WEBVTT 1 00:02.000 --> 00:18.000 And then a copy. It's a long term project, but we're trying to get a sense of what it was like for African American people to live during the Jim Crow years. 2 00:18.000 --> 00:21.000 Well, you ready? 3 00:21.000 --> 00:25.000 Yeah. We got the machine going. 4 00:25.000 --> 03:12.000 When I was a child growing up times wasn't good for us. The people didn't have anything. I lived on the farm, and what little we did have, they made the best out of what they could. I have worked for 40 cents a day. We had to buy our clothes, shoes, all our clothing and all of our food out of what we made. We worked for the White people. They would take away, because things were cheap at that time. You could get flour, 12 pounds for—Let me see. I done forgot what 12 pounds cost. But anyway, they would give us—They called it ration your food. They would give you a pack of meal. It's been so long I don't how see how much meat was it? Wasn't much. A pack of meal. Now I'm not sure, three pounds of meat, that's for the man and his family now. Some of them had three and four children. 5 03:12.000 --> 03:17.000 Wasn't a lot. 6 03:17.000 --> 04:00.000 Yeah. We had cows and milked the cows and have milk and a bottle. And what you raised that year they called it self advancing you through the year. They give you that pack of meal and the flour and stuff. But when time come for settlement, they always said, "If you just had a made a little bit more, you'd have paid out." You don't ever pay out. 7 04:00.000 --> 04:02.000 Right. 8 04:02.000 --> 04:53.000 They just keep it. And then you had to borrow something to live on through the winter if you didn't raise enough for yourself. You had to borrow money from them. But if your children got anything for Christmas, though, you know that every parents want a child to have something and they would get something. I don't know how much money, but they'd give them a little money for Christmas. They'll sign them up. That's getting them hooked then for the next year. 9 04:53.000 --> 04:55.000 Was this the people who owned the land? 10 04:55.000 --> 05:29.000 Mm-hmm. The people who owned the land. But we made it, the houses. You could look up at the top and see the sun, moon and stars through them. They were just weather boarded up rough planks. 11 05:29.000 --> 05:31.000 What county did you grow up in? 12 05:31.000 --> 05:32.000 Hmm? 13 05:32.000 --> 05:34.000 What county did you grow up In? 14 05:34.000 --> 05:35.000 Dallas. 15 05:35.000 --> 05:36.000 In Dallas County? 16 05:36.000 --> 05:58.000 Mm-hmm. Selma, Alabama was our little town. And then we had another little place we'd go to was little nearer, we called it Barnesville. 17 05:58.000 --> 05:59.000 Barnesville? 18 05:59.000 --> 06:08.000 Uh-huh. 19 06:08.000 --> 06:14.000 And what was it like to grow up in Dallas County? 20 06:14.000 --> 06:21.000 Huh? 21 06:21.000 --> 06:27.000 Did your family move around to different farms? 22 06:27.000 --> 07:02.000 Uh-huh. They moved around. You didn't like the way they lived, they'd go somewhere else where they promised to treat you better, you see. Well, maybe they did. But anyway, if you didn't raise something for yourself you didn't have nothing. Because of that you did have, they'd take it away, say you owed it on your debt. 23 07:02.000 --> 07:05.000 Do you remember your grandparents? 24 07:05.000 --> 07:41.000 I remember my father's mother and my mother's mother. But them only two that I remember of the grandparents. My father's mother was named Catherine Tosh. 25 07:41.000 --> 07:46.000 Did you have much contact with them? Did you talk with them when you were growing up? 26 07:46.000 --> 09:11.000 Oh yeah. We didn't live so far apart. Of course we had to walk. We didn't have nothing to ride, but we got along. You see, it's just like anything else. If you don't pay no to children and pay no attention like children do now. I didn't get but five months schooling a year. See, we didn't get none. Some of the people were well off than others. And some of the people were able to send their children to school and make teachers out of some of them. But my parents wasn't. But my father was a good farmer. He raised what we eat mostly. 27 09:11.000 --> 09:15.000 Was there a particular cash crop that he would raise? 28 09:15.000 --> 10:02.000 Oh yeah. We raised cotton, corn, peas, potatoes. Most anything grow the field. We raised that. And the floors in the house, I meant to tell you, was cracks like that, like my finger between the planks. The floor was just rough planks. But they was smoother, smooth. But now all them holes between that air come from under the house up through there. 29 10:02.000 --> 10:07.000 Can you talk maybe about your sisters, brothers? 30 10:07.000 --> 10:10.000 Well, I'm the only girl that was in my family. 31 10:10.000 --> 10:17.000 Okay. 32 10:17.000 --> 12:05.000 It was seven of us in all, didn't but four of us lived to get grown. But we got along. We didn't have nothing. We wasn't used to nothing. So we made the best out of whatever we had. And we were happy. You see, we didn't know nothing else but to be happy. We thank the Lord for whatever he gave us. Now one thing, they seen that we went to church and Sunday school. Yeah. My father wasn't a learned man. But he was a deacon of one of the churches. He didn't go to Sunday school with us. He would send us, but you need to think he wouldn't be there right after we would to see did we get there. He wasn't going to play hooky. He was going. We didn't have but one pair of shoes we called Sunday shoes and we went bare feet. 33 12:05.000 --> 12:07.000 The rest of the week? 34 12:07.000 --> 13:17.000 The rest of the week. And we carry them shoes until we getting there to the church if we had to walk a long way distance. Cast a little rag or something to wipe our shoes off. We carried them on our back. We wipe our feet off and put on our stockings and shoes going on in church. And they didn't play church. They had service at that time. People played church a whole lot now. People go to church to see what I got on, what you got on. And ain't nothing about what the preacher saying. But you see we were taught to love the Lord. And out of those four boys, I was the last one to confess Christ. 35 13:17.000 --> 13:19.000 When did that happen? 36 13:19.000 --> 14:28.000 1909, I confess Christ. And He been with me all the way. I can have just as good a time here by myself. You see, if you love the Lord, he love you. He love you anyway. He ain't going to forsake you. He never leaves you alone. If any leaving done, you done left Him. He don't leave you alone. You do wrong, you done drift it away from Him, you got to pray hard. But if you ask to be obedience and ask forgiveness, He'll forgive you for that error that you made. Still own you as his child. 37 14:28.000 --> 15:50.000 Oh, I had a good time this morning. I went to eat my breakfast. Lady brought me my breakfast this morning. I may just graciously give it to me. Not a matter that I don't have food. I tell you, they treat me like I'm a baby. When she come in I was singing, "I Got One More River To Cross." And when I knew anything, both of us were sitting up here crying, happy. You see, you look back over your life and see how good the Lord had been to you. He don't have to do it. He don't have to be that way good to you. So many children go astray. They don't even take heed at what their parents teach you. 38 15:50.000 --> 16:08.000 Mrs. Steele, when you were growing up, did your parents—You talked a lot about what your parents taught you, the values they taught you. Did your parents or anybody in the community ever tell stories about slavery time? 39 16:08.000 --> 17:48.000 Yeah. I hear the people talk about slavery, how they beat up the people and take what they had. They call it owning you. They said that, just like you lived on his plantation and I lived on your plantation, and that just was all the way around. They said they owned them, that they were owned by them people that they were on the plantation. They called them their people. I couldn't go over there unless I get a permit to go. And then they would take those people and they didn't do like they want them to do they'd beat them up, tie them. I used to hear my grandmothers talk about how they did their parents. Now they wasn't born in slavery time, my parents wasn't. 40 17:48.000 --> 17:50.000 Right. 41 17:50.000 --> 18:00.000 And their parents wasn't born in slavery time. But they would hear the other people, their parents' parents. 42 18:00.000 --> 18:02.000 Their parents' parents? 43 18:02.000 --> 19:41.000 Uh-huh. Their grandparents talk about it, just like we heard them talk about it, see. People was hard. Black folks then didn't have no say-so over themself. If that White man want to be a friend with that Colored woman he was a friend with that Colored woman, see? And then that White man have him beat to death. If the White man be friends with that Colored woman, that is all right. But if the Colored man wanted to be a friend with that White woman, he'd beat him to death. See? He didn't have no say-so over his wife. The White man did whatever he wanted with his wife. That's just the way they said it was. I don't know. I wasn't there. 44 19:41.000 --> 19:52.000 Oh. Do you remember any other kinds of stories that your grandparents would tell or that you heard other people tell about slavery? 45 19:52.000 --> 20:39.000 My memory ain't good now. I used to have good memory. But the older I get, I don't remember things like I used to. I don't know. I can't say now. But back then they had a rough time. Yeah. 46 20:39.000 --> 20:42.000 When you were growing up you were living in Dallas County. 47 20:42.000 --> 20:43.000 Uh-huh. 48 20:43.000 --> 20:55.000 Were you living there during your entire childhood, or did you move at some point from Dallas County when you were a child with your family? 49 20:55.000 --> 20:59.000 Oh, I stayed with my family until I got grown. 50 20:59.000 --> 21:02.000 And that was all in Dallas County? 51 21:02.000 --> 21:08.000 Oh yeah. Then after I got grown I went out by myself. 52 21:08.000 --> 21:10.000 And where did you go? 53 21:10.000 --> 22:42.000 Oh, I went to the little town there in Dallas County, still in Dallas County. Got me a job. See, we lived about 10 miles to the little town from where we lived. And the river was about 300—River wasn't nowhere. Papa used to say it's about 300 yards or something like that from the river, Alabama River. And come big rains and things the river would swell, that water just like—Other people that have to move. But as we lived on a hill, we didn't ever have to move. But that water would go all back of our house. 54 22:42.000 --> 22:47.000 Now when you say we, is this you or your entire family? 55 22:47.000 --> 22:48.000 The entire family. 56 22:48.000 --> 22:53.000 Okay. 57 22:53.000 --> 23:21.000 We had to move. I mean we didn't ever have to move. By us being up on a hill, you see, the water be down here, but we couldn't get it. And the little town part of it would be flooded. Oh, it is rough sometime down there. But the Lord brought us out. 58 23:21.000 --> 23:24.000 Is that Barnesville? 59 23:24.000 --> 23:24.000 Huh? 60 23:24.000 --> 23:25.000 Which town was that? 61 23:25.000 --> 23:25.000 That's Selma. 62 23:25.000 --> 23:33.000 Selma. Okay. 63 23:33.000 --> 23:49.000 Barnesville is just a little place where we used to go because it was nearer to get some groceries. 64 23:49.000 --> 23:52.000 In Selma, you were still living with your parents? 65 23:52.000 --> 23:53.000 Huh? 66 23:53.000 --> 23:56.000 Were you living with your parents in Selma? 67 23:56.000 --> 24:25.000 When I was living in Selma I wasn't with my parents then. The water had flooded and practically took all of the farm land, you see. I went there and got a job so I could help my parents. See, they stayed around where they could work and worked there. 68 24:25.000 --> 24:37.000 Where did you work when you got the job? 69 24:37.000 --> 24:54.000 Oh Lord. I worked on Alabama Avenue. I think that's what it was. It's been so long. My memory ain't good, I told you now, like it used to be. But anyways. 70 24:54.000 --> 24:56.000 Do you remember what kind of job it was on Alabama? 71 24:56.000 --> 25:50.000 Yeah. I was working as a house maid. I was working at a boarding house. We'd cook whatever. I'd help to cook. My regular part was to wash dishes, and I ain't never like to wash dishes and I don't want them dirty. I ain't never liked to wash dishes in my life. But they ain't going to stay dirty. I want them clean, but I don't want to wash them. Never did like to wash dishes. 72 25:50.000 --> 26:10.000 I can understand that. So you were working on Alabama Avenue in a boarding house. Who were you working for? 73 26:10.000 --> 26:52.000 What that woman name? Mmm, mmm, mmm. You had to ask me, I could have told you. (laughs) What is her name, sure enough? Oh Lord. If it don't come back it's gone forever. Now it's not a hard name because I can't think of it. 74 26:52.000 --> 27:13.000 I just asked the question just in case you might—It's not specifically—I was just curious, on Alabama in the boarding house, what kind of people would come in there? 75 27:13.000 --> 27:51.000 Well, they were nice people. They took in boarders, roomers. They took them in room and board. They worked and they took care of their food and a place to stay. Give them a place to stay, you see. And then when they got their pay they paid her. 76 27:51.000 --> 27:55.000 All the people coming in, were they White? 77 27:55.000 --> 28:59.000 Oh yeah, they were White. They didn't have no Colored. They just had Black help. But they didn't have no Black boarders or nothing like that. They all was White. But we got along. That funny stuff is they wanted me to wash dishes. One of my cousin was one of the cooks, and another cousin of mine waited table. He said, "I'm the dishwasher." Mm-hmm. 78 28:59.000 --> 29:03.000 Almost a family affair. 79 29:03.000 --> 30:20.000 Well, it's just like you get a job and you find an opening and I done come to town I'm going to try to help you get a job. But if there's an opening where I work, you see, then you tell the people about me, they hire me. That's the way we got all those family folks got together. So when they told me about washing dishes, I said, "Well I just go somewhere else because I ain't going to wash all them dishes." And my cousin was named Hattie. She said, "I tell you what." I said, "What?" She said, "You wait table and I'll wash the dishes." I said, "All right. That's a go." That's the way we did it. We swapped jobs ourselves. That lady's name Miss Wilson. 80 30:20.000 --> 30:28.000 Wilson. So during this time, did your parents continue to farm? 81 30:28.000 --> 31:44.000 Oh yeah. My father did. He farmed until he passed. He never did quit farming. My next oldest brother what lived he farmed until he passed. Now my baby brother, he and me didn't like to farm. We didn't like to work in the field. We worked in the field until—Well, he worked in the field a while after he married. But I didn't matter when I left home, I just left home. I wasn't married, but I didn't try to live all kind of life. That wasn't in me. I tried to live like I was taught to live, right. 82 31:44.000 --> 33:14.000 We see people go astray. The good book says something that people go astray when they leave their mother's womb. That's what that book there tells me. So some of these things, when we see people doing, they can't help their self. The Lord ain't going to lie. He don't lie. And He said they go astray. You see, a lot of us don't know that the book said it because we never pick it up, read it. Some of us can't read and some of us not interested in reading. So that's just the way it go. 83 33:14.000 --> 33:19.000 in Selma, which church did you go to? 84 33:19.000 --> 33:33.000 A little church called Everdale Baptist Church. 85 33:33.000 --> 33:33.000 Everdale? 86 33:33.000 --> 33:33.000 Everdale. 87 33:33.000 --> 33:34.000 Do you know if that's still there, if that church is still on Selma? 88 33:34.000 --> 33:43.000 Yeah. I was there two years ago, three years ago now. 89 33:43.000 --> 33:46.000 What kind of church was it? 90 33:46.000 --> 34:55.000 It was a Baptist church. We sang and pray and serve God. Just like I'm still a Baptist. I belong to Tabernacle Baptist Church on Center Street and Sixth Avenue. No. I'm going be a Baptist. We have good service there. Like way to go there. I can't go to church now. I can't get in a car. If I go to the doctor, I have to go in an ambulance. But those things right there, up ahead of them plaques, read them before you leave. 91 34:55.000 --> 35:27.000 Okay. Do you remember about what time that you were in Selma? About the years, maybe? I'm just trying to think about the year that you moved to Selma. Was it say before World War I or after? 92 35:27.000 --> 35:29.000 Before World War I. 93 35:29.000 --> 35:34.000 When you moved to Selma? 94 35:34.000 --> 35:35.000 World War I out in the country. 95 35:35.000 --> 35:35.000 So it was after? 96 35:35.000 --> 35:49.000 Uh-huh. Out from Selma. 97 35:49.000 --> 36:01.000 I see. So when you were in Selma, how long did you stay there? Did you stay in Selma for a very long time? 98 36:01.000 --> 36:15.000 Oh, I don't know. I stayed in Selma a while. I don't know how many years now. But anyway, I left Selma and came to Birmingham, come here. 99 36:15.000 --> 36:29.000 Okay. 100 36:29.000 --> 36:36.000 I got a job at a laundry. 101 36:36.000 --> 36:40.000 Did you have any relatives that lived up here in Birmingham at that time? 102 36:40.000 --> 36:47.000 My uncle did at that time. 103 36:47.000 --> 36:51.000 Where did you stay when you first came here? 104 36:51.000 --> 36:52.000 I stayed with my uncle. 105 36:52.000 --> 37:05.000 Stayed with your uncle. Do you remember about what time period that was? 106 37:05.000 --> 37:06.000 Huh? 107 37:06.000 --> 37:09.000 Do you remember about what time or what year that was? 108 37:09.000 --> 37:34.000 No, I don't remember the year, not right off. But anyway, I got a job over at the work. And then I stayed here. 109 37:34.000 --> 37:43.000 What kind of laundry service was it? Was it a laundry service that was housed in a big building? Did you go and pick up laundry from folks? 110 37:43.000 --> 37:55.000 No. I ironed the clothes. 111 37:55.000 --> 38:01.000 What part of Birmingham? 112 38:01.000 --> 38:15.000 On the south side. 113 38:15.000 --> 38:21.000 On the south side. What was it like? What was Birmingham like during those years? 114 38:21.000 --> 39:34.000 Well, Birmingham wasn't like it is now. Birmingham was a nice quiet place. You had some rough parts of town, but it wasn't like it is now it's all over town now rough. You could go anywhere by yourself and wouldn't be afraid. Nobody wasn't going to bother you. The women could go anywhere they wanted to go by themselves and nobody to bother. Men took care of women at that time, they see after them, they'd look out for them, see. Ain't nobody going to bother you. Now instead of men trying to care for women, they treat them like worse than they do the dog. 115 39:34.000 --> 39:37.000 Is that about the time that you met your husband? 116 39:37.000 --> 39:38.000 Huh? 117 39:38.000 --> 39:45.000 Is that about the time that you met your husband when you came to Birmingham or when you began— 118 39:45.000 --> 40:19.000 I married after I got here. We lived together a long while. And then we become disagreeable. And that one died. No, that one left me because I didn't like the way he was living. 119 40:19.000 --> 40:22.000 What kind of work did he do? 120 40:22.000 --> 40:26.000 He farmed. 121 40:26.000 --> 40:26.000 In Birmingham? 122 40:26.000 --> 42:04.000 This one where lived here. Of course both of them farmed a while. But the one that died, he was a drunkard mostly, but I didn't know that at the time because when we were going together before we married, then you see he didn't show me no sign of that. He picked a guitar. Sometimes he'd be gone all night. That's after we married. He picked a guitar before we married. I knew he picked a guitar. But anyway, he went, he stay out all night. He's going to come as a getting drunk and laid out. But I stayed on with him. Then he died. 123 42:04.000 --> 42:08.000 Did you remarry after that? Did you remarry after that? 124 42:08.000 --> 42:24.000 No, I have never married anymore. I done got too young to do that now. (laughs) 125 42:24.000 --> 42:24.000 Where did you meet your husband? 126 42:24.000 --> 42:26.000 Huh? 127 42:26.000 --> 42:30.000 Where did you originally meet your husband? 128 42:30.000 --> 43:52.000 Where I met him? Well, they stayed on one side of the river and we stayed on the other side. You see, we stayed on this side of the river and they stayed on that side of the river. Let me see now. Which way the river flows. They stay on this side of the river and we stayed on that side of the river. You see, we get in a bateau and cross the river, go to parties and things like that. Oh, we'd have a big time. But we had a lot of fun. But it wasn't no fighting and all kind of language and all of that stuff, see, because wherever the party was at they didn't allow it. 129 43:52.000 --> 43:53.000 Who was they? 130 43:53.000 --> 43:54.000 Huh? 131 43:54.000 --> 43:58.000 Who was they when you said that they wouldn't allow it? 132 43:58.000 --> 44:01.000 The one that give the party. 133 44:01.000 --> 44:04.000 Who would give the party? 134 44:04.000 --> 44:21.000 Anybody. If you want give a party, you give it. If I wanted to give one, I'd give it. See, you try to crosstalk me. You know you know what a party is. (laughs) 135 44:21.000 --> 44:27.000 I was just curious. I didn't know if it was just a private party or a church party. 136 44:27.000 --> 45:14.000 Oh no. When the church gave anything, we went to the church, see. Just like one at your place and one at mine or his. Well, we'd go. I'd dance all night long. But it didn't hurt me. I had to go to Sunday school, though, when I was with Papa. He didn't care. You could go out there and dance all night if you wanted to after you got old enough to understand that they didn't know how to take care of yourself. 137 45:14.000 --> 45:20.000 Did any of the rest of your family follow you up to Birmingham? 138 45:20.000 --> 45:28.000 Well, my brothers would be with me. Then my cousins would be with us. 139 45:28.000 --> 45:33.000 So they came up with you or after you to Birmingham? 140 45:33.000 --> 45:36.000 To Birmingham? 141 45:36.000 --> 45:36.000 Yeah. 142 45:36.000 --> 45:53.000 One of my cousins wanted to take care of me, but he's much younger. His parents was not as old as me. 143 45:53.000 --> 46:08.000 Right. Now, it must have been quite a change of life to move from Selma to Birmingham. 144 46:08.000 --> 46:28.000 Well, you make your life of what you wanted. I don't care where you are. You can make your life what you want. You can be rough, you can be kind, you can be mean, you can be anything you want to be. See, that's up to you to what you make out of yourself. 145 46:28.000 --> 46:46.000 Right. I guess what I'm trying to get at is, what was different about Birmingham—