Gladys Allen & Jean McCrory

Interviewee: Gladys Allen & Jean McCrory
Interviewer: Erin York
Date: October 26, 2017
Accession# EDLP 001
Length of Recording (min/sec): 54:43

 

Sound Recording

 

Summary 

Gladys Allen was born in Ridgeway, South Carolina, where she and her four siblings grew up on their grandparents’ farm. She attended elementary school in Ridgeway, Fairfield High School in Winnsboro, and Benedict College in Columbia.

Jean A. McCrory was born in Winnsboro, South Carolina, where she and her seven siblings grew up on their family’s farm. She attended elementary school in a community school, and Fairfield High School in Winnsboro. After graduation she returned to Fairfield County, where she was the first African-American employee of the Bank of Fairfield, in Winnsboro.

This oral history interview with Gladys Allen and Jean A. McCrory on October 26, 2017 includes a discussion of growing up in Fairfield County, South Carolina, childhood memories, grandparents, farming, education, polio, Maude Ross, high school and college, race relations past and present, the Ku Klux Klan, the Orangeburg Massacre, racism, voting, and what they would like to see come out of the interview.

 

Transcript

Erin York: Hello, my name is Erin York. We are conducting this interview as a part of a class project at the University of South Carolina. The date is October 26, 2017. And I am here with two interviewees. If you could both please state your full name.

Jean A. McCrory: My name is Jean Armstrong McCrory.

Gladys Allen: And my name is Gladys Allen.

EY: And could you please both tell me where you were born?

JM: I was born in Fairfield County, Winnsboro, South Carolina.

GA: And I was born in Ridgeway, South Carolina. Fairfield County as well.

EY: And could you tell me a little bit about your families?

JM: I come from a family of eight. I have two sisters and five brothers.

GA: And I have five–it’s a total of five of us, three girls and two boys.

EY: And what about your parents, what did your parents do?

JM: My father always, my father–from what I was told before I was born, he worked for a sharecropper and he left there and went into the Navy. And I believe that was around…well my dad was born in 1918, so maybe… in the late thirties he went into the Navy, and he stayed in the Navy two years. When he came out, he was able to purchase his own land and he bought forty acres of land and from then on he was, I guess you would say, an entrepreneur; he had his own business. He ran a pulpwood business and he also farmed.

GA: Okay, and my mother was born and raised in Ridgeway. She married my father and they moved to–from Winston-Salem to New York, my father was in the military. And I think, you know, having a close-knit family–when my mom got pregnant she couldn’t think of anybody but her momma, so she wanted to come home. (laughter) And she came back to Ridgeway, and moved back in with my grandparents, and they were landowners and my grandfather was a farmer. So my mom stayed–she just stayed there and eventually she and my father got a divorce because– I don’t know how it was then, but she stayed with my grandmother and my grandfather, and he had a large farm but they had fourteen children. So they had aplenty help on the farm (laughter). And that’s about it. She–years later she met and remarried somebody else, and so that’s where the four others came from.

EY: And then what do you remember about your grandparents, great grandparents, your lineage?

JM: Now my father’s side, my father had thirteen sisters and brothers, and my grandparents lived in the same community. And my grandfather was a farmer also, my grandmother did not work. Now on my mother’s side, her father was a sharecropper, and her mother just did housework on the farms where they lived. And my mother only had two brothers and one sister. And mostly that’s what their lives consisted of, just sharecropping and then on my father’s side my grandfather was a farmer.

GA: Okay, the way I remember my grandfather and my grandmother: my grandmother died when she was seventy-four years old–my junior year in college. But my grandfather died, I think I was four years old, but I can remember my cousins and I, we used to go sit on the front porch when he would come home from the field. And then sometimes on a Saturday he’d be sitting on the front porch, on the steps just looking, and always wondered, ‘granddaddy, what you looking at’, and, but he would spend time with us. But he–out of the fourteen children, he let his boys go off to work, but he always said that–this is what my mother and my grandmother told me–that he did not let his daughters work in nobody’s house. He said because he just didn’t trust people. And he had daughters to raise and he wasn’t trying to, you know, have nothing happen to them. So he–they took care of them, and when they left his house and got married they could work where they wanted to because they were grown. But he did, he had–he bought one hundred acres of land, and it came about, this lady was working for this family, and granddaddy had been talking about the land. And what was, from what they said it was kind of like they were going to undermine him and get it. So soon as her work was over and she was headed home, she came back, stopped by the house and told my grandmomma and granddaddy. So my granddaddy got up early that next morning and he went and made provisions to buy the land, and he did and he always–my mother always said, and my grandmother said–my granddaddy’s motto was, let me see, how could I say it–I don’t want to mess it up…” I’ll give you my hand, and keep my word.” So I said–there are times I try to live up to it but it’s impossible, that was granddaddy’s saying. You shake his hand on something, that’s a deal. And he’s going to keep his word, so he said, “I give you my hand, and I keep my word.” But they were, they were pretty nice people and they—I loved them; all the children loved them–but like I said they had fourteen children. And three of them kind of stayed in Ridgeway, and the rest of them moved away and everything, and then…but that’s that.

EY: Well, can you talk about some of your favorite memories from childhood?

JM: Some of my favorite memories were–they weren’t favorite back then, but my dad, I remember him as always being…he was not afraid to try things. So like we were–always kept a car, when TVs came out he wanted one, you know, because we – but you had to work on the farm. (laughter) You understand: you just didn’t come home and sit down. When you came home you had a job to do. Now, my mother did not work when we were young, but we always had something we had to do. It wasn’t any coming–you came home, you changed your clothes, and you got to work. And my dad–I know you don’t know what a pulpwood business is–but my brothers, from the time that they were, I’d say about eight years old, they were out there in, that’s heavy work working with my dad. Now my brother, my third brother–there are three boys older than me–now my third brother, he was kind of like the–over the farming, and what we needed to do to keep the farm going in the afternoon: that was my brother Freddie. He [her father] would tell my brother what he needed for us to get done that day, and my brother Freddie would try to make sure that we got that done. So I had three brothers ahead of me, I was the oldest girl, then it was another girl that would never do her share. (laughter)

GA: Every family got one.

(laughter)

JM: And my brother would argue with her, and threaten her, and threaten to tell Daddy, or threaten to tell Momma, but she just was not a farmer. She would not do it. And then our Sunday ritual was, we always went to church and after dinner on Sunday afternoon we always, every Sunday, went to see my grandparents. We spent the rest of the afternoon there until it got dark, then he would load all of us up and we went home.

GA: Wow. I’m kind of like Jean, some of the things I look back over now and I wouldn’t trade it for anything, not for anything. I–my grandmother always said I always wanted to do stuff, do stuff. And I have a sister, like your sister (laughter)–that she just didn’t do stuff. She just did not do it. Chris worked, and she and I the oldest, so we call our momma Chris. And the rest of them called her ‘mom’ and everything, but I used to call my grandmomma ‘Momma’. And,–but we’d get up, you got to get wood, you have to cut the wood to, you know, get the fire. When I got big enough–and they used to call me Paul Bunyan because (laughter) I’d go down in the woods and cut down a tree—yes, m’am–and bring it back on my shoulders because we had to have firewood. Or we had to have stove wood to cook the food and to heat. So we had to have that, and I did it. And if somebody would–if Uncle Ulysses, or my grandmomma’s brothers would–one of them–would come and cut some wood up, we would say, or grandmamma said, “Gladys, you and Mary Frances go out there . . .” you know what I’m talking about, “. . . go out there and get the wood in.” Alright, you got stove wood in one pile, you got firewood in another. I said, “Well, Mary Frances,” I always said, “Well, I’m gonna get the heaviest,” you know, “I’ll get the firewood.”  “I ain’t getting none,” (laughter) that’s what she said. So I pick up the firewood, and I got an arm of firewood, and I’m going in the house, but surely I’m going and telling. “You put that down because that’s what I’m gonna get.” (laughter) We went like that back and forth for a minute, and finally I just went in the house and told it, and Grandmomma came out there, she said, “Now y’all get that wood, and get it in here now.”

But that and milking the cows, I used to have milk the cow before I go to school in the morning. And if the bus came early and–or if a car passed and I’m–I have already milked the cow, gone to the barn and gotten the cow out, and tie her up in the pasture, and then got to wash her down and then milk her. So I got to take her up in the field across the road, up the road to tie her out so she could eat during the day. And if a car or something come I would duck down, way down, but I did that and then had to come back home. And that was before we had electricity, and I had to put water, well Grandmomma would have me some water on the heater, and then I’d go in there and wash up and get ready, and run down to the road and catch the bus; if the bus hadn’t gone already. But milking the cow is what I really wanted to do when she said, “No Gladys, you can’t do that.” I said, “Grandmomma, but I can.” But see, Aunt Gussie was milking the cow, she or my momma, but I wanted to learn how to do it. I learned how to do it, so therefore that became my job.

Cutting the firewood, you know, after we got older and everything, and then when my mom–my grandmomma died and everything, you know–but before grandmomma died, we would have to go out in the, you know, get the wood, and Lafayette would go with me, Kenny was too young. And we would go in the woods and find a tree that was half dead, and then finish putting it down, if we could, and if not, you had to cut a green tree and bring it up the hill, and when you get it all up there, and if somebody bring you a load of wood, you got to bust it up. That’s why they called me Paul Bunyan. (laughter)

JM: And you really could do it all.

GA:  I could. I milked the cow, cut the wood, and it was–but you know what, like I said, then you thought it was rough and hard at times, but if that’s all you knew, you know, that’s what you knew, and that’s what you did. But like Jean, you know, you come in from school, change them clothes, you do that outside work that you had to get done. Then you came in the house and you ate, and you did homework by lamplight. Because we didn’t have electricity; so we had a kerosene lamp on the kitchen table, and you did your homework. And at a certain time, that light went out, you better have that homework done. Yeah, it had to be done; wasn’t no such thing as staying up till twelve and one o’clock at night doing homework. No, ma’am, we had a particular time to be in the bed, homework done, kitchen cleaned up–that’s right–and you had to heat the water to wash the dishes. But you know, like I said I would not change a thing. I really wouldn’t; it just–I think made me appreciate, just appreciate so much more.

And my mom would sew and, because she was working at the state and I found one of her check stubs. They were getting paid every two weeks….Chris’ check stubs– and I kept it—twelve dollars and something…

JM: …for two weeks…

GA: For two weeks. Twelve dollars and something.

JM: My God.

GA: And I went back, and found the receipt that my granddaddy had, when he bought something from Bob Thomas,  there in Ridgeway? And it was like four dollars and something that he would pay, you know, every week, or every two weeks or however–and I’m thinking, ‘Granddaddy paid that when Chris…because I was born forty-six, and in the late, very late forties or early fifties, that’s all she was making, that twelve dollars and something. I said, ‘look it here…’ But you know what? We grew a lot of our food. Yeah, we had chickens, and cows, and ducks, and stuff, and we set rabbit boxes for the rabbits and the squirrels. (laughter)

JM: That is great.

GA: It is; I wouldn’t trade it. I said I wouldn’t want to go back, but if I had to I know how to do it. (laughter)

EY: Yeah. So where did you first go to school?

JM: I was just sitting here thinking, I can give you an overview of my life. As Gladys was, I was born July 1946, and in those times we started school at six years old. Well, you were the exception. But anyway, in my community where we were, we did not have a centralized school where a whole lot of kids went. It was a community school. My oldest brother, he was born in 1940; when he started school, he went to where I went to church. They had a little room in the church where people taught them. Then by the time I was old enough to go to school, they had a building about three miles from where I lived and all the grades were taught in that building. First through the…I think it might’ve been ninth or tenth grade, because right after that my brother started coming to school here. So from the time I started school until I finished third grade I walked to school, three miles one way.

And I was saying when I look at a six year old today it almost seems impossible that we did that. And that was every day, and even in the rain, because my momma didn’t drive, and whatever we had my dad was using it to work. So we had to walk no matter what the weather was, or stay home. But I was telling Chasity when we were going to visit the other person, all of my brothers were older than me, and I was the first girl, and I can remember running–you know, they would leave me and I can remember, I vaguely remember running, trying to keep up, and they would run from me and I would be trying to keep up. And I told her, I remember one day I was running, running, running, and I fell in the middle of the highway and took the whole top off of my knee and it’s still scarred today.

But you know, we loved those times. And I was also telling Chasity when you look back from where you are now and you think, ‘how in the world did I do that at such a young age!’, but we didn’t think anything of it. And one thing my parents said, that all of us were going to get an education. So my mom was–she had already made up in her mind what they were going to do and they really stuck by that. We worked hard, my brothers worked from when they were tall enough to understand, my daddy had them working–and I mean real work. We girls, like I said, I had to do farming, I had to chop cotton, hoe cotton, hoe gardens. I didn’t know how to milk the cow but I tried. (laughter) I tried, but I had enough brothers to do that because when we’d be out there looking, my brothers used to take the cows and put the milk–skeet the milk all over. (laughter) And you’d get a good bucket of milk, but the cow’d kick it out. So we been through all of that. Now they did not treat me like a girl, they roughed us up, they really roughed us up. But like I said,I had that sister that was coming up right behind me, she was so rebellious they didn’t even bother with her, they say, “Oh you can’t do anything with her.” They left her alone. (laughter)

But anyway, after I finished third grade–by the time I finished third grade, they had built the central school–elementary school where all the kids from all of the communities around within a certain radius of this area–we were finally allowed to be bused. I think it might’ve been ’53 maybe that I started to school. There’s an elementary school down the street from here, going to elementary. I started there in the fourth grade. I went there through the sixth, and I came to the school up here in seventh grade. But through all of it, the more you think about those teachers having to teach first through fifth grade all by themselves, you had one teacher. It was two teachers that I remember–it was Gertrude Brown and Ruby Manning. And Ms. Manning had the sixth or either the seventh through the–well it was the eleventh grade. And how they did it I have no idea because it was a lot of kids–

GA: A lot of kids.

JM: –in our community. We were walking into that little two-room school. But they were good at what they did. They had control, because I don’t remember–and back then I don’t think anybody heard the word ‘bullying’ out or anything like that (laughter), you know. But it was all just–and even I remember we had–I don’t know if they called it PTO back then–but we had something at school at night. I remember we walked to school that morning, walked back home, and then momma and everybody else that was old enough to walk, we walked back again that night for whatever was going on that night, and then walked back home.

But by that time my oldest brother, I think when they first gave them the opportunity to come to school down here from, we called them the ‘country schools’, my momma made sure that my oldest brother started. But some of the other people that were in the class with him in the country school, their parents didn’t allow them to come, because you more or less had to kind of find your own way. But in 1958, I believe is when the students what started driving buses, and my oldest brother was a bus driver. He was a bus driver. And after that all of my brothers, every one of my brothers drove a bus when they were in school, um-hum, um-hum. And my baby sister drove a bus. Um-hum. She drove a bus.

So when I was in the ninth grade I contracted polio in 1960. I was entering my ninth grade, yeah. I remember it like it was yesterday, and I had been feeling bad for a little while, but I thought I was taking a cold, you know, I was just kind of weak, and hurting, and all. And I came to school that morning–we had just started school, it was in September–and I got off the bus and I came to try to come up the steps to get into the school, l and I just went to my knees. And I remember Ms. Jackson Brown came to me and she said, “It’s not anything wrong with you is it?” You know.

GA: Yeah, you know what they was talking about when they asked you that.

JM: Um-hum. And I said, “No, I don’t know what’s wrong.” But after that I was not able to walk for a whole year, for a whole year. So my parents took me to doctor after doctor after doctor. I went to the Cripple Children’s Clinic in Columbia that whole time. I don’t know if you know Lonzelle Washington?–he’s married to Henrietta’s sister–but he had polio the same year I had it, and he and I would be at the Cripple Children’s Clinic in Columbia. I guess we must’ve gone once a month and all. But I had these big old iron braces on my legs, and I really credit me being able to walk again to my mom, because they gave her exercises that I need to do three times a day, and my momma, she took–I can remember laying in the bed, and her taking my legs and moving them back and forth, back and forth, across, back and forth, back and forth. And that went on forever.

GA: Long time, uh-huh.

JM: Because when I was finally able to come back to school that next year, I was still walking really, really slow, I had to have help, and one, Juanita Gaither and…Edith Johnson, they were like my shadows; every move that I had to make, they were right there. Because they didn’t have handicap ramps, they had to help me to every class. If I had to go to the restroom or anything they were right there, they were right there. And nobody had ever heard of home schooling but I do know that Ms. Brown, Ms. Bonner, and I can’t–another teacher–they would rotate and come to our house, bring lessons for me to do. And that way I was able to keep up with my class.

So in 1964 I graduated. On September the tenth of that year, the same year that I was supposed to be leaving to go to Bennett College in Greensboro, I got married. (laughter) I eloped. So now my husband and I have been married fifty-three years. So during that time, I guess it would have to be in 1972, I got a call from Ms. Maude Ross. I was married and I had two children and she said, “Jean McCrory?” I said, “Yes?” “This is Maude Ross.” And, “I’ve been talking to some of the bankers in Winnsboro. I think it’s time for a black person to be in the banks, and I’m recommending you. And I don’t want you to let me down. On Monday morning I need you to be at the Bank of Fairfield, you ask for I. Earl Woodruff, he’s the president. He’s gonna talk to you.” So that Monday morning I was up there and Mr. Woodruff talked to me and he said, “I’m gonna offer you a job. We’re gonna do the right thing.” Is what he said. He said, “We are doing the right thing.” So I guess I must’ve started within the next week or so, and I was in there with a group of little old white ladies, some of them were old enough to be my grandmother, and two of them might’ve been close to my age. But they were wonderful to me, they grew to be just like my mother, just like mother, and when they found out that I could do the work and a lot of it, do it much better than they could, they were very good to me. They were very good. And on that very job the little lady that was my supervisor, when I first–she taught me everything that I knew and she died about ten years ago, and we were still friends. I was still going to see her and she was calling me. And sooner or later I was the one that took her job. And a lot of my workers–like Janie that’s standing out there–Janie, Fannie, Cheryl, Carolyn Crumpton… Mr. Woodruff would always say, “Jean, you got anybody else I can use?” (laughter) And of course I had lots of girls because there were a lot of them out there that were just as capable, or more capable than I was, so. That was the breakthrough for me, and that banking, it educated my children, helped me and my husband to build our first house, and you know, and when I look back on those things, I can’t really say that . . . now, I had some people that when they came in and they saw a black person and knew they were in charge, they didn’t want to deal with you but, you know.

GA: That’s life.

JM: You learn real quick when you work with the public it’s not about you. You still have to deal with the people. And when they see that you can handle it and pretty soon, you know, they realize they don’t have that challenge that they like to have. So you know, it was all good for me. And when I see people now and they always say, “Don’t you miss banking?” I say, “Well you know, when it’s time to retire it’s time to retire.” I believe in doing my part and moving on out of the way, let the next generation have that chance. So, and everything that has happened to me I credit–I give the credit to good teachers, good parents, because they taught us good moral values. And when we were in school we learned the basics. If you learn the basics you can learn anything. And it can take you anywhere in life, so I’ve dealt with math, everything else, I learned it all in high school, I learned it all in high school. All you have to do is want to do it. And have a chance and get the chance, so that’s really my story. That’s really my story. So you know, and when we were in high school we have made friends, lifetime friends. We’ve come together on this project, and done it and it’s been no–nothing, no fall outs, no, I’m not going back up there: we’re still dealing with the same group that we grew up with, and it’s hundreds of us, hundreds of us. So, but even through the Civil Rights Era our teachers taught us how to deal with problems like that, so it’s, like they say, this might be a little too slang, but it’s all good. (laughter)

GA: Yes, it is. Yes, it is.

JM: It really is. So you know, I’ve had a blessed life. I really have.

GA: That’s right, that’s right. Well, I started school at five, I think I was telling Jean the other night, Dr.–well he was Reverend Ernest Belton–was the principal at Cedar Creek School and Cedar Creek was not far from our house. And he used to stop by the house and said, “Ms. Mary Jane, let me tell you one thing.” My cousin would be there sometime because she and I were–I’m December, she’s January–and he said, “Them children too big to be out there playing in that dirt.” He said, “Monday morning have them ready to go to school.” So we were five years old. And we didn’t know, all we know is in the morning, get your breakfast, this, this, and the other, and go out in the yard and play. Well, he said, they too big for that. So we started school at five years of age. And my first school was Cedar Creek, and then after Cedar Creek it’s the school there in Ridgeway–it was the Presbyterian School, I think that’s what they called it–and it was at that, it’s like a big house, and went there until they built Geiger. And I think they built Geiger when we were in the third grade, and I went to school at Geiger.

And my grandmother’s daughter got sick in Maryland, and grandmomma had to go, because Aunt Mae and Uncle Ed didn’t have any children, so she went up there for a few months. And then at that time Chris was–my mom–was going to work at seven o’clock in the morning. Well the bus wasn’t coming then, and so what she did, she talked to her sister and her husband, and they let me come and stay with them. And I went to Bethel for a minute, I went to Bethel for about a half a year until grandmomma came back home, and then I came back. But, so I finished that year at Bethel, but, and after that we went to Ridgeway School when they build that in the third grade. And from there we graduated in the seventh grade—from one through seven; and there was no such thing as a kindergarten or a four or five year old program. You went to first grade–from first grade through twelfth grade. And so we came up here, I came up here in the eighth grade, and it was another building off from this one–wasn’t that Ms. Williams?

JM: Um-hum, we had–it’s two other buildings. It was middle building then a far building–that was the seventh grade.

GA: The seventh grade building–and that’s where we were until we came to over here. And from here to we graduated–I graduated and my mom said, “Gladys, you going to college.” And I said, “Well, I don’t know.” She said, “No, I’m telling you: You going to college.” Because it’s just like your parents, she wanted us to have better, have better opportunities than what she did. So out of the three girls and the two boys she said, “Y’all don’t have any reason not to go to school.” So, now this was–this was just monumental. That Sunday–I was going to have to live on campus, and my aunt and my uncle came up to Ridgeway–the ones I stayed with when I was going to Bethel–they lived in Blythewood, but they since moved to Columbia, to Greenview. So Aunt Ria and Uncle Wade came up there and said, “Chris, pack that child’s clothes, she gonna stay with us.”

So I stayed with them for four years. For four years–the time I was at Benedict–my momma [‘s] brother-in-law and her sister, and they would not take nothing: not one dime would they take. Said, “Nope, she’s just like one of ours. So you don’t owe us nothing.” And I had to ask them, just like I would have to ask my mom, you know, could I go someplace or go. Well, I didn’t ask Chris because the answer was going to be no, so it wasn’t no need in asking can you go nowhere. And, but when I got to Columbia, things were different because I was not accustomed to that, you know, that was a whole new era for me. It was freedom and let me tell you, it’s not what it’s cracked up to be. I appreciated the farm life and I would always ask Aunt Ria, Aunt Ria said, “Gladys, you in college, you do the right thing.” And not only did I ask her, by that time we had a phone then, and we had electricity in Ridgeway, so I said, I’d have to call my momma. (laughter) I’m in college, and I’d call and ask Chris, is it alright if I go somewhere or go or do this and do that? And she said, “What do Ria and Wade say?” And I said, “They told me to call you.” Well, okay now I done call you, and they telling me, so it’s back and forth, and somebody would finally make a decision.

But it was a good life, it was, it wasn’t one hundred percent every day, because they had three daughters. And (laughter) we would butt heads sometime, sometimes the oldest daughter and me, because I’m thinking, you know, when we have dinner I’m going to wash these dishes because, you know, I’m living here and this, this, this, and this. They said, “No, you don’t do that. Y’all take turns.” Now the baby girl didn’t have to do it because she had–Jackie had polio or muscular dystrophy, that stuff–so she couldn’t do that kind of stuff, but the other two could. And, but it was just like, kind of like sibling rivalry because we grew up like sisters and stuff.

But when we were getting back to the high school, I would get on the bus and catch the bus, if it was raining it didn’t come, because I lived on a dirt road and you would get bogged up, you would get bogged up. And if it rained while I was at school I couldn’t hardly concentrate–don’t let it rain hard–not concentrating on no lesson because my thought is, when I get to a certain point they going to make me get off the bus and I’m going to have to walk home. And that happened; I’m not calling any names, but every time it rained, I’d have to get off the bus and walk. And my momma said, “Gladys, you get off that bus one more time, me and you gonna have it.” Well, one more time came when Aunt Gussie was out in the back porch, in the screened-in porch out there, and she was doing Chris hair, and Gussie say she told Chris, “That look like old Jean coming down that road.” And Chris got up and looked, sit on back down and when I came in the back porch I say, “Good evening.” “Hey.” I knew it was coming, I knew it was coming. But she told me, “I told you don’t get off that bus.” After Aunt Gussie done straightened her hair and curled it and she looking good (laughter), she went and got the switch, she say, “Come here. Didn’t I tell you don’t get off that bus no more?” Well, I think her whipping would’ve been more merciful than them children on that bus, because they told me, “You got to get off” and I got off, because the bus wasn’t going no farther. It turned around. But she went to Winnsboro that next day.

I ain’t got off the bus no more, no more. She went to see the superintendent or whatever, I ain’t get off the bus no more. But like I said if it rained I didn’t get on the bus cause they didn’t come, the bus wouldn’t come that way. It would go the back way and go out by Paul Cook, by Cook Corner up there, it would go that way and go around, uh-huh. Or either come through Peach Road, you know, over there. Come that way. They would not come, I’d be down there on the porch so if the bus came all I had to do was, you know, go down the steps and whatever and get on, go down cross the little pathway and catch the bus, but it didn’t.

But you know, that was then, I learned from it, I learned from it but we, like Jean said her parents, my momma and them had, you get your education, you get it, you get it. And I used to say, “Well, I don’t need to know a whole lotta math.” Chris say, “Yes, you do. You need to know everything within them pages in that book.” (laughter) So you, you get your lesson. And Kenneth and Lafayette, especially Kenneth, he say, “Allen, y’all went to school.” He said, “Momma wanted all us to go to school. No, we was looking at them girls.” (laughter) I said, “Well Kenny, you can’t go back.” I said, “Cause I wouldn’t want nothing to happen to my niece and nephew. You got them, they here, so you missed out on school. You just missed it.”

But it was an experience and I was the oldest, I was the oldest. And I tried to be, I won’t say the boss, but probably that’s what it was; when Chris had to work I would tell the other ones what to do and they would do it, except for that Mae Frances, and that Linda. Yeah, and I used to have to whip Linda. (laughter) But you know, it was good, it was good, I wouldn’t trade it. And you know, sometime you said I wish I was so and so, look how good they got it or whatever, but I’m just so thankful with all my faults and shortcomings, I am so glad I am me. Me. I’m telling you. But it was an interesting life and everything, and it still is. It still is, because now I’m raising a family and grandchildren and stuff, so. But it’s interesting, it was and it still is–learn from it.

EY: And would you say–you might have different opinions on this—but, looking at race relations and being in a segregated school and everything, when you were growing up, have things really changed that much?

GA: We lived . . . I’m just going to be straight up and tell you what the Lord is pleased with and that’s truth. I never experienced any of that. There were–it was our house almost to the end…Mr. John Hood house…and on up the road might’ve been two other houses, before you get on up to where Tanglewood is, up in that way now. And they were the white family, and they were the well-to-do family, and it was our family–my grandmomma and granddaddy and the children and everything–and, but we didn’t have–because they played together, and they got along well together. And when they got grown and got older, Judge Hood and my uncles used to hang out together, and his sister and my momma hung out together, they went to concerts, they went out to eat, they was just like sisters. So I never had any, you know, no bad . . . I never had any problems. The only time I saw something one time and I got scared, my mom picked me up from my aunt’s one night, because she was working eleven to seven–I mean, from three to eleven, so I was coming home from college that weekend. And they picked me up, and we were coming up 555 and there was this–before all of that stuff was built out there now, it was a big open field–and I saw the Ku Klux Klan burning a cross. And that thing stayed with me, I could not rest. I just knew… I’d jump up and look out the window, you know, but Chris said, “Don’t worry about that, keep your head in front of you, and we going on to the house.” But it was late evening, you know, it was night, because she from three to eleven, and I’m thinking, ‘oh my gosh’, you think maybe they going to get in the truck or something, and follow us or whatever. But that was just a onetime scary thing, you know.

And when we went to–we were able to vote. We were at Benedict, and they registered–everybody registering to vote. Registering to vote. And so we did that, and we didn’t have any problems. And then the only problem started coming was when the massacre at South Carolina State and, you know, the sit-ins in, that the stores and stuff downtown. But one time in particular, I used to work at Tapp’s, and everybody don’t treat you alike, everybody don’t have a cold heart; and I would always–I always cooked and took my food to work most of the time. So I had my lunch up on the mezzanine, and I was eating, and of course I was the only little black person up there. And all these white ladies was sitting around and some of them–that’s your lunchtime so you do what you do–and they knitting or doing whatever, wasn’t no cell phones to be on, you know, (laughter) so they were knitting, or just talking or whatever… So this lady had a basket of yarn, and she was trying to decide which one should she use that she was going to start with, so she said, you know the saying, “’Eeny, meeny, miney, mo’ (laughter), ‘catch a nigga by the toe’… I think I’ll use this one.” (laughter) And the other ladies–I could just see the look on their face, you know–they, they may have been thinking it, but they didn’t say it. But, what his name–Mr. Tapp–Somebody told it, I didn’t. Somebody told it. And for Tapp’s downtown; Mr. Tapp called her in, he reprimanded her for that. Yes, he did. Yes, he did. I didn’t . . . and the lady that I worked with in the jewelry department, she blessed that woman out, she blessed her out. But I didn’t say anything, you know, I didn’t say anything. What was there to say? I wasn’t a nigga, and I wasn’t in that basket that she was pulling up (laughter), so it was her. I did feel anxious though, you know, just for a moment. But I went right on and ate my lunch, and when that time was up I put my little bag in my locker–my little container–washed my hands, and went on back downstairs on the floor.

EY: Wash your hands of it.

GA: There you go, there you go! (laughter) In life, you cannot have a–you have to let it go. You have to have a thick skin, you really do. Because it’ll keep you weighed down, you know, if you let everything that’s said or done to you bother you, it won’t allow you to grow.

JM: No, it will not.

GA: Hum-um.

JM: It will actually hold you back.

GA: Hold you back. Um-hum, yes it will. But I wouldn’t trade it. I wouldn’t trade nothing in my life.

EY: And Jean, what about you?

JM: Ask the question again?

EY: Oh—just, do you feel that race relations have changed a lot from the days of segregation to now?

JM: Earlier on I thought they had, but I think they were just kind of smoldering. So within the last year it seems like all of it has come back up, because I kid you not, I can go around people of the other race now that I know, and I know they know me, and I can definitely feel a difference. And when I–we went to vote. We voted for something earlier this year, it was a special election. And I vote out in the community where I live, and they have blacks and whites working in the voting booth, but I could definitely feel that it was tension in the air. So to me, I don’t think it’s better because I feel like a lot of people have, you know, people have grown up around things where it was hush-hush, but now since the president is outspoken, I think everybody thinks they can just come right on out–and that’s what it has led to. I really do think we have made several steps back, several steps back. And the community that I live in, we’ve always felt very safe in it, but now when we go to church, and we go to Bible study, and choir rehearsal and stuff, we have to lock ourselves in, we have to lock ourselves in. Our church was broken into last week. Earlier in the year, of course–they stole all the stuff out of–all of our air conditioners…and that church has been there–it’s 1843. So now things have changed and they’re not for the best. They’re not for the better, I think we have–I really do, just my own observation, what I see, not only on TV but–you can tell when the atmosphere has changed around you. You can really tell, you can really tell. So I feel like we’re not better, we’re not better now. And my daughter works in the school system, and she says little stuff has been said and stuff–and the kids don’t usually pay any attention to that kind of stuff–so you know all of this stuff is coming on now. . .

GA: Coming from the president; because of the president.

JM: . . . the kids are seeing it on TV. And everybody’s watching the news now. I used to not hardly–my husband did all the news watching, and passing all the information to me; and I would be watching Lifetime or something else on TV. But I’m watching CNN now. And you know, it scares me, because I’ve got grandchildren that are very naïve; I have a grandson that graduated from high school last year, and he’s just getting out into this stuff. And it scares me; it really does scare me, because you just don’t know. And my son says that he still texts him and he texts him every day and when they–he’ll say, “Remember what you do. And you got to learn that if you get stopped, don’t move your hands, don’t act like you’re angry . . .” don’t do this and don’t do that. And it’s scary. And you know what, it’s serious. It’s serious, it’s serious. So yeah, I don’t think–I think they’re right where they were or maybe a little further back, because people were afraid to express all of that because they didn’t feel like the government was on their side. But now it’s blatant that I’m on your side. Well, they feel like they’re empowered now. So I’m worried, but you know, I believe in God, and when I see all this stuff on TV, and I said, you know, I’m just one little voice crying in the wilderness; but I’ll stop and say a prayer and I’ll say, ‘Lord how long? How long, how long’? But we can still play our part. Right now I’m talking to all of my grandchildren–my children vote–and let them know: you need to watch TV! You need to read the paper! Find out about the politicians because it’s going to be left up to us on the ballot–

GA: On the ballot, that’s right.

JM: –to try to start getting this straight. So that I feel is my job, and everybody’s job, need to talk to the people about voting. You need to vote.

GA: Yeah, you’ve got to be aware of it. I used to tell Meredith and Sean,when they were little–you know, and you know the comical stuff on TV…You know, and everything–it’s good to laugh sometimes, but don’t spend all your life laughing, if you ain’t getting a paycheck for it. And they wanted–watching JJ a minute I said, “Meredith, y’all need to do this, this, this…Turn that TV to the news and this, this, this, and this.”

JM: Um-hum. They need to be aware.

GA: And I said, “JJ going to the bank with a check, and what you going with–Nothing.” I said, “Cut that foolishness off and put it on the news,” I said, “Because you got to know! You need to know stuff! Know what’s happening around you.” That’s right. That’s right.

JM: You really do.

GA: So my brother always said–it’s like you were telling your grandson–he always, he’d tell D.–D’s in North Carolina in school. And not only them, but the children in the church and people, you know, when you’re having things you say, ‘let stuff be tried in the courtroom. Don’t you get out there’. And like your son told his son, ‘keep your hands visible, keep them visible’. First of all, don’t have nothing in your car!

JM: That’s right.

GA: Don’t have nothing in there. But keep your hands visible. But like you said, it’s surfacing. It may have been pushed down because of leadership, but because of the president that we have now, and the things that he say–and do–and the Congress fears him. Not so much–it’s when he gets out of office, what he can do as far as tearing them down. You know, and it’s–but you know what? This too will pass…This too will pass…

JM: But I really think that we need to–and which I say, I’m already talking to my family, where I can make a difference, I’m telling them, you need to, you know, be informed, and you need to be prepared to vote. You need to vote.

GA: Get out and vote, that’s how, you think your vote, you know, doesn’t matter. Your vote decide this vote, that vote, that vote . . .

JM: That’s right.

GA: . . . can bring about change.

JM: Yes.

GA: Can bring about change. Staying home is the problem. That staying home and not voting saying, ‘well it ain’t gonna matter’. Yes, it will. Yes, it will. But, that’s it.

EY: Thank you, ladies. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview with me today. It has been enlightening and fascinating and fun, and do you have any last words you would like to say before we shut off the recording?

JM: Well, I’d just like to say, you know, I appreciate you all letting us share our experiences. And that means a whole lot. It may not be much, but anything that I said I hope that people can get a feel for, you know, that we are very human. We’ve endured but, you know, we don’t want to make that a platform, we’ll just move on because we have a life to live. And you know, just hopefully something good will come from it.

GA: I too am glad that y’all took the time to come and do this; and then doing it in this building. And it’s been a struggle, you know, I’ve not been with it as long as Jean, she’s a benchmark in it. But because of her I came onboard, and I try to do, you know, and try to be a part of it because this is history. This is–and it just shows you what a few people can do, can get started. And it’s just like a magnet, it draws people. It draws people. Just like God said, look where He brought us from. Just see what God can do. He can do amazing things for all of us. For all of us.

EY: Alright, thank you both.

GA: Well, you’re most welcome.

JM: You’re welcome.

End of interview