Paul Ortiz: Florence, I wonder if you could start out with, if you could tell me where you were born and a little bit about the community that you grew up in. 

Florence Wilson-Davis: Okay. I was born in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, in Northport, not in the town of Northport, but in the rural area that was referred to as North River. I was delivered by my great grandmother, as both my brothers and I were. At that time, I'm not sure, but I guess my father was sharecropping, I don't know. But it was a small wood frame house. My mother tells me now that it didn't even have an outhouse. I do remember the house and remember what it looked like. We moved to Birmingham when I was just a little girl, I guess about four years old, five years old, 

Paul Ortiz: And that would've been around 19—? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: I was born 1936. So it must have been 1940, '41, I think. '41, '42. My mother said it was 1942 when we came up, but I'm not sure about that. 

Paul Ortiz: Do you remember how you felt about moving? Did you have any attachment to Tuscaloosa County? Were you sad about leaving? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: No. No, I don't. I don't recall having any memories like that. Maybe because I was too little. As I said, I can remember the house. Most of the houses at that time were scattered because it was in the country, it was in a rural area. I remember there was a cotton field. And of course there were relatives who lived down the road and up the hill and all of that, but I don't recollect how I felt, to tell the truth. 

Paul Ortiz: Did your family have contact with the other relatives? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: Oh yes, the Wilsons and Taylors. And of course there were some other families also, but all very close. And in those days, you just literally walk from place to place. 

Paul Ortiz: How would you usually get together? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: Well, in the country, as I say, you just really walk from house to house to visit each other. And I guess people had wagons and not a lot of people had cars, not at that time. And when we came to Birmingham, at first, we stayed with my great aunt who was just right near where the institute is now. And then we moved to Ensley. My mother said we were in a small shotgun type house. My father's brother worked at the steel mill. I do remember being at my aunt's house in Birmingham and in Ensley. I remember there weren't a lot of young children where she lived. 

Florence Wilson-Davis: And I remember we used to play with some children whose parents must have owned a little grocery store, and they were Italian, but they were called dagos. And Ensley is where I first went to school, and I loved that. And then we moved from Ensley to Westfield. 

Paul Ortiz: What did you love about the school at Ensley? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: I liked the teacher and I was just excited about school. I guess I always wanted to read. I just loved school. That was very exciting for me. 

Paul Ortiz: Do you remember your classmates? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: Not at the school in Ensley, I just remember the teacher and learning my ABCs and all of that. She was just a nice teacher. I loved that teacher. I think her name was Ms. Jackson. 

Paul Ortiz: Ms Jackson. What kind of school was it? Was it one grade or one room? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: Well, see, Council was in Birmingham, it was in Ensley, and so that was a city school. I can't remember exactly what it looked like, but it was a big school. It was certainly bigger than what I would've attended had we stayed in Northport. And then when we moved to Westfield, Westfield was a community that had homes that was a self-contained community with houses that were rented to the people. And the people who lived in the houses either worked in the mine or they worked in the steel plant. I guess at the time, we didn't think they were bad houses, but when you look at pictures today, it looked like a rather depressed area. 

Florence Wilson-Davis: But there were houses that were detached. Some of them were like a duplex, and they had outhouses at the back of them. But in the community, there were churches, there was ball field, there was a bathhouse where you could go and take a shower because there weren't any inside bathrooms. There were no sinks inside. And I guess we had a wooden stove, I guess, a wood burning stove. I remember a lot about Westfield. There was an elementary school, a grammar school of what would be called today a middle school, and then a high school. And grammar school and elementary school were very much in walking distance. We lived closer to the elementary school, and the high school was a little bit further. 

Florence Wilson-Davis: But again, I enjoyed school, I loved my teachers. And the activities were, I thought, just great. Of course, teaching was different. There was a lot of oral recitation and picnics and Maypole celebrations. I've never quite understood why Mayday was so popular in the South. And because when I moved North, it seems as though people had not heard of Mayday and had not observed it. But we'd have the Maypole where we'd have streamers and plaque them as we had this special old dance we did around the Maypole. And it was a very festive day that usually included a picnic and homemade ice cream and all of that. 

Florence Wilson-Davis: And when I reflect back on it now, because as Blacks, we didn't have parks or that minute that we could go to, but it seems as though there was always a clearing in the woods or something. We didn't think anything about going there. The teachers would take us there for a picnic. 

Paul Ortiz: Who organized those celebrations? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: I guess the teachers. 

Paul Ortiz: Was it was a difficult transition from Ensley to Westfield for you and your family, or was it something else? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: No, I think for my parents, it must have been, I guess for them it was a good transition because my father was working in the mines and they had this house. And I guess the rent wasn't too much. And it was certainly, I guess better than—I could understand it better now as an adult, talking to my mother, it was better than what they had in the country. And the house, I'm trying to think, did it have two bedrooms or one? Because in those days, children slept in one room and the adults slept at another. 

Florence Wilson-Davis: I'm trying to think. I can't remember whether it had three rooms or four rooms, but I remember the kitchen, I remember the back porch and the houses had a counter at the back of them, and the hydrant came up the center of the counter. I remember that. And there was a gully or whatever that ran behind the houses. And so just to have water, electricity, things that they didn't have in the country. So I guess it was a good transition for them. And I think from living in Westfield, it was a neighborhood. It was definitely a neighborhood. People all knew each other, and most people went to one of the, I think it must have been about three churches. 

Florence Wilson-Davis: And so it's like we were all together all of the time. And so most people did know each other. And it was a friendly environment. It was nice. And then when we moved to Hueytown in 1949, my father had a house built, and I was 13. And that was a big transition for me and my brother, my younger brother, because by that time, we had gotten used to the large schools in Westfield, and Hueytown had a two-room school with four grades on one side and four grades on the other side, at least the Colored school. I had to complete the eighth grade there. And that was hard because I just thought it was awful. 

Florence Wilson-Davis: And then I went back to Westfield to high school because Hueytown is in Jefferson County, and so I went to Westfield, was a county school. 

Paul Ortiz: Can you tell me a little bit about your neighbors in Westfield? You mentioned that this was a neighborhood, it wasn't just a bunch of houses. 

Florence Wilson-Davis: Now, I'm terrible with names. I remember one lady on one side of us, her name was Ms. Carter, and she was a beautician, she was a hairdresser, and I remember her children. And then on the other side where the Davises. I remember a lady named Miss Lucy across the street. Just recently, I saw a lady who said Florence, and she was running to me. She's a nurse at a hospital here. Her name is Christine Price, and I don't know what her married name is. But anyway, they lived next door to the Carters, and so I remembered them. And Hueytown, a lot of people moved to Hueytown who had lived in Westfield, like the woman across the street from my mother, she lived in Westfield, Ms. Green, and a lot of the people out there I remembered. 

Paul Ortiz: Now, you mentioned that a lot of people moved from Westfield to Hueytown. Was that just an related to a job change? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: No, land. Owning land and owning a home. When my father had our house built, even though it was a small house, cottage type house, but it had an inside bathroom. My mother got her first stove rather than a wood burning stove or a coal burning stove, she had an electric stove. And eventually she got a wash and dryer. But it was a new house. My grandmother had a garden on one lot. So it was like we had really moved up. It was nice, but it was considered rural even though it was not rural. Hueytown has always been a small town, small township. 

Paul Ortiz: You mentioned your grandmother, was she living with you as well? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: Yes, she started living with us in 1946 when my grandfather died. 

Paul Ortiz: When you were out, when were living in Westfield, you mentioned a garden, your grandmother's garden. Did you have a garden in Westfield as well? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: No, no, there wasn't the space for that. My father used to—Let's see, I can't remember exactly where it was. But there was an area where you could raise hogs. You couldn't raise them there in Westfield, but there was somewhere near, and I think my father raised some hogs there one time. And I don't think he could even kill it in Westfield, I don't think. It is hard for me to remember that. But because the yard space, you went up a hill from our house and then it leveled off and that's where the outhouses were. So it was a long way to go to the outhouse. 

Paul Ortiz: You mentioned in moving to Hueytown as a chance to own land. Who was the land purchased from? Do you remember? Was it one of the steel companies? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: No, it was purchased from Mr. Bush, a White man who lived in Hueytown. And there was this part of Hueytown that had been named Harlem Heights. It seems as though everything back then, a Black section had Harlem in it. But anyway, it was called Harlem Heights. And the road leading to the area, Night Avenue, which is where my mother is still living today, you went up the street to a certain point where the last White person lived and the street was Blacktop up to that point. And the rest of the way it was dirt. And that was Harlem Heights. And even though there were a few houses, but not up where my father bought the land, because it was all wooded and everything. 

Florence Wilson-Davis: And he bought two lots. And then Mr. Bush built our house. The old man Bush on the land, and Mr. William Bush was the contractor and built our house. And my mother and father would go down to Mr. Bush's and make the payments. 

Paul Ortiz: How did life change for you as a person moving to Hueytown with your family? At this time, you were about 13 or 14, do you remember marked change from Westfield in real life? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: Not really. I turned 14. My uncle, my father's brother, was pastoring a church in Hueytown. So we became involved with that church. And I became a young lady, so to speak, in Hueytown on my 14th birthday, and my mother gave this great big party for me. I had friends. And so it was not drastic for me because I knew—We moved out there in, I think it was October. Seems like it was in the fall. So I had to finish the school year. And then I went to the high school the following year. So it's like some of the people that I might have missed from Westfield, I was having the opportunity to see them again in September. 

Florence Wilson-Davis: I didn't like the school. I didn't like that little two-room school. I turned 14 in July and then went to high school in September. I think it was after I went to high school that my parents bought me my first set of encyclopedias, which I was quite proud of. And then they bought me a typewriter, which I was also proud of. 

Paul Ortiz: Do you remember the name of the high school and what it was like? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: What, Westfield? 

Paul Ortiz: Yeah. 

Florence Wilson-Davis: Yeah, Westfield. It was still Westfield. Just Westfield High School. I always liked school. I still like school. And so Westfield High, again, when you reflect on things as an adult, it looks different to you. But the school was located across the street from a tin mill, which would be totally environmentally incorrect today. We didn't have a football field as the city school kids used to tease us. We had just a cleaned off space that was a football field and it's where the band practiced. Westfield was a lot of Black schools at that time where the trades were as were part of the curriculum, shoe repair, upholstery, beauty culture, fixing hair. 

Florence Wilson-Davis: And I remember the cafeteria, the gym, I remember all of my teachers. And I, at that time, my goals were very limited. I wanted to be a secretary, like the Gibson girl secretary, the glasses and the whole nine yards. So I guess business was my focus in high school because I took typing and shorthand and business English and business law and all of that. I was a good student. I was not a totally A student, but close. And when I graduated, I won a four year scholarship to a school in the North, an integrated school. That was a stipulation. 

Paul Ortiz: That was a stipulation of the scholarship? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: Mm-hmm. In those days, if they had SATs, they didn't tell Black folks about it evidently. And it was a National Negro Scholarship Fund that was out of New York. And that fund would, I guess, go into rural areas or into—I really don't know how it worked, but a man would come from New York and give a test. And now I realize it's an academic achievement test. And I came over to the school in Birmingham to take the test along with some other students. My principal is the one who insisted that I take the test because I didn't want to take it. And he insisted that I take it. 

Florence Wilson-Davis: And then the man came back to the school and said that I had been one of the highest scores and offered me the scholarship. But the procedure was that you had to list places where you had relatives out of state. And so the typical migration of Blacks from the South to the North was Chicago, Cleveland, New York, Washington DC. Those were the places I listed where I had relatives. And then what they would do is find a school in those places to see if you could get a scholarship. So I think there was, what is it, University of Chicago lives in Champaign, Illinois, or is that University of Illinois, I forget. And Columbia, Georgetown. And I was not accepted at any of those. And I ended up at Finn College in Cleveland. 

Florence Wilson-Davis: And again, when I reflect back on it, it would have been good if there had been some counseling since the intent of this scholarship fund was to get a Black person out of the South into the North and into an integrated setting, but there was no follow through and it was one of the most horrible experiences of my life because the school was very prejudiced. And I think that one's experience from the South to the North, in the South, you knew the Colored places and you knew what you couldn't do and all of that, and you get up north and think that it's different and it's not. 

Florence Wilson-Davis: The school was very prejudiced. And my grade point went from 3.9 something all the way down to probation status, which is psychologically, I literally blocked it out of my mind. And it wasn't because of me, it was because teachers. There were six Black students when I started school. And by the third quarter there were only four left. And it was terrible. I used to save papers and I finally threw it all away where a professor would give me like an A or A plus on a paper and then when it came time for the grade, give me an F, that kind of thing. Or have a professor say, "You will not get anything above a C," or have them just fail you or give you Ds. 

Florence Wilson-Davis: And that was an awful experience, an awful experience. And I think it's almost ironic that today, Finn College is now Cleveland State University and has a Black faculty, Black students probably are the majority. And I have a first cousin who ended up being a professor there. And I think he might have either been head of the African American Studies Department or something like that. But it's just ironic how these things end up. Anyway, that got off of Birmingham, I didn't mean to do that. 

Paul Ortiz: Oh no, that's a wonderful story. As your family made different transitions from Ensley or Westfield, were you able to maintain contact with your relatives in Tuscaloosa County? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: Oh yes. We would go down there once my father would start buying cars, we'd go down there on the weekend. And as children, we were sent there in the summer, and that was always fun. I used to really enjoy that. And my father had seven brothers and one sister. But anyway, it was a large family. My mother had two whole brothers and five half siblings because her father had married twice. And so when we go down, both my mother and father would have their preference about where we should stay. And my brothers being boys seemed to have gotten their choices, but I was always sent to stay with whoever my mother said I had to stay with. 

Florence Wilson-Davis: And I didn't always like it. And usually, she would want me to stay with my great-grandmother, the one who delivered us. And it's not that I didn't like her, but she frightened me as a child. And so I hated to stay with her. But usually I did. Anyway, there was always close contact that never stopped. 

Paul Ortiz: Did any other relatives follow your family to Ensley or Westfield? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: No. My father had a brother who lived in Ensley and then one brother who lived in Hueytown. 

Paul Ortiz: And they proceeded here? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: Yes. Well, my father's brother who lived in Hueytown, he moved to Hueytown from Parrish, Alabama. And uncle Clarence, the one who lived in Ensley, he was the first one up here of my father's family. 

Paul Ortiz: And they were they able to help your father get his first job? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: I assume so. I don't know, but I would assume, and I don't know how daddy ended up in the coal mine rather than the plant, the steel plant. But he had worked in the mine in Fayette County because he started working in the coal mine when he was about 13, I think. So maybe that's why he got in mines because of that experience, I don't know. 

Paul Ortiz: What were your responsibilities growing up? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: Too many, because I was the only girl. And unfortunately when you're the only girl, the expectations were quite high of me. And I resented it. I didn't express it, but I harbored ill feelings because I guess once I became a teenager or even before, I always loved to cook and I liked watching my grandmother prepare food, and she was an excellent cook and she was a very creative cook. And I didn't realize it at the time, but after becoming an adult and reflecting back on it, my grandmother, I could see how both my grandmother and my great-grandmother, how a lot of the things that they did could be traced strictly back to Africa. 

Florence Wilson-Davis: They were both women of mixed parentage, but they were just so creative in things that they did. So I watched my grandmother cook and of course, I would try to imitate her. And my father, he was a good cook too. And my mother didn't always work, but her demands of me were greater. Once I had supposedly learned how to cook, I would have to get up. And my father being in the mines, he'd work what they call, they have all these different shifts. And when he worked 7:00 to 3:00, I used to hate that because my mother would make me get up to cook breakfast and she would always say, "My back is hurting, this is hurting." 

Florence Wilson-Davis: And I would say, "I know that her back isn't hurting and I know that her legs are not hurting, she just does not want to get up." And so both my mother and father treated me that way. And as I say, I resented it. Everything had to be clean and so I had to do a lot of stuff. 

Paul Ortiz: Wow. Do you have any other kinds of duties, did you have to watch other children? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: No, because, well, my younger brother we're all almost three years apart. And so there was really no watching because my mother didn't work all of the time, it was sporadic. 

Paul Ortiz: What kind of work was it? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: She worked in a restaurant, she worked at a milk packing plant on the days of the powdered milk. What else did she do? A little bit of domestic, but she didn't seem to like that, so she didn't do much of that. 

Paul Ortiz: Do you remember why and did she ever express any reasons why? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: Well, evidently, a lot of White women, number one, didn't pay anything, not worth the amount of work that was being done, and sometimes they'd pay off in clothing or scraps of food, and she resented that. 

Paul Ortiz: You spoke about your grandmother, do you remember stories that she would tell or perhaps stories that she would tell about her background or? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: No. I wish, again, as I reflect, most older people didn't talk to children. You were supposed to be when spoken to and all of that, and they believed in that. So my great-grandmother, the one that I feared so much, I wish she would have shared some things about her life, because she always wore long dresses, for instance, and her head was always covered. And she died when I was 15, just about to turn 16. And my grandmother, my father's mother never talked about her family. And her father was a White man and my father used to say that she hated the fact that this man was her father. 

Florence Wilson-Davis: And it wasn't until I started digging, doing some genealogical work, and I am still not sure who her mother was. So she never talked about it. She never talked about it. She was an excellent storyteller, excellent storyteller and she always had us in stitches. She was a tiny petite woman. And so she played with us like she was one of us. She was really something else. 

Paul Ortiz: Now, Westfield, I don't know much about Westfield. Was Westfield adjacent to Ensley or was it physically separate? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: No, physically separate. Westfield was located between Fairfield and Wylam, and Ensley is, I guess you'd say east of both of those places. 

Paul Ortiz: Okay. I asked this question to Rose Bernice yesterday and may have no idea of where Westfield was. It just seems it's almost become a forgotten. Do you remember much about your, you spoke about really enjoying school in Westfield, do you remember much about your teachers and the people they were and what they were teaching? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: Oh, they were wonderful. They were more than teachers. It seems to me that they filled the void because most parents were not educated. My mother finished the sixth grade and my father finished third grade. And because of the situation, then children couldn't even be in school all day, and they certainly could go all year, and especially the boys. And so the teachers, they provided the opportunity, say to learn language and the proper use of language introduced us to more and more books. And like the oral recitation, when I think about that, that taught us how to speak properly because we were repeating what the teacher was saying. 

Florence Wilson-Davis: And one teacher who did that in elementary school a lot was Ms. Love. And there was a Black man who I thought was a superintendent, but evidently he was the Black superintendent to go to all of the Black schools in Jefferson County. And when he would come to the school, it was, "Dr. Jones is coming or Mr. Jones, whatever it was, he's coming." And so we had to be on our best behavior and looking nice. And sometimes he would give us a spelling test or he would give us a math test and we would proudly answer all of the questions, which would make the teacher proud. They took personal interest in us. 

Florence Wilson-Davis: I can remember a teacher who one day, my mother it must have been one of those working periods. And I put my hair up in a pompadour. And when I got to school, Ms. Drake, who was a principal, immediately sent me back home. And that was an elementary school, but throughout school, even when I got to high school and by the time I got to high school, the personal interest was, for instance, the lady who was the librarian, Ms. Long, she saw my interest in books and reading. And so I was in the library all the time I was in high school and she taught me everything about a library. 

Florence Wilson-Davis: She also bought my jewelry when the first prom I attended, I think she even had my hair done. And so there was always this help. And the principal, Mr. Reeves, would have us to his house. He and his wife would take us to meetings, especially meetings that were out of Birmingham. And I love every one of them. The teacher, she's still living Mrs. Wilnoa who taught, I took literature from her, English Lit. And most students were not interested in literature. And I saw her a couple of years ago and thanked her and she said, "Well, that's a first. Nobody ever thanked me for literature." But anyway, I credit my teachers and my principal with putting whatever bug it was in my head or in my ear to further my education and enjoy learning 

Paul Ortiz: What was the racial composition of staff and administration? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: Everybody was Black. Everybody was Black. 

Paul Ortiz: Did you have, at any point when you were growing up, remember medical problems or emergencies that came up in your family? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: No. I had pneumonia once, a kidney trouble or something. I was in the hospital. My brother had pneumonia, he was in the hospital. I don't remember any real problems. 

Paul Ortiz: Which hospital, do you remember? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: It was TCI, owned by the steel company. 

Paul Ortiz: And so that was the basic medical care if somebody— 

Florence Wilson-Davis: There was a clinic with a White and Colored entrance. 

Paul Ortiz: And that was also run by TCI? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: Mm-hmm. 

Paul Ortiz: When your family moved to Hueytown, do you remember, was there a change in Colored neighborhood, life, environment, types of friends you had, I'd say close to Westfield? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: Not really. The community in Hueytown, Harlem Heights was certainly not as large as Westfield. And some people were new, had to get to know them, well, a lot of them were, but there was still that sense of community. And maybe it's because it was still all Black and it was in one area. And so you still had a sense of, they didn't call it community then, they didn't call it in the neighborhood, I don't know what it was called, but it was there, it was there. 

Paul Ortiz: Were there Black business districts in those communities? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: No, not in Hueytown. In Birmingham, that's where we'd come for that. And there was a little bit in Bessemer, a little bit in Fairfield, but most of it was in Birmingham. 

Paul Ortiz: What did you do for recreation? Where would you go? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: Play ball. And on Saturday we might have gone to theater in Fairfield and I think that must have been Colored Day. And they showed us some of the cereals, but they showed mostly all Black movies, which was interesting to me. That was not necessarily done at all of theaters, but it wasn't that particular one. If we came to Birmingham, there were two or three theaters in Birmingham. And I used to love to go to the Carver because it was very fun theater at that time. 

Paul Ortiz: Can you tell a little bit about the Carver Theater back then? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: It was real plush and I just liked to go upstairs in the balcony, but it was a beautiful theater, the lobby, and it was a real treat to come to the Carver. The famous and some of the other theaters were older and they were not quite as nice as the Carver. And I can't remember the movies I saw, I really can't. 

Paul Ortiz: So Saturday was the day for [indistinct 00:45:01]. 

Florence Wilson-Davis: Saturday and Sunday. And another thing, taking pictures on Sunday was a big thing, getting dressed up and say you come to the car where you go by a photography studio and get a picture taken. And it was the same in Bessemer. 

Paul Ortiz: Did you or was your family attending church at this time in Westfield? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: Mm-hmm. 

Paul Ortiz: Which church was it? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: Our church was, I think it was Hopewell or Bethel, but I think it was Hopewell Baptist Church. And in fact, I was baptized in that church. 

Paul Ortiz: Were there a lot of activities that the church would conduct? 

Florence Wilson-Davis: Yeah, the youth groups were active. There was the BYPU, BYTU or something, but there were youth groups and there were activities and the summer vacation Bible school.