John Henderson interview recording, 1994 July 20
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| Michele Mitchell | Henderson High and students from Grand Marais, or no tensions at all? | 0:01 |
| John Barry Henderson | No. | 0:04 |
| Michele Mitchell | No? | 0:04 |
| John Barry Henderson | No tensions. | 0:04 |
| Michele Mitchell | Were the students at Grand Marais, from Grand Marais when you went to Hal? | 0:05 |
| John Barry Henderson | I don't think so. I don't remember whether they were any from Grand Marais at that time or not. I was not familiar with Grand Marais at that time. I have been called, my attention has been called to some comments that have been made with respect to students at Grand Marais, but it became more pronounced after the integration. | 0:12 |
| Michele Mitchell | Really? | 1:07 |
| John Barry Henderson | After desegregation rather, yeah. But before that, we had no problem with them. No problems at all. | 1:07 |
| Michele Mitchell | And I also would like to ask you, you mentioned earlier about parents calling you up on the phone asking how their children should be dressed to come to school. Most of the children that went to Henderson High School, did their parents work out in the mines? Did they do work out with cane? I mean, what did their parents do? | 1:18 |
| John Barry Henderson | Their livelihood was supported by working in the mines and farming. | 1:48 |
| Michele Mitchell | Okay. | 2:00 |
| John Barry Henderson | Now that farming would take in sugar cane, pepper, what have you. Then some of the family were domestic workers. They worked in homes of Whites. The primary thing was the mine and farming, and I might turn that around and say farming and then mine because they had more people working on farms than you had in the mines. And in this area you had Weeks Island, you had Avery Island and Jefferson Island, and those were the salt mines in this parish. Neither one put out as much salt as they used to. | 2:04 |
| John Barry Henderson | Jefferson had a tragic thing that happened to it where it just sunk down, you know? All that. But they seemed to have come back a little bit. But they worked in the mines and they did, many of them, as I said, most of them did domestic work or they worked in homes of Whites, and where these Blacks worked in the homes of Whites, these Whites felt differently about these Blacks than they would those outside. They became a part of. You understand? And there wouldn't be anything that they wouldn't do to help them. | 3:31 |
| John Barry Henderson | For instance, we used to give what we called a junior senior prom where I had these young ladies put on evening dresses and the boys put on dark pants and white coats and all, you know? Many of these Whites paid for the dresses and so forth of these youngsters, of whose parents were working in their home. There was a good relationship there. If they needed medical attention, they'd see that they got it. They would pay whatever it would cost for them to get this medical attention, and for their children as well. Because during that time the insurances thought that Blacks were a risk, and they still do in some cases. I was trying to think of some other vocation that they may have had. Well, they may have been operating a restaurant, barber or something like that, but the main thing was farming for what they were doing. | 4:40 |
| Michele Mitchell | Were these people working out on White people's farms or did they have their own farms? | 7:07 |
| John Barry Henderson | On White people's farm. The Black folks' farm was limited and they worked mostly on White people's farm. Cut cane, sugar cane, picked pepper, potatoes and whatnot. But it was on Whites farms. | 7:08 |
| Michele Mitchell | Did you ever, because your student parents were working the mine or working on farm, did you ever have a difficulty keeping your students in school because of economic pressures for them to go to work? | 7:29 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yes. I had problems with that. When I first came as principal, they were what they would call a cane season, and the students were kept out of school during the grinding season is what they called it, and then they'd, when the grinding season was over, they would come back into the school through some means. I don't know how it was done before I came, but they wouldn't lose much. In other words, they wouldn't lose a grade or anything. If he was in the 10th grade at the end of that year, if he missed a considerable of grinding season, and then at the end of that year he'd be promoted. But when I came, that situation still, it prevailed while I was teaching in the system and I couldn't do anything about it. But when I came back as principal, I did something about it. It was hard, but I did it. | 7:44 |
| Michele Mitchell | What did you do? | 9:28 |
| John Barry Henderson | I told them that if the parents kept them out of school for grinding season, that at the end of the year they'd have to repeat, because there was no way for them- They wanted me to give them what they call make and you didn't know what to make up. They had missed so much, you know? I had a couple harsh words with one or two Blacks because they were pressured by Whites to get their kids out of school to cut their cane, and I had some Whites still push me on that, but I kept my ground. | 9:30 |
| John Barry Henderson | And the only thing that helped me was one time, in one of the instances, the guys stayed out of school to make grinding his call, and then when he came to the end of the year, he wasn't promoted, and that settled that. He happened to been in the senior class, and when I wouldn't permit him to graduate, that settled it, then they let him alone, then let me alone and they started coming to school. But before that, they'd keep them, and some of them would take advantage of it. Some of the youngsters take advantage of them. They wouldn't be cutting cane, but they'd be cutting school, you know? Cutting class. Cutting class and all that stuff. | 10:37 |
| Michele Mitchell | [indistinct 00:11:41]. | 11:40 |
| John Barry Henderson | But I did have some problems with that. Sure. | 11:43 |
| Michele Mitchell | And when you said that they'd take them out to make grinding, how long of a period would that be? A month, two months? | 11:45 |
| John Barry Henderson | It would be two months approximately, and it would vary though because it would depend on the weather and things like that. But it was approximately two months. They'd go out in, let's say they'd go out in October and come back in just before Christmas or right after Christmas, something like that. Somewhere in that area. That was the grinding season. And the more cane you had, longer the season lasted, you know? I remember there was a young lady who was very, very bright and her daddy had been keeping her out for grinding, and I told her one day, I said, "You not going to make it if you stay off of grinding." And she didn't want to stay out. Her daddy insisted on her staying out and making grinding, and I had to go out. It was on the outskirts of New Iberia in Louisville, as a matter of fact. | 11:54 |
| Michele Mitchell | Okay. | 13:41 |
| John Barry Henderson | And talked to the daddy. But he didn't seem to like that too well. So, I told him that if he wanted his daughter to move along, he going to have to let her come to school. If she didn't, she wasn't going to make it. And he knew that that boy that was a senior, I turned them back. He knew about that, so he knew I meant business, so he let her come, and that young lady went to college. She finished summa cum laude and I brought her back into Henderson as a biology teacher. | 13:43 |
| Michele Mitchell | Really? | 14:53 |
| John Barry Henderson | Sure did. Brought her back in as a biology teacher. Right now she is Professor of Biology at Southern University. An outstanding research scientist. | 14:53 |
| Michele Mitchell | Southern in Baton Rouge? | 15:15 |
| John Barry Henderson | Southern in Baton Rouge. Outstanding research scientist. She's been in Europe. Everywhere. They call over to in these different countries. She goes over as a consultant in science for insect. You know? Whatever. Wonderful person she is, and every time I see her, she reminds me the time I went out there. And when she went to Grambling, when she finished high school, she went to Grambling. I taught at Grambling for nine years and she did very well there, and Grambling set up what they call a Hall of Fame, and she was nominated for the Hall of Fame at Grambling, and they asked her who did she want to present her? And she said, "I want Mr. Henderson to present." And I went up there, presented that young lady. She's been a wonderful person. She has one son and his emphasis is in science and all because I insisted that she stay in school and not let her father keep her in that field to go to school. | 15:18 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yeah, I had some problems with that, but I worked it out. Fortunately we had parents who could think for themselves. I guess I better use that time. And they were more acceptable to what we had to say, and that's how we got rid of that. When I left, well, when they closed us, when desegregation closed us in 1969, that was a thing of the past. They didn't keep them out anymore. And then another thing that helped was when they brought in these cane cutters, you see. These cane cutters, mechanical cane cutters, they brought in that and that reduced the manual labor. | 17:22 |
| Michele Mitchell | So when did the mechanical cane cutters come in? | 18:33 |
| John Barry Henderson | Oh, I don't remember. I don't remember. It was after I came back here. I came back here as principal in 1950, and I guess they came to prominence let's say after that, but I don't know exactly when. But up until that time they were manual and that's when they used to keep them out. Any other questions? | 18:35 |
| Michele Mitchell | Yeah, I'm wondering if, you said that it was mostly people who worked for farming work, but you said that you had some students whose parents worked in the mines, a few. Was it similar with them? Did their parents want them to go into the mine? | 19:21 |
| John Barry Henderson | Nope. | 19:41 |
| Michele Mitchell | Nope? | 19:41 |
| John Barry Henderson | Nope. Sure didn't. Primarily because they were paid a better salary. | 19:48 |
| Michele Mitchell | I just asked you about the mine workers and you said that they were paid a better salary. | 19:59 |
| John Barry Henderson | They were paid a better salary, and at that time they were sufficient for them to carry on without asking the children to stay out of school, and we had no problems with the mine workers, no problems whatsoever. But it was really the farming situation where we had the greatest problems. | 20:00 |
| Michele Mitchell | But then most of generally the Black students went to school in the same amount of time as the White students did? | 20:24 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yes. Yes. In this parish, yes. And of course they didn't stay in it long because they had to go out for grinding, but they'd open school at the same time and close at the same time. In other words, they had nine months. | 20:32 |
| Michele Mitchell | And. Yes. You told me about how when Lloyd Porter, the superintendent, asked you to leave Grambling to come back to New Iberia, that they wanted to [indistinct 00:21:29] New Iberia Colored High School. What year did you come back? | 21:14 |
| John Barry Henderson | I came back here in 1950. Well, it was 1949 and 1950, you know? Because we moved into the new Henderson in January the ninth, 1950 was when we moved into that new Henderson. But that session in September for 1949 was when I came back. 1949 and 1950. | 21:33 |
| Michele Mitchell | Wasn't it difficult to convince them to, if they went to call it New Iberia Colored High School, was it difficult to convince them to change the name? | 21:58 |
| John Barry Henderson | No. | 22:13 |
| Michele Mitchell | No? | 22:13 |
| John Barry Henderson | No. As I said, at that time Superintendent Porter was, he called the shots for education at that time in his parish, and what he said was law. But that couldn't happen now because the board members want their piece of the pie too now, you see. But there wasn't any problem. The name was New Iberia Colored High School was up on the top there, was written. And when I questioned him about it, I told him, I said, "I don't think the word Colored is what should be up there." And we were just on the verge of getting to be sensitive about these things, you know? And that's when he asked me if I had a name for it and I told him, and that's how the school had named from my farm, and when that new school went up, the name went up on it. It didn't go through any hassle or nothing else. It just went up on it and everybody just accepted him. He took for granted. It went on. Didn't have any problem with that, fortunately. | 22:18 |
| Michele Mitchell | Yes. Yes. | 24:05 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yeah. | 24:07 |
| Michele Mitchell | Somebody told me, I'm not sure who, but the layout of the new Henderson High School was just the same as the White high school, that the layout wasn't all that different than the White high school. Is that true? | 24:16 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yes. The second Henderson. | 24:32 |
| Michele Mitchell | Right. | 24:32 |
| John Barry Henderson | The second high, it was not all that different, but the New Iberia High School was larger than the new Jonas Henderson. But both of them were a hundred percent air-conditioned, no windows. You know, auditorium, gym. Same thing that New Iberia Senior High School had but maybe in smaller, the school being smaller because we didn't have- They had something like 2300 students or something over there and we had about 900 and that was a difference. But generally, everything was the same. Yeah. We had our Spanish in there. We taught Spanish and everything else. One thing I wanted, and the plans had been laid when I came anyway, I tried to get in a separate lab, science lab, but it was too late because they had already drawn stuff and poured the concrete and whatnot. | 24:32 |
| John Barry Henderson | And then when I went over to New Iberia Senior High School, they didn't have a lab either, so that didn't matter too much. In other words, it was combination. A combination of lab and lecture room, you see, or classroom, whichever they wanted to call it, and we had the same thing. But I wanted a special lab and I wanted a lab for each science that we had, and superintendent told me I was ahead of my time. Yeah. Yeah. But they were comparable. You know? I mean, New Henderson and New Iberia Senior High School. Sure. | 26:20 |
| John Barry Henderson | But you know what? That hundred percent air condition had its disadvantage. If that engine would go out, everything was out and we would have some off days and they didn't think about that. But it has its disadvantage. Of course it didn't go off every day, but I mean, when it did go off. I remember many days I had to get on the phone and call the bus drivers back, see, because the kids would come to school on the buses and I had the phone numbers of every bus driver where he was during the day. But I didn't have it for that. I had it, for instance, I needed to call him for something, about something, I could call him. But I found out it was very helpful when [indistinct 00:28:49], those engines start conking out and I'd have to call these bus drivers and they'd come back, pick these kids up, take them home. | 27:12 |
| Michele Mitchell | So your students didn't have to walk a lot? | 29:01 |
| John Barry Henderson | No, they didn't. Most of them would come to Henderson by bus. Some would drive their own cars and some parents would bring them. But very few of them walked through because we were out there. Did you see Freshmen out there? | 29:04 |
| Michele Mitchell | I haven't yet. But you said it's on Jefferson Island Road? | 29:26 |
| John Barry Henderson | Mm-hmm. It's an extension of Hopkins Street. You go Hopkins Street and you cross Admiral Doyle and go on out and you'll see Henderson. I mean, it's going to be Freshman High then it's on your left as you go out that way. | 29:29 |
| Michele Mitchell | So I can just drive out there and it's there? | 29:45 |
| John Barry Henderson | Huh? | 29:46 |
| Michele Mitchell | Just drive out Hopkins Street? | 29:48 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yeah. | 29:49 |
| Michele Mitchell | Okay. | 29:50 |
| John Barry Henderson | Go out Hopkins Street and cross Admiral Doyle and you'll see Freshman High School on your left, and then there is Sugarland Elementary School is next to it, and I was instrumental in getting that land for the new Henderson, and I suggested 50 acres and some folk disagreed with it. I said, "Well, someday you want to build some part, you want to expand the school or something. You'll build another school and you already have your land. You won't have to go pay another exorbitant amount of money for land to build another school." Some of them didn't see it that way, but that's the way it turned out. So when they got ready for the Sugarland, they just took part of the property that was on there with Henderson High School. You ought to drive out there if you get the chance- | 29:51 |
| Michele Mitchell | I'm going to. | 31:04 |
| John Barry Henderson | - to look at, it's Freshman High School. | 31:05 |
| Michele Mitchell | Isn't it unusual that you've got so much land for that school now? | 31:09 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yeah, it was. But at the time I was thinking of a stadium, football stadium and other stuff and whatnot, at the time, and we put up a little set up there. They call it a stadium, but it was not really all up to party with bleachers up there, you know? And we played football back there. But all along that side, they never used it. But it was, but I know this 50 acres was out of sight. | 31:15 |
| Michele Mitchell | Yeah, that's wonderful. | 32:14 |
| John Barry Henderson | But we got it. And Superintendent Wimbley was, he was superintendent at that time and he had been the former principal of New Iberia Senior High School, and he became superintendent and he was aware of educational requirements and things like that. I had no problem with him. In fact, I didn't have a problem with any of them. And as a result, that school was built out there. And when there was another piece of property that was closer to Admiral Doyle in 50 acres, but it was going to be split. In other words, it wasn't all in one piece, you know? And I didn't like, I didn't want to have it divided or anything. I wanted everything in one piece, so we went further back there where you'll see Freshman High now, and that's where we got that property and built that school there. Yeah. Let me say a word about the churches. | 32:15 |
| Michele Mitchell | Yes, please. | 33:46 |
| John Barry Henderson | In this parish, and not only in this parish but in this state and I suppose everywhere, that the churches will be the last institutions to desegregate. The Black minister is not concerned about desegregation because he will lose some of his clout, and the Whites aren't too particular about it. That's why I say that the churches will be the last to desegregate. Now they run around talk about desegregating this and that and the other and all the stuff, but the smallest amount of desegregation that's being done is in the churches, if you look at it. | 33:55 |
| John Barry Henderson | Recently, we have come up with an influx of all kinds of religion and the Blacks have become for some reason disillusioned by their religion by which they were brought up in, and therefore they go to these other religions. I don't know what kind of religion there, but they call it, they all kind of names, you know? And a lot of our Blacks have gone over there. But it's going to be the last institution that's going to fully integrate, and when it does happen, there will be more Blacks going into the White churches than Whites coming into the Black churches. | 35:17 |
| John Barry Henderson | In fact, I don't know of any right now. You know? It's going to be, it's what you call reverse desegregation, I guess you'd call it, real in that area. You're not going to fight, because we want to keep our power in our churches and once you desegregate, you're going to lose some of it, and I don't think either minister wants to do that. Now, the church is a powerful institution now. I want you to know that. They're powerful. You get them folk roused up there, you got something. These outstanding ministers, I mean, they have a lot of clout and they don't want to turn that loose, so they going to be the last vestige of desegregation in this country. Somebody might want to take me up on that sometime, but I'm prepared to debate it. | 36:34 |
| Michele Mitchell | No, it's a fascinating point. It really is. | 38:12 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yeah, it's a big one. When I was in Columbia, there was a Baptist church two blocks from where I was living, and when I went in there, I mean, before I got in there I expected it to be integrated, and when I walked in the church, it wasn't. In time I found out that the minister had come from South Carolina. He's Black. Everybody from his town in South Carolina who came to New York to live joined his church, therefore you had a segregated situation. Even in Riverside Baptist Church in New York, biggest Baptist church. | 38:16 |
| Michele Mitchell | Biggest. | 39:53 |
| John Barry Henderson | Biggest. And you go there and you see so few Negroes, so few Blacks in there, you look like a fly in a bowl of milk. Now when you edit this, you take that out. But I'm just saying, [indistinct 00:40:20] was a great preacher. I enjoyed it. Very good. Yeah. They had nine or 10 ministers at that church. All White. Nobody. | 39:57 |
| Michele Mitchell | I'm curious, now that you talk about New York, I'm really curious. When you were at Columbia doing your master's degree, that was in the forties? | 40:44 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yeah. | 40:53 |
| Michele Mitchell | Did you ever consider just leaving the south when you were at Columbia? Did you ever consider just staying away from Louisiana, just moving somewhere else? | 40:59 |
| John Barry Henderson | No. | 41:10 |
| Michele Mitchell | Why not? | 41:11 |
| John Barry Henderson | I really can't answer that too well because I never had a desire to live anywhere else, and I knew what the situation was in Louisiana because I was born and raised in it, but I never had a desire to live anywhere else, and the reason why I was in Columbia, because I couldn't go to LSU. | 41:15 |
| Michele Mitchell | That's what I suspected. | 41:56 |
| John Barry Henderson | That's right. That's why I was in Columbia, because I couldn't go to LSU or any other White, so-called White college in Louisiana to do graduate work. At that time, you see, there was no Black college in Louisiana that was offering graduate work, so if you wanted to do graduate work, you had to go out of state. Louisiana wanted to be sure that you wouldn't raise no fuss about going to LSU, so the legislature passed a resolution or whatever they called it to give any person, particularly Blacks, $125 on their tuition if they went outside the state, and of course we would have to do that during the summer because we had to teach during the regular school session, and then during the summer we do our work on graduate study, you know? | 42:02 |
| John Barry Henderson | And they offered teachers, Black teachers, principally. I guess Whites got it too, but they did that because they wanted to keep the Blacks out of LSU. Give them $125 on their tuition. I never did apply for that $125 [indistinct 00:43:53] I didn't need it. But I think if I needed it, I won't be able to apply for it because I thought it was an insult. You know, 125 to do graduate work. | 43:30 |
| John Barry Henderson | And when I came out of the service, I was on GI, see, and I went on Columbia and got my master, and I got a [indistinct 00:44:33] from [indistinct 00:44:36], and I didn't go back. See, I went to Columbia in 1, July and I left in August the following year. I didn't have to take six weeks of it or whatever, come back and take all that time. I stayed there and got it while I was there, and I wound up as assistant to one of the science profs there. I operated the science lab for him, and he didn't want me to leave. He wanted me to stay there and get my doctorate, but my wife took sick, and if you in New York City without money, you in bad shape. | 44:23 |
| Michele Mitchell | This is true. | 45:49 |
| John Barry Henderson | And my wife didn't want me to. She hated to have me leave. But I said, "But no. I'm not going subject you to this and you ill." We had but so much money, you understand. So, he didn't want me to leave. He wanted me to stay there and get my doctorate. And what happened? He told me what was going happen. Because I told him, I said, "Well, I'll come back," and you didn't come back. He said, "You get away from here and you get back over there and started making that money?" He said, "You're not going to come back." He told him sure. But they invited me back for two consecutive summers to participate in science workshops. But I never think strongly about doing my work for the [indistinct 00:46:52]. I had on my thesis to do, and now it'll never come to pay, because I'll never go back to do it. I have no incentive at all. So, that's the way it was. But we couldn't go to- | 46:15 |
| John Barry Henderson | Out of state, I mean. And as there is, good things come out of bad things sometime. And as far as I was concerned, I feel that I got a better education in Columbia than I would've had at [indistinct 00:00:31] SU. And many of the Black teachers went to Colorado State, Oklahoma State, Michigan, you name it, Southern California, just went all over this country and they got bang up education, prestige, and what not, which they never would've experienced if they stayed in Louisiana. | 0:02 |
| Michele Mitchell | It's just amazing though, that the state would pay people to leave, to leave. | 1:09 |
| John Barry Henderson | They would [indistinct 00:01:18] sparsely, they didn't pay them, and it's just a token. That's where he was. | 1:15 |
| Michele Mitchell | But it seems like it would result, if people did come back to Louisiana to teach, it seems like it would result in Black teachers being trained awfully well. | 1:28 |
| John Barry Henderson | That's what happened, that's what happened. In this parish at one time, when they talked about equal salaries for Blacks and Whites. And the Whites thought that they were better [indistinct 00:02:04], so they demanded and they got, they wanted the qualifications of all teachers printed in the town paper. And when that was done, a few of them had heart attacks to see where some of it got a masters from Columbia, some Michigan, all that. And there wasn't a single White who had a masters from these prestigious schools. And we had more teachers with BAs and BS than they had. And did they ever ask for it to be printed anymore? | 1:37 |
| Michele Mitchell | Because it was printed in the paper. | 3:12 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yeah. But you see, they thought they were going outshine us, you know what I mean? And as a result of that, but they didn't ask for that no more. But oh, I've seen lot of these underhanded things, and I guess it'll always be that way. | 3:13 |
| John Barry Henderson | Over at New Iberia Senior High School, we had a fella who came over with us from Henderson. And they were asking what did he want to be, and this young man said he wanted to be a doctor. And he was told, "You can never be a doctor." But he went off school, and his mother was a teacher and made a name for himself. He was always smart fella, he got to be a doctor. He came back here, he came by to see me and I said, and he told me about that while I was over there. And I said, "Don't let that discourage you," he said, "Oh hey," [indistinct 00:04:49] said that, "That makes me more determined now." He came back, I said, "Well, you go-" He said, "Where is she?" I said, "She's still back there at school." I said, "You go over there and introduce yourself to her." And he is one of the most outstanding physicians we have. He's specialized in gastrology. | 3:39 |
| Michele Mitchell | Mm-hmm. | 5:18 |
| John Barry Henderson | And wonderful fella, but I mean, that's the kind of thing. See, you have to have people who can inspire these youngsters rather than discourage them and all. And they're not going get that very often, just not going to do it. But it's- I really, if I hadn't been Black, I would have missed the mountaintop experiences that I've had. | 5:19 |
| Michele Mitchell | Could you explain a little? | 6:10 |
| John Barry Henderson | If I hadn't been Black, I would've missed the mountaintop experiences that I have had. I have been invited to top-notch organizations to discuss the relationship between the races. If I hadn't been Black, I wouldn't have had that experience. I have worked with outstanding people in this country on race relations. If I hadn't been Black, I wouldn't had it. Those are just one or two of the experiences that I've had. Now, on the other hand, I've had some knockdowns too because I was Black. When I was in the Navy, I did my boot training in California, and when I finished my boot training in California, they sent me to Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia. | 6:14 |
| Michele Mitchell | Mm-hmm. | 8:18 |
| John Barry Henderson | And I taught seamanship there. Well, I [indistinct 00:08:28] think the Navy on Hampton Institute's campus, the faculty at Hampton was integrated. But if you'd walk out the gate at Hampton, and get on the street car, you had to sit in the back. But as long as you stayed on that campus, everything was integrated. And I found that not too hot, but our commander at Hampton was a former superintendent in Dover, Delaware. | 8:23 |
| Michele Mitchell | Mm-hmm. | 9:28 |
| John Barry Henderson | And he had a lot of respect for people who had degrees, and he in the Navy. So he latched on to me and we got along very well. I had no problems the whole time I was at in Hampton, Commander Downs was very nice, and he wanted all the men to come to the Navy at Hamptons. He wanted all of them to have degrees. And, but when I went to California as a Navy man, when they transferred me to California, and I was a first class boatswain mate, and you wore right arm rate. | 9:33 |
| John Barry Henderson | And they needed a boatswain mate to get on the ship. And they sent me over there, and I went aboard to ship the captain, it was midnight one night, they sent a [indistinct 00:11:05] boat out to pick me up and I went up, had rope ladder and everything. They were expecting me and I told them who I was, that guy almost fell overboard. He fell overboard, and when you see the boatswain mate would run the ship and take care of the ship. When I told him who I was, he almost fell overboard. | 10:47 |
| Michele Mitchell | Oh, so this was during the war? | 11:36 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yeah sure. So, then when the captain came aboard that next morning, he asked the gentleman if the boatswain mate had come aboard, told him, "Yeah," said, "Yeah, he's [indistinct 00:11:56]." He said, "But you're not going to like it." He said, "How come I ain't going to like it?" He say, "He's Black," and he didn't like it. He called me down and he [indistinct 00:12:24] overnight, he told me, he said, "Henderson-" said, "You know that these White boys." Take that off. | 11:37 |
| Michele Mitchell | I think I'd like to ask you about your role as a community leader, because you're telling me about how you went out to talk to this young woman's father about keeping her in school, and how you got the land for the school. And I'm assuming that you were a community leader in many different ways. And I'm wondering if you could tell me some about communities that Black people had, not communities, but organizations that Black people had here in New Iberia, social organizations, things that you were involved in. | 12:37 |
| John Barry Henderson | There were, well, I was involved in fraternity of [indistinct 00:13:22] Omega. | 13:11 |
| Michele Mitchell | Which one? | 13:24 |
| John Barry Henderson | Omega, I'm an Omega. | 13:24 |
| Michele Mitchell | Okay. | 13:26 |
| John Barry Henderson | And we did a lot of community service because that's part of Omegas philosophy in the community. And I'm a member of a graduate chapter of Omegas, and we came from different cities within this locality, within this area. And we worked interchangeably for whatever community projects or activities that they would put on, they would do it. I was a member of the biracial committee for the city, and at one time, I served as chairman of the biracial committee. As a result of that committee, we integrated some restaurants and stores like ANP, they didn't have any Blacks working at that time, and we opened that up, ANP, Winn-Dixie, and all that [indistinct 00:15:05], while I was a member of that biracial committee. | 13:28 |
| Michele Mitchell | When was that, sir? | 15:09 |
| John Barry Henderson | Oh, that was during the '50s, I guess. I served on the housing authority committee, I served as chairman of that for several years. Now this housing authority was the committee that, where you had these projects, and this committee worked with these projects [indistinct 00:16:00], in a sense, was over it and set the policies and first one thing and another on that. And I served as chairman of that for a long time. The biracial committee that I was serving on, we had a priest here, a bishop. He's a bishop, and we used to meet in his rectory there, he was quite fine, yeah. | 15:11 |
| John Barry Henderson | We instigated to have some Blacks work in these dress stores, or suit stores or whatever you call it, and we worked on that. And we got some people to hide in the restaurants that were formally, well, you couldn't go into a restaurant, we went in, we broke the ice on that. We almost got caught there one time, but they got the word that we were coming, so they got ready for us. And there's always a Black and a White, we go together, who's on this committee. And this White got in the window and told us not to go in there because we were on our way to go in. It was interesting, they put a table where [indistinct 00:17:59] in the back of the place, you'd have one way out. And he got, went [indistinct 00:18:10], he intercepted us on our way there and towards, and that's how we got out of there. But a lot of other places, you [indistinct 00:18:23] and cafes and whatnot, coffee houses, on that biracial committee. | 16:44 |
| John Barry Henderson | And I served on that for several years. And that housing authority, I was on that, I had worked in church groups in the community, helping to carry on with our movements. I've served as Chairman of Drives, infantile paralysis and similar drives, United Givers Fund and all that. And we've had, as a result of that, we've had good relationships with it. I worked very extensively with, at one time they had what they call in this town, a Tuberculosis Association. | 18:32 |
| Michele Mitchell | Mm-hmm. | 19:59 |
| John Barry Henderson | And I worked extensively with that for some years. | 19:59 |
| Michele Mitchell | That was in the '50s? | 20:08 |
| John Barry Henderson | Hmm? | 20:10 |
| Michele Mitchell | Was that in the '50s, when was that? | 20:10 |
| John Barry Henderson | In the '50s, somewhere around '50s, '60s, somewhere. About '50s, I guess, because I didn't come back here until, I was principal at that time, so that was in the '50s, I guess. | 20:14 |
| Michele Mitchell | So tuberculosis, did it affect mostly Black people in this area? | 20:24 |
| John Barry Henderson | Mostly, but at one time it was kind bad. But then we worked together with the health unit and everything, got it, and we alleviated it. And I was called to New Orleans many times by the association to discuss [indistinct 00:21:05] means or how it was done, things like that. Always been, but now that I've retired though, I have relinquished most of this. I give these young people an opportunity to stretch their wings in it. I served [indistinct 00:21:35] in advisory capacity whenever I'm needed. And right now in New Iberia, you've got Black city council, men and women, you've got police [indistinct 00:21:53], and they're on different boards and school board members and whatnot. One of my former students is on a school board now, and when she was at Henderson, she was president of the student government. | 20:27 |
| Michele Mitchell | What's her name? | 22:16 |
| John Barry Henderson | Carrie Diggy, Carrie Diggy. She was Diggy when she's in school, but she married a [indistinct 00:22:29] Carrie. She's on school board now, doing very well. She was president for a while at one time. | 22:21 |
| Michele Mitchell | Mm, that's some [indistinct 00:22:40]. | 22:39 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yeah. So I've just been [indistinct 00:22:45], despite everything, I haven't been as active in the NAACP as I should have, but. | 22:40 |
| Michele Mitchell | But what kind of things did you do when you worked for the the Tuberculosis Association? | 23:03 |
| John Barry Henderson | It was educational. | 23:10 |
| Michele Mitchell | Was it all Black or? | 23:11 |
| John Barry Henderson | No no. | 23:13 |
| Michele Mitchell | No? | 23:14 |
| John Barry Henderson | No no, no no. | 23:14 |
| Michele Mitchell | So it was educational? | 23:15 |
| John Barry Henderson | I did an educational work, I revised pamphlets, and made suggestions and whatnot. Now the Tuberculosis Association here in New Iberia was under the health unit, which is a parish thing, parish health unit here. And there was a lady who was White, who was primarily interested in tuberculosis, and she took the forefront in it. And she asked me to help her in that, and I did it. And we worked very well together. | 23:17 |
| John Barry Henderson | And at that time, they used to have to build, they would take the person who was ill, take them out of the home and have a house in the back of the, build a little house in the back of the house where we screened and all that sort of stuff. Which I tried not to make that bigger, but different, because to me, it had a stigma on it, but I never could, I didn't succeed in that, because they found out that that helps a lot by pulling them out, by isolating him. But I wanted them isolated somewhere, some other way rather than putting them outside in the little house. But it worked out, we saved a lot of them like that, so. | 24:03 |
| Michele Mitchell | Mm-hmm. | 24:55 |
| John Barry Henderson | Sure did. But yeah, I worked with them very much. And we used to have, when they'd have these, they used to have these infantile paralysis drives and they'd have, it would occur at nights. And you had to go around and come house to house and collect for people who were willing to give, you had to put your lights on and all that sort of stuff. And so they asked me if I would work with it from, at that time, they used to call his Negroes then. And I said, "Yeah, I work with her." And I called my student council together and asked them what they think about it, yeah, and they said, "We'd love to do that." | 25:04 |
| John Barry Henderson | So they made that a project for the student council. And they would go out, get, for the infantile paralysis, the United Givers Fund, whatever they had, they had so many of them that I don't recall, which it was now and, but my students was taking care of that. And you had to, you see, they had a headquarter. Well, the headquarters, it was White, and I'd make my students, I'd say, "You come on with me." And we'd go in there and then it got to a point where I didn't have to go, but my students would go. Yeah, they knew them and everything, they didn't have a problem. I enjoyed that, I enjoyed working with the community on that. I like young people, I still do. I serve as Director of the Youth camp right now. | 26:21 |
| Michele Mitchell | Oh, now you do that? | 27:38 |
| John Barry Henderson | Mm-hmm. | 27:39 |
| Michele Mitchell | Mm-hmm. | 27:40 |
| John Barry Henderson | It's under the Prince Hall Masonic organization. | 27:40 |
| Michele Mitchell | Are you a Prince Hall Mason? | 27:46 |
| John Barry Henderson | I'm a 33rd. | 27:47 |
| Michele Mitchell | Mm-hmm. | 27:48 |
| John Barry Henderson | I'm a 33rd Prince Hall Mason. | 27:53 |
| Michele Mitchell | Does your wife belong to Eastern Star? | 27:56 |
| John Barry Henderson | Mm-hmm? | 27:57 |
| Michele Mitchell | Does your wife belong to Eastern Star? | 27:58 |
| John Barry Henderson | She does. | 27:59 |
| Michele Mitchell | Mm-hmm. | 28:00 |
| John Barry Henderson | She belong to Eastern Star, Daughters of Isis, Golden Circle. | 28:03 |
| Michele Mitchell | Mm-hmm. | 28:09 |
| John Barry Henderson | Are you? | 28:09 |
| Michele Mitchell | My grandparents were. | 28:11 |
| John Barry Henderson | I'm deputy for the state, for the Scotts Wright Masons in this state. So I've paid my dues now. | 28:13 |
| Michele Mitchell | Oh yes. | 28:28 |
| John Barry Henderson | And I just go along with, I had a class that had a class reunion two weeks ago, it was 30 years have passed since they finished from Henderson. And I went to it, my wife and I, we had a ball with those students, they have children of their own now, we had a ball. And they'd come up and say, "You remember when you put me out of school?" | 28:34 |
| Michele Mitchell | Oh, [indistinct 00:29:10]. | 29:09 |
| John Barry Henderson | I said, "No, I don't remember that." Yeah. | 29:09 |
| Michele Mitchell | And you mentioned your wife's name, but I don't think I got it. What's her first name? | 29:18 |
| John Barry Henderson | Leola, L-E-O-L-A. Leola F, she likes to keep that F Henderson. Her maiden name was Franklin, so she wants to keep that I don't know why. | 29:20 |
| Michele Mitchell | Does she have a middle name? | 29:34 |
| John Barry Henderson | Huh? | 29:36 |
| Michele Mitchell | Does she have a middle name? | 29:36 |
| John Barry Henderson | No. | 29:37 |
| Michele Mitchell | And when was your, I can't spell, ooh wee, okay. Where was your wife born? | 29:44 |
| John Barry Henderson | Where was she born? | 29:52 |
| Michele Mitchell | Yes, sir. | 29:53 |
| John Barry Henderson | In Baldwin, B-A-L-D-W-I-N, Louisiana. Right now, less than about 25 miles from here. | 29:54 |
| Michele Mitchell | And that's in St. Mary Parish? | 30:05 |
| John Barry Henderson | That's correct. | 30:07 |
| Michele Mitchell | Okay. And she was a social science teacher? | 30:11 |
| John Barry Henderson | That's correct, at the beginning. And then before she retired, she became a guidance counselor. | 30:12 |
| Michele Mitchell | And when was she born? | 30:28 |
| John Barry Henderson | What? | 30:33 |
| Michele Mitchell | When was she born? | 30:33 |
| John Barry Henderson | April, the 4th. | 30:34 |
| Michele Mitchell | 19- | 30:34 |
| John Barry Henderson | 14. | 30:34 |
| Michele Mitchell | Let's see here. Okay, and you're July, the 3rd of 1913, born here in New Iberia. | 30:34 |
| Speaker 1 | Hey, excuse me, I got to take him out because it's [indistinct 00:31:07]. | 31:03 |
| John Barry Henderson | All right. | 31:04 |
| Michele Mitchell | Okay. And I'm almost done. Your mother's name? | 31:11 |
| John Barry Henderson | Rebecca. | 31:14 |
| Michele Mitchell | Mm-hmm. And her middle name, or maiden name? | 31:17 |
| John Barry Henderson | James. | 31:20 |
| Michele Mitchell | James is maiden name? | 31:21 |
| John Barry Henderson | Mm-hmm. | 31:23 |
| Michele Mitchell | Henderson? | 31:25 |
| John Barry Henderson | Mm-hmm. | 31:25 |
| Michele Mitchell | And your father was? | 31:29 |
| John Barry Henderson | Jonas. | 31:31 |
| Michele Mitchell | Jonas? | 31:32 |
| John Barry Henderson | Henderson, he did not have a middle name, there was no middle name. | 31:34 |
| Michele Mitchell | And he was the principal of how, and the teacher or the principal? | 31:47 |
| John Barry Henderson | Principal and teacher. | 31:51 |
| Michele Mitchell | Okay. And your parents were both born in New Iberia? | 31:58 |
| John Barry Henderson | No. | 32:02 |
| Michele Mitchell | No? Okay. | 32:03 |
| John Barry Henderson | No, they were both born in St. James Parish. | 32:03 |
| Michele Mitchell | Was it in a town or was it rural? | 32:14 |
| John Barry Henderson | Rural. | 32:15 |
| Michele Mitchell | Okay. And I can see from your [indistinct 00:32:25], your first name is John, but what's your middle name? | 32:16 |
| John Barry Henderson | Berry. B-E-R-R-Y. | 32:28 |
| Michele Mitchell | Okay. Oh, 7th, happy birthday, it was recently, wasn't it? | 32:37 |
| John Barry Henderson | July 3rd, July the 3rd, that's right. | 32:40 |
| Michele Mitchell | Okay. And in terms of written materials, when people use the interview, how would you like your name to appear, J.B. Henderson? | 32:53 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yes, because most people know me by JB rather than John Berry. | 32:59 |
| Michele Mitchell | Okay. And do you know about when both of your parents were born, do you remember that? | 33:07 |
| John Barry Henderson | No. | 33:14 |
| Michele Mitchell | Okay. And no sisters or brothers? You mentioned a brother. | 33:18 |
| John Barry Henderson | I had one brother living now, and he's in Chicago. His name, he was Jonas Henderson Jr. | 33:22 |
| Michele Mitchell | Was he older than you? | 33:29 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yes, I'm the baby. | 33:30 |
| Michele Mitchell | So CA was in the middle? | 33:33 |
| John Barry Henderson | Oh, he was beyond, he wasn't in the middle. He was around the first, I guess. | 33:35 |
| Michele Mitchell | Okay. Do you remember the names of all your brothers and sisters? | 33:39 |
| John Barry Henderson | Oh, of course. | 33:43 |
| Michele Mitchell | Okay, I'm ready. | 33:44 |
| John Barry Henderson | Okay, let me start with C.A. Henderson, that's Alex, that's the dentist. You know, he's a half brother's of mine, he's a half brother. Then I have Edward Henderson, Fletcher Henderson, Jonas, and JB. | 33:47 |
| Michele Mitchell | So you are the baby? | 34:21 |
| John Barry Henderson | Mm-hmm. Not my sisters. Did I give you the senior? My sisters, she's a half sisters. Josenia. | 34:22 |
| Michele Mitchell | How do you spell that, J-O-S- | 34:38 |
| John Barry Henderson | J-O-S-E-N-I-A. | 34:38 |
| Michele Mitchell | Okay. | 34:38 |
| John Barry Henderson | And then, Naomi, Julia, Colbertha. C-O-L-B-E-R-T-H-A. | 34:40 |
| Michele Mitchell | So these four sisters are older than you? | 34:58 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yeah, because I'm the youngest. | 35:00 |
| Michele Mitchell | You are the baby, yes. | 35:02 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yeah, yeah. Now what the total there is? | 35:06 |
| Michele Mitchell | Nine. | 35:11 |
| John Barry Henderson | That's it. | 35:12 |
| Michele Mitchell | And some of them were born in St. James, all of them were born in New Iberia? | 35:13 |
| John Barry Henderson | Oh no, they were, I don't know where they were born, to tell you truth. | 35:20 |
| Michele Mitchell | Okay, that's fine. And do you have any children? | 35:24 |
| John Barry Henderson | Nope. | 35:29 |
| Michele Mitchell | No children? | 35:30 |
| John Barry Henderson | No children. | 35:30 |
| Michele Mitchell | And you told me where you lived, you told me that you worked at Iberia Training Institute. | 35:34 |
| John Barry Henderson | Iberia Parish Training School. | 35:40 |
| Michele Mitchell | Training School, that was your very first job? | 35:42 |
| John Barry Henderson | That's right. | 35:44 |
| Michele Mitchell | Iberia Parish Training School. And the years, again, that you worked there? | 35:48 |
| John Barry Henderson | I came out in '36, so I started there in '37, I think it was '37. | 36:03 |
| Michele Mitchell | And how long did you stay? | 36:08 |
| John Barry Henderson | I stayed there, I worked from '37, and I went to Grambling about '40, I guess. So I was there from '37 to '39. | 36:10 |
| Michele Mitchell | Okay. And that's math and science teacher? | 36:23 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yes. | 36:29 |
| Michele Mitchell | And then your next job would be, after Grambling? | 36:32 |
| John Barry Henderson | After Grambling? | 36:36 |
| Michele Mitchell | Mm-hmm. | 36:38 |
| John Barry Henderson | I was here. | 36:38 |
| Michele Mitchell | That's what I thought. | 36:39 |
| John Barry Henderson | Came back here as Principal. | 36:40 |
| Michele Mitchell | Principal. And so that's 19? | 36:40 |
| John Barry Henderson | I came back here in 1950. | 36:53 |
| Michele Mitchell | 1950 then, to, you retired in 19? | 36:56 |
| John Barry Henderson | 1978. | 36:58 |
| Michele Mitchell | But you were a principal from 1950 to 1969? | 37:00 |
| John Barry Henderson | From 1950 to 1969. | 37:03 |
| Michele Mitchell | Mm-hmm. And then you told me that you were a supervisor. | 37:07 |
| John Barry Henderson | That's right, after I've started, I was supervisor from 1970, I guess, until I retired, because I stayed one year as a assistant principal over there. | 37:11 |
| Michele Mitchell | Right, which you didn't like? | 37:32 |
| John Barry Henderson | I didn't like that. | 37:33 |
| Michele Mitchell | And this was for Iberia Parish Schools? | 37:35 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yeah. | 37:37 |
| Michele Mitchell | And you told me, are there any other honors or awards you'd like to tell me about? | 37:37 |
| John Barry Henderson | Well- | 37:53 |
| Speaker 1 | Hello, [indistinct 00:37:58]. | 37:57 |
| John Barry Henderson | Hello. | 37:57 |
| Speaker 1 | [indistinct 00:37:59]. | 37:57 |
| John Barry Henderson | All right, all right. | 37:57 |
| John Barry Henderson | Ask the questions and then I'll try to answer. | 0:01 |
| Michele Mitchell | First of all, could you tell me, sir, what your name is and where you were born and when? | 0:06 |
| John Barry Henderson | My name is J.B. Henderson. I was born in New Iberia on the spot where the courthouse is now. I was born July 3rd, 1915. | 0:12 |
| Michele Mitchell | So sorry, you were telling me that that's the site of Howe Institute. | 0:35 |
| John Barry Henderson | That's the site of Howe Institute. It was a school that was a high school, elementary, high school supported by the Sixth District Baptist Association. And on that spot there were two buildings, one frame, three stories and one brick, two stories with space allotted for the third story if necessary. My father, who's Jonas Henderson, was principal of that school and I finished high school under him. My mother taught at the school also. And I graduated from Howe Institute in 1932 and the school closed in 1933. | 0:42 |
| Michele Mitchell | Why did the school close? | 2:20 |
| John Barry Henderson | Because the Sixth District Baptist Association did not support it financially to continue the operation. I left the school in 1930, as I said, and I went to Leland College in Baker, Louisiana. This was a Baptist college supported by the Baptist of the state. I finished Leland in 1936 and I came back to New Iberia to teach in the public school system. I taught Science and Math, which was my major, and then I taught everything else that wasn't my major. It was in the parish system. And of course, the parish system is the same as county everywhere else. Louisiana is the only state, as you know, that has parishes. And I worked in what is known as the Iberia Parish Training School. And the word training school would suggest Black. | 2:25 |
| John Barry Henderson | The White high schools were named after the cities. New Iberia High School was the White high school and the Iberia Parish Training School was the Black. And of course, that went on for a number of years all over the state, most wherever there was a two high schools within a parish. And of course, they were segregated. So they came up with the idea that they needed differentiated as to which was White, which was Black so that there wouldn't be any confusion. So the White schools took the name of the cities, and the Black schools took the name of parish. Iberia Parish Training School. Training school, the word, training, would indicate that the emphasis was placed on industrial arts and things like that. | 4:40 |
| John Barry Henderson | And then I was called to Grambling College in Grambling, Louisiana. The name of it now is Grambling University. Black. And I taught at Grambling for nine years, Science and Math. I took a leave to do my master's and I did my master's at Columbia University in New York City Teacher's College. After that, I went back to Grambling and taught a year. And then, Superintendent Lloyd G Porter asked that I come back to the New Iberia to you serve as principal of the school. And I came back and had a conference with him. The school was being built and the name of it, when I went out to see it, the name of it had New Iberia Colored High School on it. And I immediately asked him about that. | 6:09 |
| John Barry Henderson | I didn't think that the word, Colored, should be up there. And he asked me if I had a suggestion for the name of the school. And I told him, yes. And he said, "What is the suggestion?" I said, "Name it Jonas Henderson High School", which, of course, was for my father. And that became a reality. That school was named Jonas Henderson High School and is named for my father. And it remained that way until 1969 when the school board and parish and all that decided that they were going to integrate. Of course, it came down in 54 and the board here fished around it for a number of years. It's separate but equal thing and all that. And then it went from there to freedom of choice. And then a few of the Blacks went over to the White high school. And of course, they were not welcomed, but they stayed anyway, I guess, to prove a point. But they never were really accepted. | 8:05 |
| John Barry Henderson | But in 69, as I said, they decided to integrate and they took 17 of our teachers at Jonas Henderson High School, 17 of the best teachers along with me. Maybe I better not say the best teachers, they took 17 teachers and along with me picked us up and dropped us down at New Iberia Senior High School. And I went over there as an assistant principal. I was assistant principal and, of course tutor. And I didn't like it because I had a feeling that I had been moved over there to try to pour oil on the water and everything with those students that I had been principal of since 1950. But I stayed for that year 'cause I had my bills to pay and they didn't let me know about it until the day before we moved. And I didn't have a chance to make any other adjustments. But I told the superintendent that I would stay there one year and he could start now getting an assistant principal. | 9:58 |
| John Barry Henderson | Well, in the meantime, he didn't particularly want to see me leave the city or the parish. And then he offered me a job as supervisor of junior high schools, and I took it. Then the next year I became Supervisor of Secondary Schools with emphasis on math and science. And I remained there until I retired in 1970. My experiences working with Black youngsters were very rewarding. I felt that a lot of good was being done with these youngsters. And they're far different from the youngsters now. They were anxious to learn and they were more respectful. And we had a good time. All of our teachers, we cared for our youngsters. They responded to what we had to do and what we had to say to them. They responded favorably. And many of them have made outstanding contributions for themselves and for their families and as well as the places where they live. | 11:45 |
| John Barry Henderson | So after I retired, I did just that and I'm called on occasionally for some advice with respect to education in this city. And I give them what I think. It is not always what they want to hear, but they keep coming. And of course, that is rewarding to me. My wife taught with me when I was principal at Henderson. My wife was teaching Social Studies in the same school. And when we left Jonas Henderson High School and went over to senior high school, she went over to senior high school also. And she taught Social Studies there for a while. And then she decided she wanted to be a guidance counselor and she went to Southern University and got a master's in counseling education. And I could have retired a year before she did, but she didn't like the idea of my staying home and she going to work. So she asked that I stay in a year, which I did. And we both retired at the same time. | 14:01 |
| John Barry Henderson | We remained in touch with the educational system in this city, but from a distance, not too active in the area, but I keep in touch with them. Many of our students are now teachers in the system. They are principals in the system, they're supervisors in the system and many of our students have done well. We have a district judge who was recently assigned to the bench who was a student, finished high school in the Jonas Henderson High School. We have physicians, technicians. They've made outstanding contributions. Now, there are one or two, as usual, who would slip through the crack. We don't claim a hundred percent, but I do claim the majority of our youngsters have made outstanding contributions to their community. Do you have some other question? | 16:02 |
| Michele Mitchell | Yeah, I've got actually a lot of questions. | 17:49 |
| John Barry Henderson | All right. | 17:49 |
| Michele Mitchell | First of all, I guess I'd like to know, you mentioned teaching at the Iberia Parish. | 18:00 |
| John Barry Henderson | Training School. | 18:04 |
| Michele Mitchell | Training School. Now what do you think the difference between Iberia Parish Training School and Jonas Henderson High? What were the differences between those two institutions? | 18:05 |
| John Barry Henderson | Well, I think the difference was that Jonas Henderson High School was an improvement over the Iberia Parish Training School. It was an improvement in building facilities, in providing for the expansion of curricula. We had nearly a sufficient number of teachers to reduce the teaching load. We were able to secure more recent copyrights of textbooks and of that type. We expanded the curriculum considerably at Henderson Senior High School. Whereas in the Iberia Parish Training School, it was more or less the conventional reading, writing and arithmetic, so to speak. | 18:20 |
| John Barry Henderson | But then when we moved into Henderson, we added business education, we added band, vocal music, athletics, Algebra, and a couple years we taught Trig. I found, however, that the kids did not necessarily care for Trig, but we kept it anyway. And of course, the class size was more to the liking of the teacher because of their dislike for Trig. So that was a special group that did. It was worth continuing with Trig in the curriculum. There were other expansions that we added to the curriculum that made a difference between Jonas Henderson and the Iberia Parish Training School. | 19:52 |
| John Barry Henderson | The faculty, for example, was increased and the training of the teachers, they were more in their fields of learning. We didn't have any teachers, I saw to it that we had teachers in their field. If you had a major in English, you taught English. If you had a major in Science, you taught Science and so on. So that's what I think would be the difference. The attitude, also, of the parents improved when we moved into Henderson. | 21:35 |
| John Barry Henderson | I was very sure that the youngsters would come to school dressed like students. And it got to a point where, if a student would, say, for instance, would finish eighth grade, and naturally in another school, 'cause we were nine through 12, you see, which meant that they had to come to us if they were promoted to the ninth grade. And many of the parents called me to find out what kind of clothes their children have to have in order to come to school, which I thought was quite a thing. And we did not advocate anything beyond their means. We simply wanted it to be decent and clean. That was all we wanted it. And of course, it remained that way up until the time Henderson closed. | 22:50 |
| John Barry Henderson | Well, they closed Henderson. When they closed Henderson, you see, they had the name up on the school, Jonas Henderson High School on the outside. And there was a feeling by the majority of the members of the board at that time that the White youngsters did not necessarily want to go into a school that was named for a Black. So they changed the name of all the schools that, well, to keep it from looking too obvious, they had one or two school named for Whites. They didn't want to change the name of just the Black schools because it would look bad, I guess, but they didn't care much about that. But anyway, they had to change the names of all the schools. But at the time in 1969, most of the schools that had names were Black schools. They named them for Jonas Henderson, AB Simon, Florence Pemberton, Black teachers that had made contribution through the years and they named them. | 24:26 |
| John Barry Henderson | But when they integrated, the school where we came from, which was Jonas Henderson originally, but where we were moved to, that new school where I was telling you about. And they changed that school name to a name of the street. They took the name of the street and that's what they did most places. Anderson Street School, Johnson Street, Lee Street, all those originally been named for Black educators. And they took their names off to school and named them for streets for the want of something. They couldn't think of anything else. But in the Jonas Henderson High School where we left, they had, in the hall in the concrete there, they put the name of the school in there and they didn't change that. They didn't move it. | 26:18 |
| Michele Mitchell | It's still there? | 27:37 |
| John Barry Henderson | It's still there. | 27:46 |
| Michele Mitchell | Now, Henderson is now Anderson Street? | 27:48 |
| John Barry Henderson | No, the first Henderson was Anderson Street. But the second Henderson that I'm talking about is now called Freshman High School. They removed my daddy's name off of that and made it Freshman High School. | 27:52 |
| Michele Mitchell | So if I went to Freshman High School at this day— | 28:14 |
| John Barry Henderson | What? | 28:15 |
| Michele Mitchell | If I went to Freshman High School now and walked in? | 28:17 |
| John Barry Henderson | You'd go there. You'd go there. That name, you mean? You would. Henderson name would be down in the hall. That's right. And I asked them one time, I went back there, they asked me to come back there one time for something. 'Cause I knew they had not moved it, and I asked something about one of the board members. I said, "Why haven't you taken up that name?" See, it had a tiger. You see, the mascot was tiger. And they had a tiger and the Jonas Henderson High School down there in the terrazzo. I said, "Why haven't you taken that up?" And the answer was that it was too expensive. So you could see how they thought they took the name off the outside, but when they got inside it was still the same and nothing has happened. Nobody died as a result of their name remaining on the floor. But they just didn't want it exhibited outside that. And they didn't want to go to a school named for a Black. | 28:20 |
| John Barry Henderson | That happened in Iberia Parish. That's not true in every parish in the state. There are some parishes that kept the name of the Black schools. They going on without any problems. But we made change. I think, however, that if they had to do it again, I think it would be different. They've learned a lot about Blacks that they didn't know before. And if they had an opportunity to do it over, I think it would be different. We weren't as wild as they thought we were, but we are still pretty bad, our attitudes. We have problems with our youngsters now with their attitudes. And it's not as bad as it used to be, 'cause it's going to take some time to get it where it be respectable, but it's improving some. | 30:01 |
| John Barry Henderson | When we moved into that school, New Iberia Senior High School there, we had some problems because you picked up our students. Let's say, you picked up about 800 youngsters, picked them up and dropped them over there, which was quite a traumatic experience for those youngsters as well as to the principal. And we had some problems over there. Whites didn't particularly want to accept us, and the Blacks didn't necessarily want to be there so you had problems. And we fought that for a semester almost from August until December, till we closed for Christmas. It wouldn't be a day pass if we didn't have to referee some fights or something. But then it was amazing how after we closed for Christmas and when we went back into that situation after Christmas, it was just like moving from night to day. It amazed me. | 31:30 |
| John Barry Henderson | I went back tense as I was when I left before Christmas. And you see, the tension would be so thick you could cut it with a knife. But then when we went back in there after Christmas in January, I walked into that school the first day after we were back for Christmas and I sensed a change of feelings. And from that time on, we had individual fights but not gang fights. You know what I mean? We used to have it in an all Black situation, but we had individual squabbles. I guess, I better use squabbles. But we had individual squabbles and that's what happened over there. | 33:19 |
| John Barry Henderson | And when graduation came, the White principal was about to go nuts, he was. And you see, they would let their kids off two weeks before graduation. And so when it came time for that, he came to me and asked me what was he going to, because he felt that they were going — You know how a youngster will say, "I'm going to get you on the last day of school" and all that stuff. So I said, "Oh no, I don't think it'll be that bad." I said, "Just call them in the auditorium. Talk to them a while and tell them that they through with it until they come back for rehearsals and things like that." | 34:41 |
| John Barry Henderson | And he went and called, had all of us, all the learning and everything to try to squash any misunderstanding they had. And when he announced that this was your last day, you could leave at the sound of the bell, but you had come back for rehearsal. They jumped up and hollered and carried on. Whites were hugging Blacks, and Blacks hugging Whites. And it was a revelation, really. | 35:40 |
| Michele Mitchell | That's so funny. | 36:25 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yeah. And from that time on, they have done very well here. You still have negative feelings and you can always have that, I think. But they've done very well. Racism is still alive, but it's reduced tremendously with youngsters. Now, my feeling is that if you would leave these youngsters alone and let these [oldsters 00:37:12] get out the way, these youngsters would work this thing out, that's my feeling. And these oldsters got these old feelings and things and they pass it on to these youngsters and it keeps them pumped up. But if they'd get out the way, it would do well. And of course, I think one of the main things about this segregation where the Whites were reluctant to integrate was they felt that the Blacks would overpower the White girls and things like that, but it turned out that the Whites were rushing the Black boys. And it was just the opposite from that. | 36:26 |
| John Barry Henderson | Up until now, I think, it's an accepted thing now. | 38:44 |
| Michele Mitchell | You think so? | 38:53 |
| John Barry Henderson | I think so. Reluctantly. Yeah, I think it's an accepted, they might stare and a White girl being with a Black boy or vice versa, but they marry now. And I don't think it'll ever be totally accepted. But they don't stare as much as they used to about it. But I think the segregation in the south will have a definite effect on Blacks where you deny them opportunities that, if they were given to them, they could improve considerably. They could add to the growth of a community, both economically and otherwise. And the south is going to always be behind, I think, in opening up avenues for Blacks. | 38:54 |
| John Barry Henderson | Now, let be hasten to say that that same situation is in other parts of the country, but it may not be as prevalent. But anywhere you go in America or anywhere else, I guess, but I'm talking about America, anywhere else you go in America, you're going to be confronted with this matter of color. And it's unfortunate, but that's the way it is. So even now when they're talking about merging Black and White colleges, and in Louisiana, they're talking about they want to merge the Black colleges with the Whites. | 40:43 |
| John Barry Henderson | Can you cut that? | 42:21 |
| John Barry Henderson | They want to merge a particular — In Louisiana, they want to merge these institutions. And it's always a matter of closing the Blacks and asking the Blacks to go with the White colleges. But it's not going to be any merger, I don't think . I'm going to call it, it's going be submerged. And the Black college is going be submerged if they ever try to merge these institutions. They going to swallow them up. Now Southern University is in Baton Rouge, one of the largest land grant colleges in the country. And it's about five, six miles, maybe more from LSU. | 42:29 |
| John Barry Henderson | As long as they weren't talking about desegregation, it was all right. But now they want Southern too, to be merged with LSU. And they're trying to work out some situations, but to no avail. And Grambling College is five miles from Ruston, Louisiana. And you've got Louisiana Tech there, but they're talking about merging it. They do not want to lose their identity. And the Blacks don't lose their identity either. So I guess it's a unique situation where Black colleges can do more with Black students than White colleges. They can give them their self-respect, give them almost everything they need to persevere. And the same things with these high schools within the parishes. The percentage, it's supposed to be 70-30 from the standpoint of teacher ratio is Black and White. But that's fast moving out. If a Black retires or whatever, it's replaced with a White. | 43:41 |
| John Barry Henderson | I don't believe it's going to be too many more years before the high schools in the state will be, faculty-wise, 30 percentage will be 95 to 96%. It's not going to be too many more years. I'll be gone, of course, by then. But then the Black youngster's not going to have any role models, anything of that type to look forward to. And the colleges is now trying to set admission requirements so high that only the true and hard is going to make it. And my feeling is that they're making these requirements so that they can weed us out. That's my feeling. And turn us from an academic curriculum to an industrial curriculum. Now, don't get me wrong— | 46:10 |
| John Barry Henderson | The industrial curriculum has its place and it might work out. That based upon what industry you are in, you might be getting more money than an academic person, but you are going to have so many in this industrial business until a lot of them going to be left out. But that's the way they're looking at it. They want to push into some industrial area. You have what you call these vocational schools and vocational education. And they're good when they put out the right stuff because a lot of people might not be academically inclined, could be a master in some vocation. But they want to push all of us in vocation and I'm not sure that we adopted to that. | 0:01 |
| Michele Mitchell | So in terms of, you're talking about vision stance and [indistinct 00:01:34]. | 1:25 |
| John Barry Henderson | That's correct. That's correct. They can't qualify. You say, well you got to have, say in a high school curriculum, they're saying you'll have four English as you know it and four sciences and three social studies and four of math, and two foreign languages. They're setting the curriculum up. You got to have that and you got to pass them to qualify to go into a college. Of course, the only thing they had on us was when I became principal of that school, we had four English [indistinct 00:02:56] when I went in there they had three and I put four in there and I added literature and I put four social studies in there. I put four maths. We had a long on good curriculum and they were surprised at what we had. But we had put that in there. And at that time I was able to, I had pretty good, well I had a free hand, so to speaking in trying to improve the curriculum with that school and they were surprised we had all that stuff. | 1:54 |
| John Barry Henderson | But now when you, let's say, oh, I guess I don't remember now. Must have been something like 19, 20 units, or something. We had to have to graduate at that time I think. I don't remember now too well. And if you had that number of units and if the state issued you a certificate, you could take that certificate and go to college with it, but you can't do it now. You got where they upgrading these qualifications for college entrance. I believe it's, you got to have 2.5 or something like that to get into it. And in some instances, you got to pass certain courses. So they're gradually eliminating us as they go along in that area. | 3:41 |
| Michele Mitchell | You feel like the merger idea fits into all of this? | 5:14 |
| John Barry Henderson | Huh? | 5:14 |
| Michele Mitchell | You feel that the mergers the proposed mergers of Black schools and White schools fits into this whole— | 5:14 |
| John Barry Henderson | I do. Yeah. Yeah, I do. Because the merger is geared for that. Merger is geared for that they thinking in turn. But somewhere down the line they're going to have to ease up on some of that because they going to find out, then a lot of their youngsters not going to make it either. I don't think they've been looking at that, but they going to find it. Some of their youngsters not going to be able to be and when it's sufficient number of them can't make it, then they going to pull them back down so that they can make a [indistinct 00:06:30]. It's quite a problem. Desegregation is quite a problem. Yeah. It's some folks say desegregation is good and some say it's not. I think when they desegregated the secondary schools in this parish, they threw the Blacks back a hundred years. | 5:27 |
| Michele Mitchell | Can you explain a little bit about the shoes? | 7:12 |
| John Barry Henderson | It's going to take a hundred years for them to come back up. That's what I mean. And when that happens, nobody's going to be around too much to pick up the pieces. Our children in this desegregation situation they became very belligerent and they spend more time being belligerent than studying. Consequence, you going to have problems, of course, it's going to be a problem, not just for the Black. It's going to be a problem for everybody because the equilibrium of the parish is going to be disturbed by the conduct, the unbecoming conduct of youngsters. And you can't do that without disturbing the equilibrium of the entire parish or the country for that matter. | 7:21 |
| John Barry Henderson | But in this parish, the percentage of principalships, both for elementary and secondary have changed considerably. When you were segregated, every Black school had a Black principal, elementary or secondary. That's no longer true. You've taken away the livelihood of many principals, teachers as well, and in Louisiana, a lot of folk have left Louisiana to go somewhere else because things are better they claim. Financially, particularly in the teaching profession, you get better pay elsewhere except Arkansas and maybe Mississippi. | 8:57 |
| John Barry Henderson | And they have left. The brains of our community and our state have gone to other places when we should do all that we can to keep them here. But they got to leave to make a livelihood. And if they want to make a contribution and they can't make it here because not given the opportunity. So they go where they can and they all over the country making outstanding contributions for it. So I had no problems. I have no problems with segregation. I'm a product of the segregated education. | 10:37 |
| Michele Mitchell | Could you tell me a little bit about that? What it was like because you said that you went to the Howe Institute, your father was there. | 11:37 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yeah. | 11:38 |
| Michele Mitchell | What was the Howe Institute like? | 11:38 |
| John Barry Henderson | What was it like? | 11:38 |
| Michele Mitchell | Yes sir. | 11:38 |
| John Barry Henderson | It was a family school more or less. Those of us who were there, we were family. It wasn't a very large school. It was the only boarding school for Blacks at that time. From Beaumont, Texas to New Orleans. | 11:54 |
| Michele Mitchell | Really? | 12:21 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yeah. It was only high school, boarding school for Blacks from Beaumont to New Orleans. We had youngsters come from those distance from those places come right here in [indistinct 00:12:43] that spot where that courthouse is to go to school. Howe institute was a kind of school that trained minds and it trained you in conduct and respect and so forth. I said that I refer to Howe Institute's curriculum as having five Rs instead of three. | 12:22 |
| Michele Mitchell | Really? | 13:41 |
| John Barry Henderson | Still, you see they had reading and writing and they call it arithmetic. And then Howe had respect and responsibility, they taught all that. You were held responsible for your own conduct. You had to be responsible for it and you certainly would respect everybody, put yourself first, and then everybody else. But Howe Institute was a dandy was quite an institution and it was most unfortunate that it had to close it not compete with public education. And the Baptists did not support it financially as it should have and those two things caused Howe to close. They couldn't compete with public institutions. Public schools because they were getting a little money from the parish and so forth and so on. The Baptists wouldn't or didn't support them, so therefore it had to close. | 13:45 |
| Michele Mitchell | When you said the 6th District Baptist, that's all Black and what did that area mean? The district? | 15:57 |
| John Barry Henderson | Well, the 6th District was an area that covered from Marvin City to Lafayette and then all the places in between. Yeah. | 16:00 |
| Michele Mitchell | And it still attracted students from [indistinct 00:16:23]? | 16:21 |
| John Barry Henderson | Huh? | 16:21 |
| Michele Mitchell | The school still brought in people— | 16:21 |
| John Barry Henderson | Oh, yeah. There were students who come to Howe from any place, take that off again, students who come from any place if they wanted to. And many of the students within the city or around, but in and around [indistinct 00:17:00] would pay their tuition with sweet potatoes and corn and watermelons. If they didn't have the money that my daddy would accept that because it was a boarding school and he needed the food to feed the youngsters. So if you could give the amount in produce rather than cash, he would accept that. And that's how he ran that institution. | 16:22 |
| Michele Mitchell | Oh, that's wonderful. | 17:47 |
| John Barry Henderson | The girls stayed in the Fram building and the boys stayed in the Brick building. | 17:47 |
| Michele Mitchell | So they were dormitories sort of? | 17:59 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yeah. | 18:04 |
| Michele Mitchell | And where were the classrooms? | 18:04 |
| John Barry Henderson | The classrooms were on the first floor in the Fram building and on the first floor in the Brick building. But in the Fram building was the dining hall on the first floor but the girls stayed on the second floor. And in that Brick building was, we had classrooms in there. We had a what? At that time we used to call it the chapel. We used to have chapel every day. My daddy used to recite a Bible verse at every chapel and pray, sing, we'd give out information, whatnot. That was everything. So this, Howe, as I said, was [indistinct 00:19:21]. It helped many youngsters and we were like family there because wasn't too many of us there. I don't recall how many we had at one time, but it really worked out very well. All right. You have another question? | 18:09 |
| Michele Mitchell | Yeah, I do. | 19:48 |
| John Barry Henderson | All right. | 19:52 |
| Michele Mitchell | I'm wondering just a little bit how your father got involved with the institute. | 19:52 |
| John Barry Henderson | Well, he was teaching at Leland University at that time and it was in New Orleans. Then when Leland opened up at Leland College at Baker, he went there as a teacher. Then this philanthropist Peter Howe from Chicago came down here and got interested in Blacks. He saw the conditions, which they were, and he endowed the school and my father became the assistant principal when it was originally set up. Then he became principal and that's how he got involved with Howe institute and he stayed with it until he closed in 1933. | 20:03 |
| Michele Mitchell | Your mother taught there too? | 21:34 |
| John Barry Henderson | Huh? | 21:35 |
| Michele Mitchell | Your mother taught there as well? | 21:35 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yes, she did. | 21:35 |
| Michele Mitchell | And what did your mother teach? | 21:36 |
| John Barry Henderson | She taught history and Latin. | 21:44 |
| Michele Mitchell | Really? | 21:50 |
| John Barry Henderson | Fortunately for me, by the time I got to the grade where Latin was being taught, they had taken out the curriculum. Of course, it's always looked upon as a dead language anyway. But my mother taught Latin and history and I was so glad they had taken it out when by the time I was supposed to take it, I didn't know what to do. Because I had no inclination for learning Latin. | 21:58 |
| Michele Mitchell | What did your mother do after they stopped? | 22:44 |
| John Barry Henderson | She took on another subject. She taught social studies when they took the Latin out of the curriculum at Howe. My daddy gave her social studies and that's what she did until because my mother died in 1940. I know in 1938. And my father died in 1941 as a result of an automobile accident. But the Howe Institute was, and where that, you see, we were living right there where that courthouse is now and we were surrounded at that time by Whites. They lived all around that. All around and there was one that had two Black families that lived right around, the Millers and the Dophines. And I mean Millers and the Delahuses. | 22:46 |
| Michele Mitchell | [indistinct 00:24:22]. | 24:18 |
| John Barry Henderson | Delahuses. And those were the two Black but all the rest of them were White. And we had no problems. No problems and as a matter of fact, they would help my father very much in seeing that these youngsters would do right and they'd come over and talk to him and that was the way back then. | 24:27 |
| Michele Mitchell | These are the Whites? | 24:53 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yeah. They lived right across the street from us, all around us and we had no problem. But I really can't— Well, I guess I could explain it. They had no animosity really and my father conducted himself in such a way that he was respected, you see, and whatnot. We had no problems and surrounded by Whites and I couldn't understand why we couldn't get along like that after this. I couldn't understand that. I still don't, but I think where you understand each other, you can get along. | 24:55 |
| Michele Mitchell | Well. What was it like, I mean, since you went to Howe and said that you lived there, so your family, the Millers, and the Delahuses are basically the only Black people in the immediate area? | 26:01 |
| John Barry Henderson | That's right. And there was one family in the back, they were called, their last name was Whites, W-H-I-T-E. They were Whites, Josephine White, and all that. That was one family in the back on the next street. What were you about to say? | 26:16 |
| Michele Mitchell | Oh, I was just going to ask you, when you were a student at Howe, if you or other students ever went downtown into downtown New Iberia and if there were places that you couldn't go? | 26:34 |
| John Barry Henderson | Indeed. Indeed. There were a lot of places we couldn't go. | 26:53 |
| Michele Mitchell | Such as? | 26:56 |
| John Barry Henderson | Such as restaurants, barber shops, just to name a few. I know the restaurant barbershop, we couldn't go in, we could go in stores. Of course, if you going to spend your money, you would go in there because you going to spend your money. Then there was some stores that Blacks could not try on their clothes. In other words, the women couldn't try on their clothes in the store. If you got it, you had to buy it, you couldn't try it on. You had to buy. Yeah, sure and we could go to theaters, but we had to sit in the balcony. We had separate water fountains and all. I'm sure there are a lot of places we couldn't go and we knew it and we didn't go. We didn't force ourselves on them at all. We knew what we could do and what we couldn't do and we didn't bother. And we got along all right. | 26:57 |
| Michele Mitchell | So were there a lot of signs downtown or around the city? | 28:45 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yes. Yes. Around restaurants. In the bus stations, for example, you had restrooms and you would have men, women, and then Colored. Yeah, that's what you'd have down there in the bus stations. | 28:53 |
| Michele Mitchell | Men, women— | 29:25 |
| John Barry Henderson | And Colored. And of course, the Colored men and women could go in there. You know what I mean? Yeah. And then as time went on, I believe they had for Colored men and Colored women, I believe. | 29:29 |
| Michele Mitchell | Yeah. I'm wondering because I mean, were there any embarrassing situations if it's men, women, and Colored and men and women are walking out, walking in and out of the same bathroom? | 29:49 |
| John Barry Henderson | I don't know. I didn't experience any of that, but I guess there was, I'm sure. But I didn't experience any of that and the water fountains, you had water fountains for Colored and all that was around in New Iberia when I was a youngster. | 30:06 |
| Michele Mitchell | Were these mostly places on Main Street or throughout the city? | 30:24 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yeah, most of them were Main Street. They didn't have too many places throughout the city because the Main Street, which is still called Main Street, but was just what it said, the Main Street. And they had all businesses of all kinds on Main Street. One Street, where Main Street ran it, ran East and West and still does. But they had all kind of stores, department stores, I believe in the corner. Yeah, I guess it was department stores, but dry good stores and dressy stores, so forth, and so on. And they used to run from, oh, I guess the stores would run the length of Main Street, I guess from East to West. That's where most of your businesses were at that time. Since that time they're located in different areas. | 30:29 |
| John Barry Henderson | Then when the malls came into being, the malls killed those stores on Main Street like they did everywhere else and they had to close up and the people went on out to where the malls were. But in New Iberia now it seems to be coming back. Some businesses have opened up in New Iberia. It might have been different businesses, but there was businesses that opened up. Now the Blacks had the street for the Blacks was called Hopkins Street, H-O-P-K-I-N-S Hopkins Street. | 31:42 |
| John Barry Henderson | Now Hopkins Street in New Iberia was a ramp for street in [indistinct 00:32:46] in Memphis. You know what I mean? And now that's where all the— That's where most of the Black businesses for Blacks or meant Black businesses were on Hopkins Street and the main businesses for Blacks at that time were cafes. They didn't call them restaurants, they called them cafes. And you had a small drugstore there and you might have had a dentist there in those years. I had a brother who practiced dentistry on that street. | 32:40 |
| Michele Mitchell | Oh, what was the name of his name? | 33:46 |
| John Barry Henderson | My brother is C.A. Henderson. He was a dentist and he practiced dentistry there for some years, then he left, moved from there, and went to Morgan City. | 33:49 |
| Michele Mitchell | So was Dr. Henderson is there. Is over that way now— | 34:14 |
| John Barry Henderson | What's that? | 34:16 |
| Michele Mitchell | There's a Dr. Henderson over that way now? | 34:16 |
| John Barry Henderson | There's a Dr. James Henderson. | 34:18 |
| Michele Mitchell | Not related. | 34:19 |
| John Barry Henderson | Not related. Not at all. | 34:22 |
| Michele Mitchell | So these businesses that were on Hopkins Street, they were owned by Blacks? | 34:29 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yes, they were. Yes. They were either owned by Blacks or the building was owned by Blacks and they were renting. But it was a Black ownership, I guess you'd call it. He might've owned the building, a Black would own the building and a Black man would come into he wanted to open up a restaurant or something, whatever the business was, he'd asked to rent if he had the space there and he did. That's where it was and Hopkins Street was quite a live street there. In the other years, it's gone down tremendously now. It's almost a ghetto now. | 34:43 |
| Michele Mitchell | But back then, were there places, was there a barber? Was there beauty shops? | 35:37 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yes, there was a beauty shop. There was a barber. Sure was. | 35:40 |
| Michele Mitchell | And what were the names of some of the cafes that you liked to go to? | 35:47 |
| John Barry Henderson | I've forgotten the name. DPlnter's Cafe. D-P-L-N-T-E-R-S. Cafe. [indistinct 00:36:12] DPlnter's Cafe and then there was another one that's called the Hollywood Cafe and I can't remember any others but there were— Oh yeah, Robertson Cafe. R-O-B-E-R-T-S-O-N. Wait, no, is it? Yeah, Robertson. That's where it is. Sometimes I get this Robertson and Robinson mixed up. But it all for B-E-R-T-S-O-N. Yeah, Robertson Cafe that was on Hopkins Street, but it was across St. Peter and it was away from the hustle and bustle if you understand what I mean of it. But they had Robertson Cafe on Hopkins. The daughters and granddaughters still live on that same spot. | 36:01 |
| Michele Mitchell | Really? So you just said that it was a really lively street. So it was just lots of movement people— | 37:30 |
| John Barry Henderson | Oh, yeah. Lot of movement, a lot of everything going on Hopkins Street. They had a ball in whatever way they would choose. If they wanted to take on a little strong drink or something, they would do it. But it wasn't anything that was vicious, it was just, they just have a ball, that's all. And the officers didn't bother them. I mean they didn't, because I think they might have been scared, I don't know. But that was Hopkins Street. It was well and alive then, but it isn't now. You still got one or two Black businesses on Hopkins Street. | 37:51 |
| John Barry Henderson | Anything like it used to be. Yeah, might on Hopkins Street, you've got now an auto mechanic shop that I think is there and that's about it. There you got not a nightclub, it's called Ebony something on Hopkins Street. Then there are some Whites who come into Hopkins Street because that's an opportunity for them to make money and they come in and open one or two stores there. On Hopkins Street, there are two of them that I know of now. Two that's operated by Whites on Hopkins Street there're across from Pershing Street. There's, there's a jewelry store. | 38:59 |
| John Barry Henderson | They been there for years. It's been there for years and I knew the owner very well and he's about ready to close it down because he doesn't have the business that he used to have. Money's not as fluent as it used to be. | 40:07 |
| Michele Mitchell | This is the jewelry store on Hopkins and Pershing. You mentioned Pershing Street it's— | 40:37 |
| John Barry Henderson | Pershing Street. Is that railroad? Pershing Street is right— But if you go this way, the street that runs right by that graveyard that's Pershing Street, it used to be called Mattles but it's Pershing Street. I was saying that if you would go that way and you cross, if you turn on Robertson and go to Hopkins and then turn right, you'd have to cross Pershing Street and that jewelry store is right on the left-hand side. It's called Compton's, C-O-M-P-T-O-N'S. | 40:39 |
| Michele Mitchell | So he's been there for a long time? | 41:23 |
| John Barry Henderson | Oh, yes. I can't remember the number of years and he settled there and he made his money off Blacks but he was interested in Blacks. He never mistreated them anywhere other than make money. Then when we have our graduations, he would always ask me to give him the name of the vow, and the sound and the best this and the best that, and so on and so on. And he'd give very nice gifts to these youngsters on graduation. | 41:25 |
| Michele Mitchell | And this is a White man that's— | 42:18 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yeah. Yeah. | 42:19 |
| Michele Mitchell | Huh. | 42:19 |
| John Barry Henderson | And he did that for years. Well, actually, as long as I was principal of that school, he started when we were in the First Henderson on Anderson Street. And when we moved out on Jefferson Island Road, he continued to do that. As a matter of fact, I think he did that until we left there in 1969. He used to give luggage and I mean gifts. [indistinct 00:42:55]. He didn't give anything that he wanted to get rid of. He was good. Now some Whites did survive on Hopkins Street in terms of business, but mostly it was Blacks there on Hopkins. That was the Black street. | 42:22 |
| Michele Mitchell | Now I heard that Pershing was sort of a red-light district kind of— | 43:24 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yes. Pershing was, it was. Right off of Pershing was a red light district from Corrine Street to Dark Alley, I guess you call it and all of them all up there. | 43:30 |
| Michele Mitchell | So if somebody wanted to go get a drink on Hopkins, would they go to a bar or would they go to a liquor house? | 43:49 |
| John Barry Henderson | They'd go to a bar. On Hopkins Street, they'd go to a bar. Now in this bar, I mean in this saloon, let's call it that. That's what they was a saloon and they'd get their liquor by the train. They very seldom bought it by the fifth during those days they bought it by the drink. I think it was more advantageous for them to sell it by the drink than by the fifth. But I don't know whether the buying it by the fifth replaced the drink or not because I never drink in my lifetime, therefore I wasn't involved. | 43:59 |
| Michele Mitchell | I'm wondering, this is a totally different subject, but I'm wondering if when you were Principal Henderson, did you have any students from Grand Mary's? | 45:03 |
| John Barry Henderson | Yes. | 45:12 |
| Michele Mitchell | What was that like? | 45:14 |
| John Barry Henderson | It didn't raise any fuss. The students from Grand Mary became a part of Henderson High School and we made no moderation or no difference or anything. Students from Grand Mary's and even today, some of our best students came from Grand Mary. They still come by to see us and some of our best friends. I mean, I communicate with one quite often and my wife and I, and recently a testimonial was given for me and my wife and Beanie is still out in Grand Mary and I wrote Beanie a letter and I told her they were going to give us a testimonial for us. And Beanie came in, wanting to know what she could do, and I told her they had tickets and everything. Beanie went back out there and got all them Grand Mary people to come. They were very nice people. I enjoyed them. | 45:18 |
| Michele Mitchell | But— | 46:57 |
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