WEBVTT 1 00:05.000 --> 00:35.000 We were assigned areas to serve as ushers in the area, and of course the upstairs area was for Blacks who went to the concert. There were quite a number of Black people who went to the concerts, so the students from Xavier and Dillard were assigned in those areas naturally with it. If there wasn't enough, then they would assign some of the White students there. 2 00:35.000 --> 00:58.000 I got to know a couple of the guys from Tulane who were going to the concert. You got to see each other and said hello and talk with each other. There was one young man who lived in the uptown area and we would get the bus at the same time to go so we would strike up a conversation. 3 00:58.000 --> 01:24.000 Of course the street cars, that's said the buses, but there was a street car really. You had the segregation on there with, you've heard of the screen moved back and forth. What we would do, we'd get on the street car, you'd have a street car that was practically empty. I couldn't sit up here and he couldn't sit back there, so what do we do? We would stand. 4 01:24.000 --> 01:26.000 You stand in the middle? 5 01:26.000 --> 02:20.000 Stand that place and talk the whole time. The conductor would say, "You can sit down." I says, "Can I sit up there?" "You know you can't sit there." I said, "Well, can I sit back? Okay then we'll stand up." We would stand and talk with each other. At Tulane University, on one occasion went to McAllister Auditorium for a speech program, and I was teaching then. When we went into the auditorium, they were seating the White students over here and the Black students over here, and as a teacher, I objected and I put my kids and sat them over here. 6 02:20.000 --> 02:23.000 With the White students. 7 02:23.000 --> 02:36.000 Yes, and somebody came and objected to it. I says, "Well, if they can't sit here, then we're not staying." Of course I created a commotion, so they decided to ignore that fool. 8 02:36.000 --> 02:37.000 They decided to what? 9 02:37.000 --> 02:40.000 Ignore that fool. 10 02:40.000 --> 02:40.000 Oh. 11 02:40.000 --> 02:46.000 They just ignored that I was there and let the students, they wanted a [indistinct 00:02:43] students with me so we stuck it. 12 02:46.000 --> 02:49.000 That was in the late '40s? 13 02:49.000 --> 03:07.000 No, that was after I came back. Came out of service in '46, late '40s, early '50s, something like that where things started happening because it was after the war when you came back and the movements began in earnest. 14 03:07.000 --> 03:14.000 What difference did you notice in New Orleans once you got back from the war, and did it also change how you thought about things? 15 03:14.000 --> 04:08.000 At that time there were not that many changes, but gradually you started getting changes where the city started to, at the lunch counters and going through front entrances, those things began to happen. Then you began to find that the screens on the buses and street cars would just disappear. You'd get on and see people sitting. You have to sit behind the screen. What screen? Where's the screen? Things like that with. They started changing in that way with—Olympia. 16 04:08.000 --> 04:08.000 Okay. 17 04:08.000 --> 04:09.000 Will it take it out? 18 04:09.000 --> 04:13.000 It won't hear it too much. We can hear it I think more than the tape recorder can. 19 04:13.000 --> 04:13.000 Oh. 20 04:13.000 --> 04:19.000 [indistinct 00:04:17] 21 04:19.000 --> 04:59.000 But there were things like that that began happening with it. Little by little, you saw things occurring that integration was coming with it in there. The strangest things with activities that were held at the Black colleges, Black institutions were always non-segregated. 22 04:59.000 --> 05:41.000 Where Whites came, there was no section for them. You sat where you wanted. When you want to the other way, there was always a section for you there with it. I guess a number us got around, but just not going to places where you know you were going to be segregated and you felt that you just didn't want to put up with that kind of inconvenience so you just don't go. Consequently, you maybe missed out on a lot of things. 23 05:41.000 --> 06:24.000 As a teacher, when I was first started teaching at Xavier Prep, knowing, I don't know how familiar you are with New Orleans and the different shades of complexions, and there are people who are supposed to be Negro you can't tell who they're White and things like that with it. At Xavier Prep, there were a lot of, this is a Catholic high school, private school. There were a lot of students in class who were very fair. I was teaching a speech class, and we would say something about there was a play going on. There was a movie going on, so we'd say, so-and-so would you go to [indistinct 00:06:35] this week and see that play for us report? Okay. 24 06:24.000 --> 06:35.000 Really? Because that was a place that I wouldn't allow any Blacks. 25 06:35.000 --> 06:43.000 Yeah. We'd say to them, I would say, "If nobody asks you don't say anything, but don't deny who you are." 26 06:43.000 --> 06:45.000 That's what you'd say to them, the students. 27 06:45.000 --> 06:50.000 Yes. Go up and present you money, buy your ticket, and they take you at face value. 28 06:50.000 --> 06:53.000 Literally. Yeah. 29 06:53.000 --> 07:39.000 They would go and the kids would all the time who were fair enough there was something worthwhile they'd go with it. They would come back and report to the class and all the things that had happened and things of that nature, but there were many opportunities that you just could not get. Of course when you went to the stores downtown, the drinking fountains, you had one over here it says White only, over here for Colored only, that kind of thing. 30 07:39.000 --> 08:03.000 Of course, there is a thing that's sat in my mind. There's a playground in the area I grew up in, it's on Washington Avenue, bounded by Derbigny and Roman and Fourth Street. It's a huge playground. Playground still there. Taylor Playground. 31 08:03.000 --> 08:45.000 Taylor Brick Playground was all fenced in. One side of Washington Avenue in that area was White, the other side of Washington Avenue going to Canal Street was Black and you have this playground there. There was this gate, it stayed closed. There's this big sign on the gate and it says "White only. No dogs are allowed." Now you read what you want into that. I don't think—All of us who grew up in it that area remember that sign and that White only, no dogs, in other words, you're a dog. 32 08:45.000 --> 08:59.000 That sign stayed on that fence until really integration [indistinct 00:08:52] the playgrounds were all integrated before it came down and they kept it on there with it. 33 08:59.000 --> 09:00.000 You were surprised it wasn't torn down. 34 09:00.000 --> 10:21.000 Well, I think that there were not as many incidents of racism and things here as in other places because of the way that New Orleans I think is populated. People were, in some areas, lived next to each other, so close to each other. They got to know each other as individuals. I went to school, at high school. I went to Xavier Prep in high school and my teachers were the nuns, the White nuns. We had White female teachers, White male teachers, Black female teachers, Black male teachers. The faculty was integrated. I guess I grew up in that atmosphere, and when I went to university, it was the same thing with that. It didn't bother me. It didn't disturb me at all. I got used to it with it in there, so there was no problem with it. 35 10:21.000 --> 10:22.000 What didn't disturb you then? 36 10:22.000 --> 11:04.000 Of being with Whites and knowing how to act and somebody coming in and things like that with me. I've been told on occasion, someone will say something about stereotypical type of Blacks. I said, "Oh, but you're different." I said, "No, I'm that different." Said, "I'm the same" because I'm comfortable with it. I've gotten used to being the only Black in a place, it doesn't bother me. I'm aware of it. 37 11:04.000 --> 11:17.000 Working one day, superintendent sent me to a meeting, represent the school system, which was a part of my job that I would frequently go some places. I came back—superintendent was a White female. 38 11:17.000 --> 12:02.000 I came back to her office and I says, Dr. Boudreaux, I'll go to any meeting when I say but never send me to a meeting like you did today. She said, "What happened?" Said "You didn't want me what I was going to." She says, "Oh?" I said, "When I walked in and I saw this room full of young, White, pregnant, Jewish women—" She mad. I says, "Here comes a Black male walking in." I said, "When I walked in, every eye turned." That was nothing. Just a joke with her— 39 12:02.000 --> 12:08.000 I'm sure. Right. I see you have a sense of humor about these. 40 12:08.000 --> 12:11.000 Yeah, it was a meeting that she would nominate. She said, "I never thought." I said, "I thought about it." 41 12:11.000 --> 12:16.000 I noticed. 42 12:16.000 --> 13:03.000 It was, I think a meeting in the junior league or something like that, and it was one of the school system had to rep, and she could not go so I went as representative. I had no problems at all with it. It just hit me because most of the time when I go to, I wouldn't think about, excuse me, but I just didn't expect that kind of an audience within. I went back, and I looked down [indistinct 00:12:42] and there was another Black male, and we happened to coincident. He said the same kind of shock hit him. Didn't expect it. It was the same thing you go to a meeting as a man, you're walk in and see nothing but women, but there was no problem with anything. 43 13:03.000 --> 13:27.000 I think that personally, I probably have not had as many negative experiences with racism as other people have. Maybe because I stayed away from places where there were going to, knew there were going to be problems. 44 13:27.000 --> 13:31.000 Where would those be? 45 13:31.000 --> 14:02.000 Well, if I know that this was going to be segregated and I was going to have to be relegated to go here, I just didn't go. We mentioned to you over at Our Lady of the Village Church, when you went to Our Lady of the Village Church, there was a little small section in the back over on the side where all the Blacks sat. I went there once. I said, "I'm not going to sit here, so I'm not going. Period" I can go someplace where I can sit where I want to go. That kind of thing with it. 46 14:02.000 --> 14:28.000 If there were places that I go where I know I couldn't get around it and I had to put up with this, then I did it. But generally if I didn't have to, then personally I just didn't with it because I didn't want the embarrassment and I didn't want to feel uncomfortable and things of that nature with it. I just didn't go with it. 47 14:28.000 --> 15:11.000 And of course the matter of the street cars and the buses and things like that, you had to use those with it. You had to sit in those areas. There was nothing you could do about it in that, and you had to comply with it. The times that I rode the buses and the street cars for example, before I had a car and going back and forth to work in a morning, they were all crowded so there were no seats to sit anyhow so you stood on the thing until you got off the bus and things like that with it. That was it. 48 15:11.000 --> 15:49.000 We missed out on a lot of things, but being at Xavier, I was able to probably get to more things than if I were not a student at a university that the average person could not have gotten because it went under the name of the university. University provided a whole lot of things for us, knowing the circumstances that you can't go. Xavier did operas there, so I learned the opera, I sung in the operas, and we got tickets to the operas so we went as a group. We knew that you have to sit in this area with it, so fine. 49 15:49.000 --> 15:51.000 The municipal? 50 15:51.000 --> 15:52.000 Yeah, yeah. You go— 51 15:52.000 --> 15:57.000 But you went as a group together, in the sense it sounds like that would— 52 15:57.000 --> 15:58.000 Yeah, 53 15:58.000 --> 16:06.000 I mean the same way when you go with your friends to the movies, it sounds like that was another thing where it's you're together as a group for the purposes of this entertainment. 54 16:06.000 --> 16:22.000 Things like that with it now. I don't remember going to the operas before integration as such, as an individual. 55 16:22.000 --> 16:22.000 Oh, by yourself? 56 16:22.000 --> 16:48.000 By myself, going down to buy ticket. No, no. Now since I did the symphonies, I went as an usher to the symphonies. When you went to the movies downtown, if you went. Yes, I'd go out and went to the movies, you had to go through the side, all the way upstairs into the balconies. That was, let's see, the Orpheum Theater and Loew's State, [indistinct 00:16:45] could not get into it. 57 16:48.000 --> 16:48.000 You couldn't go. 58 16:48.000 --> 17:29.000 No, in there. You were able to do that, so you are aware of that kind of thing. In terms of stores, in buying clothing, I stayed away from the large stores where you could not fit things on. You would go to some of the other stores where you knew that you could fit clothing on, which were not the major. I couldn't afford to go to some of the major stores. I didn't have that kind of money see, so you went to those places. The same thing with my trying on shoes and things like that with it. 59 17:29.000 --> 18:18.000 Personally, a lot of other people probably would not have had the same kinds of experiences with it. I guess I'd be atypical rather than typical of some of the things with that being. There are a lot of things I think that if there had not been segregation with the kind of ability that I had, I probably would've been able to do more and get more without as hard a struggle for if it were as open and available to me now. 60 18:18.000 --> 18:20.000 Like what? 61 18:20.000 --> 19:02.000 Well, in terms of opportunities to go places, to travel, to see things, and freedom to function for example, when we listen to now Back to Pontchartrain Beach and we sit and laugh at that commercial, we were aware of Pontchartrain Beach. Pontchartrain Beach was the area across from UNO on the lake where rides and concessions and there was a beach area. Well we couldn't go there, so now you're going to tell me how celebrate to go back to Pontchartrain Beach? 62 19:02.000 --> 19:04.000 I see. Right. Nostalgic commercial. 63 19:04.000 --> 19:07.000 Yeah. Who did they get to? 64 19:07.000 --> 19:07.000 Never opened to. 65 19:07.000 --> 19:16.000 Who did they get to sing those commercials? Irma Thomas and whole lot of Black performers now, because they're the leading performers. Back to Pontchartrain Beach. 66 19:16.000 --> 19:24.000 Wow. 67 19:24.000 --> 19:27.000 That means nothing to me. Couldn't even look at Pontchartrain Beach. What are you doing in that area? Not supposed to even be in that area. 68 19:27.000 --> 19:30.000 That might be dangerous. 69 19:30.000 --> 20:33.000 Yeah, yeah. See, so you just don't. The segregation, the Jim Crow stopped a lot of opportunities there. They did do Lincoln Beach was opened, and that's way out on Haynes Boulevard, out in New Orleans East. The only way you got there, you had to have a car to get there. There was a huge swimming pool there, and rides, and concessions. Well, we did go out there for a while after it was opened, but it was a distance that you had to travel to get out there. No public transportation at all to that area. The hours, no, the hours were okay. It was not as elaborate as Pontchartrain Beach with them. 70 20:33.000 --> 21:47.000 The other big thing that you talk about with schools, as you know here in Louisiana, students don't buy textbooks. The state provides books and you've got secondhand books in the schools and you would get a textbook, let's say a ninth grade algebra. When you'd look on the inside cover, I believe you've seen this book so you write names and you see a kid's name or [indistinct 00:21:09] and then three or four other White high schools name and it comes, now you got them after they no longer have them. We are giving you something, we're complying. The state says that the new books went first to the White schools. You suffered from that indirectly. As I said, I did not go to public schools, and I guess that's probably why I did not feel the brunt of some of the things that other people did in it. 71 21:47.000 --> 22:10.000 My two brothers went to public schools, high school. My sister finished high school in public school because it was an out of finance. My family just couldn't afford it [indistinct 00:22:05] As I said, if I had not been able to get the scholarships, I would not have been able to go either. 72 22:10.000 --> 22:14.000 Did they go to McDonogh 35? 73 22:14.000 --> 22:22.000 My sister graduated from McDonogh 35. My older brother went to McDonogh 35. My younger brother finished at Booker Washington. 74 22:22.000 --> 22:22.000 It had been built by. 75 22:22.000 --> 22:24.000 Yeah. It had been built by that time. 76 22:24.000 --> 22:28.000 When you were referring to the books, your books didn't come from the state because you? 77 22:28.000 --> 22:30.000 All the schools, private and- 78 22:30.000 --> 22:31.000 Oh, private. 79 22:31.000 --> 22:55.000 Everybody, regardless of where you were, you still got. Louisiana's a peculiar place because New Orleans has been so heavily religious involved that whatever the public schools got, the private schools, the Catholic schools got the same. 80 22:55.000 --> 22:56.000 I see. 81 22:56.000 --> 23:22.000 Same thing with it and they're talking about it now. There's just now cutting back on some things that they did with it. When I was in high school, there was only one public high school, that was McDonogh 35. Then you had Xavier Prep, which was a Catholic high school, [indistinct 00:23:16] High School, which was Episcopalian, Gilbert Academy, which was Methodist I think. 82 23:22.000 --> 23:52.000 There were only four high schools for Blacks, but then you had about five or six public high schools for Whites plus private schools with it. You got the textbooks and things in the schools. You got the things that the state said all schools should get, but they were not firsthand. You got them secondarily. 83 23:52.000 --> 23:53.000 Definitely separate and unequal, 84 23:53.000 --> 23:56.000 Right. Yes. Yeah. 85 23:56.000 --> 24:10.000 Again, when you're a child or an adolescent, how did you make sense of that? 86 24:10.000 --> 24:31.000 You tell a child "No, don't touch that stove because you're going to get burned" and you see that child go at the stove, you grab his hand, "Don't do that because something's going to happen to you." Family's at home, you don't do this because this, you don't do this because of this. 87 24:31.000 --> 25:06.000 You try it out once, you know, go down, here's this thing that says White only I'm going to drink out of White, so you go in and you drink out of them. Somebody comes grab you behind the neck, and they cuss you out and everything else and kick you out this door. Okay, I can't do that. See what I'm saying? That's why. You knew from family background from trend what you could because parents and they were trying to shield you because we were special kind of unit. 88 25:06.000 --> 25:27.000 Now I can't speak for other families, but I know my family was that kind of a family orientation. When I say with my family, this is the same thing with families. My cousins, my mothers brothers and sisters family, my father's the same kind of thing that had been instilled from that. 89 25:27.000 --> 25:30.000 That's how the knowledge has been planted. 90 25:30.000 --> 26:31.000 Yeah. Yeah. You get used to that kind of thing. Let's say you get on the streetcar as a child, and as I was an adult before the screens were removed from the bus, you'd see a little child get on with his mother and the mother's paying the fare and the child runs at the front. "Come back, you can't sit there." "Why mama?" "Because you've got to sit behind the screen." "Why?" You tell them that, and when he gets on the next time and he sees this, he knows that mama said I can't sit up there. Same thing, the White's getting on, the child gets on and sits here and the White mother says telling her, "Get up, you can't sit there." "Why?" "Because you've got to sit up in the front." 91 26:31.000 --> 26:38.000 There's something about when the children ask, it always seems to point out the absurdity because who can give a good answer? 92 26:38.000 --> 26:40.000 Because you've got to sit up there. 93 26:40.000 --> 26:44.000 Because I said so. 94 26:44.000 --> 27:09.000 That's how you learn this. You then learn that where it says, you look at a entrance to go in and it says, "White only," if you go into that entrance, somebody's going to insult you. Then if you want to be insulted, if you want to show out, then fine. But eventually, they're not going to serve you. You can probably get hurt or something like that. 95 27:09.000 --> 27:23.000 It all depends what kind of mood you're in. If you want to be insulted, you want to fight, you want battle, then totally. I'm going in here. Now if you don't want that, if you're in the hurry, then you find out where's the other. 96 27:23.000 --> 27:57.000 The other thing, I says, "If you had to go to a toilet what'd you do?" You held it. There were no restrooms for us to go in. White restrooms. Now you want go around the back to something that they had, but there were no restrooms in some of the areas for Black to use. You learned what to do. You go before you leave home and you hold it until you get back. I mean, that's something as basic as that, you don't stop to think about it. 97 27:57.000 --> 27:59.000 Right [indistinct 00:27:56] approach to the world. 98 27:59.000 --> 28:19.000 You get a drink of water. Now maybe if you can find the, they might show you where the facilities for the people who worked in the store, the Blacks who worked in the store maybe had some little hole in the wall, someplace well in the back and you had to go. 99 28:19.000 --> 28:21.000 Had to. Right. 100 28:21.000 --> 29:03.000 But that's the kind of thing with it. In the area that we grew up, there were Whites in the area. One or two occasions they would come to Galva Street because it was a large open area and they would mix in a little bit for a ball game for a while. 101 29:03.000 --> 29:07.000 Mix in with people living in your little? 102 29:07.000 --> 29:57.000 Yeah. If you think of, look at this table here. Where I grew up in, this street would be Delachaise. This street is the next block, General Taylor. This is Tonti Street, this is Johnson Street. Now on this side of Delachaise, it's White. This side of Delachaise was Black. This side of General Taylor was Black, that side was White. On Tonti, both sides here were Black. On Johnson, this side was Black, the other side was White. 103 29:57.000 --> 30:33.000 You had Johnson, Galvis, Miro, Tonti, this little island, Black families surrounding it totally, they were all White in it. A number of the people in this area of Black families were there because they had bought the property earlier. Some of the other rental property was owned by Jewish people, who through a corporation or something had invested in it so it was rent, but most of the people owned the property. 104 30:33.000 --> 31:27.000 I know that for a while, as we were growing up and we were able to afford a telephone, as things got better later on, we would get a telephone call, my mother would answer the phone. Somebody would want to buy our property with. They would go through, they wanted to clear this area out of Blacks who were living in there and they couldn't do it unless they bought the property owned by the Blacks. Now the other property owned by the White investors, fine. All they had to say was move out period, so they have to work on those. They would start a blitz to the property owners in there to buy your property. "We'll make you a good offer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." 105 31:27.000 --> 32:01.000 One day, I happened to listening and mother answers telephone and somebody was off and she said, "No, my house not a for sale." She said, "If I sell you my house, where am I going to go?" He says, "Oh, you can go and shack up with somebody else until you find another place." She said, "Well, you go and shack up who that person is" and hung the telephone. But that's the kind of thing that they felt with it, and after a while then they stopped calling. As the White flight took over— 106 32:01.000 --> 32:03.000 Then what? Then did more of the surrounding area? 107 32:03.000 --> 32:04.000 Yes. It's all the whole area. 108 32:04.000 --> 32:08.000 [indistinct 00:32:05] wouldn't leave the White folks. 109 32:08.000 --> 32:58.000 Yeah. They started building further out, various areas. We moved here, my father died. Well, when I got married, lived with my mother and father and my father died, and so we stayed with living with my mother and we had two children. Then the third child came, we needed more room, so then we start looking for someplace to move. Baby was, Michael was a year old then. We saw, we were out of town and we saw in the paper, guess we had an agent looking for us. That's another trip looking for in those days, house to buy. 110 32:58.000 --> 33:01.000 In those days, we're talking the '50s now. Am that right? 111 33:01.000 --> 33:06.000 No, a little later than the '50s. We bought, yeah, late '50s. Late '50s because we moved here in 1959. 112 33:06.000 --> 33:07.000 Okay. 113 33:07.000 --> 33:28.000 We bought this. We had two girls and a boy. We start off by saying we will not even look at anything but less than three bedrooms, so three bedrooms, living room, a dining room. We'll settle with one bath, two baths if you can but the one bath would be fine, and a kitchen area. That's what I started off. 114 33:28.000 --> 33:56.000 The agent knew, now don't show us anything that doesn't have three bedrooms, living room, dining. That's basic what we wanted. He would not show us some places because he knew that they weren't there. We got calls from some agents who found we were looking for them, they would show us. I said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We came and looked at this house. 115 33:56.000 --> 34:16.000 There was a Black family who lived directly across the street on this corner who had been living there for about five or six years. On the other corner, there was a Black family who had been living there, oh some 15 years or so. 116 34:16.000 --> 34:43.000 The man who lived there was Nathaniel Burton, who was one of the great chefs of New Orleans, worked at Pontchartrain Hotel and they had been living there. There were Black families on Soniat Street over there in other areas, but the rest of the house is in this block all White. Now, I'm not sure about the other areas. 117 34:43.000 --> 34:58.000 We came and looked at this house was up for sale and we liked what it had and the possibilities. We've done a lot to it since we've been here. But it had potential, basically what we're looking for. 118 34:58.000 --> 35:59.000 At the same time, we looked, the lady next door saw us coming in so she asked the agent to have us come in with this house. She and her husband, they were elderly people there. It had what we wanted there, but it was a corner house and it wasn't particular about the corner house. She said to me in the backyard, she says, "You can even turn that garage into an apartment in the back." I just looked up and says, "Why don't you have an apartment in the back now?" She says, "I don't want anybody living in my backyard." I said, "Well, why do you think I would want somebody living in my backyard?" She said, "Well, that would help you to pay the notes." I said, "What makes you think I need help to pay the notes?" She turned red as a beet. 119 35:59.000 --> 36:44.000 We looked at that house, looked at the next one, and then the agent got a call one over here. These were people were living in houses and they knew that we were looking, and then the next down the street, they were all looking. We finally decided to get this house. Within the first year after we moved here, house next door was sold, across the street was sold. Within five years, everybody left. 120 36:44.000 --> 36:44.000 All the Whites. 121 36:44.000 --> 37:17.000 All the Whites left. They sold. They left within five years that they left here. It's a subtleness that people say to you, and it's a belief that Blacks are not supposed to have culture. You're not supposed to want better things. You're not supposed to want to do this. 122 37:17.000 --> 37:35.000 We looked at a number of houses. I told you the kind of thing we want, so we would not look at it. We saw houses that had much more than what we wanted. We had told the price range that we were looking for also in there. We went to one house and this was a two story house, very nice. 123 37:35.000 --> 38:19.000 There were some faults with it, but when we looked at it, we saw the potential in it. The woman who was there, the agent for that house, and we made an appointment to see it about nine in the morning. She was there and showed it to us and whatnot. She was saying to us that you can close this wall off. I said, "Wait, don't tell me about putting anybody else in this house. I'm not looking for somebody to move into my house." I says, "I'm looking for a house for me and my family only. Now if you're going to tell that, I'll leave right now," so she shut up. 124 38:19.000 --> 38:44.000 Then she went on to say, when she saw we're really interested, she says, "I have somebody waiting also to make a decision, so if you want to get to his house, you'll have to let me know by 12 and get your down payment." I said, "By 12 o'clock? It's nine o'clock this morning." I said, I don't make those kind of decisions." "Oh, but you want it, don't you?" I said, "I'm interested," but then to be sure to get it before these other people come in. 125 38:44.000 --> 39:25.000 My wife looked at me, she said, "Let's go." We left. About 1130, we got a call from her. "Have you decided?" I said, "No, we haven't decided." "Well, you still have a little time to go yet before the other people come in." I said, "Thank you." She called us two days later, were we still interested in the house. I said, "Oh, you said that we had to get by 12 o'clock. This is too late." "Well, I just thought maybe I was helping you out by helping you to make it in mind." I said, "No you didn't." I said, "If I were interested, I'm not now. Goodbye." 126 39:25.000 --> 40:04.000 Any number of places that we went, they wanted to show me how I could use less or how I could take the house and cut it up, put my family a small portion of it, and then rent out the other part. I says, "I don't want to live with somebody else." I says, "I want something for myself and my kids." Said, "We know they want." I said, "No, you can't show me what we have no matter what." 127 40:04.000 --> 40:46.000 Since we bought this house, we enclosed the porch, we took out walls in the back and made a different kind of kitchen, we added a second bathroom onto the back, we've done things outside. We put air conditioning and all that kind of stuff and made it the way we want it see in there. That's what people don't understand. When they see you coming, they put you into this little box. He comes, I got him now. But you don't have me now. I know what I want. I'm going to do that with it. It's changed somewhat now with it. 128 40:46.000 --> 41:10.000 But at our stage now, we're not looking for things so we probably don't see it. I know we just bought a car recently and we bought a Lincoln and there was no question about. They asked us what did we do, retired and whatnot. Fine. There was no question, "Can you afford it? You can't afford it." 129 41:10.000 --> 41:11.000 "Are you sure you want a Lincoln?" 130 41:11.000 --> 41:48.000 Yeah. No, there was no question of that at that time. We knew what we wanted. We had had a Capri, and '86 Capri, that little driving. We talked with him and we said that's what we wanted. I said, okay, let's do the paperwork. What do you want to pay down? I wrote the check, zoom, no problem with it. See? That's some of the changes that have. They find out that you have something. 131 41:48.000 --> 42:58.000 There's a friend of mine who had an incident recently with his daughter. She married a football player with the Patriots. She came back to New Orleans and I think they living here and there. She went to Maison Blanche to open credit account. He says they were asking what did she do and blah blah, and what's your husband's yearly salary? She's said six million. Said to him, looked at her, you have a mistake, don't you? Said, "No, the salary's six million." "You people don't own that kind of money." Said, "I'm sorry, I can't do it," so they sued the company. They didn't go through with it, but I understand the person was fired. An apology. Okay. Guy's a young football player, Patriots, you're making six million. 132 42:58.000 --> 43:22.000 But she just wanted, wouldn't have to care. She said running around. She had a credit card for MB says growing up she didn't have, she used her mother's credit card all the time. Now mama told her, "You can't use mine. Get your own. Let your husband pay for it," but he says that's the kind of thing that they assume, and that's part of the stereotype that goes on that you're not supposed to know. 133 43:22.000 --> 43:50.000 I get told sometimes, and it's not as much now as it used to be, I don't talk Black. I says, "What do you mean talk Black?" I said, "I've been speaking this way all my life." Of course, I've had some people with some surprises and I'm just full of these anecdotes. 134 43:50.000 --> 44:15.000 In the school system, I was working with the counseling department, I was supervisor of guidance and counseling. We're talking and dealing with registration to one of the schools. Benjamin Franklin, [indistinct 00:44:07] Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin Franklin is one of the magnet schools, but whatever had to come to my office. 135 44:15.000 --> 44:56.000 My secretary was Mexican-American, and this woman called and she went on, Margarita has a very slight accent, not too much. Woman called about something about Ben Franklin. I heard Margarita tell her, she said, "Wait, let me let you talk to Mr. Boucree." I got on the telephone with her, and I talked with her about what she wanted and then she went on to, "We've got to protect ourselves. We've got to let all these other people come into our schools." I said, "Oh? Well, who you talking about?" I just let her on. I told Margarita to pick up. 136 44:56.000 --> 44:56.000 Really? 137 44:56.000 --> 45:15.000 She picked up, and Margarita sitting there just going, laughing away with her. I said, "You want to come on pick up?" "I'll come in and pick up the others from your secretary." I said, "Fine." I told her where the office was and what time. Fine. Hung up. 138 45:15.000 --> 45:40.000 When the lady came, she said, "Oh, I know you want to meet Mr. Boucree. Wait a minute. Well, he has it in his office." Margarita called, Mr. Boucree, Ms. So-and-so." I said, "Oh." I went out with all smiles and whatnot and the woman looked at me and turned red, her mouth open. She said "Thanks" and turned around and walked out. 139 45:40.000 --> 46:20.000 You can't tell what I am on the telephone, and I don't put on cell phone, the same. I told somebody, well, I've had a lot of speech training also. Someone said one day wanted know whether or not I had ever gone to school in the East because they detected some phrases, the As and have a harsh sound sometimes. One of my speech teachers was from New York. Said, "Oh, okay." That's got it. 140 46:20.000 --> 46:43.000 You're supposed to split for, supposed to not know what it is and slur and everything. I said "No." I said, "I've done a lot in speech as a student, participated in speech contest, I taught speech, I taught drama in school and it's just a part of me." 141 46:43.000 --> 46:52.000 Can I ask you something about that? Have Black people ever told you that you don't sound Black? 142 46:52.000 --> 47:02.000 As principal of junior high school, I would call parents sometimes and I—