Ira Lee Jones: I went into a furniture store to pay a bill for an elderly lady that lived in my community. When I walked in the door, I walked up to the cash register and the lady at the cash register said, "Stand over there, girl." Now I know I wasn't no girl because, at this time, I was teaching. So I know I was over 21. She said, "Stand over there, girl." So I didn't want to argue with her. I just moved over there. I stood there, I guess, about 20 minutes. 

Ira Lee Jones: Finally, when somebody came and asked me what did I want, I told him I wanted to pay the bill for Mrs. Long. He said, "Where's the money?" I handed him the money. He reached his hand in his pocket and got his handkerchief and took the money, and I laughed. I said, "That's really going to help you." But I didn't go back in that store anymore. I thought that was real silly. 

Paul Ortiz: Would you have similar experiences with discrimination or know other people had those kinds of experiences? 

Ira Lee Jones: Oh, yeah. That was common. That was common. The first time I had been involved in anything like that, but that was a common thing. People, I would tell them about it. They'd say, "Oh, they do that all the time. They don't want you in the store." I said, "Well, how did they let her buy their furniture if they don't want her in the store?" "They say you supposed to send the money in." I said, "No, I won't buy their furniture then." 

Ira Lee Jones: My family did business with Rhodes Carroll. This was [indistinct 00:01:59] furniture. I'll never forget that name. That man reached in his pocket and got his handkerchief to take the money. I guess I was supposed to poison it or something. I don't know what I was supposed to do with it. 

Paul Ortiz: Would your parents talk about segregation or give the children warnings about race relations? 

Ira Lee Jones: Never. I don't remember them telling anything but, "Watch where you go. Just be careful where you go." Because by the time we got in high school, my brother had learned to drive. She'd tell us don't go in certain parts of town and to be sure that what time we were supposed to get back home, that we got there. Don't mess around. Come straight home. We'd go to dances at the Civic Center because they would give dances just for the Blacks or give dances just for Whites. 

Ira Lee Jones: But if we went to a concert, we had to sit upstairs and the White sit downstairs. There was a movie house that we could go to and we'd sit upstairs. The Blacks sit upstairs, and the Whites sit downstairs. But then there was on 17th Street and Fourth Avenue, there was Black movies. But we couldn't go to the movies downtown. They would tell us, "Be sure you get back home. What time the movie is going to be out?" We'd tell her. "Okay, you got a half hour. You can drive home in a half hour. Be sure you get back, now. Don't go nowhere else because I want to know where you are and you're safe." 

Ira Lee Jones: It wasn't that we were going to get into anything because you didn't have to do—There were people who even lost their lives and nobody know today how, just riding along and somebody decided, "I don't want to see them niggers riding or walking or whatever." They'd be gone. 

Paul Ortiz: What would happen? 

Ira Lee Jones: That would be the $64,000 question. They would never find them. Lots of kids just came up missing, and nobody could ever find them. The police, I don't think they looked for them. Bull Connor was in charge of—He was Birmingham commissioner, and he was for segregation as much as anybody in the world. He was the one who had the dogs sicced on the Riders and the water. 

Paul Ortiz: He took over in the '30s, right? 

Ira Lee Jones: Yeah. But he had been commissioner a long time. 

Paul Ortiz: Yeah, I remember that. Was he a radio announcer or something? 

Ira Lee Jones: He was. He was the radio announcer, and he could talk. He had a great voice, and that's how he got to be commissioner because he could talk so well. He wasn't very nice to any members of his family. You know he wasn't going to be nice to us. Everybody in Birmingham knew him. He had had some problems with the law, and he went away and stayed about three years. He came back and got the same job back again. 

Paul Ortiz: So you began going to Industrial High School during the early '30s? 

Ira Lee Jones: Mm-hmm. 

Paul Ortiz: And you had— 

Ira Lee Jones: At the middle '30s. 

Paul Ortiz: —your aspirations. You were thinking about being a seamstress. Were there particular courses or teachers that you really liked at Industrial? 

Ira Lee Jones: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Mrs. Coleman, who taught clothing. What is that man's name? Jesus. Mr. Wells, who taught physical education. It was so many teachers down there. Mrs. Baker, who taught English and Mrs. Fannie Smith that taught English. 

Paul Ortiz: So there were some really, in your opinion, you had some really good teachers? 

Ira Lee Jones: Oh, yeah. Uh-huh. 

Paul Ortiz: Did you have a chance to get involved in extracurricular activities? 

Ira Lee Jones: Yes, I sang in the choir. 

Paul Ortiz: Now, was that the school choir? 

Ira Lee Jones: Yes, the high school choir. 

Paul Ortiz: I haven't heard much about the school choir. Would you do concerts in different areas? 

Ira Lee Jones: Mm-hmm. We did concerts. Most of the time, we did concerts at the school or either at the city auditorium. We performed for Mrs. Roosevelt, Mrs. Bethune. One thing that Parker, I say Parker, that was Industrial then, that we had that most of the other schools really didn't have, even the White schools, every star that came to Birmingham came to Parker. They gave us concerts, and they let us give them concerts. 

Ira Lee Jones: We got a lot of experience like that because they knew we were the only group of Blacks they could get to. Weren't nothing there but Blacks, 3,000 of us. 

Paul Ortiz: Who would be some of those stars that you remember? 

Ira Lee Jones: Eartha Kitt, the band leaders, Count Basie, you name them, they were there. Nat King Cole. Answer the telephone, please. I'm trying to say some other names. I can't even think of them right now, but there was lots of them. Ella Fitzgerald. Any of them came through, they came to Parker. They would call an assembly, and we'd go in and they would sing or talk or whatever. 

Ira Lee Jones: The fellow who wrote the—What his name? Wrote the Negro National Anthem we call it now. He came. That was the first time I had really paid any attention to people coming that was nationally known. He came and he gave us the description of how he wrote the song and why, and we sang it. I remember that we had to stand up, and I wanted to know why do we have to stand up to sing this song. 

Ira Lee Jones: He said one of these days it would be a popular song to sing, and it is now. It's in nearly every church hymnal. 

Paul Ortiz: Lift Every Voice and Sing? 

Ira Lee Jones: Yeah. When I think about it, I say, "Well, I did get there before all the history was made." I enjoyed that. 

Paul Ortiz: One more question from your childhood. Growing up, did your family get down to the downtown area much, like 18th and Worth and— 

Ira Lee Jones: No, not down that part. They would go shopping quite a bit, but they didn't frequent the 17th and 18th Street area. That was the rowdy area, and mostly young people frequent that area. It could be a really hazardous place to be some Saturday nights. The most violent thing that I saw down there, I was working for a music company, but the man sold only sacred music. 

Ira Lee Jones: I was going to the post office to mail some packages off, and there was a lady and a man standing on the corner of Fourth Avenue and 17th Street. A man came down the street behind her, and he came from this direction here. I was coming straight this way, and he passed me before I got to the corner. He went where these people were standing waiting for the light to change and hit the man on the neck with a—You know what a straight razor is? With a straight razor and cut his head off, and his head hit the ground before he did. 

Ira Lee Jones: I was one frightened Black lady. I was a girl. I was in high school. I ran back to the shop, hollering my head off. My daddy had to come get me because I wasn't going out that door. Oh, that was terrible. That was the most violent thing I saw. 

Paul Ortiz: What was the name of the shop you were working at? 

Ira Lee Jones: A. Jackson Music Company, and they sold only sacred music. 

Paul Ortiz: Was that down on Fourth Avenue? 

Ira Lee Jones: Fourth Avenue between 17th and 16th Street. 

Paul Ortiz: So that area just could get very rowdy? 

Ira Lee Jones: It could get very rowdy, yeah. Very rowdy. That's where it look like I think everybody went down there to clown from all over the area, just flock down there. Saturday evening, you couldn't walk. Movies be through, and they'd be screaming and hollering at each other. Somebody be fighting. Somebody be looking for their boyfriend or their husband or their wife or something. Some kind of confusion all the time. 

Ira Lee Jones: But then there were days when it was just calm and peaceful, like everything was supposed to be. But it could be rough. There were people in Birmingham who would not go near for that one because it was a rough part of town. 

Paul Ortiz: What were some of the popular hangouts and that? 

Ira Lee Jones: They had Bob's Boy. It was a big place that they could go and eat and drink and dance. They had the shoeshine parlor that was owned by the fellow that everybody called Rat Killer. Rat Killer was a funny kind of person. He was just as calm and nice and sweet as he could be, but he was a crook, I guess. He owned the shoeshine parlor. He drove a Cadillac. His wife drove a Cadillac. Everybody who worked for him drove a Cadillac and dressed in three-piece suits every day. 

Ira Lee Jones: He had a house in the northwest part of Birmingham that was really a nice house, and he sold chitlins at that house. That's basically what he was supposed to be selling, but he did more than that and doing more than that at the shoeshine parlor. But Rat Killer was the main godfather type of person, carried a roll of money in his pockets. I don't see how he got it in his pockets. He'd roll it up and stick it in his pocket, big roll of money. 

Paul Ortiz: Were there rumors about what he would do? 

Ira Lee Jones: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Plenty of rumors saying he was peddling dope, prostitution, and everything else that he could find, but he was never arrested. 

Paul Ortiz: Now the shoeshine parlor, that wasn't a shoeshine parlor, was it? 

Ira Lee Jones: It was a shoeshine parlor in the front. I don't know what was in the back. 

Paul Ortiz: Oh, okay. That was on? 

Ira Lee Jones: On Fourth Avenue and 17th Street between 17th and 18th Street where the shoeshine parlor was. 

Paul Ortiz: Okay. I thought that might have just been the name for it, but they actually shined shoes. 

Ira Lee Jones: No, they would actually shine your shoes out front. Now, what they were doing in the back was another question. 

Paul Ortiz: So you were actually working in that area for a while? 

Ira Lee Jones: Yes, I did. I worked in that area the whole time I was in high school in the summertime and in the afternoon, I would go by. Especially when we didn't have to take choir practice until 5:00, I'd go by and close up the shop and stuff and, in the summer, I would work. 

Paul Ortiz: Would your parents worry about you? 

Ira Lee Jones: Mm-mm. They didn't worry about me as long as I was there. I could come right out and catch the bus right across the street, and I'd go straight home because the man I was working for was a very nice person. He didn't let nobody mess with the girls that worked for him. We worked with him. We would demonstrate some of his songs. About four or five of us would demonstrate his songs sometimes. 

Ira Lee Jones: He would come pick you up and bring you home, and nobody didn't bother you. Everybody knew that nobody was going to bother Mr. Jackson's girls, so we had no problem. 

Paul Ortiz: What was his name? Mr.? 

Ira Lee Jones: Jackson. Alfred Jackson. 

Paul Ortiz: And the shop sold sheet music? 

Ira Lee Jones: Mm-hmm. All kinds of books and sheet music, sacred songs. 

Paul Ortiz: I think you told me the name of it. 

Ira Lee Jones: A. Jackson Music Company. 

Paul Ortiz: Okay. Now, there were, I know, a number of theaters down there. Would you catch a movie every once in a while? 

Ira Lee Jones: Yes. The main one we would get would be the Famous Theater, and they used to bring in quite a few movies, some of the better movies. There was one across the street. Gosh, I can't remember the name of that one right now. 

Paul Ortiz: Carver? 

Ira Lee Jones: Yeah, no, Carver came later. One across the street. They finally tore that one down. They didn't show nothing over there but westerns, so I really can't remember the name of that one. But the Famous would show really nice movies most of the time, and that's the only place we would see a decent movie until they did build the Carver. The Carver was built on 17th Street. On 17th Street, it was built here like this, right on the 17th Street and Fourth Avenue. 

Ira Lee Jones: And then we saw really good movies all the time. And then they tore that other movie down over there because it was just going into all just kind of disrepair, and they started showing the westerns at the Famous. 

Paul Ortiz: What were your favorite movies? 

Ira Lee Jones: I liked Some Like It Hot. I liked musicals mostly, I think. I think I liked the musicals better. I didn't like the mysteries. I'd be covering up, ducking and dodging everywhere else to keep from seeing what was going to happen. And I don't like animals. 

Paul Ortiz: During the time that you're working at AJ Jackson, you were going to Industrial High School and—I lost my train of thought. 

Ira Lee Jones: At the same time, I was playing for churches. 

Paul Ortiz: Oh, I know what I was going to ask you. You mentioned earlier that you are meeting kids from all over town now. Were you making new friends? 

Ira Lee Jones: Yeah. Your classmates. Yeah, you'd get to be real good friends with the classmates. But you didn't do too much with the kids that were not in your class or in the choir. In that immediate group, you would get to be very good friends. Some of us are still in contact with each other. But we had eight sections of ninth graders. Well, the ninth graders, my section was section three. I knew everybody in there, where they lived, what their interests were. 

Ira Lee Jones: We knew each other really well, and we still do. When every once in a while you'd run across one and you'd be happy to see them. But the others, you'd have to wonder, "Where did I see her before?" Because there'd be so many of them, you couldn't get to know them all. But the ones in your immediate group and all the choir members and all the people in your section, you knew them perfectly. 

Paul Ortiz: Was there any sense at Industrial High School of color discrimination? 

Ira Lee Jones: There was nobody there to discriminate. I tell you what. The biggest problem we had was that even fit into that category, if we had some light-skinned kids in your class or there were one or two light-skinned people on the campus and people would pass by and say, "Look at that. Look at that." But there were no White kids there. We knew they were all Black. 

Ira Lee Jones: If they went to Parker, they were Black. You could forget it. But there was some not as dark as others, and they might get picked on for a little while. And then they'd forget about it and go on. 

Paul Ortiz: So what was your next step after graduating from Parker? You graduated in 19— 

Ira Lee Jones: 1939. I went to Alabama A&M in Huntsville. Normal is what they call it. 

Paul Ortiz: What kind of a move was that? 

Ira Lee Jones: To me, it was one of those things you do because it is there. I had not really planned. My mother had planned for me to go to Alabama State, but I didn't like the idea of going to Alabama State. It was a little too open for me, too easy to get off the campus. So I chose Alabama A&M because it was in a rural area too far to walk to town. 

Ira Lee Jones: It was offering the same subjects that they were offering here in Montgomery. A lot of my classmates was going to A&M. So it was the next logical place for me to go, and it was inexpensive. It was $17 a quarter. Try that now. 

Paul Ortiz: $17 for a book. 

Ira Lee Jones: More than that for your book. 

Paul Ortiz: So now you felt at the time, now, you had visited Alabama State? 

Ira Lee Jones: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I had been to Alabama State several times on visits and even the choir had been down there, concert, for the weekend, and I really wasn't impressed. 

Paul Ortiz: What was it about Alabama State that didn't impress you? One thing you mentioned, you felt that it was too close to the— 

Ira Lee Jones: It was too close to the city. I didn't see where it had any room for growth at all. That wasn't the most important thing, but it was just Montgomery seemed open to me. I'm not comfortable going to Montgomery to shop now. It does not seem like it's a real place, and it didn't seem like that to me then. But when I went to A&M, we are here, and we parked the car. We get out. We are at the school, and here it is. This is what you get. 

Paul Ortiz: Did you sense that race relations— 

Ira Lee Jones: It was more of a community. There was nothing about race relations there, not a thing. Everything on that campus was Negro. 

Paul Ortiz: Now, when you started at A&M, it was in 1940? 

Ira Lee Jones: Mm-hmm. 

Paul Ortiz: 1940. What was the school life like there? 

Ira Lee Jones: Well, I enjoyed it. It was an extension, really, of high school. I joined the choir. I enjoyed that tremendously. We did more traveling there than we did in high school. All my classes were familiar. I had pretty good background in the subject matter, even in geography, and that was not to be said for all the children that came to the school. 

Paul Ortiz: Oh, really? 

Ira Lee Jones: No. Some of them came from rural areas. They had never seen a map or a globe and this kind of thing. But I couldn't say that for my school because we had been pretty well-taught. 

Paul Ortiz: Were there students who were coming from the North to A&M? 

Ira Lee Jones: We didn't have too many kids from the North at that time. We had a few from Detroit and maybe one or two from Chicago, but now they have lots and lots of kids from out of state. But this school, the president was one individual who was not interested in publicizing that school at all. We couldn't even get the football scores recorded in the newspaper at that time. 

Ira Lee Jones: He didn't want nobody to know it was up there, I think. So we got really the kids from Alabama, and they were mostly rural Alabama. 

Paul Ortiz: So it seemed like that was done on purpose? 

Ira Lee Jones: I think it was done on purpose. I think maybe Dr. Drake was kind of bound by you do this for us and we'll do this for you. But the state would tell him what to do. Nobody could figure out why he didn't want any publicity for the school. But after he was not president anymore, the school has just blossomed. So you wouldn't know if it was the same school. 

Paul Ortiz: Were you there when he left? 

Ira Lee Jones: No, I wasn't. But every time I go up there, I'm amazed at how much progress they really made. Last time I went up there, I got lost on the campus. I was walking around, and I looked up, I said, "I'm in the wrong place." I had to turn around and go back to get my bearing to see really where I was. It had really improved. But he was not improving. He was not expanding anything. This is what you get. This is it. 

Ira Lee Jones: You pay your money, that little money you did have to pay, and that was it. But there was some nice teachers. Always had somebody you could go to there for help. They were courteous, kind, considerate people. 

Paul Ortiz: So, at that point, did you know that you were kind of changing your course to teach? 

Ira Lee Jones: Mm-mm. That wasn't my idea at all. My classmates would be gathered in this little group, "Come on. Let's go over this again. So we get this really down pat. Come on, Irene. You going to be teaching this one of these days." "Not me. I don't plan to teach nobody nothing." But they would say, "Come on anyway. Well, sit right here. And then we all get into the discussion." But I was not into it. 

Ira Lee Jones: But clothing, anything in home ec, they'd get my perfect attention, but not that subject matter so much. Not to say that I needed to teach it. I want to know it, but I want to be able to pass my classes. But I wasn't interested in teaching until graduation. 

Paul Ortiz: Graduation? 

Ira Lee Jones: Mm-hmm. Then I was offered a job that I refused to refuse. I said, "I better take this and see what I can do with this." 

Paul Ortiz: How did that job offer come about? 

Ira Lee Jones: Through the business office, basically. 

Paul Ortiz: You said a school in St. Clair County or? 

Ira Lee Jones: Mm-hmm. Elementary school in St. Clair County. It's no longer there now. 

Paul Ortiz: What was the name of that school? 

Ira Lee Jones: All I know is St. Clair County School. I think that was its name. 

Paul Ortiz: Is that a grammar school? 

Ira Lee Jones: Yeah, a grammar school. 

Paul Ortiz: So did you immediately move from Huntsville to— 

Ira Lee Jones: No. I went back home. Went back to Birmingham. See, I never changed my official residence from Birmingham. It was still Birmingham. I would just go there and spend the week and, Friday evening, I'd get the bus and go home. I did that for about 13 years. And then I got a job in Birmingham. 

Paul Ortiz: So you would have come back to Birmingham about, what, '53 or? 

Ira Lee Jones: Was it '53 or '55? '55, I think, or something like that. It might have been '53. It's been so long now. 

Paul Ortiz: Now, when you came back to Birmingham during the mid '50s, could you see changes? 

Ira Lee Jones: Yes, I saw that there were people who were not content as they were when I was there all week. See, I never did really leave. On weekends, I'd always be there to go to church and stuff. But when I came back home and started working in Birmingham, I found that people were not as content as they were when I was in school. They started griping about we having to pay tax and we can't get our roads fixed. The water has turned brown in the neighborhood. That's not so in the other neighborhood. 

Ira Lee Jones: My house needed painting and the landlord said he wasn't going to paint it, but he went up on the rent. It was just dozens of things that they complained about. When I was growing up, they didn't complain, at least they didn't complain in my area. 

Paul Ortiz: What do you think accounted for the difference in that? 

Ira Lee Jones: I think maybe education and the fact that they began to see, well, television, radio and newspaper would give accounts of what was happening in other places. "Oh, they're doing that. Now, they don't do that for us here. We paying tax, too." At first, they didn't think about the tax wasn't that much. But as they went up on the taxes, they said, "Wait a minute. This is our money, too. Why can't we get our roads fixed if they get their roads fixed? We pay taxes and paying tax on home." 

Ira Lee Jones: People in the area where they really had bought up homes, they were really unhappy. But they didn't think so much about the tax that they were paying on food and stuff. That was just a few pennies. So they didn't gripe too much about that, but they did about the taxes on their homes. And then they started paving streets, and they would pave a street not in front of your house, but up to you maybe to the end of the block and then still charge you for it. 

Ira Lee Jones: So the unfairness of it really got to some people, and they'd sit around and talk about it and talk about it. They all get angry. And then they decided they would write letters and make phone calls to no avail, but they were still complaining. 

Paul Ortiz: Where would people gather at and talk about those— 

Ira Lee Jones: In the churches and sometime on the street corners. But most places the Negroes had to congregate was at church. 

Paul Ortiz: So the conditions, there had been those injustices all along. 

Ira Lee Jones: Yeah. All along. But it was inexpensive, so they didn't worry too much about it. I remember when my mother and father was paying $5 a year house tax. I also remember when it went up to $45 a year house tax. 

Paul Ortiz: Just in one? 

Ira Lee Jones: Yeah. This year it was $5. Next year was 45. So then this big jump. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Yeah. So that's exactly what happened. It just, all of a sudden, we going to put mills on. They say, "We're going to add a mill." You don't know what a mill is. We didn't know what a mill was. But I still don't understand how they can say this is a half mill. When they going to put on say 10, $15, and say a half mill. 

Ira Lee Jones: Nobody pays any attention too much until they get the bill. Then they say, "Oh, wait a minute." So the complaints started. 

Paul Ortiz: This job happened in the early '50s or? 

Ira Lee Jones: In the early '50s, mm-hmm. The Black man could get very few really nice jobs. They could get what the White man didn't want. A Black woman could get a better job than a Black man. Excuse me. 

Ira Lee Jones: '60s. Let me see. My daddy died in '64. We were a small family. My grandfather died in '60. That was 35 years since we had a death in that family in our little group. My daddy died in '64. My brother died in '70. My mother died in '74. So that leaves me. I don't know what in the world I'm going to do because I don't like living by myself. I said at the funeral, I said, "Well, Lord, I'm by myself. What in the world am I going to do?" My brother had one daughter. She said, "Auntie, you still got me and you still got my mama. So you all right." 

Ira Lee Jones: When my mother passed, I was not well. My sister-in-law came out to my house. This is the one that you was talking to here. Came out to our house and she stayed with me until I was able to go back to work. My niece came home. She was living in California, and she came home and stayed another month with me. She said, "I got to go back, but I'm going to take you over to Mama's house and you stay with her until I can see what we can work out." I said, "Okay." 

Ira Lee Jones: So I go and stay with my sister-in-law. My sister-in-law got another job. She moved out to Montgomery. I stayed in the house. I rented my house out, the home out. Then I decided I wanted to retire. I retired early, but I had been working 35 years, so it didn't matter. In Alabama at that time, you could work 30 years and retire. Now it's 25, but I worked 35 years, so I retired. I went to California and stayed with this niece for five years, and I didn't like it. 

Ira Lee Jones: So I said, "I want to come back to Birmingham, but I don't want to go live in the house by myself." By that time, my sister-in-law had moved down here. She said, "Well, come on to Tuskegee and stay with us." I said, "Irene come to Tuskegee and stay with you?" She said, "Come to Tuskegee and stay with me," because she and her sister was buying this house. So I left California and came here. That was in about '82, '83, and I've been here since, sick, well, whatever, right here. 

Ira Lee Jones: We live like angels. We don't have problems. If anything needs doing, we get together and we get it done. When I'm sick, they all just right there. If one of them gets sick, we all right there. It has been one of those things that people say, "You do what?" When we tell them that we all live together, "What?" They can't understand it. But it just started from the fact that both families got along so well together. There was never any difference between the families. We're all family no how. Everybody was just compatible, and we've been living together all these years. 

Paul Ortiz: That's great. Mrs. Jones, I just had maybe a few more questions. 

Ira Lee Jones: Okay. 

Paul Ortiz: I don't want to take up your entire day. Now, earlier you said that there were—It seemed to be that when you came back to live more or less permanently at that time in Birmingham—I'm going to change this tape.