Tunga White: Testing one, two, three. Talk about professional life or—
Roosevelt Cuffie: This is on now?
Tunga White: Yeah.
Roosevelt Cuffie: Okay, well really and truly, it's a shame that so many things happen that we cannot undo. But what we can do now, as I look at life—try to bring love and peace among our tall wall of hatred and misunderstanding. I do think racial, is a great necessity to be solved. In this way, that everybody deserves what they are capable of accepting and doing for themself. But that can be prohibited by not having the privilege, and there are so many people oppressed to Black, until we have such a struggle to function in the capacity that we're able to. So I always said to them, Black friends, that, "Never say no to yourself, in regards of your goal."
Roosevelt Cuffie: Okay? It's just a thing that I think about, that from my experience with Whites, you cannot expect them to give you justice, accept you on equal base with them. Though we all created with minds and able to think and have the ability to achieve and excel in all the ways that are respectable. And yet, when you are denied that opportunity, and many times it seems like you are just dumb, but you're not. It hurts to think about, "Why did this happen?" I don't think no one has a complete answer, other than just to say this, "I think it's selfish." And so, why? What can you really gain? I don't think many people are asking theirself, "What can I gain by being really selfish?" Or an instance, if we think about it, if we had a whole state to ourselves, we could only be in one place at one time. So if we had all the money, we couldn't spend it all. So what I'm saying we need to hear, and for the South and even the North where I traveled and spent time, I can see a vast difference in race, Caucasian and Black.
Tunga White: Let me ask you—
Roosevelt Cuffie: Yes.
Tunga White: You said had relatives [indistinct 00:03:52]
Roosevelt Cuffie: Right.
Tunga White: Did they ever tell you stories or how it was better being in the North was compared to living the South?
Roosevelt Cuffie: Yes. At that time, some time ago.
Tunga White: [Indistinct 00:04:10]
Roosevelt Cuffie: I said this was in the early forties that I had brothers that left here and went there—
Tunga White: Mm-hmm.
Roosevelt Cuffie: And they was amazed at how the different world and yet it wasn't a complete awareness of the fullness that we have today. And even there, I think that what I'm really trying to say, the main difference was, the story that they told of me, that they didn't look at you as Black to the extent that they do here in regards of segregation.
Roosevelt Cuffie: For instance, there wasn't places where you had to go and sit at the back, had signs that "Negro," or the word "nigger" which I hate. That they have labeled the Black man as "nigger" because anyone can be a nigger and many people don't understand that today. But that's the difference where, we came to a period for and I had spent to see—this was west of Sylvester and I believe at the time was Holland. If it wasn't Holland, it was—I wish I could think of just to be sure, but it was west of Albany and it was about three somewhat miles from Albany and we was coming back from a church and we stopped at a little place that said "Nigger, leave and run." I didn't want to believe that but that's what it had on the sign.
Tunga White: What year was it?
Roosevelt Cuffie: This was in the late '40s maybe around '46 to '48. This was—time was still there. That's what got me so
Tunga White: Now, what kind of place was this?
Roosevelt Cuffie: This was a little place, a little town or settlement, but it had a post office there, it had sheriffs there. So that sign was at one of the cafes and that's about as direct I've seen something segregated to the extent that they published in that time. I remember here another small town at a time where you wasn't allowed during the work hour through the week to be uptown. This is true. And this town and in the adjacent town surrounding town like Cardell, Ashton and Tifton—Albany said from like eight o'clock, if he wasn't saying you just could not walk around.
Tunga White: He was talking about the city ordinances.
Roosevelt Cuffie: Yeah. Right. Oh okay. What it was like if you was uptown didn't have a job, they could arrest you and they were, if you didn't get off the street. In other words they had a name for it. It wasn't like a curfew, but no loitering or standing around you know. You couldn't go uptown like you can now and stand on the corner and talk with somebody. They would approach you if you don't have, and if you got a job, why are you uptown? So basically back then the Black went to town on the weekend, what we call the weekend last Saturday. Okay, Saturday you was allowed to be up there all day because that's when you had to go get grocery and stuff like that. But they wanted you to have a job or they would give you a job or something. So this was depression too.
Tunga White: Did this go around or was that just for Black [indistinct 00:09:43]
Roosevelt Cuffie: I never seen any White was approached. It was the Black. This was the segregation. It was just so one-sided and that was the hate that we had to look back at and expect those of us that was here and I was one at that time. And of course if you went uptown you never stopped walking. If you was going to the drug store, you had to have a valid reason for being going there. But just to say "I'm uptown looking around," then you couldn't do that.
Tunga White: Can you recall some of those businesses that [indistinct 00:10:49]
Roosevelt Cuffie: Yes. At that time there was very few—There are three business that we know that the Blacks did have, at most times the size of this, that they had their own barbershop, their own funeral service and somewhere to cook. A restaurant. That was the three main business that they had. Other than that back in the cities and [indistinct 00:11:47] they were all White. It was like illegal for anybody to have anything besides in those categories. You have a little restaurant or some kind of a place to dance, it would be in a restaurant and cafe or something like that. That's what they call it.
Roosevelt Cuffie: Many people and most of know that the Black was across the railroad most of the time, that was the South and the time you went there you see that they—most town in the South has more Black than they have White. So when you go across the railroads, it was more or less you go cross and you'd be heading towards South. So that's what was happening back there. Cause that was something that had other business.
Roosevelt Cuffie: As the years passed on, they began to launch out into other fields and the one that come to my mind now is they would have places to sell stuff, not necessarily grocery store but that would be added on to the cafe to sell those things like drinks and you could buy maybe [indistinct 00:13:37] and things like that. But we didn't get into the real money line of hardware and your clothing stores. Only Nichols had that as a whole.
Tunga White: Can you remember some of the names of these barbershops you had, and restaurants you had here in the forties and at this point and the people who might have owned them?
Roosevelt Cuffie: Yes, I can remember. When we come to the restaurant I can think of the Davids. And they're still here and some of them still have the business. Okay.
Tunga White: Okay.
Roosevelt Cuffie: And the barber shop was Lumpkin. It was George C. Lumpkin, who was a very strong man for the Blacks. He would speak up for the Blacks. One of the ladies—one of the men was Bar Davis. She was some relation, I think it was Miss—the old lady, I think her name was Elsa. But she run the cafe there, just across the railroad. Okay. And the funeral home was Dr. Seth. That's still existing now. The barber shop is no longer in the Lumpkin name, but the funeral home is still existing.
Roosevelt Cuffie: And that's about the—so at the time that I was in, that's who owned those kind of business.
Tunga White: Do you recall the treatment of Black and White businesses?
Roosevelt Cuffie: Yes. The treatment was like this. When you go there and say you was going in a clothing store, if you went in a clothing store by yourself, I mean let me rephrase that. If you went in a clothing store and it was only you, you got waited on immediately. But say it was five White in them, I don't care if you was the next in the line after five White, then five more White came, you would be the last person most of them waited on. What I'm saying in plain words, they didn't wait on you being fresh. Many times this would happen in the business and you would know, sometimes you would speak out, but a lot of the Blacks didn't have the, I said the—enough design, or freedom, on account of the pressure that they was in. What I mean, enough to tell them that I was here first because they was working for White people, and if they did so, they would say, "You crazy?" Or, "You stepping out of line when you get back, I'll call so and so and let them know just what you said."
Tunga White: And you'd probably [indistinct 00:18:17]
Roosevelt Cuffie: Yes I can call some that are yet living. That's what kind guess and come to my mind is Walker, Leila Walker. She was here at that time. As I said, the Lumpkins. He spoke out again. At that time my father bought some cotton. He spoke out again. And as, acting as a whole—I think of it now. Okay, and one more important one, the New Kert. The New Kert. N-E-W-K-E-R—wait a minute. New Kert. N-E-W-K-E-R-T. I mean, I think that's the way it's in.
Roosevelt Cuffie: I could look in the book but I think that's what it is. Anyway, that was a family and they still live here. Their relatives. And, great fact it was they had a shootout, they owned some land and the Whites had planned to come and the Ku Klux and do them in. But they were, when they got the word, they just prepared for an [indistinct 00:20:22]. I have to adore them for standing up for what they felt.
Tunga White: And what then did they do?
Roosevelt Cuffie: This was the New Kert family,
Tunga White: [indistinct 00:20:31]
Roosevelt Cuffie: Other words, when they found out they had those high power lines, they turn around because they had the White for a while, day and night, and they had support, but it wasn't a movement support and organization support. As I stated before, that was unity. But there was a lack of communication. I think that was the thing. And we all know that from the ground on their attempt and also others that hope to free the Black people, the way they had to communicate it wasn't that they didn't want to, but they wasn't even allowed to come to gate so they had to pass the message.
Roosevelt Cuffie: And so, some of our religious song came from that to get domestic caught. And the White man really thought we were just singing the song. But it's amazing. And I want to write now how they really feel in their heart when they read the Bible. Like Caucasian here in the United States, here in the South say for the years, and this is one of the problems I have with them now that in a small town they go to—you go to school from—that's—I don't say it's a hundred percent but let's say it's a lot better than it was back then.
Roosevelt Cuffie: But to be fully free, to be fully aware of what's need to be done, then you got to be in on the decision. Okay then I said first, from my point of view, at first you start from the church. If you don't have unity at the church, you really cannot build. It's just going to have a dam, a breakdown. And I know this to be a fact that here, the truth, they don't love the truth in this respect that we all are created by the same God and we are special people. And this has been kept here. Of course, I have a lot—not the—I have a lot of White religious friends that talk to me. We bring up the issues sometimes.
Roosevelt Cuffie: And the results of it still haven't brought about us together. You have some—I've never been a hindrance at the church I attend. I can say that it has never been a—whoever had—whoever would come, we was open and acceptable to them and for them and the [indistinct 00:24:11] to express ourselves. And what was so amazing to me how at voting time, Whites that you never seen before would come to your church for a large congregation and make speeches, when if they can come now to get ready to vote, to get people to vote for them, then I wonder why they don't think it's necessary to come down after getting elected. That [indistinct 00:24:49] them today. We have never been a race to deny anyone from associating, affiliating with whatever organization as a whole, church as a whole, business as a whole. We never put a sign up, "You cannot attend."
Roosevelt Cuffie: So, if we then, as the minority, can accept whoever will, then what do they have really to lose that they really rightfully deserve? That's what I put them and that confused them because they can't look in eye and tell you say, "Well I have nothing to lose," because they're selfish. That's what I tell them. But the bottom truth is, when it all come out they really have nothing to lose. They have so much to gain. But when you think of losing what you have that you feel you control, then that's the fear that they have. But when I look at it, you're not free until you can love your brother and your sister, regardless what race or color he is.
Tunga White: You talked about church [indistinct 00:26:29].
Roosevelt Cuffie: It was a Methodist Church they burned down. They burned down [indistinct 00:26:36] Charity Church.
Tunga White: What's the name again?
Roosevelt Cuffie: Charity. They burned down Gum Creek. All these churches in that neighborhood. It was out in West County, sixteen and around about. They burned down—that's new whole category [indistinct 00:27:15] and another church, I don't know just the name of that church, but it was several church burned down throughout that community out there within ten miles around some of them. Maybe it was ten miles.
Tunga White: About how much time was between these churches on this side of town [indistinct 00:27:44]?
Roosevelt Cuffie: My understanding was that was done within less than a month. See what was happened, as I said, they was looking for this person that defended himself and killed a White man.
Tunga White: But you don't recall the other incident?
Roosevelt Cuffie: After that incident, something happened that I think put fear in the mind, not in that community but other communities. You could go and see the signs and they inspect it at night. And they would meet, they would burn things like maybe your farm stuff just to, as an escape, or burn a cross in the yard or set one up. And if you wasn't, you know, if you didn't have help, then you was on your own in a way that it was so disadvantaged.
Roosevelt Cuffie: I think self-preservation is the first law of nature. And who can blame anybody for looking out for stuff when you don't have communication? Cause many of the homes and the rule, you had to go several miles before you got to somebody. You didn't have a telephone so you could be left open.
Tunga White: So you said that you stayed up burning crosses. Do you know anybody who [indistinct 00:29:36]
Roosevelt Cuffie: Yes? I believe it was one of the governors, some of the good out in our neighborhood and some of the young in that neighborhood.
Tunga White: What was [indistinct 00:30:05]?
Roosevelt Cuffie: Well, the Youngs, they had land too. Okay. The building had land. Still have land. We have land up were a cross was put up in front of our house. And we taking it down that morning, we taking it down. So these things did happen. We wasn't leaving. We planned to fight, whatever fight we had to fight. And a fight is not always violent. And I think this is where we was blessed that we didn't have to get violent.
Roosevelt Cuffie: But, somehow, the message got around that if it came to that that's what they would do. And I think that's today with on a large scale or a small scale, whoever oppress you, if they find out that you will defend for yourself, many times they will not be aggressive.
Tunga White: [indistinct 00:31:24]
Roosevelt Cuffie: Yes. They put a cross that they didn't burn that cross. That could have been one individual, it could have been seven. This was the skill. See what he would do about it, you know. Things like that. And some of them, sometimes they would burn but this and that, it was just put it, the sort of warning, maybe something you did is—things like that.
Tunga White: [indistinct 00:31:49]
Roosevelt Cuffie: Hmm. But when they did that, that's my understanding, most of the cross was about man height. That they would sit in the yard from three foot to man height. They'd be large enough where you wouldn't miss it. You know that right, and when they burn a cross, it would be a little higher than man height, and they would run across. So when they would have a hanging and put that cross there, it was pretty huge, sometimes. I was told, I never witnessed any, but I've been told from relatives and friends.
Tunga White: [indistinct 00:33:14]
Roosevelt Cuffie: The story that I can tell that was told to me, that when they would lynch a person, they would mostly do it at night. And they would get a large tree. Sometimes they were dragging for them, and it's just a mockery. That's what I was told. I never witnessed one, but this was from people that was alive and did tell the truth in regards of what was happening and what anything. But I think the big turn of the South was that lady. They had come to her house and this wasn't spread too rapidly, but we finally got the news. She left three of them dead in her backyard. That's right. And that slowed down a lot of the cross burning. That actually happened.
Roosevelt Cuffie: I will do this since I didn't have much time, but since you and I first met, I wanted to get her name to make it sure who she was because it was, and the place. It didn't make headline
Tunga White: What year was it?
Roosevelt Cuffie: This was in the fifties, I believe. Or late forties or the early fifties.
Tunga White: [indistinct 00:35:16]
Roosevelt Cuffie: This was around I'd say about 32. About 32
Tunga White: So you said her shooting, did anything ever happen to her?
Roosevelt Cuffie: Not to my knowledge. Cause she was defending herself. The evidence with there and her was that.
Roosevelt Cuffie: See they had broken in, so they wasn't breaking in on her. She was ready for them. So she just drop them right where she found them. That's what I was told
Tunga White: Was she the only one [indistinct 00:36:06]?
Roosevelt Cuffie: I feel this, like I said, they do things. Like for us, they put a cross there. They may not have burnt it, but they put a cross there. And they may not have much action on this but just for you to let out to see it. Then if they keep putting crosses there, they going to do more. So I'm told that they had put crosses there before. Okay.
Roosevelt Cuffie: So evidently she had made up her mind to defend herself and she really did. Cause the lady did. So they would come by in White sheet, a ride in White sheet to scare you. Then some places, whoever was that they thought was out of line, then they would stick up a cross that they wouldn't burn it. But that to let you know. Yeah. So you'd had so much time to refrain from whatever you thought that they was angry with you about. Well, right or wrong. And then if you didn't do it, they would go further.
Tunga White: Would you know if everybody knew this?
Roosevelt Cuffie: Yes, this was known. Some of them was brave enough to say, yeah, that they claimed and some of them as they used to be, what is was preference back then you could be working for them. And that was fine now. But they did have those sheet was for disguise. It was for a lesson.If in your community there was one large person, well and you saw him and his size cause the cover sheet would hide some of it. But it don't take as much for a small as you large. And if you are real tall this height, you could tell people out there, they know who it was and even though they would deny it. But there's just so many people in a community and then plan then some of them sometime if they come far off, it would be so many of them then you could tell. But a group of 15 or 20, a lot, you could tell. This is what I was told and it makes sense to me.
Tunga White: So they would ride in a group?
Roosevelt Cuffie: Well that depend upon how much pressure they wanted to enforce, get your attention to. So if you heard a single horse and you looked out, and you say fine, you don't—that's not a spirit. But if somebody come out there, they fifteen or twenty horses and they got these, lantern, not lantern, but torches. Well that's enough to get your attention. That's the word that
Tunga White: So you said sometimes they put a cross in the yard and they burned sometimes as a warning.
Roosevelt Cuffie: Warning.
Tunga White: Sometimes they put a cross in the yard and burned it as a warning. Did you ever hear any of these incidents [indistinct 00:39:49]
Roosevelt Cuffie: Sure. This what was they would do. When they get you afraid so much and they didn't—you didn't contain yourself, they would come in there and call you out. And if you didn't come out they'd say they were going to burn you down.
Tunga White: They wouldn't be after everybody in the house. It was just the one person.
Roosevelt Cuffie: One person, they want him to come out. So if he didn't come out, then they would—whatever method it take to get in the house, kick the door down or force their way in there. Or you open the door for them, they come and search. This is a fact. So many times the person would be known, nobody else, somebody else would hide them away. You see that they had to get, that's how many of them was supposed to leave. Because if they stayed there eventually they was going to find him and hang or kill them or do something. Now they didn't kill all the time. They just did things that I don't even want to even mention. Like your own father, your tongue, stuff like that. Or hand.
Roosevelt Cuffie: These are the stories. These are true stories. Like our hood, one of our leaders, I won't call his name and I could, but I said like this, I listen to him and we have some good and everything. He said, Now you want me to give credit for two White peoples that I don't even know. And when you are constant depressing us, people are starving, whom you will not give justice to set them free, or give them a chance to not starve to death. You have went in their city and killed them by great numbers.
Roosevelt Cuffie: And his thought was, this is what mine is in many ways, they helped the one that most needed. And I think the Blacks are most needy, but Whites don't see it that way? And when I said, not that they don't know it, but it's different than knowing and seeing. When you see a thing, you can do something about it. You look at it, you take time and look at it. But to go along and just like you was a dog and see a dog, but you don't notice it. He's just a dead dog out there and you have no compassion on it. Okay?
Roosevelt Cuffie: And so this is the way I see it even today. There are not answers in unity between the race as far as Black and White. I don't mean all White, but as a whole you see. Because if it was so, or we wouldn't have these private schools. We wouldn't have these churches that if you went there you's a alien, somebody out of space. Of what? Why are you here? It's only one God. It's only one Son. It's only one Holy Ghost. Wow. And the ignorant part about it. And I tell them, you may separate me now, but God going to separate you.
Tunga White: How do you think Whites feel [indistinct 00:44:14]? What is in general, Whites feeling about Blacks?
Roosevelt Cuffie: Back then I didn't know as much about them, but I did have enough concern to ask myself, wonder how they would feel to be treated the way they treat me. Somehow that has never left me. And it's just like this. And I'll tell this story shortly.
Roosevelt Cuffie: Before I had a toothache, many people told me how bad it was. What it do, make you want to, butt your head, scream. I heard this and look what happened. Until it happened, I just heard it. And what I replied, when it happened to me, I said these same words, "I didn't know a toothache would make you feel like that." My point is, I had been told that. See? But when it happened to me, then I kept saying that "I didn't know what you was telling me was true." You see the point.
Roosevelt Cuffie: So as I get—again, I experience wrote the book, so I could tell anybody, as I has been told, how a toothache will hurt and many other things we experienced in life, that people been telling us, our mother and our father and our leaders. We hear it. But when we experience it become a reality. So when the White men have not experienced what we experience, they are ignorant as I was. I was told, but I was ignorant because I hadn't had the feeling and I actually wanted to butt my head. I didn't care how that tooth come out as long as it could come out and that pain be relieved.
Roosevelt Cuffie: So I think if they knew what it was to be denied, to come to the front door and get what you want, you got to pay the same price. They wasn't lowering the price. If some of them have to face going to the back, waiting until one line get out of the way, giving you a difficult look, you just got to wait. They tell you that in—