Alvin Knatt interview recording, 1994 August 08

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Alvin Foreman Knatt	Still no good?	0:01
Kate Ellis	No, it's fine.	0:02
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Okay.	0:02
Kate Ellis	Okay. Will you say your name and when you were born?	0:03
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah. My name is Alan Knatt and I was born on October 24th, 1945.	0:08
Kate Ellis	This is Kate Ellis with Mr. Knatt on Monday. August 8, 1994. So, you want to explain this document? (laughs)	0:16
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah. Well, we're looking at a document and it's a court transcript in the 16th district of Louisiana and it's dated December 23rd, 1902. And it has to do with my great-grandmother on — well, my paternal great-grandmother. And she was filing suit, claiming that she was heir to some property that her husband owned. And she spent the first 31 years of a life as a slave. And she was a slave of a man who's — Well, who sold property to her son later on, a lot of land.	0:39
Kate Ellis	And her son is—	1:48
Alvin Foreman Knatt	That's my dad's dad.	1:48
Kate Ellis	Okay.	1:50
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Okay? And my dad's dad's Mulatto. And my dad's Mulatto. I don't know if you noticed that or whatever. But anyway. And if you go through her — It's hard for me to find words. The man that she had my dad's dad with was White. But anyway, she was married in slavery, and it's in here, it's all in here. She's married in slavery. And she talks about it in the documents in court. And when the Yankees came over, there were two lakes, about five, six miles from here.	1:51
Alvin Foreman Knatt	When the Yankees came across the lakes, they were confiscating everything and taking people's money and and just raping women and all that kind of stuff. And people are hiding things and burying their valuables and what have you. Some of them killed us slaves, what have you. And they offered them a choice, my great-grandmother. "You come with us —" and it's in the documents. You'll see it, I think it's page 18, but her husband. She was married to a guy by the name of John Ellis.	2:42
Kate Ellis	John Ellis?	3:24
Alvin Foreman Knatt	John Ellis, yeah.	3:26
Kate Ellis	That's my father's name.	3:27
Alvin Foreman Knatt	You're lying.	3:28
Kate Ellis	No, I'm not lying. That's funny.	3:28
Alvin Foreman Knatt	John Ellis. But she was married to a guy named John Ellis and he was a slave, but they got married in slavery. You know, you jump over a broom and you're married, so now you're a property. So they did that. But in 1863, I think it's October, I don't know the date. But when the Yankees came, he left with them and he tried to get her to go with him. And she says no. And she says in the document, "No, I'm treated well. I'm not going to — I don't want to go." Well, I don't know, I place so much value on freedom until personally I don't see how that could happen.	3:34
Kate Ellis	How she could've stayed?	4:17
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah, how she could — Yeah, yeah. But she was a real strong woman. But anyway, so he left, they had three kids. He left the three kids and he went off and he fought with the Union Army. And he survived the Civil War. Then he settled in Morgan City and she got married to another guy and then had a kid by him. But in the interim, she had, that's when she had the White kid with my great-great-grandfather who was White.	4:17
Kate Ellis	Now this man, was he the slave master?	5:00
Alvin Foreman Knatt	He was the son of the slave master. No, excuse me. Well, yes and no. He was the son of the slave master, but the slave master died. You see, my great-great-grandmother, Theresa, was born in 1839 and my great-great-great-grandfather, her master at that time, he died in 1840, in April of 1840. So that's why I got the records. That was a closeness and I think she knew something, but she didn't know a lot about why they were so attendant to her, you know? But at any rate.	5:10
Kate Ellis	Why the slave master's family was so attendant to her?	6:16
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Attended to her, yes ma'am.	6:21
Kate Ellis	To your great-grandmother.	6:22
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yes ma'am.	6:23
Kate Ellis	So they paid attention to her.	6:27
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Very much so.	6:28
Kate Ellis	She was special to them?	6:29
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Well, I think you have to agree. You read the documents, you have to — If you were ein slavery and someone say — institutional slavery and someone would say, "Ah, you're free." And you say, "No, I want to stay because I'm treated well." But at the time, a person might make the argument, "Well, you're under duress or whatever." But 30 years later, no, no, no. But she was in court trying to get property that her second husband left and she thought it belonged to her. But see, she was married to two guys at the same time. She married this guy and he went off just a couple miles and married another woman. Then she came along and found out about it and they had a son. And now you look at parental care, and child abuse and all that kind of stuff.	6:30
Alvin Foreman Knatt	And there was a yellow fever epidemic in 1867 in this area. And this woman talks about it in this document. Her son caught it real quick and he was on the floor. And I feel for people, even if they're dead. And she said he had yellow fear and his dad went off with this other woman, Martha Blodan. She was the daughter of a rich White man that lived about six miles south of here.	7:30
Kate Ellis	Martha Blodan was?	8:12
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah. So when the war came, they sent her to New Orleans to be out of the — so she wouldn't get killed. Of course it's smart. So Casme Jacques — he got married to her, eventually.	8:14
Kate Ellis	To the Blodan woman.	8:41
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Jacques had two wives. He had Theresa who—	8:44
Kate Ellis	Okay, but Casme Jacques was a White man.	8:49
Alvin Foreman Knatt	No, was a Black man. He's a slave.	8:52
Kate Ellis	Okay, but then the woman that he married, Martha—	8:53
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Was a concubine or a mistress of a White planter, a really rich White planter.	8:58
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay I see. Okay, that's what — Okay.	9:07
Alvin Foreman Knatt	That's what I'm saying.	9:08
Kate Ellis	Okay.	9:08
Alvin Foreman Knatt	And you'll see that when you read the document.	9:10
Kate Ellis	All right.	9:12
Alvin Foreman Knatt	But yeah, that's what it was.	9:12
Kate Ellis	So the White man that had your father's father with Theresa, was part of the plantation family?	9:14
Alvin Foreman Knatt	No, no. He was different. He was from the lineage that came from Arcadia in Nova Scotia. And there was Charle and then there was Elar, and then there was Jean Matise Dugar, and then there was my grandfather, my great-great-grandfather's name, Clame, you see? So no, they were refugees and exiles from this start.	9:32
Kate Ellis	Okay. So it's safe to assume that he raped your —	10:12
Alvin Foreman Knatt	No, no. Oh, no, no, no.	10:15
Kate Ellis	This is what I'm trying — How did they get together?	10:21
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Oh, no. That's an interesting question. I never heard a question phrased that way. No. If you look at the testimony, he's asked, and he's 69 at the time in 1902, when the judge is asking the question. And oh, the council is asking the question. "How do you know this woman?" He says, "I was there when she was born." Of course, he was born in 1834 and she was born in 1839 and he was a little kid and they grew up together. That's the point that I'm trying to make. They grew up together and they were friends. And that's why she would not relinquish her relationship with the White people that she knew in order to gain her freedom. That was family. You see? It was easy I think back then people, regardless of color, to just — I don't know. I think people were smarter back then than they are now for the most part.	10:22
Kate Ellis	Really?	11:29
Alvin Foreman Knatt	They didn't have to worry about color, all the race nonsense.	11:30
Kate Ellis	Well, now that's — I've never heard anybody say that before. Well, tell me about that. What gives you that — That was just after slavery?	11:36
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yes ma'am.	11:46
Kate Ellis	There's a short period of reconstruction, but then there was the start of Jim Crow. But you're saying as far as the relationships that people formed with one another, they were more likely to have—	11:48
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Let me point something out to you, okay, if you don't mind.	12:03
Kate Ellis	No, I don't mind.	12:07
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Okay look. I don't know what my dad told you and I don't want to know. I just asked him to be honest with you. But his dad was really wealthy, really wealthy. But when— His dad's brother, see, his dad had a lot of brothers and sisters, but they were all educated. Because after the Civil War, during reconstruction, Black people had schools and they were educated. But you see, my dad is the last surviving sibling of 13 kids and he can't read. You see? And all right. And it's because the opportunities were not there. That's why I told you that Jim Crow it's invidious, it's bad. And I know that firsthand, and I can tell you a lot more than that, but I'm trying to make that connection clear.	12:10
Kate Ellis	So his parents, his father had an education. His father you said was a wealthy man.	13:24
Alvin Foreman Knatt	His grandfather's. His grandfather, and his grandfather and all of his grandfather and all the brothers and sisters, they were educated.	13:36
Kate Ellis	Okay.	13:48
Alvin Foreman Knatt	You see in about the 1890s, things got bad when it got bad.	13:49
Kate Ellis	That's when it got bad.	13:56
Alvin Foreman Knatt	And nobody got the education.	13:57
Kate Ellis	I see, so the children of those grandparents didn't have an education.	13:58
Alvin Foreman Knatt	They just, they [indistinct 00:14:02] an education.	14:01
Kate Ellis	And his siblings really didn't get an education.	14:02
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Thank you ma'am. There you got it. There you got it.	14:05
Kate Ellis	But his father did well for himself because — You said his father was a wealthy man. Is that right?	14:07
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah, very wealthy.	14:17
Kate Ellis	Because of the farm that he—	14:17
Alvin Foreman Knatt	No, because of his association with — Well, because of his dad.	14:20
Kate Ellis	Because of his father's father?	14:26
Alvin Foreman Knatt	No, no. His father was White. My grandfather's father was White and he had a lot of property. So he gave him land just free. So he was really wealthy. So that's why. And I mean, I'm getting a little bit ahead of you I think, but we got relatives. We have a little farm out to the south of here, and we got relatives there. They're White. And you look at my dad, you look at them, they're the same. They're related and they know that. But here, so Jim Crow works such — To me, I would, "Hey, it's no problem." But to them, my dad calls his nephew maybe three times removed yes sir, no sir. It just doesn't make any sense to me. But they plan in a system that is that way. It's kind of sad in that way, but you got to get out of it and it'll be able to look at it.	14:26
Kate Ellis	But no. I'm not saying anything only because I —	15:48
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Maybe I'm talking to you too much.	15:57
Kate Ellis	Nope, nope, nope. No, keep going. I was thinking about what you said just reminded me of a man I talked to a while ago who in his 90s who—	15:59
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Really?	16:12
Kate Ellis	— you came up yeah, working sugar cane, salt mine, everything. No school. There was no schooling available for him. Even though there was some school nearby, there was no way he could do it, of course, because he needed to work in the fields, which is, I don't need to tell you. Was the case for many people. But he was just telling me about — His kids are all college educated and went up to New York and are in Rochester, have good jobs and they came.	16:13
Kate Ellis	But he told me, he was saying about how he was with his daughter one point some time ago, I didn't get the details of the story because he didn't tell me details, but he was saying that she had, it was either a White employer or White friend. And she was saying to him, she was like, "Dad, when you meet them, don't say yes sir or yes or no ma'am. Yes'm. Don't address them that way." He's like, "By God, I will address them that way. That's the way I was raised to at that time." So it's just interesting, again, that kind of — And with the different generations, you come up at a different time and can —	16:40
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah, but let me show you something, Katie, if you don't mind. You see the woman over there—	17:21
Kate Ellis	On the television?	17:25
Alvin Foreman Knatt	On the television. My dad told you anything about her? I was married to her for 16 years and she's a Shawnee Indian. And my parents, "Oh, no, no, no." And we are really Indians. So I felt comfortable and, "Oh no, you can't, you can't, you can't." And this is my daughter right here.	17:26
Kate Ellis	Oh wait a minute.	17:58
Alvin Foreman Knatt	No, wait a minute. I can just point.	17:58
Kate Ellis	Well, I'd like to see. If I can just unhook you for a second.	18:02
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Well, four daughters and the son.	18:03
Kate Ellis	Where are they?	18:08
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Well, see that's what I was talking about. Yeah, anywhere. It doesn't matter. They're in Kansas, one in Wyoming, one in California. And my son's in the Marine Corps. And I hate racism, but that's not why you're here.	18:09
Kate Ellis	Yes it is.	18:34
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Oh, is it?	18:34
Kate Ellis	I mean it kind of is why I'm here.	18:34
Alvin Foreman Knatt	I despise racism. And when I was growing up here, I hated racism. I don't know why. I mean, I just despise it. We used to live with White people and there was no problem. The real problem, as I perceived it later on, I didn't know what racism was about until I was about 13 years old. And because White people and Black people lived in harmony together. It was no problem. I mean, I didn't even know I was Black.	18:37
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Then we started seeing, when we went to movies, we had to sit in the balcony and the White people sat in the bottom. How we go in the same car and we had to split and go and then they got to come back and get in the same car and go home and say, "Damn, that was a good movie, wasn't it?" I'm tripping out over that. I don't understand that. It doesn't making any damn sense. And when I was in high school, I remember, just before I graduated from high school over here, two things you couldn't talk about in high school. One was communism and the other thing was integration. So when I went—	19:10
Kate Ellis	You couldn't talk about it.	19:55
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Oh no, you couldn't even discuss it, you couldn't bring up the subject.	19:56
Kate Ellis	Now you were born — Are you '45?	19:59
Alvin Foreman Knatt	In '45, yeah.	19:59
Kate Ellis	So was right around 1960. Oh, I guess—	20:01
Alvin Foreman Knatt	'63. Yeah, '62, '63	20:04
Kate Ellis	Okay. When it was all happening, you're right.	20:05
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah, Fidel Castro took over from Batista, you know that era? Yeah, it was that.	20:07
Kate Ellis	But your school wasn't integrated at that point?	20:16
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Oh no. Oh no.	20:18
Kate Ellis	Y'all didn't integrate until '69, is that right?	20:19
Alvin Foreman Knatt	See, I don't know because I wasn't here then.	20:23
Kate Ellis	Okay, okay.	20:24
Alvin Foreman Knatt	I don't know when they did it. But when I left, when I graduated, oh no.	20:25
Kate Ellis	This is an off limits topic.	20:30
Alvin Foreman Knatt	That's right. Well, it's not like, it was kind of stupid because people were having intimate relationships, White people, both ways. I mean men, women. But no, legally it wasn't permissible. (laughs) That kind of, it would trip you out.	20:32
Kate Ellis	A while ago, one thing that just got us into this branch of conversation was when you had said like in the 1900s, that people, that it didn't make as much difference as far as—	21:02
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Oh no, ma'am. If you look at the records, if you go and look at the records in this parish, this parish used to be a part of St. Martin Parish. And if you go and look at the census for this parish, and you scan it just peripherally, you're going to see something. You're going to see a lot of White people. And they are mostly French. They're French, not from Nova Scotia like my ancestors were. They're French from France. Because I don't know why the French used to — The proprietors and the marketeers, and the physicians, and whatever came, and teachers came from France.	21:14
Alvin Foreman Knatt	I don't know why if that's the case. I never looked into it. But you'll see a lot of those people married to Black women. Usually you'll find that it was Black, I mean, White French married to Black women. And people used to come from other states to come and get married in Louisiana, because Louisiana did not have any kind of laws restricting interracial marriage.	21:58
Kate Ellis	Really? That's so interesting. It's so hard to imagine now coming to Louisiana to do something like that.	22:24
Alvin Foreman Knatt	I'm going to tell you something else. I was lucky enough. See miscegenation laws in Louisiana came about, in my research, in about 1891, 1892.	22:29
Kate Ellis	So with the onset of Jim Crow?	22:46
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yes, ma'am. Then I had the good fortune to know a lady in Lafayette, Louisiana. I don't know if you're familiar with where that is. It's about 20 miles west of here. Her name was Shirley Prejen, P-R-E-J-E-N. And I knew her when she was a teenager, and I dated her and everything. And in 1967, she got married too. And she hated White people. And she was a Mulatto, but she hated White people. And she got married to a White guy who was an attorney. Really nice, a good attorney. He was nice. And she later became an attorney and everything. But she hated the White people because her dad was a professional baseball player and he was killed. And he was killed by members of his own team because he was Black. At that time, there were Black baseball teams, White baseball teams, that kind of stuff.	22:49
Kate Ellis	There were Black teams or White teams.	23:53
Alvin Foreman Knatt	They couldn't play together.	23:55
Kate Ellis	Right, and he was Black. You said he was Black.	23:56
Alvin Foreman Knatt	He was Black, but he was allowed to beat on the team because — He was like you. I'm not trying to assault you or anything, but okay, you couldn't distinguish him. He was so light-skinned is what I'm saying.	24:01
Kate Ellis	So the Black people, the darker-skinned Black people on his team killed him?	24:17
Alvin Foreman Knatt	No.	24:21
Kate Ellis	Oh, he was on the White-skinned team or the White team.	24:22
Alvin Foreman Knatt	The White team.	24:25
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry.	24:25
Alvin Foreman Knatt	The White people killed me. So that's why she hated White people.	24:28
Kate Ellis	How did they kill him?	24:29
Alvin Foreman Knatt	They just plunged, bats and stuff like that. They killed him. You understand why she would be hate — But you see to me, the parody is, how could she ever — And when I met her, she would always tell me, "I hate White people." I couldn't understand. I don't like people saying that. Then all of a sudden she told me one day. But I understand.	24:31
Kate Ellis	Oh, now I understand.	25:02
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah.	25:30
Kate Ellis	Tell me more about —	25:30
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Let me do something for you.	25:30
Kate Ellis	Yes.	25:31
Alvin Foreman Knatt	It's not going to take long, but this is whatever. When I was growing up, I wanted to be an actor. And my mom said, "Oh no, you can't be an actor because all actors are homosexuals." And I said, I felt I was straight, I didn't have to worry about that. So I went into college and I went into speech and drama. And went right into doing some nice productions, the classics and all that nonsense. I was enjoying myself. She kept bickering at me. So I said, "Hell, I'll change my curriculum," and I went into political science and philosophy. But I always wrote poetry. And I want to do a little piece for you, if you don't mind.	25:36
Kate Ellis	I don't mind.	26:36
Alvin Foreman Knatt	I want to do two. One, it's called Weep Not. Weep not for me mother, because the weighty middle years have spread themselves upon me like — No, wait a minute. I'm kind of nervous. I'm going to do it for you though, because I know it really well.	26:37
Alvin Foreman Knatt	"Weep not for me mother because the weighty middle years have thrusted themselves upon me with the impunity of a fat board who bounces upon the body of a skinny class, middle playground of a public school at recess time. If you must weep or even sigh deep, let it not be for me, but for the misery of our Black brothers."	27:16
Kate Ellis	I want to hear.	27:37
Alvin Foreman Knatt	No, wait a minute. But I'll tell you what's happening. I'll be honest with you. It's your eyes, they just make me forget it. It's that. I know my work, but I don't mean to be personal, but it's your eyes. It's messing me up. That's all right though.	27:41
Kate Ellis	I want to hear it again.	28:12
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Oh, I'll do it for you. I'll do it.	28:13
Kate Ellis	You want to try it now?	28:16
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah, let me see something.	28:16
Kate Ellis	Breathe.	28:16
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Let me do another one. Maybe I can come back to that one a little bit. I call this one Autumn Coming, Autumn Coming, the fall.	28:32
Alvin Foreman Knatt	"I hear the roughed up [indistinct 00:28:44] the feet of autumn thundering. Rumbling —"	28:42
Alvin Foreman Knatt	No. (laughs) This has never happened to me before. I get on stage. It's never happened. I know what the problem is. It's not a problem here, it's a privilege. But I just know what it is. I got copies of it. I'll give it to you.	28:51
Kate Ellis	Would you?	29:12
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah. But I wanted to do it for you myself, but I just can't. I can't. I'm sorry. Anyway.	29:13
Kate Ellis	Well let's try it later.	29:26
Alvin Foreman Knatt	All right.	29:31
Kate Ellis	Because I'd like to hear. I want to hear more about the area where you grew up. Did you come up in Bell Place?	29:31
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yes ma'am. Yeah., yeah I came up there and — It was nice. It was nice, really nice. And I saw a lot of violence when I was a child.	29:46
Kate Ellis	Violence?	30:00
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Oh yeah.	30:04
Kate Ellis	Among whom, who was —	30:05
Alvin Foreman Knatt	I saw violence among Blacks and Whites. You see, you still have that residual effect of violence among Blacks and White in this area. And it's one of the things that I find most objectionable about living in this environment because — But all I saw, yeah, I saw a lot of violent things. You kill a nigger and throw him in about here and it's gone. It ain't no big thing. I seen that as a child. So when I went to war and I had to do that kind of thing, it really didn't bother me. But now, I'm almost 50 years old. Sometimes I got to sit down and look in the mirror and say — "Where are you?" And I can't talk to them. I'm serious. You just got to find somebody to talk to. And I think what tripped me out with you is 70% of all effective communication is nonverbal. And when I look in your eyes, that's why I don't look in your — We're here to talk.	30:07
Kate Ellis	Which war were you in?	31:31
Alvin Foreman Knatt	In Vietnam.	31:31
Kate Ellis	Okay.	31:31
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah, yeah. I was at Chu Lai and I was in Da Nang. No, you don't want garbage.	31:35
Kate Ellis	Well, I do.	31:44
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Really?	31:45
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	31:46
Alvin Foreman Knatt	You want know about people being killed? All right.	31:51
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	31:59
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Let me tell you something. One time I was in Chu Lai, which is on the coast on Vietnam. And you live from day to day. You never really think that, "Well what about when I leave here and go home?" I never expected to go home.	31:59
Kate Ellis	You don't make plans.	32:20
Alvin Foreman Knatt	No, you just don't. And I wouldn't even try to have any kind of meaningful relationship with a woman. It was just kind of hit-and-run because either I'm going to be dead or you going to be dead and I don't want to have to grieve. I didn't even know how to grieve, kiddo. And one day, I would see my buddies dying and people dying all the time. Then one night, about this time, maybe a little later, we were drinking beer and sitting around. And I saw this, looked like a storage area I never seen before.	32:21
Alvin Foreman Knatt	But we had been on Bien for about around, oh, I don't know, about a week, 10 days. And I went over, I walked over by myself and I looked. There was about 300 GIs, American GIs, dead. Just like they were picked up, they were spread around. And I looked at them and I walked through there, and that there were lights on. And I looked at them and everything. And I got to the point where I did not want to be affiliated with that war machinery. I just hated the military. But I didn't get out of it or anything until my time was up, but I hated it. You know what I mean?	33:09
Kate Ellis	Oh yeah.	34:00
Alvin Foreman Knatt	And I still hate that. Some of my friends were killed, good friends were killed.	34:01
Kate Ellis	Well, and it sounds like what you said before about your brother.	34:03
Alvin Foreman Knatt	The one that spent the — Yeah, yeah. He spent there three years, I mean three tours in Vietnam and all those years in the military and then died.	34:13
Kate Ellis	When you came back.	34:25
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah, and at his funeral — but that's got nothing to do with what we talking about.	34:28
Kate Ellis	Just go on, finish what you were going to say and then we'll go back.	34:31
Alvin Foreman Knatt	When he died, he died and I was in Kansas when he died. And I was working for a nuclear regulatory agency who had a plant at Burlington, Kansas. Really out the way place, but money was nice and I liked what I was doing and everything. So I did that. And my brother was dying. And these fools would not — Did not want me to go. "We need you. We need." I said, "My brother's dying." So I left and I went. And then he died, but I tried to get my dad to go. My dad wouldn't go.	34:37
Kate Ellis	To go where?	35:16
Alvin Foreman Knatt	California. He live in Hisperia, California.	35:17
Kate Ellis	In where?	35:20
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Hisperia.	35:20
Kate Ellis	You know where Santa Monica is?	35:23
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah.	35:24
Kate Ellis	Yeah, it's right next to Santa Monica where Gene Autry lives. You know Gene Autry? Play the guitar and ride a horse and all this.	35:25
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Okay.	35:31
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	35:32
Alvin Foreman Knatt	So your father wouldn't go out there to — But he doesn't like to. He doesn't like to. But anyway.	35:33
Kate Ellis	Doesn't like to what?	35:38
Alvin Foreman Knatt	He doesn't like to move around and go different places. But anyway.	35:39
Kate Ellis	But you said that when you were coming up, you saw violence between Whites, Blacks. I mean you saw Whites killing.	35:48
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Oh yeah. Black people. Oh yeah.	35:56
Kate Ellis	Will you tell me about that. What would happen?	35:57
Alvin Foreman Knatt	One time when I was about eight years old, there's a little village about, oh, I don't know, nine miles from here.	36:04
Kate Ellis	Called what?	36:12
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Louisville. And it was bad. Let me show you about the hypocrisy of it all. We had maybe three stores in the village, just like a little town, I guess, had three stores. And at the end of the store was a little place where Black people could go and get drunk, and drink and stuff like that. And what was I think more ironic was that the proprietor of the whole establishment was sleeping with a Black woman. Her name was Marybelle Olivia. And sleeping with. She was a Black woman and his name was — I don't know if you met her yet, but and she go down there you see. And it used to be big signs, "No Colored allowed."	36:13
Kate Ellis	But he was sleeping with—	37:19
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah.	37:21
Kate Ellis	Matier?	37:21
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah, Matier.	37:21
Kate Ellis	Okay, so that was the store.	37:24
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah, he was the store owner. And the store's still there. And look, when I was 11 or 12 years old, we'd take our bicycles and go out there and buy wine and drink. And he sell wine to us no problem. I have a brother that's about 10 and a half months younger than that and we'd go on bicycles. And our friends who were White. And the counter was about like this and we were that tall and he just sell us wine. We could go out. We'd build camps and stuff like that. We had a lot of wooded area, a lot of land. We could get lost. It was nice.	37:26
Kate Ellis	But the hypocrisy signs he had in a store, you mean, "Colored not allowed or whatever," but he's sleeping with a Black woman. And you're saying he would serve you whatever you needed, whatever you wanted.	38:20
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah, whatever I wanted, whatever I needed. I don't think it was because I was Black. I think it was — No, he do this with anyone. It was because he was just a scrupulous. He didn't have any ethics.	38:33
Kate Ellis	As far as selling wine, you mean as far as selling wine to a 12 year old.	38:48
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Wine, yeah. But I used to do that. I was 13 years old and I'd come, my dad would raised peppers and I'd take 2000, I mean, yeah, 2000 pounds of peppers. She going to get it for me. I'd take 2000 pounds of peppers and bring it into town. And on the way back, I'd stop and buy beer and drink. No big deal. Now, I think we've regressed. I think we've taken giant steps backwards really, race relationship and interpersonal relationships. I think we've moved backwards. I'm disappointed in the administration and national administration right now because I think we moved backwards. B	38:52
Alvin Foreman Knatt	ecause at that time, we could do that kind of thing. But now the kids are doing some more serious things. These kids around the neighborhood, they will walk around and try to kill you just because you happen to be a human being. They're going to kill something. You see? Y got to be careful. You see? We never did that.	39:40
Kate Ellis	I'm interested in what you — Again about as far as the White violence against Blacks. As far as lynching is concerned, it's generally something that's considered to have happened around the turn of the century and having abated by as far as reported lynching, that really goes down by the 1940s, certainly by the 1950s.	40:07
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Let me tell you something. I was in Biloxi, Mississippi when I was in the military. I was a spy, you see. And I know that's going to kind of shock you, but I was. And I'm just telling you straightforward. I can give you another acronym for it, but I'm being for real. And I was in training then to be a spy. And I was in Biloxi, Mississippi, Keesler Air Force Base. And I was walking down the street, the main street, I don't remember the name of it, but it runs parallel to the beach in Biloxi. And was a White guy, and another White guy jumped out of a car, picked a part of the street. This is no kidding. And he was running behind me. And this guy looked like he was a hulk, and he's running behind me trying to throw part of the street on me.	40:36
Alvin Foreman Knatt	So I got out of the way and I didn't get hurt physically. And I looked and I saw a cop, and I waved the cop down and he tried to act like he didn't see me, but I waved him down. I got in front of him and he made sure that they got out the way. Then he told me, "Boy, you ain't got no business down here." And all that kind stuff. I said, "Oh lord." And you know what we were doing? Just walking down the street. But I don't know. I don't know.	41:36
Kate Ellis	What about in the community that you came up in? Who were your White neighbors?	42:17
Alvin Foreman Knatt	My dad's relatives. Right when we grew up, we grew up in the house side by side. They were real close. And they were my dad's kin. The woman was my dad's cousin, but she was White. And yeah, we grew up right next. But her husband was bad.	42:26
Kate Ellis	Was what?	42:46
Alvin Foreman Knatt	He was from World War II. He was kind of wacko.	42:52
Kate Ellis	He was kind of messed up from the war.	42:55
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Messed up. Yeah, from the war. Yeah.	42:57
Kate Ellis	So they were White and they lived—	42:58
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Right next door to us. And see, we grew up together.	43:00
Kate Ellis	So you all were friends?	43:02
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Oh yeah.	43:04
Kate Ellis	What you had said in the beginning is just how you had White friends when you were coming up.	43:04
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Oh yeah.	43:09
Kate Ellis	It wasn't until you were a teenager.	43:10
Alvin Foreman Knatt	As a matter of fact, most of my friends were White.	43:12
Kate Ellis	Were they all farmers in that community as well?	43:15
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah, as far as I knew. Yeah.	43:18
Kate Ellis	Let me ask you again more about just the family history stuff, I guess, and this is referring to some stuff that your father had just mentioned a little bit of, as far as the land that his father had bought and cleared. The wooded land that his father had bought and cleared. And he was going in, I guess on a venture where he was going to grow rice with a White guy and the rice market fell, that went bust. And then the White guy got the land.	43:21
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah.	44:02
Kate Ellis	What?	44:02
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Well you use what you want to use, but I'll tell you what I know to be factual. Two things come to mind. One is, my grandfather had some, let's call them misadventures. And a little bit has to do with White women. And that's how he lost the farm.	44:03
Kate Ellis	What do you mean?	44:29
Alvin Foreman Knatt	He had a liaison with a White woman who was a swing. And you never know about those things whether or not she swindling out of the money and the property, or whether or not the records would not displayed that, or whether or not — I don't know. But I know that, that affair did occur and it was a long term thing.	44:31
Kate Ellis	He lost the land.	44:58
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah, he lost the land.	44:59
Kate Ellis	You're saying maybe by being swindled by her as opposed to —	45:02
Alvin Foreman Knatt	I can't say whether or not it was her, because I don't even know. I don't know anything about her personally. So I don't know. But I know that, that's the reason, but I can't describe — I wasn't even around when she was living. But I know that, that's the reason why it happened.	45:08
Alvin Foreman Knatt	And he couldn't say it, and my dad won't say it. That's some things my dad will not tell you. That's why I'm glad you spoke with him before you spoke with me, because he won't tell you some things. I'll tell you everything I know, and you do what you want with it.	45:31
Kate Ellis	What else would he not tell me?	45:46
Alvin Foreman Knatt	I don't know what he told you. Told you that his grandfather, his grandfather was White?	45:49
Kate Ellis	He told me that after I turned the tape off.	45:54
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Oh, okay. See, he's scared. But I don't know.	45:58
Kate Ellis	Well, let me ask you a bit more about as far as — Let me see if this tape is running out. I think it is. I got to turn it over. I guess when he was coming up — all the people around him were Black, they were farmers. Does that sound right? I mean, as far as Bell Place is concerned, they had farmed.	46:07
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah, they had farms. Yeah. Well, wait a minute. I'm going to tell you something. I want to tell you something. But see, this person's no relationship biologically to me, you see. John Nat the first was a slave for 61 years.	46:34

Kate Ellis	— that's great. Would you just repeat that last sentence? John—	0:01
Alvin Foreman Knatt	John Knatt I was born in 1804, in Accomack County, Virginia, in the Tidewater area, as a slave. But there were free Blacks around. I don't know how it became his fate to be a slave. But anyway, when he was 25, he was shipped south, and he ended up here. Now, to make a long story short, and it's a beautiful story, if you have the time to listen, but I'm not going to bore you with all of those details. But when the Civil War ended in 1865, John Knatt was a free man.	0:05
Alvin Foreman Knatt	In 1870, and I have documents, I think I might have them here to show you, he bought a plantation from the son of his ex-master. He was in his 60s, and he had been a slave for all that time. And so what it tells me is that there's no such thing as just giving up because things are not going right for you at a particular time, you've just got to go on. And he's given me— I don't think I could find any more strength than just to know that. But he was not biologically related to me, because my people were not Knatts, they were Dugas, they were White.	0:55
Kate Ellis	Dugas? How do you spell that?	1:44
Alvin Foreman Knatt	D-U-G-A-S.	1:44
Kate Ellis	Okay. Is that the name of the Whites who you're related to—	1:49
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Over in the country, yeah.	1:54
Kate Ellis	Over in the country.	1:54
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah.	1:54
Kate Ellis	Okay.	1:54
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah.	1:54
Kate Ellis	Okay. Getting back to this question, as far as who your father came up around in Belle Place, his neighbors were mostly Black farmers—	2:00
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah.	2:15
Kate Ellis	— who had land?	2:16
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Oh, yeah.	2:17
Kate Ellis	He said, again, I think was at the end of the interview when I turned off the tape, that most of those people lost their land to Whites.	2:18
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah, that's true. What happened is that in the 1920s, oil was discovered in that area, and there was a lot of oil, you see? And so, I can show you documents of sales and what have you. Land was being bought up that way, real quick.	2:26
Kate Ellis	Land was— I'm sorry.	2:55
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Being bought.	2:56
Kate Ellis	But this is the thing, I guess—	2:57
Alvin Foreman Knatt	They bought the Black people land.	3:00
Kate Ellis	They bought it?	3:02
Alvin Foreman Knatt	They bought it.	3:03
Kate Ellis	For a song, I mean, for nothing?	3:04
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah, you hear me. Yeah.	3:06
Kate Ellis	Because—	3:07
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Sometimes they bought just the mineral rights, and left them with the land, but with the rights to go up on the easements, and they made the easements twice as large. You know how it was.	3:09
Kate Ellis	Well, that's what I want to hear about, though.	3:24
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah.	3:24
Kate Ellis	I, personally, have not heard that particular story about the oil.	3:28
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Really?	3:32
Kate Ellis	This is what your father had mentioned.	3:32
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Oh, yeah.	3:33
Kate Ellis	Tell me— And again, I keep looking this— what was it, Schwing? What was the name?	3:37
Alvin Foreman Knatt	S-C-H-W-I-N-G, Schwing.	3:38
Kate Ellis	Schwing. Okay.	3:38
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Mm-hmm. John Schwing.	3:38
Kate Ellis	So you're saying— I'm not at all trying to pit you against your father, I'm just trying to get a—	4:00
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Oh, no, no, no, no.	4:00
Kate Ellis	When I asked the question—	4:00
Alvin Foreman Knatt	No. I understand research.	4:00
Kate Ellis	No, no, no, I want to—	4:00
Alvin Foreman Knatt	I didn't want to try to compromise your research.	4:00
Kate Ellis	No, not at all. So your father was saying, "Look, John Schwing knew that it was a basin of oil—"	4:01
Alvin Foreman Knatt	That's right.	4:05
Kate Ellis	— that your father had.	4:06
Alvin Foreman Knatt	That's right. My grandfather.	4:07
Kate Ellis	I mean, I'm sorry that your grandfather had. So that is why he basically swindled him out of land. That because your grandfather couldn't read and write—	4:10
Alvin Foreman Knatt	You're right.	4:19
Kate Ellis	— then he could sign a document and sign away his land?	4:22
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah, you're close. But you see, what John Schwing did, he used his wife. He used his wife whose name was Anna to— But you see, I can't really say that. But from all indications, he used his wife to get to my grandfather, personally.	4:26
Kate Ellis	I see.	4:51
Alvin Foreman Knatt	They had an intimate relationship. But he was controlling things, you know what I mean?	4:53
Kate Ellis	I've got it. Okay. So as far as other people in that community who lost their land, it was bought real cheap.	5:03
Alvin Foreman Knatt	No, ma'am. Yeah, in a way, in another way. My grandfather, if you look at some of the records that I have, my grandfather, my dad's dad, bought some land from John Schwing— I mean, bought some land from a Black person and a week later he sells it to John Schwing. And then John Schwing disposed of it to some oil company. Yeah. I mean—	5:11
Kate Ellis	Well, it's a really interesting question as far as— And one thing that we've just become interested in as we're here, is how did African Americans in this whole area, in Iberia Parish, lose their land?	5:38
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah, yeah.	5:51
Kate Ellis	What was going on? And again, how are the connections with their White relatives, like implicated— I'm not stating a real well-formed question. But just want to see what I'm trying to get at. I mean, as far as who had land? How'd they get the land? I mean, and then how did they lose the land?	5:53
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah. I hear you.	6:19
Kate Ellis	And then kind of what kind of—	6:19
Alvin Foreman Knatt	I hear you. I mean, I already told you that the land that he was talking about was quite a considerable acreage. But his brothers had a lot of land, too. I mean, my grandfather's— The Black ones, they had a lot of land.	6:26
Kate Ellis	Now they were able to—	6:41
Alvin Foreman Knatt	He told you anything— Excuse me. He told you anything about his mom's relatives, the Indians?	6:42
Kate Ellis	No.	6:50
Alvin Foreman Knatt	No?	6:51
Kate Ellis	But tell me.	6:52
Alvin Foreman Knatt	I wonder why he didn't do that?	6:54
Kate Ellis	Just was not a— I don't know, it wasn't necessarily anything he had to hid.	6:54
Alvin Foreman Knatt	His mother was a full-blooded Chitimacha Indian. And—	7:03
Kate Ellis	How do you spell that, Chitimacha?	7:08
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Chitimacha, C-H-I-T-I-M-A-C-H-A.	7:12
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	7:12
Alvin Foreman Knatt	That's why— You see, he'll have a beer like this and he'll start dancing on the table. I mean, that's the way we are. But anyway, some of his brothers and sisters chose to be Indians. And some, like I was trying to tell you at first, and we got diverted, chose to be Black. But his oldest sister was Indian to the time she died. She would walk around with two braids in the back and just all kind of Indian regalia. She had moccasins and smoked a pipe and all of this kind of stuff. And I loved it. And her name was Noon.	7:18
Kate Ellis	Noon?	8:05
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Noon. But look, she had her brother and her brother's name was Morning. And I got document right here to show you that I'm telling you—	8:05
Kate Ellis	This is your father's brothers?	8:24
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah.	8:24
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	8:24
Alvin Foreman Knatt	And he had one brother got eyes bluer than the sky, was named Western, just W-E-S-T-E-R-N, like as opposed to Eastern.	8:24
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	8:38
Alvin Foreman Knatt	But we just about lost that. We lost our Indian heritage altogether.	8:45
Kate Ellis	How? How did that happen?	8:52
Alvin Foreman Knatt	People not wanting— I mean, my dad is the last of his generation. And my kids don't want to listen about their heritage.	8:54
Kate Ellis	They don't?	9:03
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Uh-huh, have no interest whatsoever.	9:09
Kate Ellis	Why is that?	9:10
Alvin Foreman Knatt	I don't know, you tell me. I don't know, I don't know. I always wanted to know about—	9:11
Kate Ellis	So his mother is full-blooded Indian.	9:17
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah.	9:20
Kate Ellis	And his father is—	9:20
Alvin Foreman Knatt	He's a Mulatto.	9:20
Kate Ellis	Okay, right.	9:20
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah.	9:20
Kate Ellis	Well, let's see. Now I'm thinking about—	9:28
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Let me get some light on.	9:30
Kate Ellis	Okay, some—	9:31
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Oops. Oh.	9:34
Kate Ellis	I got you.	9:34
Alvin Foreman Knatt	All right. Hold tight.	9:34
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	9:34
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Oh, yeah.	9:34
Kate Ellis	Mr. Clement Knatt—	9:45
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah?	9:46
Kate Ellis	Now he's got it— Obviously, this would be his— He's your cousin,	9:46
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Right, yeah, my first cousin.	9:51
Kate Ellis	So your father's brother?	9:53
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah.	9:54
Kate Ellis	Right. Okay. There's the Indian coming down from him?	9:55
Alvin Foreman Knatt	You're good. You pick up. Yeah, you're good.	9:56
Kate Ellis	No, actually, I think I'm slow in that regard.	9:56
Alvin Foreman Knatt	No. Yeah.	9:56
Kate Ellis	But his face is really striking, in that respect. He said when he talked to you—	10:02
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Like an Indian?	10:06
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	10:06
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah. You see how his hair is long?	10:10
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm. Yeah, like that.	10:10
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah.	10:10
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	10:10
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Mm-hmm. That's why, it's not Black.	10:24
Kate Ellis	Huh. But this is interesting—	10:24
Alvin Foreman Knatt	He told you about his sister?	10:24
Kate Ellis	Who Mr. Clement Knatt?	10:24
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah.	10:24
Kate Ellis	We haven't gotten to his family history yet.	10:28
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Oh, no? Ask him about his sister.	10:30
Kate Ellis	Well, what do you know about his sister?	10:31
Alvin Foreman Knatt	No, he had a sister and then he had a niece who died last year. She was an opera singer.	10:33
Kate Ellis	Oh.	10:40
Alvin Foreman Knatt	She used to sing, well, all over the world and she was good. He'll tell you though.	10:42
Kate Ellis	His sister Ada?	10:52
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah.	10:52
Kate Ellis	Okay. He did. He showed me pictures of her.	10:52
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah. It's Ada's daughter.	10:53
Kate Ellis	Okay.	10:53
Alvin Foreman Knatt	She had a bad heart. But God, oh, was spellbinding and everything. She was real down to earth. And she just died.	10:58
Kate Ellis	Wow.	11:10
Alvin Foreman Knatt	And it happens that way sometimes. She was a beautiful person. I wish you had got a chance to talk with her. She was a lot more cosmopolitan than we are.	11:17
Kate Ellis	Oh, yeah?	11:26
Alvin Foreman Knatt	We just hicks.	11:28
Kate Ellis	Oh, no. Well, but as far as your father's brothers and sisters are concerned, you said some chose to be Black and some chose to be Indian as far as how they identified?	11:34
Alvin Foreman Knatt	And some chose to be White. And when—	11:42
Kate Ellis	Of your father's brothers and sisters?	11:45
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Mm-hmm.	11:45
Kate Ellis	Because what did some turn out as far as how they looked, I mean, they turned—	11:47
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Oh, my dad didn't tell you that? Some are Whiter than you are, with blue eyes, blonde hair.	11:50
Kate Ellis	Did they go—	11:54
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Mm-hmm, yeah. They passed.	11:54
Kate Ellis	Where'd they go?	11:54
Alvin Foreman Knatt	New Orleans. New Orleans. I've traced them back. But right now they are afraid. It's like, I guess, if you're a homosexual, coming and out of the closet, you've got to be careful. I don't know. So I leave them alone and I don't push it.	12:00
Kate Ellis	Are they in touch with your father?	12:24
Alvin Foreman Knatt	No, not that I know of.	12:27
Kate Ellis	Did they cut ties with their family? I mean, did they—	12:30
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah. Oh, yeah. At the time, they cut ties from the family,	12:31
Kate Ellis	What happened?	12:31
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Sometimes— Hmm?	12:31
Kate Ellis	Do you remember what happened or do you know? I mean, as far as what they said or what they did, or—	12:39
Alvin Foreman Knatt	No, I wasn't around at the time, I just—	12:46
Kate Ellis	It was before your time?	12:48
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah, yeah. But I know by their kids, and I've been in touch with the kids. So when that happens, you just leave him alone.	12:49
Kate Ellis	How does your father feel about it?	12:55
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Pretty bad. Pretty bad. He dad's alone. That's fine here. Dad's alone, he's a very lonely person because all of his brothers and sisters are dead. And his mom and his dad are dead. And so I'm his pal.	13:05
Kate Ellis	You're his pal.	13:22
Alvin Foreman Knatt	I'm his buddy. So I don't try to aggravate him with all that silliness. I deal with it, but I don't mess with him, I guess—	13:23
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry, say it again?	13:37
Alvin Foreman Knatt	I said I don't try to aggravate him with all of that nonsense.	13:40
Kate Ellis	Okay as far as asking—	13:43
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Well, no, we'll talk. But if I see that he's getting welled up with emotions— And I'm like that too.	13:45
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	13:54
Alvin Foreman Knatt	I'll cut bait and do something else. Yeah, he's a beautiful person. I love him, man. He's cool.	13:56
Kate Ellis	But that must be a real source of pain in a family, one part of the family cuts itself off to—	14:11
Alvin Foreman Knatt	I think that's usual with Black people, you see. That's usually with Black people. I mean, my mom's dad killed a guy, a White guy. My mom's dad was with Mulatto too. He lived in an adjacent parish, Saint Martin Parish. And he killed a man, hacked him with a meat cleaver, kill him, a White guy. And he took the guy's horse and rode about eight, nine miles, found refuge in the community. Black people were really together at that time. And started living with my mom's mother.	14:18
Alvin Foreman Knatt	And that's one of the reasons why I'm here right now. No marriage because he was a murderer. But everybody tell me that he was a nice man. God, I mean, god-damn, what about Ted Bundy? How come— I don't know. And I hear a lot of this, that "Things are getting worse today." Oh, no, never, never. On this railroad track that you crossed coming here, you probably crossed it, people used to get just killed. They get hacked and then they get thrown on the track, then train would run over.	15:05
Kate Ellis	Geez.	15:48
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Go to the courthouse if you think I'm lying and look at—	15:52
Kate Ellis	I don't think they lying.	15:54
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Oh, yeah.	15:55
Kate Ellis	And look at what though?	15:56
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Look at the obituary index at the courthouse.	15:58
Kate Ellis	Oh, God. It would be like, "Train death." Like everything would be like—	16:06
Alvin Foreman Knatt	No, there's a book, there's a big manual. And if you look at the people who died in a particular year or era, you look like from 1900s, you're going to see people used to get killed by train a lot more often than they do now. I mean, they'd run over a whole family center sometimes.	16:06
Kate Ellis	Jesus.	16:26
Alvin Foreman Knatt	But you know what that was about?	16:28
Kate Ellis	I can't believe your grandfather got away with killing a White man. I can't believe he wasn't caught and killed on a spot. I mean—	16:31
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah, yeah, probably right. I mean, I've wondered about that too. I wondered about that, too. But that was a lot of liaison between you see— But like I said, he was a Mulatto. I don't know, I've never done any kind of genealogical research to try to say what— I don't know. So maybe his dad was a White guy? I don't know.	16:40
Kate Ellis	Therefore he might have had protection even among Whites?	17:06
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah, yeah.	17:07
Kate Ellis	I see what you're saying. Well, I guess in the same way, I mean, it's different— But when we were talking earlier, I mean, as far as your grandfather being able to buy land. I mean that was unusual for a lot of—	17:08
Alvin Foreman Knatt	That's right.	17:23
Kate Ellis	— Black people to be able to buy land.	17:25
Alvin Foreman Knatt	That's right.	17:25
Kate Ellis	But it's because, it turns out, that his father was White.	17:25
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah, but kid— Yeah, but that's right for my grandfather. But my great-grandfather, how could he spend 61 years in the state of institutional slavery and then all of a sudden he's got money enough to buy a plantation? I mean, and the record speaks for himself. It's there. Then 10 years later, this man is old and he buys— But he gets married and then takes him a new wife, never been married before. I mean, he was married before, but she wasn't, takes him a new wife. He buys seven or eight more acres of land, and he keeps farming. The rascal's 98 years old when he dies? He's cool.	17:31
Kate Ellis	So do you—	18:21
Alvin Foreman Knatt	But there again, I want to point out to you, he was not my biological kin. He was a Knatt and we are Dugas. But we go as Knatts because— But yeah, I think he was phenomenal. Man, if I spent six years in slavery of that sort, I would never think about buying any land. I'd just want to be free and drink my ice water and iced tea and a beer and just chill out until I die.	18:22
Kate Ellis	Really? Well, I mean, the way you're saying, you're saying it would ruin you, as far as—	18:58
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Oh, yeah. I couldn't. Well, yeah, but I don't guess I've been conditioned to slavery.	19:03
Kate Ellis	No, I don't guess you have.	19:09
Alvin Foreman Knatt	No.	19:09
Kate Ellis	As far as what you think about this man, you're amazed at his wherewithal to get out of that and turn around and become a landowner.	19:15
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I have the same reverence for him that I have for George Wallace, and I've had a lot of criticism.	19:24
Kate Ellis	George Wallace? The George Wallace?	19:33
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah.	19:34
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	19:34
Alvin Foreman Knatt	I had a lot of criticism because of the way that I perceive George Wallace. I disagree with his political philosophy vehemently on most things. But I love the guy. I like Rush Limbaugh. You know Rush Limbaugh?	19:36
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	19:52
Alvin Foreman Knatt	I love him. I remember when Rush Limbaugh first started in Kansas City, Missouri. I was living in Topeka. And he was very obnoxious. Because I'm really left wing all the way. I mean, you talk to me, you see that. But I think those guys are great because they got perseverance and stamina and they fight for what they believe in, and I respect that. You know?	19:53
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	20:24
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Anyway.	20:30
Kate Ellis	Well, let's move onto something else I asked you about earlier.	20:32
Alvin Foreman Knatt	All right.	20:40
Kate Ellis	About what you know about The Shadows and about— I mean, that sort of— Remember I said that—	20:40
Alvin Foreman Knatt	I'll be honest with you. You see, Hall was a— I don't know if you want to turn your machine off? Because I—	20:56
Kate Ellis	I'm happy to keep it.	21:09
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Okay, okay. Hall was the hall kind of a freak, sexually. And he would have Clement just do— I mean, he'd bring in some notable celebrities and everything. I don't know if Clement told you this. And he would just supervise Clement having sexual relations with these women. And it messed Clement's mind up til today.	21:11
Alvin Foreman Knatt	That's why he doesn't like White people. I don't know if she picked that up, but he doesn't. It's because he had to do that. And that old man was just looking on. That was his job. He could afford to have that kind of thing done. But that, to me, is the epitome of racism. You know what I mean? And of Jim Crowism. On the one hand, you holding yourself out to be [indistinct 00:22:20]— He didn't— Maybe he didn't.	21:42
Kate Ellis	Well, I'm not sure why he would tell me something like that.	22:23
Alvin Foreman Knatt	No. You would have to have a lead maybe in order for him to start talking to you. And he's kind of closed.	22:29
Kate Ellis	But the other thing is, just from our discussions that we've had, he and— He seems protective of Hall's reputation, of the man. I mean, he talks about him, as if he was a family member.	22:37
Alvin Foreman Knatt	That's the way he felt though. You see, he didn't look— But Hall was not a Cajun, he wasn't a racist. If you look at what he did, he was very exploitive, but he wasn't a racist. He was English and so he's from Britain. So Clement knows that. So I think what Clement will tell you is not that, "I hate White people. I hate Cajuns." You see? And I'm always telling him, "Oh, that's crazy." But you can't hate people because of the color of their skin. But anyway.	22:59
Kate Ellis	Well, how did you find out about these practices of Hall?	23:50
Alvin Foreman Knatt	I remember, I remember, I remember. When I was a kid, I was about 11 years old and Hall used to have Clement drive him around in his limousine sometimes. And he used to have an old Ford. But it was new then, I mean. And I used to be observant, just like I learned anything else when I back you, I just looked and just picked up on what was going on.	23:55
Alvin Foreman Knatt	And he was real open. I mean, I never have seen a person like that, since. I mean, maybe— I don't know. I've heard people talk about Howard Hunt or some major celebrity. But this guy was real open. But whenever he would get out in public. But then again, he could get into this little enclave and be protected from the world. Yeah. And I've seen a few more things. I was young at the time., some of the things I saw, I didn't know what I was looking at in the first place.	24:28
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm. Because yeah— It's a curious— I mean, that relationship, it seems like they were really close. But I could see how getting Clement to do things like that would really—	25:35
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Well, I think a lot of it has to do with your sexual orientation, I think. I don't know if Clement's sexual orientation is a result of what he had to, or felt he had to do, when he was working for Hall. But he's not straight, he's not straight at all. I don't know if you know that. But I don't know that makes a difference. But I mean, I'm telling you.	25:48
Kate Ellis	Yeah. How did you know that?	26:27
Alvin Foreman Knatt	About Clement?	26:27
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	26:27
Alvin Foreman Knatt	When I came back here from Topeka, I would sit down and we'd be drinking a beer or talking or whatever. He'd look in my crotch and, "Sure is raisin' hell what you got, Cousin," all this shit. I felt uncomfortable and everything like that. But I knew that's what the problem was. And that's what he was being used for, he was being exploited big time. And I knew that. My dad doesn't know it. Or if he knows it, that's a well-kept secret. He's not going to tell anybody else. But—	26:37
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	27:26
Alvin Foreman Knatt	You think I'm crazy, don't you?	27:34
Kate Ellis	No, I don't, not at all. I mean, the thing is, what you say, I've heard.	27:36
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Oh, yeah?	27:38
Kate Ellis	I mean, but certainly not from him and I wouldn't expect him to tell me something like that.	27:41
Alvin Foreman Knatt	No, he wouldn't tell you. Uh-huh, he wouldn't tell you.	27:51
Kate Ellis	Again, I don't know whether he would tell anybody that or if he would.	27:54
Alvin Foreman Knatt	No, no, yeah.	27:56
Kate Ellis	If it would just depend if you're sitting around with a beer and you're a man. I don't know. But there's lot of mysteries of this area. Yeah.	27:58
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Let me ask you something. May I?	28:20
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	28:20
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Why are you interested in this area? I'm not trying to put you on the spot because I know this is your interview. But I perceive that it's winding down to a close and that's fine.	28:26
Kate Ellis	Yeah. Well— It's okay.	28:41
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Oh, unless you got some other stuff and then I'll ask you.	28:44
Kate Ellis	No, I've got more. I mean, there's more stuff I want to—	28:46
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Oh, okay. All right.	28:50
Kate Ellis	— ask you about. But I want to address your question.	28:50
Alvin Foreman Knatt	No, no, we can deal with that after you.	28:54
Kate Ellis	After? Okay. What I want to do— Let just collect my thoughts for a minute.	28:59
Alvin Foreman Knatt	— my ex-wife, whose picture— Well, yeah, but then, yeah, that rascal. She was born on a Saturday, on November the 18th, 1944. That's the same date that my parents got married. I didn't know that until five years after I was married.	29:03
Alvin Foreman Knatt	So when I went to the war and came back and got settled and everything and got my college credentials and all that junk, I started working and as an administrator for the Labor Department. I hired a secretary and I didn't know her, she was a Hispanic person. She worked with me for about nine, 10 years. She got married on October the 24th, I think it was 1981. Her aging parents celebrated their— I don't know what you call, to renew their vows. They got married in 1936 on Saturday, October 24th.	29:28
Alvin Foreman Knatt	I saw that, I went, "Woo." But I thought it was interesting. But I don't know. I never didn't have anything to do what we talking about. But it's kind of interesting.	30:15
Kate Ellis	Yeah. Hey, tell me some more about this. I knew there's something I wanted to ask you about, about your mother's background, about her family. You sort of made reference to her—	30:27
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Her mother was a Mandingo, a pure Mandingo from Africa.	30:42
Kate Ellis	Wow.	30:50
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Very beautiful woman, no judgment. One of my cousin has a portrait of her. But she died, she died fairly young. You see, slavery, as you know, was outlawed in the United States, the importation of Africans in 1808. But it was just like drugs, it happened, it continued to happen. Yeah, she was Mandingo. So my mom's Mandingo and I don't know what else. But I know her dad was a Mulatto and I don't know. I know he was a Mulatto, but I don't know what he was mixed with or anything. I never researched that.	30:52
Kate Ellis	When you were coming up with— And you how many brothers, you had four or five brothers?	31:49
Alvin Foreman Knatt	I had three brothers in three sisters.	32:00
Kate Ellis	So what school did you go to?	32:03
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Jonas Henderson High School.	32:03
Kate Ellis	Okay.	32:06
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Then I went to— Well, when I was— Let me tell you about this. When I first went to school, I was four or five years old and went to school in Belle Place and for two and a half years. We had to pick up chips and coal to put in a pot-bellied stove. You couldn't learn anything.	32:07
Alvin Foreman Knatt	See, I'll be honest with you. I did not learn anything in grade school, whatsoever. I mean, of educational, intellectual value, nothing at all. You see? And I got my ass beat and I just didn't learn anything because I was trying to just stay warm and stuff like that. We had to pick up coal and we had outside toilets and all of that kind of stuff. Now I'm 48 years old. So I hated that. Then we had a new school in Loreauville. But you had the same thing in a different building.	32:42
Alvin Foreman Knatt	And I don't know what it was like for my mom. Now sometimes I do substitute teaching. That's a beautiful school in Belle Place, Belle Place Middle school. And I'm dealing with these teenagers and I'm saying, "Goddamn. I mean, why can't—" It's unreal. The biggest problem in dealing with these rascals is to try to get them to calm down. I mean, a lot of them on Ritalin to try to calm down. But anyway, I mean.	33:20
Kate Ellis	Did your mother have an education?	33:59
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Sixth grade education.	34:01
Kate Ellis	She did.	34:02
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Mm-hmm.	34:02
Kate Ellis	So she can read?	34:02
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Oh, yeah. She reads and writes well.	34:03
Kate Ellis	So, but when you went to Jonas B. Henderson School, did you learn that? I mean, is that where you started learning? I mean, at what point did you start—	34:08
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Starting learning the— Yeah, probably then. I don't know. That's a good question. I never thought about it. I don't know. I don't know.	34:20
Kate Ellis	I'm just saying, because you're saying that in your early years, you didn't.	34:33
Alvin Foreman Knatt	I know that in the early years, I didn't learn anything. Well, but you see my sister, my oldest sister, taught me how to read before I went to school.	34:35
Kate Ellis	How did she know, from her schooling?	34:46
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah. Yeah. She's still in education. She's a superintendent of schools or whatever. I don't really know that. But anyway, she taught me. I knew how to read and write. I was frustrated with all that nonsense they were coming up, because I knew how to read and write back then. Te first few years of school was a waste. I hated to go to school. But you talk to my parents, they'll tell you right now, I love books. And that's why I'm glad you're here doing what you're doing, because I understand what you're doing. And I applauded your efforts. I think it's beautiful. I think it's nice.	34:48
Kate Ellis	So there's something you just said about this. Y'all would walk to school?	35:26
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah, mm-hmm.	35:41
Kate Ellis	At a certain point, did you get to take the bus? I mean, at a certain point did buses come along?	35:43
Alvin Foreman Knatt	I mean, look, we used to live— I mean, look, my parents were really, in a way, they were promiscuous because they would allow us to— Here again, I think it had to do with the Indianness of my dad, would allow us to be with nature. At night we had camps built and we dug caves and we'd sleep outside. And I sleep outside now. I mean, you may think I'm crazy, but I sleep outside now because I like to sleep outside to look at the stars. But we used to do that when I was a kid.	35:48
Alvin Foreman Knatt	And we used to do that with our White neighbors and there were no problems. But when it came time to go to school, they would catch one bus and we would have to board another. You were standing in the same place. And they would go to a school that was a block away, kiddo. Look, there were two churches. And I'm not kidding, you can check this out. There were two churches, Catholic churches, in the same block: one for White people, one for black people, you see? And I'm saying, "Damn."	36:29
Alvin Foreman Knatt	And my grandmother, my mom's mom is buried in the White cemetery. And I can't go over there because of what you doing and Jim Crowism. I just can't walk over there. Niggers ain't allowed to go over there. Hey, it's been a trip, man.	37:07
Kate Ellis	Yes.	37:23
Alvin Foreman Knatt	This has been a trip.	37:27
Kate Ellis	Wait, your mother's mother's was buried in the White church?	37:31
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Oh, yeah. See, yeah, lot of my relatives. You see—	37:36
Kate Ellis	I thought your mother's mother was Mandingo?	37:40
Alvin Foreman Knatt	She was, she was. But what I'm trying to tell you is that early on, the people in Louisiana were not bigots and they were allow interracial marriages and all that kind of stuff. But after the KKK took a hold and intimidation struck, then they became that way. So historically, it's a relatively recent thing, in this area. But now if you go to North Louisiana, where my ex-wife is from, oh they have a different story, I mean, altogether.	37:44
Kate Ellis	Yeah. Huh. I heard out about North Louisiana through this.	38:23
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah.	38:23
Kate Ellis	I've never actually done in the South. Wow. Huh. Why in your family, in your father's, among his brothers and sisters, you said some would go for White, some would identify as Black, some as Native American. Do you know— As Indian, as you said.	38:51
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah, right. Well, I feel comfortable in Native American, more comfortable than Indian because that's kind of—	39:07
Kate Ellis	Yeah, that's just what you relate to, when you're saying yourself? What do you say you feel more comfortable with?	39:10
Alvin Foreman Knatt	I understand if you say Native American, I use the myself.	39:17
Kate Ellis	Why didn't your parents want you to be to marry a Native American woman?	39:23
Alvin Foreman Knatt	My parents were— Not my dad, but so much mom, a real prejudiced person, very prejudiced, was exceptionally prejudice. So I mean, no-go, uh-huh.	39:28
Kate Ellis	So prejudiced against anybody who wasn't Black?	39:44
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Who wasn't Black. But no, it's kind of funny. She was prejudiced against, still is, against people who were not— You can't be Black— I mean, see we use Black generically and she doesn't like people who are like this.	39:47
Kate Ellis	Dark?	40:08
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah, dark. She like people who are like this, whatever color I am. That's all right. It's a trip.	40:08
Kate Ellis	I see.	40:22
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah.	40:22
Kate Ellis	So it's like a color thing?	40:22
Alvin Foreman Knatt	Yeah. It's a Colored thing. Yeah, I think. Yeah, you got it. That's right. That's right.	40:24
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm. All right. Let ask you this stuff, dry questions.	40:35

Item Info

Title:

Alvin Knatt interview recording, 1994 August 08

Date:

August 8, 1994

Creator:

Knatt, Alvin Foreman

Contributor:

Ellis, Kate

Description:

Name: Alvin Foreman Knatt; Date of birth: 1919-03-16; Place of birth: Belle Place, LA; Occupation(s): agriculture; writer; educator; Residence: New Iberia, LA
Informant ID: 636; Interviewed by: Kate Ellis.

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Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South interviews, photographs, and project records, circa 1864-2011, bulk 1990-2004

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Provenance:

The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library acquired the Records of the Behind the Veil Oral History Project from the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies in 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2002.

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Copyright for content created by the Behind the Veil project is held by Duke University and made available to the public using a Creative Commons Attribution / Non-commercial (CC-BY-NC) license.

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8cea4917-b501-4225-8999-42b1247e21bb
behindtheveil
053cb583-e164-4625-baa6-c9b0c27b27d2
ark:/87924/r42j6md3r
053cb583-e164-4625-baa6-c9b0c27b27d2

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Alvin Knatt interview recording, 1994 August 08

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1. Alvin Knatt administrative file, 1994

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Alvin Knatt interview recording, 1994 August 08

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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