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See, all those other things was done to him.
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Well, they couldn't put that on him.
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They had somebody else.
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And of course they had the dogs out.
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And I don't know
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maybe they found out who, but I don't know.
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as I say, I was small.
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I mostly know of this from them talking about it,
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but he was done a lot of things like that.
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See, my daddy run the store.
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They done it.
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He, well, as I said, did a little bit of farming.
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And then, he later went in there undertaking business
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and he started that
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and they would make the caskets
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and do all that kind of stuff.
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And so, I think he was doing a little too much
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later on in the years for them.
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And I think that's why,
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I know that's why they were doing things
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like that against him.
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And all that was during this segregation time
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'cause he was Black.
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I'd like to say here too,
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during that time,
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you were all right, as long as you stayed over here
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in your place.
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Oh yes. Oh yes.
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We had a place.
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You stay over here in your place.
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As long as you stay in your place,
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everything's going to be okay.
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But don't you go over there
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and interfere with my cup, cup of tea, get in trouble.
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Did anyone ever deliberately cross that line
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and try to defy the rules?
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Do you remember that ever happening?
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I'm sure they did.
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I wish I had brought a paper with me
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that my dad wrote when we were small children
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to this very school,
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to Professor Inborden,
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asking him to allow him
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to either buy or lease a piece of land
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that would be near.
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Now, we live approximately 13, 14 miles from here
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and there's no way we could walk here.
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He thought that if we got closer to school,
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it'd make everything easier for everybody.
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He was pleading
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for a parcel of land,
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either for sale or lease,
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that he could put a house on
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so he could bring his family closer
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to this institution of learning.
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I looked at the paper this morning.
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Had I known we were going to talk about this,
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I would have gladly brought it and shown it to you.
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But he mentioned
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in this article
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that segregation was such
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that his children
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were not getting the proper education that they deserved.
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Not that they needed, but that they deserved.
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And this is way back,
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many years ago
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We never had any problems with segregation, per se.
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We lived out in our house
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in the country and we went to school,
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we came home, we did our work,
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we went into town and did what we had to do,
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and back home again.
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We had no association-
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We did know the Cofields.
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We used to visit them.
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But for some strange reason,
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we never had any problems with segregation, per se.
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What about when you went to town, Miss Wells?
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We never had any problems there either.
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Never.
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As I say, we weren't allowed to go into town,
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like some of the people were allowed to go into town.
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Town then was a place to go
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to congregate and enjoy your friends from elsewhere.
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It was a day of-
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A meeting place
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A meeting place and fun
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for everybody to be together.
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And we weren't allowed this.
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And my parents did not allow us to come into town.
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Only if we had to go buy shoes, underwear, whatever.
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We went straight to the store.
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We bought what we had to buy.
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We didn't even buy groceries
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'cause my dad and mom did all the grocery shopping.
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We bought what we needed,
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back into the car, and back out in the country again.
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We never had any problem with that.
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Never ever.
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Did other people?
But it wasn't
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that they had it.
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It was there.
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But can you remember anybody getting into trouble,
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Coming to town on Saturday and they're being-
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Many of the times my dad would come to Enfield
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to get John or Henry out of jail.
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They had too much to drink or caused a disturbance.
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Yeah.
I've got to go over town.
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That's what he called Enfield
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and get John or Henry out of trouble.
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These were the fellows who worked for him.
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He had at one time as many as 14 hired hands.
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And on Saturdays, they just had a ball.
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They would go into town
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and my father would go in
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and he'd have to go in and get them out,
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bring them back out the country.
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One of my cousins told me this story.
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I didn't know it.
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But he told me
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that, when he was growing up,
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he was about our age,
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but he was a little rougher
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and one of the white boys
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mistreated him and he did him in real good.
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Real good.
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And then, he hid.
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And the undertaker,
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I'm not calling it a name,
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use his hearse or ambulance,
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whatever you want to call it.
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Hearse.
He hid in that.
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They didn't bother that when it was passing through.
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And so he got out of town as a result.
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What do you think would've happened to him
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if he hadn't hid?
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Well, the trees are a convenient place to dive
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in case you do something like that.
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So far they're concerned.
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They may take you off and you never know
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because they had all of the weapons
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and the Negros were kept separate,
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so to speak, from each other.
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And you couldn't think of getting together
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and defending yourself.
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If you were willing to defend yourself,
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like my cousin there,
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well, you had to pay the price.
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But if you could get some help, you were lucky.
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And he was lucky.
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But sometimes, that was not the case.
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They'd just pick him up.
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And when you see him again,
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somebody was taking them down from a tree.
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That's always...
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Really, this area was probably
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well, as rebbish as any area in this state.
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You see you had slave plantations
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and the anger and hatred
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that developed as a result of losing free labor just lasted.
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And that's still around.
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Not as much so
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because you see a lot of our boys
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have gone to the army
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and they know how to use guns
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and they have them.
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And those are the things that have made a difference
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'cause being in the army has made a difference
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because they were trained to fight
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and how to use weapons.
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And some of them brought those same weapons back home.
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So they are now able to defend themselves much better.
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And they do.
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'Cause a lot of things happen sometimes
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because tension has been built up.
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You think about what somebody did to my uncle,
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my brother, or my sister, or my mother,
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and now I had a chance to get even.
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So one way or another,
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I will retaliate.
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And of course, it's not easy to live with
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and creates other problems,
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but we've been living with problems all our lives.
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And we just don't run away from it quite as fast.
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And then, if you get a guy about half drunk
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or full of dope,
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he doesn't think of dying as such.
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And that's why you have so much,
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so many people in prison
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in this area
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because the situation has changed completely.
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And they're learning to respect the fact
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that, if you try to come in my front door,
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you might not get in.
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There was a time when
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you could get in.
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But if you try knocking our front door
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and if I tell you not to come in, don't come in
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(woman chuckles)
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because it's just like committing suicide.
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I don't want to interrupt you,
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but we have to go somewhere else.
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So we have to wrap up here.
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Well, wrap it up.
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(people chatter)
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Yeah, I just wanted to ask you how much time
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do we have in here?
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Well-
'Cause we could sit here.