Mary Hebert: [indistinct 00:00:01] White families in the community they did not associate with?
Sammy L. Gordon, Sr.: Yeah. With the poor white. No, they would always tell what to do. They would hire them just like they would hire anybodies else. And they would live on their farms. They would treat them just like they treat anybody else, yeah.
Mary Hebert: But your family didn't make that distinction.
Sammy L. Gordon, Sr.: No, we just- Well, on my grandmother's side, she'd always- When she introduced us to who we was, that was it.
Mary Hebert: Mm-hmm.
Sammy L. Gordon, Sr.: We could go [indistinct 00:00:30]. That's why I guess I learned to be in better stores and stuff. I was a little fella when, to go to these White store. They didn't tell me I couldn't go buy in the [indistinct 00:00:39]. They would tell me go get so-and-so. Bring the so-and-so. I'd pick out so-and-so and stuff on that nature.
Mary Hebert: You always worked for your father [indistinct 00:00:49]?
Sammy L. Gordon, Sr.: Yeah. Well, I was self- Well, I would [indistinct 00:00:53] myself because he made me self-employed.
Mary Hebert: [indistinct 00:00:55].
Sammy L. Gordon, Sr.: For myself. But yeah, no, he didn't allow me to work for anyone else. I wasn't a good person to get along with anybody else.
Mary Hebert: But he wouldn't hire yourself out in your tractor out there?
Sammy L. Gordon, Sr.: Yeah, I could do that because I was independent. The only thing they would ask me, whatever. If a person come and ask me to work, it was, "Well, you know what to do. It's your job." And that was it.
Mary Hebert: Have you always been self-employed for the most part?
Sammy L. Gordon, Sr.: Yeah. All my life I've always been self-employed. Yeah. I had several stores. I did several things, changed communities. But this was the longest because I've been with this business 28 years.
Mary Hebert: Where else did you have it? Mostly in the South?
Sammy L. Gordon, Sr.: Yeah, South.
Mary Hebert: In South Carolina?
Sammy L. Gordon, Sr.: Yeah, mostly South Carolina. Yeah.
Mary Hebert: Where else in South Carolina [indistinct 00:01:50]?
Sammy L. Gordon, Sr.: I lived in Columbia. I lived in Blackville. I lived Cameron, which is in here and Furman was a place I grew up. A little while in Georgia because my family's in their.
Mary Hebert: Did you have relatives who went north?
Sammy L. Gordon, Sr.: Yeah. Oh my, all my family is [indistinct 00:02:11] because they went north because I have only one sister who live in the South. But all the families, they grew up in the north. My [indistinct 00:02:19] growed up North. But mine, we grow up in the South. Now I'm a Southerner. I travel. We traveled. As a matter of fact, as a family, we traveled shoe shows. We've been doing this for 30 years since my oldest son was a baby. We'd take them all over the place and learned the business world. Yeah.
Mary Hebert: Is that something that you tried to teach your children [indistinct 00:02:47]?
Sammy L. Gordon, Sr.: Oh, yeah. They know business, right. I have their edu- My oldest son, he educated in Venice. He graduated from Venice.
Mary Hebert: Did you stress education to your children?
Sammy L. Gordon, Sr.: Oh, yeah. My wife was also instrumental in that was a part of education. We sent them to school all four years, all. Each one of my older son. Well, they're seven years apart. He went to school when he was four. He could read and spell his name when he was two. He was just a good talk and I just made him spell his name and starting him-
Mary Hebert: And he learned how to do it at two?
Sammy L. Gordon, Sr.: Yeah, at three years old. He could read. You'd go to the store, he'd go to town looking for certain things. He wasn't big enough hardly to stand up good and he said, "Well, you passed the store." How do you know? "I see it right there." Let me tell you how he shout it. "That's the store [indistinct 00:03:35] because I could-" Yeah, he just knew it. And television helped. [indistinct 00:03:44] those stories and stuff, that that was a great thing for the children back then, too. Because I know it was for us, right? We enjoyed when we got our first television. Yeah.
Sammy L. Gordon, Sr.: But [indistinct 00:03:56] the school already was good because we had all of them. But that's where the money went. [indistinct 00:04:02]. Put it in those kid's education. We started them in the summer till we go to school in the fall. Summer we would send them swimming, baseball camp, basketball camp, spread over [indistinct 00:04:16]. It was always a year round thing for all of them. We have three children. Yeah.
Mary Hebert: Is that something you got from your parents [indistinct 00:04:27] education?
Sammy L. Gordon, Sr.: Yeah. Right. I found out- See, well after the studying and, like I said, dealing with all nationalities of people, I've been able to associate with some mighty, mighty- I thought my hometown people was- Well, a few of them [indistinct 00:04:44] extra break, a couple dollars more [indistinct 00:04:47]. But I have been blessed to be able to share with people on 5th and 6th of department stores, giants. Giants. Yeah. I was part of that arena. And my children, ain't nobody- I carried them and introduced them to the real world.
Mary Hebert: And you're [indistinct 00:05:07] confidence to be able to do that kind of thing? To be able to associate with these kinds of people?
Sammy L. Gordon, Sr.: Yeah. I just feel good about- Well, I guess by, like I said, by not being segregated. That's why I couldn't say we- The only thing we couldn't go to a church together. Unless it was a special picnic, we was invited. And we didn't go to school together unless it was something special that we all, the community did together. We did those once in a while. But mostly, everything else was integrated. Integrated. In the homes, eating, whatever, we would share dinners together and that [indistinct 00:05:48]. So that way I grew up in. I never had no fear about what I could do or what didn't. I just couldn't- I would say I didn't know how it was to be a Black man or a White. I just knew how to be a man. That's all I could think about. And that's what I teach my son, though. Yeah.
Mary Hebert: [indistinct 00:06:05]?
Sammy L. Gordon, Sr.: Yeah. No. You feel like you're a man. Yeah. You can get capable of doing the things you want.
Mary Hebert: Now, your experience was different than a lot of people in the community.
Sammy L. Gordon, Sr.: Yeah, they were. I knew this. Because see, I read, and I could tell reading, I said that like my dad, I always had a good job. I remember he worked two jobs before, night and day to make things work. And the neighbors would [indistinct 00:06:34]. My mother always said, "Take this pile and do something with it." The things of that nature. The Lord blessed us. We just had it there. And that was the way it was growing up. If my dad or somebody got hurt, he was the ambulance. They would call him any night and he'd go transfer them to the doctor. And he-
Mary Hebert: [indistinct 00:06:58] what kind of hospital it [indistinct 00:06:59]?
Sammy L. Gordon, Sr.: Well, when we first was that we had to go over [indistinct 00:07:02] in the hospital in the county at that time. So what he would do, the doctors would- He'd just picked individual up and the doctor said, "Well, just bring them to the house." And he had a room. He knew the doctors. He knew all those people. If they couldn't get to him or they turned to him when he was the only thing, he'd go there and they would just let him in, and they would doctor all those people. He was just one of those guys that he could- Everybody knew him and everybody would just cater to him. Yeah.
Mary Hebert: I don't have no more questions, but is there anything that you can think of that I didn't ask you about that you'd like to tell me about? Did I leave anything out of the story?
Sammy L. Gordon, Sr.: No, I think that's-
Mary Hebert: [indistinct 00:07:44] your experience?
Sammy L. Gordon, Sr.: Yeah. That was the major thing, and I think so. Yeah.
Mary Hebert: I'll stop this-