenue by himself any time. You might see Duke Ellington. You might see Paul Robeson. You might see them walking up and down the street and Adam Powell and all those people. They didn't have any entourage following them around, and they were only Who's Who in white America. In other words at the Cotton Club in Harlem, Cab Calloway was many times the featured entertainer. But they didn't allow black people in the congregation, in the audience at the tables. So he was big to them.
Not so much to the black audiences.
Yeah, the only time we saw them was at the Apollo Theatre. He came to Apollo Theatre you see him. But in between shows he'd be out there on 125th Street like everybody else. He wasn't all that "who's who."
Yeah, everybody uses an entourage nowadays.
Yeah, but you have to have a group to go before you and then and your group comes and another group behind you. But now they didn't have that. That goes for E. Franklin Frazier, John Hope Franklin—
E. Franklin Frazier was married to his aunt.
Oh really. Wow.
Do you know—
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
How do we have different mindsets?
Joe was the boxing machine. He didn't have it up here. He didn't have it
up here at all. He didn't have it up there at all. I used to go down to
his hotel room in the
Poor guy.
Took everything away from him. Joseph Louis Barrow.
He didn't have much when he died.
No. He was a receptionist in one of the casinos on Las Vegas. In fact Max Schnelling paid for his funeral. Frank Sinatra befriended him quite a bit.
Yeah, I wish I could prove I was related to him.
Why would you think you were related to him?
My dad, relatives on my dad's side they say were second or third cousins.
You know, You can do it. Now when I say that you can do it, by tracing
my history, which has been done pretty thoroughly, I know the story of
my great grandfather. I know the story of the birth and growth of my
grandfather. I know a lie in the book. They said Sadie and Bessie said
that he was the houseboy on the Mork
There was Mrs. Mork.
There was a Mrs. Mork that lived in Saint Mary's, Georgia. But tracing the deeds and everything in the courthouse—
There was no Mork Plantation. So we are assuming that—
No, I know now.
No, but we are assuming that maybe somebody somewhere owned a plantation in Saint Mary's, Georgia.
I know the truth.
Huh?
Mrs. Mork had some slaves, but she didn't have a plantation.
Okay.
They had slaves.
She only had house slaves, and she had maybe about three.
My grandfather crossed the Saint Mary's River into Florida when he was three years old. So he could not have been the house boy for the Morks. But the book says he was. I think the book said he was, doesn't it.
Yeah, it says he—
He was a slave. He could've been a little slave for—
But three years old he couldn't have been much slave.
No. He would've hardly done any work.
But he definitely was a slave because he was born before emancipation.
But the boat was stopped. To show you how white folks keep history, the boat was stopped when it crossed over into Georgia because they thought there were run away slaves. In checking they found out they weren't runaway slaves, but the archives in Florida listed the name of everybody that was on that damned boat including little Henry who was three years old, three years old. So if you dig deep enough, now that thing that Alex Haley told, Roots. That was a figment of his imagination that the white folks bought lock, stock and barrel. They bought it, and they made him rich. That was a figment of his imagination. See it's almost impossible.
I give him credit for going back to Africa to look, to research it though.
He went back to Africa but research from where. You've got to have a point to start from. He didn't have any point to start from.
I guess he, he found a country somehow.
Huh?
He found a country somehow.
But he didn't have any place to start from because when they took all these slaves and put them in a boat, they didn't list where they came from. They just put them in a boat, and you don't know, once they got over here, they were one, two, three, four, five, six, ten. They had no name, no pedigree, no nothing. So it was impossible to trace that. I look at Oprah says she [traced her family] through DNA. Now she says she's traced herself to be a what?
A Zulu.
Yeah, she's a Zulu or something.
Zulu?
Something on that; through DNA she traced hers back to the Zulu tribe or something like that.
Hush.
But Alex Haley's family took a mule and wagon according to Roots from Spotsylvania County, Virginia and went all the way to Tennessee as runaway slaves. Them white folks had all them hounds and dogs and horseback riding, and yet he made it all the way to Tennessee. Some things just don't happen that way.
It's possible.
Don't happen that way.
Just go to the facts.
They were paying white folks to catch runaway slaves. They were paying to catch runaway slaves.
Well, let's talk some more about your life in New York.
Undertaker, funeral director.
How did you get that job?
How did I get that job? After my wife and I separated and I went to New
York, and my uncle was a funeral director and I passed his place one
day. He was out sweeping the sidewalk, and we were talking, and he asked
me what I was doing, which was nothing, and he suggested that I go to
school and learn the business. I did it. I did it. One thing lead to
another and to another and another and another, and
Wow. But you have had vacations.
Yeah, except I paid for [them] myself. But anytime I saw an opportunity to work for myself I took it. I took it. So consequently I never stayed on a job long enough to get a paid vacation because I was always looking because I didn't like bosses. I didn't like bosses so I tried to wiggle myself out of there. Every time I saw a little crack somewhere I'd shoot through it and then go for myself. See I've had two or three grocery stores, poolroom, dry cleaning, soda fountains, made false teeth. What else in the hell have I done like that?
That's a big variety.
Yeah, yeah.
You got your fingers cut off.
How did that happen?
Working in a machine shop, working in a machine shop. Interesting. When my finger got cut off, the boss came and looked at them, first thing he did was walk over to the time clock and punch my time out. They took a piece of cloth and wrapped it around my finger, and I had to walk a mile and a half to the doctor's office. The doctor put me on the table. The doctor put me on the table in his office and sewed this thing up and gave me some kind of pills, I don't know what it was, and five cents, and I caught the subway and went home. Caught the subway and went home.
That was in the 1940s.
I can't imagine any pain medicine would be enough.
And never, did you get a dime?
I got $5000. That's ninety percent loss of the right hand. I got that from the compensation. It took me three years to get that because the compensation board said, if we give you the lump sum, you'll go out and buy a car and then come back and want us to support you. So I had to fight hard to refuse their little twenty dollars a week that they were going to give me to live on. I refused that. I finally got over and took the five thousand dollars and built a building with the $5,000 and built a building with the $5,000.
Was that for a business?
Huh?
Was the building for a business?
Yes, I went in the pool room business then. Went into the pool room business then. That's when I moved back to Raleigh for two or three years. That's when I moved back to Raleigh from New York for two or three years. But I just had been in New York. My daddy wanted to send me somewhere to learn how to be left handed, but I rejected that. I rejected that. I learned how to use this to the best I needed. I don't need it. I'm never going to do any typing.
So you still write with your right hand?
Uh huh. What little writing I do, I don't do much writing. I'm borderline palsy and not serious, but I don't do, I do very little writing. You didn't know that. That's something you didn't know. But that's the truth.
So what did you do for fun while you were in New York?
What did I do? Went to all the shows. Went to all the dances. Went to all the bars. Went to all the, what else? Everything, they said you go to, I went to.
Did you feel any difference being out of the segregated South?
Segregated in New York too. It was segregated in New York too. I was, here again, back in Black New York, Harlem. I wasn't in white New York. I was in black. The only difference was that you accumulated job friends. In Raleigh, you accumulated friends. In New York, you accumulated job friends. In other words you worked together. You sat down and ate lunch together. When five o'clock came to get off work, you went your way and they went their way. East is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet. That started again the next day. But if you wanted to say you were comfortable around the white boys that worked on the job and the Jews that worked on the job, okay. For that eight hours that you were there, you were comfortable around them. They always had the better positions, but my daddy said, when you agree to take the job here for "ABC" number of dollars, you ain't got a damned thing to do with this man over here makes. If you aren't satisfied with the salary they offer you, don't take the job. You don't have anything to do with what this man makes. But I didn't, I didn't pay that too much attention. I didn't pay that too much attention.
What were your brother and your sister doing at this time?
They were in education. They were in education.
Were they at Saint Aug's too?
No, they were in the various Sunday school systems. See my sister was, she taught at Shaw for a while. Then she went to St. Louis. She taught there for a while. Then she went to Detroit and she taught there for a while. Then she was the head knocker for the AKA sorority in Chicago. She was the head knocker for the Lynks office in Washington, and she came here and subsequently passed away. My brother was the head of Model Cities in Asheville, North Carolina, and when he retired, he came here. He eventually passed away.
Were any of you involved in the NAACP?
I have a sad tale to tell.
Okay.
My brother was a life member. My sister was a life member. My mama was a
life member. I assume my daddy was. I was not. I was a funeral director
in New York City when Roy Wilkins died. Roy Wilkins at the time was
probably the best known black civil rights leader in the United States.
They carried him to the white folks to be buried. They carried him to
the white folks to be buried as many funeral directors as there were in
New York. I carried a picket line to the funeral. I carried a picket
line to the funeral. I got into discussions with the NAACP, and because
of their power and that sort of thing, they outweighed me right quick.
For example, one of the things they told me is that it was Mrs.
Wilkins's job [to] request that he go to Walter B. Cooke's funeral home.
I knew that to be a lie; I don't know it to be a lie, but she was old.
She didn't know a damned thing about a funeral home in New York City. So
the powers to be went to her and said, "Ms. Wilkins, we'll take care of
everything," which they did like this jackass—and I'm not talking about
the boy because he's dead.
He went to a white one.
Hell, yes. That thing B.I.G Biggs that got killed.
Notorious B.I.G.
They all got to go to the white man. All the big niggers got to go to the white folks to be buried. As a result—
Stop using that word.
Well, that's the truth. As a result I have and when I was in the funeral
business, I did bury some people that were indirectly close to the
NAACP. I never got any flowers for their funerals from a black florist.
The NAACP always sent flowers from the white florists to their little
ones funerals. So I have never been a NAACP lover.
You're bad to the bone.
You see that's—Martin Luther King said there was certain advantages to longevity. He didn't say too damned much about disadvantages of longevity. Babies, these children and old folks can say any damned thing they want to, and people either put it on their youth or their age. So I don't, I'm enjoying it. I just say anything I want. I don't care. You're either too young to understand or he's too damned old, don't pay him any mind. So that's the way that goes.
My mom likes to take that privilege now that she's over fifty.
She's a baby. Your mama's a little baby. Your mama's a little baby.
Still smokes cigarettes.
And I still smoke cigarettes and drink whiskey and chase young girls. I don't chase any old women now because they're slow and I might accidentally catch one of them, and what am I going to do after I catch them. The young ones are fast. I can't, don't have any chance to catch them. I chase them all over the place. Don't got any chance to catch them. That's it. I play cards. I go to Atlantic City, and I play poker. I play slot machines and I play whatever they've got in the Atlantic City. I win my money and lose their money. Lose my money and win their money.
You stay busy.
I've got a garden out the back. I've got some tomatoes and eggplants, string beans and okra and cucumbers and peppers and stuff in my garden.
Did you learn that from your dad?
Yeah, partly. Partly. And just something I decided to do besides look at this thing all day [meaning TV]. I'm getting a little too old for that now. I can't get down. You've got to get down to the dirt to till the soil. You can't stand up straight and do this.
Who helps you with the gardening now?
My wife. In fact I help her now.
Go on.
I help her.
So you were upset with the NAACP because they weren't catering to black businesses especially the funeral business.
That just happens to be one example, but the florist business as I say, they had their office downtown Manhattan. They never called a black florist and say, look so and so is dead. We want to send a bouquet of flowers to so and so. They didn't call the black florist. They called a white florist. All that kind of [foolishness], and yet you're calling yourself a leader in civil rights and black growth. I don't like that. That's two-faced to me. I don't like that.
I never knew that.
That's exactly what they did. And, as I say, Roy Wilkins he was a nice fellow. I know him personally, and I talked to him several times, not about civil rights, just personal friends. But and so I'm not condemning him because he did not select the funeral home he went to. Their excuses were stupid. "Well, we find it convenient to have the funeral in midtown Manhattan." Now you're going to have the man come all the way from California to New York to a funeral and can't go another hundred blocks to a Harlem funeral. That was one of their excuses. The vice president came from Washington all the way to New York to the funeral, but he can't come another hundred blocks to Harlem to a church to a funeral. That's the kind of stupid stuff that they gave me. I told them it was stupid.
Did any other people complain too?
I had my picket line there, and Jesse Jackson is the only one that broke
ranks and came over there and congratulated us and said he was on our
side, gave me his name, address and everything in Chicago and said get
in touch with
Hush.
Well, that's what they said. Y'all keep talking about—I call a spade a spade. I'm not calling it a shovel. It's a spade. Yeah. But—
At least he made the effort to come say something.
Yeah, at the funeral when they were coming out of the funeral. See, now here's the—the white funeral home and the chauffeurs were the pallbearers for the funeral.
White chauffeurs.
The number one, and the white chauffeurs were limousine drivers. That's their number one black civil rights leader.
It was completely catered by white businesses.
The same thing happened the other day with Luther Vandross. As many white, and believe me all the funeral directors in New York, white and black, go to the same school. They all have to pass the same exams. There are at least a half a dozen funeral homes, black funeral homes in New York that are top rate, first class funeral homes. See, so the white folks aren't the only ones that have top-flight funeral homes. If that's what you're talking about. Now you've got a lot of store front kind of funeral homes, but the top flight ones, they've got a half a dozen top flight funeral homes that could've handled big Luther Vandross and his mother too. That's, those were the things that ticked me off about your people.
Yeah, I can understand why.
See now when I say your people, see that?
I just, I never did much of anything with the NAACP. I never got involved in college.
You see now when I was a kid in elementary school, the teachers were selling twenty-five cents memberships in the NAACP, and you were almost an outcast if you didn't have one of those twenty-five cent cards in your pocket. See. They were doing a good job. But after they changed it from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to National Association for the Advancement of Certain People. It just kind of lost favor. Now they're in big trouble now. They're in big troubles now.
Yeah.
They're in big troubles now.
Political trouble too.
They're in big political trouble. But the black church and the NAACP, you've got to give them credit for our existence because without them, we wouldn't have made it. The black church—
What do you mean?
The NAACP and the organizations like that.
I agree.
We wouldn't have made it.
Did you get involved in the movement, in the '50s and '60s?
Oh yeah.
What kind of stuff did you do?
You'll have to cut this thing off now. You'll have to—
Okay.
They found one and they were getting ready to build a building. They
estimate that there were about 2000 people buried in this thing, right
in the legal system in New York, right down Wall Street and all down in
there. I got involved in that, and then I didn't know it but the people
that I was involved with were trying to make money out of, they were
trying to make money. I didn't know this. See because mine was strictly
volunteer, and they didn't have enough money to pay me to volunteer to
do anything. When they found out that I didn't join their team, they
dumped me. They dumped me, but I had the privilege of going down and
they dug out and seeing all these bodies and everything, and I took some
of the bodies up to—and that's what made them dump me. I took a
wagonload of bones and stuff up to Lehman College in New York and they
told me when I left there that some black Ph.D. at Lehman College would
meet me there and we would be assured that the bodies were stored
properly and respectfully. So I said okay. When I got there, sure enough
this black Ph.D. came and looked in the window of my car, and I saw him
no more. I saw him no more. Well, they carried the bones in the building
and everything, but I was not satisfied with the way they did it. I
wrote my group a letter, and told them just what the hell I thought of
it. I never heard another word from them since then. They never
contacted me one more time since then. The bones finally wound up at
Howard University, and now they are talking about building a monument
down at the black cemetery site, but these were all slaves in New York.
They were buried in there. They could see where the bones were crushed
when
So what did you think when you found out that schools were being desegregated?
Desegregation is a bad word because . . . Why? We had black businesses. We don't have them now. We don't have them now. We don't have them now. We had black hotels, black restaurants, black everything, barber shops, nightclubs. We don't have anything. We don't have that now and everything is owned by the white folks; their money made it. They might call it black, but it's owned, if you check the bottom of it, you'll find out the white man owns it. We don't have that now.
What would you call it instead of desegregation?
I don't have any words for it. I just wish that desegregation does not
mean I give up mine to move to you. Hell, you can give up some of yours
and move to me. All mine isn't bad and all yours is not good. This is
what desegregation is. We give up our black schools. We give up our
black teachers. Y'all take them out there to your white schools. Our
good black teachers, you take them out to
Yeah, I've heard a lot about that.
They were assigned to white schools. That was it. Eventually the black schools closed up. When I say closed up, they, Lucille Hunter School over here where I went to school, the elementary school is still there. But it's no longer a black school. The name was Lucille Hunter School. It's now Hunter School. They have dropped the name Lucille and Lucille Hunter was a black lady. She was a black lady.
They don't want to remember her.
The only one that I know that they kept the name on is Mary Phillips.
It might be Phillips now.
It isn't Mary Phillips.
I don't know. I think it's just Phillips.
You think it's just Phillips. Mary E. Phillips, I think it's still Mary E. Phillips. I think it's Mary E. Phillips. Cosby Garfield, is that still a school?
No. No.
It isn't any Cosby Garfield now?
Uh uh.
See that was a black school.
Which one, what was the name of that one again?
Cosby Garfield. But Washington High School, which was a black high school, no longer exists. Of course Needham Broughton, which was a white high school, no longer exists either. I don't know whether it's Needham Broughton or Washington, I don't know. One of them, but anyway. One of them doesn't exist. One of them doesn't exist. Keep going.
Well, now that you're older, how often do you see your extended family?
Not too often. You see I let's put it this way. I have one, two, three, four, I've got four first cousins that I can say that we know each other. I have other first cousins that I wouldn't know them from [anyone]; I've never seen them. I'm that much older. These that I'm talking about that I know I'm still much older than they are. So we don't do too much of that. I got some nieces and nephews and their relationships are plus and minus to some degree.
Do you have reunions for the family?
No. My granddaughter who recently graduated from UNC in Charlotte is playing with that idea. She's playing with that idea. Whether she's going to follow through on it or not, I don't know. She's got too many irons in the fire now. She's talking about going back to school and she's got a job. She's belonged to the AKA since she's belonged to the Lynks, and I don't know what all that child has done. She's a busy young lady.
She sounds very busy.
My mother was the first president of the NAACP chapter in Raleigh. She was the first president of the NAACP chapter in Raleigh.
Do you keep up with what the NAACP does now?
I know they're looking for a new president. In fact I dare think they just named him, and I don't know what he was. I know that [Kweisi] Mfume was in trouble for favoritism while he was in office. I take that with a grain of salt. It doesn't make me any difference. I think that's what you're supposed to do with positions. See that's the problem I've had, not serious problem, but with black mayors and black governors. They all want to be the mayor of the city of which they are in. Mayor Koch for example who was in New York was a Jew. He let the world know he was a Jew. He was always doing something for Israel and that sort of thing. The black mayors are not doing anything for the Negro College Fund. They're not doing anything for the NAACP. They are mayors of the city. I'm the mayor of the whole town.
They don't have a broader focus though.
Huh? They're still black; so let's do something for the black folk. Let's do something for the black folk. The white folks do something for the white folks. They do something for theirs. The Italians, they get in office, they look out for the Italians. The blacks, oh no. "Got to have a qualified man." I don't care what color he is or anything else like that. He's got to but the white man says, number one he's got to be Italian. If I'm Italian mayor, my assistant's got to be Italian. Now you might have a brown brother or a white brother over there that's better equipped, but he's not Italian. So that Italian plays a part. The black man says, "No. The most qualified person, black, white, blue or green." He always turns out to be white.
Well, I'll just ask you one more question. Can you think of any values that you learned from all of your family members when you were younger that you would like the younger members of the family now to know?
Let me see if I can think. A little poem about height of great men. "Reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they while their companions slept were toiling homeward through the night."
The value of hard work.
Um hmm. That make sense?
Um hmm.
These basketball players, they reach their height, but it's not kept. Reached and kept. You're going to be a Ph.D.
No. You aren't going to get rich being a Ph.D. You're going to get rich doing what you can do with your Ph.D. Getting your Ph.D. doesn't mean anything. It's what you do, it just opened the door for you. The Ph.D. opens the door for you. Once the door gets opened, you've got to go through it. That's what it does. What you do with it after you get in the door is going to be another story. When I get my hundredth birthday and pick up the paper and see where you are running for, where you've been elected supreme court justice of the United States. I can say, I know her. She used to come interview me.
That would be nice.
See, that's what that's all about. But the Ph.D. will get you in the door. It's what you do with it after you get in the door is your business.
Well, you and your family members sure said a lot for doing things with your education.
Oh yeah. They've done wonderful things with it. As I say, I'm still, I'm still in favor of Sadie and Bessie's book. I don't condemn that, but it took away the real story. The real story is this little slave boy and the success that he and his offsprings had. That is a remarkable story. That's a remarkable story and that's his picture thing [pointing to a shelf of photographs]. That's, this one on this end is my father. That's his parents next to him. The lady on the other end is my mother. Those are her parents.
That's nice. We don't have any pictures that old in my family.
You'll have to start some.
If you don't start it, they're never going to have any.
Oh we've got some. If the Hills have anything, we've got photos. Just not so many of my grandparents and great grandparents.
See, I've got some pictures of me when I had hair. Believe it. I used to have hair.
I'm sure you did.
No kidding. I used to—I have a picture of me with one sock up and one sock down and sneakers smelling like somebody did something else on them. But I've got those pictures too.
Well, thank you very much.
Well, after, I would like to show you ten minutes of a film I have. [The film was a silent home video from the 1930s showing Lemuel Delany, his father, grandfather, Aunts Sadie and Bessie, Cab Calloway, and various St. Augustine's students on campus, at his family home, and at a Raleigh swimming pool.]
Okay.
If my wife will set it up. Will you set it up for me?
Of course.
Do you think she could set it up?
If it will keep you quiet.
You said a mouthful there.
Now they don't want to tell the truth. They say oh hell, he's old. He don't know what he's talking. He ought to keep his mouth shut.
END OF INTERVIEW