Kara Miles: Where did you grow up?
York David Garrett: I was born in Edgecombe County, in a Black town that has the oldest charter of a city in North Carolina. A Black city in North Carolina, called Princeville, North Carolina. It's right on the Tar River, right across the street from Tarboro, North Carolina. And we had White and Colored live in Tarboro. In Princeville, we're all Black. It was an all Black town and they had this post office and stores, post office and other things you would normally have, a mayor and like that. But all of us were Black, and that continued to be that way, and it's still that way.
Kara Miles: Really?
York David Garrett: Yeah. It is the oldest Black town, and the first Black town in North Carolina to have a—be chartered as a city.
Kara Miles: Do you know when it was chartered?
York David Garrett: I should know, but I don't. It was before I was born. I was born in that town in 1894 and my father had been living in that town for at least 12 to 14 years before I was born. I was the eighth child. I was child number 10. My father, who was a grocery merchant, where they call Plain and Fancy Groceries, owned the store in Tarboro, but he lived in Princeville.
Kara Miles: Okay. You called it what? Plain and Fancy? What did you—
York David Garrett: Plain and Fancy Grocery Store, that's what it was. All the stores were called that. Any grocery store that was being operated by anybody that was selling food, anything they could just—It wasn't dry goods, no dry goods. Plain and Fancy Grocery Store. They sold meat, cheese, butter, eggs, baking powder, coffee, tea. Everything that you would find in a supermarket now, those stores did that. That was it. That's what they sold.
Kara Miles: You said his store was in Tarboro?
York David Garrett: Yeah.
Kara Miles: Why was his store there instead of in Princeville?
York David Garrett: Well, I can explain that to you, too. When my father was born—Four years before he was born, the Civil War was going on. Not the Civil War. Yeah. He was born a slave, but he didn't know anything about this because he was only four years. When the war was over, he was four years old. His mother and father belonged to some Whites that had slaves. His father's mother was looked upon by the people that owned them in very good form, and she was their housekeeper and cook for the people who owned the slaves. So she lived in the house with them. And the house is still standing, too, in Edgecombe County. In the house with the people that she was a slave of, she and her husband. And they had two children, my father and his sister.
York David Garrett: And after that, but before slavery time was over, his father who had the same name as I have—Father had the same name that I have, was a harness maker. All kinds of saddles. Always used to make saddles and things like that, and all in here. And it was very—I don't know how he learned it or where he was. He was a slave, but he learned at some time. Maybe before he left Africa or before he left wherever he came from, coming into America. But he came as a slave and he was indentured.
York David Garrett: So what happened, being a well-known—Not well-known, but a very well-trained harness maker—You understand what I'm saying? His master would loan him out to other farm people that had slaves, to do work for them, and he wasn't getting paid for it. Those people paid his master. I'm getting this from my father. He's told me this when I was a child.
York David Garrett: Once, my grandfather, he's my father's father, was sent somewhere to do this special job with some other slaveowners. And this job probably took two or three weeks, because the man knew how long it was going to take. And he wasn't worried about him, because he wasn't went either, been sent there by them. I guess he was. There wasn't no trains or nothing back in the old days. You could just walk or ride on one of the horses with a wagon or something, like that way.
York David Garrett: But before he got back to Edgecombe County where his wife was, working in the house with these White people that they owned them and was the cook, his master wanted to know why he was so long getting back from the place he sent him. He said, "I got to feed my father." Now, I don't know nothing about it, this is my father telling me this. I was still a boy. He said, "I don't know. I got back here as soon as I could. I was a good ways off." The man said, "Well, you should've been here at least a week ago." This is history that they told me. I don't know. I am not making it up. You understand what I'm saying?
York David Garrett: And he said, "And for that, because you're a week late getting back here, I'm gonna give you a good whipping." And my father says, my father told him—And of course, he got this real good from his mother, because his mother was going crazy. My father's mother was going crazy and he was just a little boy, so he got all this stuff from his mother and father. And he said he told the man, "I did what you told me to do and I did a good job and I'm satisfied with that. I got back as soon as I can. And I think you should be pleased with me. But I'm not going to take any whipping."
York David Garrett: The master said, "Yes, you are. I'm going to give you a good whipping tomorrow." And he said, "No, I ain't going for that." And they told me this now, I don't know that because that's before I was born. You understand what I'm saying? And so the next day, when they went to look for him, his father had gone. And he never saw him anymore. He left. The boss man didn't ever see him anymore, nobody else ever saw him anymore. He left and went back—And what they said then, said he went west. West could have been South Carolina or Tennessee, or anywhere. Could have been Ohio. I don't know. He just said he went west. He might have been in the same state, because where we live is the eastern part of North Carolina, Edgecombe County.
York David Garrett: But he said he left his master and never was seen anymore by any of his people. But his mother, my father's mother, continued to be with these people and yet because they were very fond of her, and she was their housekeeper and their cook and everything. And then they grew up. After her husband left and never came back, she married again. And the person she married that time was named Bowens, B-O-W-E-N-S. That was her second husband. And she only had two children by her first husband, York Garrett. My name's York Garrett. But she married again. Slavery time, but I mean, she married again, and she had that husband. I think she had four or five children, but they were not Garretts. They were Bowens because that husband was Bowens.
York David Garrett: And they left Edgecombe County and went—Cretia met this man. See, slavery is over now. You see what I mean? No slavery time then when she met this man. He had left Edgecombe County, went to Washington County, the county seat of Plymouth, North Carolina. Plymouth is in Washington. There's a town in east Carolina called Washington, but it's not in Washington County. That's in another county. But Plymouth, it's in Washington County, and that's where my grandmother went after she married the second time. And she had five or six children, and she raised them. But she didn't lose her connection with the two children she had in Edgecombe County. See, slavery time is gone now. They weren't in slavery then, they were free. The children though—
York David Garrett: Yeah, White families—It's one of the big five families in Edgecombe County. That was my father's connection. My grandfather's connected with them. Well, they're very good people. White, but they had slaves, but they were good people. And one of the men that had owned him, didn't own him anymore because slavery was over, thought a lot of him and trained him as best he could. There wasn't no schools to carry way back then. You figure it out. In '64 or '65, 18. Understand? But he taught him and sent him to the little school that was provided, and he got about as high as fifth grade, which is a good way to go for Black slaves in those days. And he was very good at that. Well, I mean, he wasn't good, but he went as—That's as far as he went.
York David Garrett: This particular man liked him so well, he gave him a job working in his grocery store. Plain and Fancy Grocery Store, in Tarboro. And when the Spanish-American War came about, this White man went to the Army. Went in the war. And while he was there, he made a Major in the Spanish-American War. This the same war that Roosevelt was in, in the Army. And then he—You understand what I'm saying. And when he came back, having ascertained his degree—Not his degree, just an officer. He was an officer. He was a Major. He was an outstanding White person in the Union. A lot of them went and came back as privates, and some were sergeants and stuff like that. But he made the Major. He was a Major in the 1898 and the Spanish-American War.
York David Garrett: And came back, he told his old school, he said, "Well—" This is this White man, this White family. He decided that he could do better than just run a White and Black grocery store, so he sold his store to another White man in Tarboro that had enough money to buy the store from him. And that man moved from Tarboro to Durham. This is a funny thing. Before he did that, my father had grown up and gotten married, working under this man. And he had two children while he was working for this man, a girl and a boy. And my father was the boy for this man who was a Major, that came to Durham.
York David Garrett: But when my father got married and had his first child, he—Not his first child, his second child. He thought so much of this White man, that did all these things for him, he named his first child after this White man, William Jefferson. My father named that son William Jefferson Garrett. That man's name is William Jefferson Bernett. No, William Jefferson Gantt, the White man. So he, my father, named his first son after this White man that thought—He thought so much of the White man, and the man thought a lot of him, because he gave him a start.
York David Garrett: Then this man came to Durham. His family's here now. I've never seen them, but it's a big Gantt family in Durham now, and it's the same family that brought my father from nothing, up to where he would go, and put him in business. But he didn't put him in business, he was working for this store and sold the store to another White group, and that man learned to like my father just like the other man did, and thought a whole lot—And made him the first clerk in his store, in charge of everything. It's White and Black, but this—I mean, the store was a—well anyway, I mean, the White man own them and the White—but it was a store that you would—anybody could buy things from if you needed that kind of thing.
York David Garrett: Now, I don't want to take too much of your time, but I've got to tell you right quickly. So what happened, a few years after the man who my father was so fond of, that he named his first son after, liked what my father was doing well enough, and came bothered him to the extent that he said he thought Edgecombe County was a farming, cotton, corn, peanut place. That's what Edgecombe County still is. One of the biggest counties down there though, strong as hell. Edgecombe. Edgecombe.
York David Garrett: He, one morning—Now my father's married and he has two children. Maybe more than two, because I can get—I got to go back the years again now. One morning my father came to work and the man told him, he said, "York." Says, "I want to sell you my store." My father didn't ever own a store before, but he working. The other man, Gantt, that was his name. He said, "I can't. I don't have the money to buy your store with." And he said, "Well, that's what you don't know. I'm going to arrange so you can buy it. I'm going west." He said he went west. The other brother. He was just one of two or three brothers. The other brothers are still in Tarboro. They were Burnett's.
York David Garrett: He left, turned the store over to my father, and my father continued to operate it and sent him the money for it just like he supposed to have done, until he paid it off. Then the store was his, true and simple. And that store was located in Tarboro, North Carolina on Main Street, right downtown, in the heart of the town. And that's where my father was in business when I was born. He'd been in—he'd had—I told you, I was the eighth child. And he had had several children before me. But that's where he was in business when I was born.
York David Garrett: So I've never known my father to work for anybody, because he was in business for himself before I was born. And continued to be in business for himself until he died. He was well thought of in Edgecombe County and in the area, because that's where he had been all his life. And as he said, he had no father because his father ran away when the man said he was going to whip him, but his mother was still living. And later on, he had his mother to come back from Plymouth, where she went. Come back to Tarboro, and he built her a house for her to stay in. And bought his first house in Princeville. Then he moved from Prince—In that house in Princeville, when he had three children, I think, to another house in Princeville on Main Street. And that's the house I was born in. That house is still standing.
Kara Miles: It still stands?
York David Garrett: Yeah.
Kara Miles: [indistinct 00:16:58]?
York David Garrett: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Then when—In 1901, see all this time, my father is in business in Tarboro. All this time. He never had the business in Princeville, he just lived in Princeville. In 1901, he moved from Princeville to Tarboro and built it. Bought him a home, a house. Not a normal—Bought him a lot, and built him a home in Tarboro, on East St. James Street. It was an eight room house. It was very pretentious back in those days, for a Negro to have an eight room house, and it belonged to him. So when they moved from Princeville and came to Tarboro, I was five years old.
Kara Miles: When they moved from Princeville.
York David Garrett: Princeville.
Kara Miles: Okay. So the—
York David Garrett: Tarboro.
Kara Miles: —eight room house was in Tarboro?
York David Garrett: Yeah, that he built. Well, all the—Yeah, he built all those houses. Well he didn't build them himself, he had them done, but his house in Tarboro was a brand new house that he had built, and he paid for it. And moved from Princeville. He still had his house in Princeville. He didn't sell his house in Princeville. He left it and he rented it out. Then he came to Tarboro, and that's when he established his residence for Tarboro, North Carolina instead of Princeville, North Carolina. And continued to be a citizen of Tarboro, North Carolina. Not Princeville anymore.
York David Garrett: But still, then, Tarboro had no Black schools. All the schools in Tarboro were White schools. Edgecombe County, they had no Black schools in Edgecombe County because Princeville was right across the river and it was all Black schools. The people who owned Tarboro, that were in charge of Tarboro and the White schools, they took all that money and sent it to the Colored town and you had the schools. So the school was called Princeville Graded School, that I graduated from. You see what I'm saying now? And it wasn't any Tarboro Grade School, Black. It was Whites. Grade, high school and everything. Very good schools, but there weren't any Black grade schools in Tarboro, until after I finished grammar school. Now that's all I wanted to tell you about that. That's all that's important, except—
York David Garrett: Me and my father had living—He lost some children. When people, from then—you have 22 years, some of them died back in childbirth, but you know what I mean. I said it was 10 children, I didn't say 10 that lived. You follow what I'm saying now? Six children lived to be grown. Eight of the six were teenagers when they died. But then we stopped living at—
York David Garrett: We were still going to school in Princeville, grade school, but we were living in Tarboro and we were counted—That was the county seat, and my father had been well-known, well thought of, all that time. He continued to be a citizen of Tarboro, and got into politics and things like that.
York David Garrett: He never was mayor. They had two or three mayors of Princeville, Black, but he never—he was doing—All the time, he was living in Tarboro, working in Tarboro, so he wasn't even too close to the Princeville side because he was getting his money and everything from the Tarboro side, where there were Blacks and Whites. Princeville was all Black. Tarboro was Black and White, and it was 50/50. One half of the people in Tarboro were Black and the other half were White.
Kara Miles: So both Blacks and Whites went to his store?
York David Garrett: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they continued to do that until he died. Now, that's enough about that. But I was going to let you know now, just so—what happened. When I was in about the sixth grade of Princeville graded school, they had a prominent well-known principal at the school, that finished over in Ohio, came south, like a lot of Whites and Blacks went south to help the people in the south after slavery. This man was named John Jones. A friend of mine then, Mary Anne, and when I got—He was the principal of the graded school, and he taught the two top classes. It was eighth grade school. The seventh and eighth grade, he taught.
York David Garrett: The principal taught. All the other schools—Well, you couldn't understand that. I'm not going—You understand how the—Way back then, how things would have been. And this man, I was very fond of him. And he was a very study strong man, and he did more personal teaching than he did just—Any students he had Black, that he thought had enough to go and was going to make it, he would take them under his wing and help them out. And get them to—They didn't have any regular graded schools. You can come on out, you graduated, during that time, see. But when you got to be in his class, if he kept you two years, he trained you really good, then you would leave. He let you go—fixed for you to go away to schools; Shaw, St. Aug, Elizabeth City, A&T, Winston-Salem and what not. Understand?
York David Garrett: And he would go to—And he was good enough that students he sent there made pretty good at school. My oldest sister that went to school in Tarboro, when she got in the same school I'm talking about, when I was—When she got old enough that they couldn't teach her anymore—You know what I mean, you couldn't go any further. My mother and father sent her to Shaw, to Estey Seminary. She graduated from Estey Seminary when she was about—But that was just a high school though. You see what I mean? At Shaw. She graduated from there and came back home and taught school.
York David Garrett: My oldest brother that lived, he finished the same school that I finished, and my father and mother sent him to Shaw. He went to Shaw and stayed six years, and got his—finished his prep school at Shaw, which is Shaw Prep School. Then went into college and graduated from—Got his AB Degree in Shaw, in 1908, ready to go into med school. At that time, Shaw had a med school, and he was—He could have gone into med school, his second year of college, which would be the choice. Or you would take another year in college and go into med school after you got your degree.
York David Garrett: Half of the people from the old Doctorates of Shaw that go into med school, half of them got their degrees in medicine. The other half didn't, but they got their MDs just the same. And 1/3 of the families built in Edgecombe—In Tarboro, North Carolina, medics and things like that that finish Shaw, are very outstanding, prominent physicians in the state. One of them was Dr. Warren, who is the father of Mrs. Wheeler.
Kara Miles: Of Ms. who?
York David Garrett: Mrs. Wheeler.
Kara Miles: Okay.
York David Garrett: The lady who owned the Mechanics and Farmer's Bank. Her daughter, Julia, is Dr. Warren's grandmother. And he went to Shaw, and got his medicine, and came back home to practice. Dr. Struther, Dr. Mills, Dr. Cort—Not Dr. Cortis. All those people been to Shaw and came back to North Carolina and practiced. Just North Carolina, straight out. We had a whole lot of medics that finished Shaw University before the school gave up medicine.
York David Garrett: But my brother, he was going to take medicine, had bad luck. The year he graduated, in 1908 and May, had put in his application for Shaw and had been accepted to go to med school at that point. Had about five close friends of his that was in the third year of medicine then, because they didn't go straight to college. But they were close to this here. They were just like this. He was going to join them, but in the year that he finished Shaw and got his degree, he came down with tuberculosis. He graduated in May and died in August, after spending six years in Shaw.
York David Garrett: That was my oldest brother, and I just loved him to death, because I'm a little boy. See what I mean? But you got a big brother and you're crazy about him, and especially he's going to this big school at Shaw University and all this football team and all this stuff, and I'm a little little kid. I guess I just because enamored with all that stuff. (laughs)
York David Garrett: But I just gave you that background to show you something about how that school was. It was this man from Oberlin had bought them out. But while I was in this school, Princeville Graded School, this man died. Died in school, while the school was going on. I was in his classroom, but I was only in the sixth grade. I wasn't—He hadn't had me long enough for me to graduate. And if he had, I would have gone to Shaw.
York David Garrett: Two years after he died—The first year he died, they bought another man from the West End, he was a Methodist minister, but he had a good degree and he had—well-trained.
York David Garrett: But a whole lot of them, hundreds of Negroes from the West here came in here and they got good spots because they had good schools to start with. They weren't in slavery. You see what I mean? But North Carolina and South Carolina and stuff like that, the rest of them, they were slaves. I mean, the group.
York David Garrett: Anyhow, when he had have—He died, and two years—First year after he died, there was an Episcopal family, a very important Episcopal family. People that were over the Episcopal church there in Tarboro. And they were very popular people. Good family. Solid family. And well-educated, and they were connected with—being Episcopalian, they were connected with St. Aug. And all of those—This man had three children. This preacher had three children, a boy and two girls. They sent the boy, after he—and he was trained—He didn't go to public school in Tarboro because they had a parochial school run by the Episcopal church. Private. That was the only Black school it was in Tarboro, but it wasn't accepted, because we all went to the public school. This was just a public school, called the Perry so and so School. His name was Perry.
York David Garrett: This boy, they trained this boy themselves. You know, just had about 20 or 30 members in the Episcopal church, and they would—Anybody that's their member, people that could go to the school, and they would take care of them in the parochial school. You know what—Do you follow me?
Kara Miles: Mm-hmm.
York David Garrett: So when this boy finished—They taught him well, good enough to go to St. Aug. And at that time, when you got to St. Aug—St. Aug, when you got there, you were either in the first year high school or below. That's what St. Aug was, the same St. Aug they say now. And he went there because he was of a prominent family of Episcopalians, and they had a close connection with all the people at St. Aug. So he was going to send that son to St. Aug.
York David Garrett: He went there, stayed, and graduated from St. Aug. Then he wanted to go north to go to college, but they didn't think he had enough training from St. Aug to get into the school he wanted to go to, so he went to—Name two schools. These great White high schools, academies, up in the East Coast. Name one or two. You might remember them. The White schools. They're there now. They're the people who provided all the people for Harvard, Yale, Brown and all like that. Those schools. Three or four different ones, but they were academies. Understand?
York David Garrett: So they were weren't—This young man wouldn't to go to Yale. But they didn't think that he knew, from St. Aug, what they taught him. He had finished St. Aug, but they didn't think he would do well, so they sent out some extra work at one of those academies. I can't think of it. It's '85, but they're still big things, right now. Most of the big White people that go to Yale and Harvard and Brown, and Cornell, go to a prep school before they go there. Now you heard of those prep schools, but I just can't call the name now.
York David Garrett: Anyhow, this the way this man went to that school for a year. And when he got through with that school, he was admitted to Yale. And he was admitted to Yale in 1902. His name was William Augustine Perry. He got his Augustine from St. Aug. I mean, that's where he got his name, St. Aug. The family, the Episcopal family. And he stayed there four years, and in 1907, he graduated.
York David Garrett: He was a musician too. His mother's father and his mother was musicians. Aunts, all like that, and he learned how to play organ and all that stuff. He was a very talented young man. But then he was admitted to Yale, and when he got there in 1902—he finished in 19—He must have got there in 1903, because he stayed there four years. He finished in 1907. And in 1907, he was valedictorian of class at Yale University, from Tarboro, North Carolina. And then this man who'd done so much for me, from Riverford, was dead. So he came back home and applied for the job as principal of the Tarboro—principal of graded school. To be principal of that school.
York David Garrett: The White folks wouldn't have it because they—the town, Tarboro, is controlled by the biggest, richest White people in the United States, probably life. [indistinct 00:32:28] and so and so and so, that's the reason in Edgecombe County, Tarboro, there's a group of White people that own the county. And they're White, but they thought well about the Colored people in the county that they thought well of.
York David Garrett: So when he came back to Tarboro and asked for the job, the people in charge of Tarboro's Graded School, because he was still principal of the graded school, gave him the job as principal of the Princeville Graded School. And he said what he wanted do, his desire was to set that school up on a good, strong basis, so they could compete with anybody in the United States, anywhere, as a grammar school. And it just so happened, the first year he came there, I was in the sixth grade. And it was two boys in his class, and all of them were girls. And he—I had known him since I was a kid, like this, and he knew my family. He took a particular interest in me and he tutored me for four years.
York David Garrett: I was the first boy from his tutoring to graduate from Yale in 1911. Valedictorian of Class of '11 and wrote the Yale's battle song. He wrote the battle song, 'Eli Here I Come'. He wrote that song. But now, when I graduated—I should have graduated two years before I did, but he—Most of us weren't going to be able to go nowhere anyhow, so he just kept on—taught us all the things that he could teach us. Even though you're going to public school, you'll know this. After he stayed there four years, he felt he'd done his job. He'd taken Tarboro Graded School and put it on a sound, sound, sound basis, from first grade to eighth. And I was the first—others been—Girls graduated, but I was the first boy that graduated under him, and I'd been under him four years.
York David Garrett: That's why when I left Tarboro Graded School and wanted to go to Shaw—And my mother wouldn't let me go to Shaw, because my brother had died from tuberculosis, she felt like the school killed him. My sister died from tuberculosis when she went to Estey. She thought the school killed them. It wasn't that. We couldn't do anything with tuberculosis then.
Kara Miles: Right.
York David Garrett: You following me? We didn't have any drugs for it. So when I—Now I'm the last boy in my family. Had girls over me, but my brother's dead, and all like that. So she says she didn't want me to go to Shaw, because I'd go over there and catch tuberculosis and die. So instead of me going to Shaw where I wanted to go when I finished Tarboro Graded School, they sent me to Elizabeth City instead, which I was supposed to have made the first year of high school class in Elizabeth City. They didn't have but two years in high school, the state normal, but that's just two. I was supposed to have made the first year class, but I had all the extra training from this high school. The name's Will, but they look—
York David Garrett: They said, "You're further than a second year. You're as good as a second year. All the work you've done now is a second year of high school." But I went there, so I stayed there six months and graduated. Because I had all this training that this man gave me personally, for four years. Then, I still wanted to go to Shaw, but the people wouldn't let me go, so I went to Howard instead. And had no trouble at all. I stayed at Elizabeth City one year, went to Howard and made the third year academy in Howard University, and that was a school just like those big White academy schools up the way. White principals, and White—Most of the teachers were White at Howard then, and all like that. And I got—and did all right there. [indistinct 00:36:40]. I finished the academy.
York David Garrett: I didn't want medicine, because I didn't think I was due. I didn't want medicine. I thought I wanted dentistry. I was in Howard three years before I could get out of the academy college and go into dental school at Howard. You know medical and dental school is medicine, dentistry and pharmacy. By the time I got through with that, I knew I couldn't be a dentist, because at those times, the dentist did all their work themselves. Mechanical work, building teeth, doing other stuff like that, and I was not going there for that type of thing. I can't even drive a nail straight, or saw a bow straight. That never wasn't my type. It wasn't going to go right.
York David Garrett: So I knew that, so I said, "Well—" But I've been going to my father all my life, from the time that I was born until [indistinct 00:37:34], and I know all about selling stuff in stores and working on people like that. So after I came back home, I asked Pa, I said, "What you going to do?" I said, "Well, only thing I can see is you train me, Father. If I can get in the pharmaceutical school, I can be a druggist and I could do—All the thing you teach me to selling and all the stuff like that, that would be my field. Only thing about it, it'll be professional." So he said, "If that's what you want to do, do it." So instead of entering dental school or Howard Medical school, which I didn't want to do, into Howard's Pharmaceutical School. And I graduated and came out of school, passed the board.
York David Garrett: My father was still in business in this store, in Tarboro on Main Street. And saved some money and all of the trouble of it. And he had enough money to buy things that I needed, and I opened my first store. Brand new store, everything custom built, in Edgecombe County, in Tarboro. That was in 19 something. It was 1920. I finished Howard in '20, in pharmacy, and I took the board that year. It took me a year to build the furniture and everything. The new store, I was going to put up in Tarboro. And I opened my first store May the 2nd, 1921. In Tarboro. And I stayed there until I came here.
Kara Miles: What did you sell at your store in Tarboro?
York David Garrett: I thought it was the best Black drug store in North Carolina. It was Garrett's Drug Store. There was no Black store in Tarboro, drug store. And the law was that no Blacks could be served in any White place, because it would be illegal. If a man came to the store, had some prescriptions from a White or Black doctor, and the prescription had to be filled and they could go take it, fill it in 40 minutes to fill it, he could get it—All these White stores now, just put you—And he had to go outside and stay on the street somewhere until they got through and come back and get it, because he couldn't stand in the store and get his medicine. The state made the law. No White person—No Colored person could be served anything like that in a White establishment, but they could in a Colored establishment.
York David Garrett: But see, it wasn't no Colored drug stores until I came there and opened up the first Colored drug store in Edgecombe, that Tarboro ever had. And it was easy for me to do that because my father. He had been down there all that time. He was in business selling to Colored people and all like that, before I was born. And was still doing it. And well—Like I said, [indistinct 00:40:32], but it's true, he was one of the best known and outstanding Black people in Tarboro. And continued to be until he died.
York David Garrett: So I'm not building up in there, I'm just saying what the situation was. So that's what I had drawn, and that's what I had to go from. And also, my brother, who stayed in Shaw for six years. He was a fine child. He said he liked him and he had the good grades, good looking and all like that. By the time he stayed in Shaw, back in those days with all those people he would come in contact with, Mr. Rollin, and all like that, he was one of the best known Black college guys in Shaw University. And he have his name as William Judson Garrett. He was named—This was the one that was named after this White man, that had come to [indistinct 00:41:34]. You know what I mean?
York David Garrett: With a name like that, he was an outstanding person. But then he had an outstanding name and it wasn't like—His name wasn't John Smith. He wasn't Willie Brown. He happened to have a name of his grandfather, which was—I mean, his grandfather was York Garrett, his father was York David Garrett. The David came before I came in. Then he had a brother was York David Garrett Junior. That's me. After—really, now when—How long you been here?
Kara Miles: About 45 minutes.
York David Garrett: Mm-hmm. Okay. How long you been in Durham?
Kara Miles: About a year.
York David Garrett: Well you weren't here when they—They had an affair for me a little over a year ago.
Kara Miles: Yeah, I saw the brochure for it though.
York David Garrett: Huh?
Kara Miles: I saw the flyer from it. [indistinct 00:42:36].
York David Garrett: Yeah. Well, yeah, see, that's why—They did this because of my father and my brother. I wasn't well-known. I wasn't lucky. I had—It was in me, or else I wouldn't have gone the way I did. But with a name like that, for 30 years, before my father died, he was the treasurer of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, statewide. And was a member of all the secret societies like; Masons, Odd Fellows, all like that. And was a grand lodge officer in all those things.
York David Garrett: And so, when I came along, and it got through me, and my name being the same as his, all the older people used to say, "What's your name?" And I'd say, "Why do you ask?" "You're York Garrett's boy?" "Yeah." Said, "You all right. You're going to make it, because he's a fine man." I got credit for him. Then as I got bigger and got circulated, 2/3 of the most important doctors in North Carolina would be [indistinct 00:43:42], because my brother, six or seven years before. And they liked me and took over, and took me in as their—is that—Oh, that's right.
York David Garrett: [INTERRUPTION 00:43:56]
York David Garrett: "—Be kin to York Garrett?" that was my father. So watch them ask me, "I'm York Garrett Junior." They said, "Well, he was a fine man." Said—And they started to give me the grips and everything.
York David Garrett: He was a member of five secret societies when he died.
Kara Miles: Which ones were they?
York David Garrett: He was the Grand Lodge Officer of the Masons. He was the Grand Lodge Officer and Treasurer of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows. He belonged to the Knights of Pythias, but he didn't do any grand lodge there. He was—All the members of the Masons, it was a women's department called—You know what it is.
Kara Miles: Eastern Star?
York David Garrett: Yeah, Eastern Star. And all Eastern Star organizations had to have a man in it, two men. At least two men, to make it legal, to protect the women. So he was a member of Eastern Star. The Household of Ruth is a women's department of the Grand United of Odd Fellows, and they had the same thing coming up. They had to have a man, so he was a member of the Household of Ruth. He was a member of four Black societies, men, and two women's societies, when he died. And that was for the state. He was known from one end of the state to the other, because of his activity with the secret societies. That was his life. You know what I mean? And it was so much so, that I never took any part in any of it.
Kara Miles: Really?
York David Garrett: I think what might have happened—This sounds funny. Being the eighth child, by the time I was conceived, I guess my father was going to so many meetings every weekend, my mother just got sick of it. She was a member of those things too, the ladies. She's an Eastern Star. She's a Household of Ruth. You know what I'm saying? That's all, because she couldn't be in any men's organizations. And so, it must have turned her. So I ain't never going to join nothing like that, and never did. I never joined.
York David Garrett: And the people I come in contact with right now, can't believe that I'm not a Mason, that I'm not a lodge fellow, that I'm not so and so. Because all the ones still living knew my father. Well, he was the grand lodge on all those things. But so, I never joined. I'm—The only thing I've ever joined, secret society joined, was fraternity.
Kara Miles: Which one?
York David Garrett: Huh?
Kara Miles: Which fraternity?
York David Garrett: I'm afraid to tell you. I went to Howard in 1913. In 1913, Chi Delta Mu Medical Fraternity was started. That's the year I went there, but I wasn't—You could only join that if you were in med school. Understand? That was—But at that time, there were three fraternities in Howard. Alpha Phi Alpha, the B Chapter. Second chapter. The first one was at Cornell. The second was at Howard. The Omega Psi Phi. The first Omega Psi Phi was at Howard. And then the Phi Beta Sigma. They were all at Howard. And I was exposed to all three of them. And probably would have joined one of them.