RL00170-CS-1011_01 / Annie Gavin interview recording, 1993 August 3 / Duke Digital Repository

Chris Stewart

Just state your name and your address so I can get a voice level on the mic.

0:02

Annie Joyner Gavin

My name is Annie Joyner, J-O-Y-N-E-R, Gavin, G-A-V-I-N.

0:06

Chris Stewart

Okay. I'd like to start Ms. Gavin's by asking you if you've always lived here? Or if you were born here in—

0:15

Annie Joyner Gavin

I was born here.

0:22

Chris Stewart

You were?

0:24

Annie Joyner Gavin

In James City, in Old James City, we call it.

0:24

Chris Stewart

What was Old James City?

0:24

Annie Joyner Gavin

Just before you came across, after you came across the bridge, that area in there was Old James City.

0:28

Chris Stewart

What did it look like?

0:39

Annie Joyner Gavin

Well, huh?

0:40

Chris Stewart

What did it look like?

0:40

Annie Joyner Gavin

Well, actually it's the Ramada Inn is there now.

0:40

Chris Stewart

Yeah.

0:44

Annie Joyner Gavin

Right in that. Well the whole area clear to the water was where they put the slaves down. My great-grandmother said that they brought them here. I think they brought them from Hyde County. But their soldiers put them ahead of them. Put them out in the road ahead of them and they had soldiers to go back and forth between them. I think they called themselves protecting them because some of them would've not left. They would've gone back.

0:45

Annie Joyner Gavin

But there were some good slave owners and these people loved them. That's all they knew. But this is what happened. They kept them coming. Then when they got to James City just before it got, you know where you get to the body of water, they put them out there. At that time it was real huge. And they were given, they said they gave them an acre of land and a mule. And they gave them the knowhow to build makeshift houses for themselves. And this is where they lived. Then after the slaves were there for a few years, then New Bern tried to collect the rent from them.

1:21

Chris Stewart

Oh, really?

2:12

Annie Joyner Gavin

And they wouldn't pay them. The Grace's great-grandfather told them, "Not going to pay rent for what I own. These were given to us." She was tough. "They was given to us and we not going to pay the rent." And they start fighting them. They had to bring in the military.

2:12

Chris Stewart

The ex-slaves, the freed slaves starting fighting the—

2:31

Annie Joyner Gavin

Yeah.

2:34

Chris Stewart

Where did the fighting hit?

2:35

Annie Joyner Gavin

With bricks. Right over there. As you came across that bridge, in that general area where the Ramada Inn.

2:36

Chris Stewart

Right down by the river.

2:42

Annie Joyner Gavin

Mm-hmm.

2:42

Chris Stewart

And that you said who called in the military?

2:47

Annie Joyner Gavin

Harris James was put in charge of them. I just missed whatever this woman is, I forgot her name that I told you was here. She says it's not so, according to her book. But I believe those old people, they wouldn't have lied. Well, I know one thing, they ran. They had to call the military from Raleigh because they meant business. They [indistinct 00:03:18].

2:54

Chris Stewart

They weren't going to pay.

3:18

Annie Joyner Gavin

Yeah.

3:19

Chris Stewart

And how long did the fighting last? Do you know?

3:20

Annie Joyner Gavin

Well, I think they sent the military and they got them quiet and then they had a big party.

3:22

Chris Stewart

Oh.

3:30

Annie Joyner Gavin

That's what my great-grandmother said.

3:30

Chris Stewart

So they ended up not having to pay then rent?

3:33

Annie Joyner Gavin

Yeah.

3:36

Chris Stewart

Oh, okay.

3:36

Annie Joyner Gavin

But eventually. But she couldn't buy the land and those Blacks that got ambitious enough and smart enough, that wanted to own their own land and house, they had to buy on this side. See this side of the creek is another area and it was owned by Blacks. I don't know how long, far back it went. But they were able to buy lots of their own.

3:39

Chris Stewart

So the Old James City part, on the other side of the creek, after that was over, you couldn't buy land there anymore?

4:04

Annie Joyner Gavin

No, you couldn't still own. So the people, as I said, that were ambitious enough to want their own house because they were just mostly straight up boards. They were livable, had a fireplace. I remember how my great-grandmother's house was.

4:13

Chris Stewart

How was it?

4:30

Annie Joyner Gavin

Straight up and down boards and a fireplace and cooked on the fireplace. But you had thing you could pull the pot too, like in Tryon Palace. That's how they did. Then they of course heated water out of those and the big pot. And in the summertime they cooked outdoors.

4:32

Chris Stewart

Right. What kind of work, was your grandmother a housewife? Or was she working?

4:54

Annie Joyner Gavin

My grandmother.

5:01

Chris Stewart

Your great-grandmother.

5:01

Annie Joyner Gavin

My great-grandmother. No, she kept the younger women's children.

5:03

Chris Stewart

Oh.

5:07

Annie Joyner Gavin

And they worked in the field. They took in washing and ironing worked in the house. And the old older people took care of the babies. Her husband worked.

5:08

Chris Stewart

How old were you when your great-grandmother died?

5:21

Annie Joyner Gavin

I was 12 years old.

5:23

Chris Stewart

Wow.

5:29

Annie Joyner Gavin

I'll be 82 years old, 28th October.

5:29

Chris Stewart

Wow.

5:29

Annie Joyner Gavin

So see I was a big girl.

5:31

Chris Stewart

What kinds of other things did your great-grandmother tell you about her growing up? Or about her life?

5:35

Annie Joyner Gavin

Well she said that just like human beings are now, some of the slave owners were very good to the slaves. Especially those that were having babies by the Black women.

5:44

Chris Stewart

Yeah.

5:56

Annie Joyner Gavin

Because I knew Ms. Hannah and her father was her owner. She played in the big house with her White sisters and brother and he put her in a house. She didn't have to work in the fields. Yeah. He kept her there for his own use. That was wrong for the White women too. Not only Blacks went through something, the Whites went through something because there wasn't anything they could do about it.

5:57

Annie Joyner Gavin

And Roots was almost exactly like they described their life, you know Alex Haley's Roots. But there was some good and some bad. And Uncle Tom named my grandmother. One of those slave people knew Uncle Tom and the master's wife had got rid of one of his favorite slaves. He sold her to Tom so she couldn't find him again. And he was her favorite slave.

6:26

Annie Joyner Gavin

Well, Uncle Tom really, well I guess to say Uncle Tom, you think in terms of carrying news, what he did. He drove the team and stuff and he knew a lot. But he carrieU word from one plantation the other. And the railroad, what they used. Passed to you, passed to you, passed to you.

7:05

Chris Stewart

This was your uncle?

7:25

Annie Joyner Gavin

No, no. He was called Uncle Tom.

7:27

Chris Stewart

Okay.

7:29

Annie Joyner Gavin

Now they say a Black person who is chummy-chummy. Well they used to say it, but it's not that much difference anymore. They call him Uncle Toms because they tell the White man everything. Right. Well back then, Uncle Tom was more of a messenger between the—Let them know what was happening because he drove the horses and buggies and stuff.

7:33

Chris Stewart

So let the slaves, the Black people know what was happening, what was going on?

7:57

Annie Joyner Gavin

Right, right. And Uncle Tom was just a slave owner's wife's favorite driver. But she did something that he didn't like. He sold Uncle Tom, said she had almost died. I don't know that she ever got it back. But they talked in general things that happened.

8:00

Chris Stewart

Did your great-grandmother ever give you any advice?

8:26

Annie Joyner Gavin

My great-grandmother taught most of all to pray, most of all to pray. Says, "No situation is too big for God." She was a very good Christian. Most of them were. They let us know if you want something, work for it. You can make it. She's right. We could.

8:29

Annie Joyner Gavin

Now, my husband died when my baby was about two and a half years old. I got five children. But by me working with the sisters of my father and my sister, she didn't have any children, all five of them got a college education. My baby girl, she would be interested to do this interview, but she's a little thing, short, but she's very strong. She went to work at a Catholic, the Veteran's Hospital in Washington DC. She's been working there over 20 years.

8:53

Annie Joyner Gavin

And she went there to work. She said everything was so dark and dreary. So even though those people mine, mines are not good, they still want to see something pretty. She asked her supervisor could she solicit clothes for the women? And she got clothes for the women. They let her have it.

9:40

Annie Joyner Gavin

And then she looked at the walls. They were dark brown, dark green, dark. She said, "It was so dreary." So she went to her supervisor and asked about getting the walls painted. And she didn't give her no answer. So she went over her and she was slow. She said, "I'll write my congressman." The next morning they were painting the walls. Somebody has to care.

10:08

Chris Stewart

Where do you think she learned that?

10:33

Annie Joyner Gavin

Where does she live?

10:35

Chris Stewart

Where did she learn that?

10:36

Annie Joyner Gavin

I guess from me. Have to keep kicking until you get what you want.

10:37

Chris Stewart

Do you remember the place, the house that you grew up in?

10:43

Annie Joyner Gavin

Yes. The house that I grew up in was a modern house because, well, the house that I was born in was just a ordinary house, that's straight boards. But it was comfortable. And papered inside, there's wallpaper inside, and a fireplace and a cook stove in the kitchen. The fireplace was for heat.

10:47

Chris Stewart

Did you grow up in that very same house? Or did you move?

11:15

Annie Joyner Gavin

No, my father finally was able to get his own house. He was living with my mother's grandmother. As a matter of fact, my mother's grandmother raised her. And they married very young, like 16, 17. And they lived with her.

11:18

Chris Stewart

Is this the grandmother that you were telling, your great-grandmother that you were telling me about? Or is this a different?

11:36

Annie Joyner Gavin

Yes. Great-grand. I didn't know my other grandmother.

11:38

Chris Stewart

Okay.

11:43

Annie Joyner Gavin

His great-grand. My mother's mother died young and her grand. Well what happened back then, where there were right many children, her grandmother would take some, my aunt would take some, kind of divide them up. And my mother's grandfather was a Indian from Florida. She said he was bald head.

11:45

Chris Stewart

He was bald head?

12:18

Annie Joyner Gavin

Yeah. And his wife was from Virginia. She was very fair. My mother say she was real fair skinned with long hair down her back. I didn't know her, but I knew my Aunt Lucinda, who lived in Boston and she was so fat. We been in the drug store. My mother, not me, my mother, her been in the drug store and she had that Boston accent and she was asking for something. They didn't understand what she was saying. Told her come around the counter and look. My mama said, "Now she wouldn't have invited me around that counter."

12:19

Chris Stewart

This is your mother's mother?

12:57

Annie Joyner Gavin

My mother's aunt.

12:57

Chris Stewart

Aunt, okay.

12:57

Annie Joyner Gavin

Father's sister.

13:05

Chris Stewart

Did you ever hear about any—You said your mother's mother was very fair.

13:09

Annie Joyner Gavin

No, my mother's grandmother.

13:14

Chris Stewart

I see. Okay, was very fair.

13:16

Annie Joyner Gavin

My mother said you couldn't tell her daddy's mother from White. And she didn't like it. She didn't like to be that way.

13:18

Chris Stewart

Yeah. Did you ever hear anything about that? Or what kinds of problems it created for her?

13:26

Annie Joyner Gavin

Well, I guess the way my mother explained it, she didn't want to be White as she was and not be White. I guess that's what she said. Mama said you couldn't tell her from White.

13:33

Chris Stewart

Really?

13:45

Annie Joyner Gavin

I said her mother was mulatto and her daddy was a White man.

13:47

Chris Stewart

Did she ever pass to say, I don't know, get something, to get a job? Or?

13:51

Annie Joyner Gavin

Well actually it wasn't too much work for them, but field work at the time. Because later years they worked in different places, in different homes and stuff like that. And in the fields. And this, oh, there's a judge. This actually happened, they say. And back then, White babies, if they were the same age as the Black baby and you took care of them, you nurse your breasts because I guess they hadn't invented bottles and stuff.

14:00

Annie Joyner Gavin

But this lady worked until she couldn't work, and then she sold whiskey. She lived right across near that railroad over there. And I knew her. And the law caught her for selling whiskey. They had a court. She went to court naturally and the judge kept looking at her. Then he asked her if she was what her name was. He told her, "Yeah." He looked around at, said, "I can't sentence that woman. I nursed her breasts."

14:39

Chris Stewart

Wow.

15:12

Annie Joyner Gavin

Said, "She was my mother in a way." Because her mother, maybe his mother had parties and stuff.

15:12

Chris Stewart

Right.

15:22

Annie Joyner Gavin

And he told her, her name was Charity. I knew her. And he told her, "Charity, don't sell whiskey anymore. You send somebody to me every week and I'll send you money for food." So he took care of her.

15:24

Chris Stewart

When was this? When did this happen?

15:38

Annie Joyner Gavin

Oh, this was maybe 50, 60, more than 50 years ago because I've been back home 50 years.

15:40

Chris Stewart

Right.

15:40

Annie Joyner Gavin

But it was so many incidents that happened connected with Black and White.

15:47

Chris Stewart

You mentioned a couple, several incidents where Black and White were connected really intimately.

15:54

Annie Joyner Gavin

Yeah.

16:01

Chris Stewart

Do you know of any instances where there was separation? Bad? I mean, I don't know, where there was violent separation? Or difficulties?

16:03

Annie Joyner Gavin

No, I don't know of any real problems. They were always mixing. And I was brought up in the public and they were always mixing, but they kept it secretive.

16:16

Chris Stewart

Have you heard of the phrase segregation by day and integration by night?

16:32

Annie Joyner Gavin

Yeah.

16:38

Chris Stewart

Would that apply?

16:38

Annie Joyner Gavin

That, yeah, it would apply. Or a fella that lives down background park, Harris Floyd, he's very wealthy. They said his family own the whole town. And he loved to hang around Black people. But he said when he was a little boy, they were separated by towns. The Whites stay on their side.

16:40

Annie Joyner Gavin

And he said he slept out through the, he still does it. He comes to see me sometimes and different fellows he knew. And he said he would slip to the Black Town, as you call it. And the kids would hide him because he'd rather play with them than play with the White.

17:02

Chris Stewart

Why do you think that's so?

17:21

Annie Joyner Gavin

I don't know. It's surprising. But maybe they treat him better. Yeah, they treat him better. In other words, the Black ones felt, well naturally we were taught to believe the White man is supreme. But as we grew older, more education, we know that we're all God's children. They're all God's children. It was just a little different race.

17:28

Chris Stewart

You mentioned several times about Black men coming into Black communities or having affairs with White women. What about the other way around? What about White women?

17:55

Annie Joyner Gavin

Having—

18:08

Chris Stewart

You mentioned White men, excuse me, going into Black communities.

18:09

Annie Joyner Gavin

Yeah.

18:12

Chris Stewart

What about White women and Black men?

18:12

Annie Joyner Gavin

There were a lot of them, but they didn't most hiding.

18:15

Chris Stewart

Why?

18:18

Annie Joyner Gavin

I guess they thought it was the grace to them. Well, whatever they got, it had to come out. And Grace for instance, you couldn't tell her grandma was White, and her mother gave her to a Black woman. And Miss Rebecca could pass anywhere for White. You can see how Black [indistinct 00:18:50].

18:20

Annie Joyner Gavin

But there's a whole lot of interesting stories came out. Because a lot of Whites harbored Blacks, helped them to hide, helped them to get out. There's always been a link between White and Black to a certain extent, but they were not allowed to show it.

18:47

Chris Stewart

Can you think of ways in which people hid? Or how things were kept secret?

19:11

Annie Joyner Gavin

Well they had, so what they call an underground railroad. They had a way of communicating. It was interesting for the most part because now there were Whites that would take sides with Blacks at the fight. Yeah. That was true in New Bern. And actually the blood at one time was so intermixed, you could hardly tell who was who.

19:21

Chris Stewart

Do you remember that when you were growing up? Or?

19:58

Annie Joyner Gavin

Yes, I remember that when I was growing up. Because when I was growing up, the most jobs for women were either housework or farms. And you work in the house and take care of the White babies and stuff. And they learned to love you.

20:01

Annie Joyner Gavin

I worked for a Jewish family and when I was still in school and in Baltimore. And she had a little boy, two boys. One of her sons was a accident that had hit his head when he was born. So he was kind of deformed and dripped at his mouth. But he was a sweet little fella.

20:24

Annie Joyner Gavin

And she couldn't keep a maid because of Jojo, they called him. Because he wanted to stay with the maid all the time. He wouldn't eat with them. He'd eat with the maid. And some of the maids didn't like that because he dripped at the mouth. But I played games with him. Now you see I got slick with him. I'd say, "Jojo, I'm going to see if you can eat your dinner before I eat mine."

20:49

Annie Joyner Gavin

And his head, he was a accident with it when he was born or something. But he was a very sweet little fella. And then he'd eat his food out of his plate. So when it dripped, he dripped in his plate, not mine. But some of the girls had left because he wanted to eat, hang on their shoulder and stuff like that. But he was a very sweet little boy.

21:14

Chris Stewart

So you think that those kinds of ties, that they really connected people when you were basically raising children?

21:42

Annie Joyner Gavin

Yeah. They learned to love you. Jojo, both of these was Jewish people, and the husband traveled. So I slept in. But the baby, she loved to party. She was gone about all the time. Except her husband liked the car to go on one time.

21:50

Chris Stewart

Oh no.

22:11

Annie Joyner Gavin

And I hid for her. I called her name real loud. Let her know that he was there and she had to laugh when she came in there. And she was out and gone all the time. Because she could trust me with the kids. And her baby, Jojo, at first when I went to work there, Jojo didn't want to lay still to play with the doll family or put his clothes on. And I had heard other maids say that the White baby, if you want to spank him, got use a wet cloth. We had all kinds of things.

22:14

Chris Stewart

Why did they say that?

22:52

Annie Joyner Gavin

It wouldn't leave no signs.

22:53

Chris Stewart

Oh.

22:54

Annie Joyner Gavin

See because it would leave a mark. And say just get a wet wash cloth and smack their little butts. And they didn't know how to be still. So I found that out because I never was harsh with them. But I tell Jojo to be still when I had other things to do. I'd get that wet cloth and pat his little butt. And he looked so funny the first time. But he got used to it.

22:55

Chris Stewart

I bet. I bet.

23:22

Annie Joyner Gavin

And learned to obey and loved me to death. When it was time for me to get off to go home, he wanted me to go, so he could tell he wanted to go with Anna. He called me Anna. Cry, holler, want to go with me.

23:24

Chris Stewart

When did you move up to Baltimore?

23:40

Annie Joyner Gavin

Well, I went to Baltimore to live with my aunt, to work, to go to school.

23:43

Chris Stewart

What? To go to college?

23:47

Annie Joyner Gavin

College.

23:48

Chris Stewart

What school did you go to?

23:49

Annie Joyner Gavin

Well I went to nursing school.

23:50

Chris Stewart

Oh, you did.

23:51

Annie Joyner Gavin

And my husband, well I had met him in school before and he was in Baltimore. We got married in Baltimore.

23:55

Chris Stewart

How old were you when you moved up?

24:02

Annie Joyner Gavin

I was grown.

24:07

Chris Stewart

Like 20 or something?

24:08

Annie Joyner Gavin

20, 21 I think. So we were married in Baltimore.

24:11

Chris Stewart

I'd like to talk a little bit more about James City if we can.

24:14

Annie Joyner Gavin

Okay.

24:19

Chris Stewart

What do you remember about your neighborhood in James City?

24:20

Annie Joyner Gavin

Well, you know the James City people are close-knit.

24:24

Chris Stewart

Yeah.

24:29

Annie Joyner Gavin

Like they pass the word down the line. A secret service man came one time. Well I hadn't always been here. I was further down near the water when I first moved back home after my husband died. And the secret service man came there looking for Lucy Spencer. Her check had been lost and he had located it. So he came there looking for me, did I know Lucy Spencer? I said, "No." I was lying. I knew her.

24:32

Annie Joyner Gavin

And he say, "You mean to tell me you keep store right in the area and you don't know the people?" I say, "You can't make me know them." In James City and the people got why. Then he did what he should have done in the first place, showed the check that had been lost. I say, "She lives right across the road." But the reason I hadn't told him, because her husband sold whiskey and I was afraid. That's how we operated. Everybody looked up.

25:02

Chris Stewart

You take care of each other.

25:40

Annie Joyner Gavin

Yes, we took care of each other.

25:40

Chris Stewart

Who are the people that you make sure say, who are the people that you'd let talk to? Give people directions? And who are the people that you wouldn't give directions?

25:40

Annie Joyner Gavin

Well, I give almost anybody directions unless I think maybe something's going to happen to the person I'm directing them to.

25:52

Chris Stewart

Oh.

25:58

Annie Joyner Gavin

We were just like that. We were clannish, that's what we were. We were clannish.

26:02

Chris Stewart

Sounds like that you were able to take care of each other that way as well.

26:07

Annie Joyner Gavin

Right. I guess more or less it was something Black slaves in a way you had to help each other. Because what happened during slavery time, like I say, I was telling you about Miss Hannah, who's a slave owner was her father. Well she was welcomed in the big house with her half White. Well she was half White. Her sisters and brothers.

26:12

Annie Joyner Gavin

And I guess his wife had no choice but to treat her good. But she learned to read and write. Whatever they would learn, they carried right back on. And one of the stable boys was able to get a book and they'll hide the book under the house. But then he carried home, they would all try to learn what he had learned. Because a lot of educated Blacks, even before they were free, smart, they learned.

26:35

Chris Stewart

Did anybody ever talk about Africa? Were there any stories about Africa and coming from Africa?

27:06

Annie Joyner Gavin

Yeah. Well they knew that originally with Blacks were descendants. But Africa was the beginning of civilization, White and Black.

27:13

Chris Stewart

Right.

27:21

Annie Joyner Gavin

Yeah. The beginning of civilization.

27:22

Chris Stewart

So we were talking about people taking care of each other, right?

27:30

Annie Joyner Gavin

Yeah. They took care of each other. Then the Whites, by the time I got to be almost grown, the Whites and the Blacks in James City were like all the same. They got to know each other better. And they looked out for each other and they shared. Because most the work for Blacks were the farms.

27:33

Annie Joyner Gavin

And at one time my daddy, he lost his foot on the train. He used to work at the railroad and his foot got cut off. And had got good sum of money, bought a car. And there was a White family there that the girls were teachers, but they didn't have a car. So my daddy carried them to town each day. Of course they sit in the backseat. But that was one instance was where the Black in that case were better off than the White.

28:02

Chris Stewart

Did your dad get paid? Did they ever pay him or anything?

28:34

Annie Joyner Gavin

Yeah, they paid him. They paid him. Paid him for carrying them and paid him for bringing them back. And they grew up right there in the Black neighborhood.

28:38

Chris Stewart

So in James City there were Whites and Blacks living in James City. What part of town did the Whites live in?

28:48

Annie Joyner Gavin

Well they lived, they were kind of intermixed. And some Whites lived a distance. And they didn't live yard to yard. But it was a kind of connection. If a problem came to the Black neighborhood, the Whites worked with it.

28:55

Annie Joyner Gavin

It was I think more or less after the war, people understood that they got to live together. And they worked in the house, took care, cooked and took care of the babies. But my great-grandmother saw Abraham Lincoln. Yeah, she say he was traveling alone. He was well-dressed. Very homely man, just like we knew it to be. Excuse me. But he came by himself to this plantation where she was.

29:23

Chris Stewart

Do you know the name of the plantation?

30:00

Annie Joyner Gavin

No, I don't know the name of the plantation. But he stopped there with her master, and his wife was expecting a baby. And Abraham Lincoln left a name for a boy and a name for a girl if the baby turned out to be. But he didn't give the letter to them. He hid it in the wall and wrote them back from Washington, DC that he was the president. He had come to oversee what to do about the Blacks.

30:02

Annie Joyner Gavin

And he left. After he went back to Washington, but he traveled alone. She said he came to their plantation alone. He was looking over the area to see what was happening. And say the stable boy that took his horse out said, he asked him, "Are you living good? Are you getting enough to eat?" He questioned him. That's why he was finding out for himself.

30:34

Annie Joyner Gavin

Because he had a quotation said, "When you get a chance to strike that thing, you strike it hard." So after he left, or she said it wasn't long before the soldiers start coming in. Soldiers start coming in and putting them out in the road, marching them away. And most of them hated to leave because that's all they were used to. Say but as far as they could look back, they would see their master and his family on the porch, saying they were sad. But they stayed right in the road.

30:57

Chris Stewart

So this is when President Lincoln was President?

31:31

Annie Joyner Gavin

Yeah.

31:34

Chris Stewart

He came when he was president?

31:35

Annie Joyner Gavin

When he was president, yeah.

31:36

Chris Stewart

Wow.

31:36

Annie Joyner Gavin

Yeah. He had a lowly life too. And he said, "It wasn't right to have human beings as slaves like animals." So he said, "When he got a chance to hit that thing, he's going to hit it hard." So he and investigated things for himself.

31:37

Annie Joyner Gavin

Because I don't think that naturally in anything, there are mean people and better people. But for the most part, and what I could gather from what they talked, they weren't unhappy because that's all they knew. That was all they knew.

32:00

Chris Stewart

Why do you think President Lincoln, if he saw things like what you were describing he saw at this plantation. Why do you think then he would think that slavery was so bad? If it sounds like he was, I mean he didn't sound—

32:17

Annie Joyner Gavin

Well he said, I read that, he said that, "Human beings weren't supposed to be slaves."

32:33

Chris Stewart

Right.

32:38

Annie Joyner Gavin

Animals supposed to be slaves. That's what he didn't like about it.

32:39

Chris Stewart

Right. Do you think that's also what people like your great-grandmother and those people who were living, do you think that that's the case for them too? Regardless of whether or not it was okay, that that's what they believed?

32:43

Annie Joyner Gavin

Well yes. They felt like they were God's children too. Just a different color. And they felt like it was wrong, but they had to go along with it because you could no better do, until the time came. But they prayed for freedom.

32:54

Chris Stewart

Right.

33:11

Annie Joyner Gavin

They prayed for freedom.

33:12

Chris Stewart

Did your great-grandmother ever talk to you about things, anything that would happen to people who tried to run away? Or tried resist the master?

33:13

Annie Joyner Gavin

Sometimes. Yeah, if they tried to run away, they either catch them and bring them back and tie them up. They got one of those things in Tryon Palace where they tie them up until they know they won't do it again.

33:21

Chris Stewart

Is that a whipping post? Or is that—

33:36

Annie Joyner Gavin

They got a whipping post over there at Tryon Palace inside the back door. But they would kind of, might say, put them in jail, or the word. And beat them. They used to beat them too.

33:38

Annie Joyner Gavin

But now it was Miss Hannah, it was a different story. She was too White to be Black. Because her mother was a mulatto in the first place. And then the plantation owner was her father, which was White. And you really couldn't tell her from White. I was a big girl when I knew her.

33:58

Chris Stewart

Why do you think that the people came and settled here in James City? Why do you think that it's this spot when the soldiers were moving?

34:24

Annie Joyner Gavin

The sand and the water. The sand was good soil and good water.

34:31

Chris Stewart

Did the free people get to choose? Or did the soldiers choose where?

34:38

Annie Joyner Gavin

The soldiers choose. And then, but Harris James was a preacher in Boston. They brought him here as overseer. And he was good, they said.

34:47

Chris Stewart

Do you remember when you were growing up, any places in James City where your parents did not want you to go to? Maybe bad places where they didn't want you to hang out?

34:58

Annie Joyner Gavin

Well, when I was growing up, there were whiskey joints and places where the women sold their bodies. No, we weren't allowed to go.

35:07

Chris Stewart

Were White men coming to these as well?

35:19

Annie Joyner Gavin

Yeah. Well usually the White men, they weren't so good either. They drank whiskey and maybe sold it and stuff.

35:26

Chris Stewart

So your parents just didn't want you to hang around at those places?

35:36

Annie Joyner Gavin

No. No.

35:39

Chris Stewart

Did you ever?

35:39

Annie Joyner Gavin

No. Other than serve them because my daddy had a cafe.

35:40

Chris Stewart

Oh.

35:44

Annie Joyner Gavin

And later a store. And they were customers.

35:45

Chris Stewart

Where was your dad's store? Where was your dad's businesses located?

35:48

Annie Joyner Gavin

Out on the highway. At first he was right near that bridge.

35:52

Chris Stewart

Right.

35:56

Annie Joyner Gavin

Well that's where all the Black people used to be in that side. This is where you see that sign, James City. Finally we talked and talked and we got that. But that's Old James City, that whole young area. That's where the soldiers put them down.

35:56

Annie Joyner Gavin

And like I said about Grace's great granddaddy, he then rebelled and told him he wasn't paying no more rent for something that belonged to him. And he got all the men together. They didn't have weapons, but they had sticks and stones and bricks. They fought, they run the law. Oh boy. It's just in recent years, a lawman can come over here and arrest somebody.

36:20

Annie Joyner Gavin

Well, back then, all the whole people would go against them. They run the law, oh boy, two or three times. I done never hear them killing anybody. I never hear the law killing anybody either. But finally, finally they got Black helpers. Black helpers would go talk to people like they were said. The only thing I know about them though would sometimes some men beat their wives and the law would get them and so forth.

36:45

Speaker 3

[indistinct 00:37:17].

37:14

Annie Joyner Gavin

What?

37:17

Chris Stewart

Sometimes, what did you say now?

37:22

Annie Joyner Gavin

Sometimes that the Whites were on the same side as the Blacks in some things that happened. Black, the man beating his family, unnecessarily the wife and stuff. And nobody appreciated that, whether he was White or Black. So really.

37:24

Chris Stewart

What would happen to a man if he was doing that?

37:49

Annie Joyner Gavin

They'd put the law on him.

37:52

Chris Stewart

So at that point they would call law to come over here.

37:54

Annie Joyner Gavin

Yeah.

37:57

Chris Stewart

They didn't like to have the law coming in at other times?

37:58

Annie Joyner Gavin

No. Well usually anything that would happen that got out of hand, if they had to walk the bridge, they'd go and get a lawman.

38:02

Chris Stewart

Okay.

38:07

Annie Joyner Gavin

And they've been known to run the law back though. But James City had a bad name though.

38:14

Chris Stewart

It did. How come?

38:23

Annie Joyner Gavin

Because people would fight for themselves.

38:23

Chris Stewart

That's supposed to be a good thing, isn't it?

38:26

Annie Joyner Gavin

In a sense. When my husband and I went in business in Duplin County, where we rented this place from the man. Well he set us up in goodness, really. And we had come back from Baltimore because my husband's mother was sick and I persuaded him to come home. He was a baby and she had taken him to Washington and everything. Sent him to college. And I persuaded him that we come back so that he could look out for his mother.

38:30

Annie Joyner Gavin

And anyway, the White, for the most part, they would take sides with the Blacks if the Black were right. Even against Whites at that particular time.

38:58

Chris Stewart

Miss George was talking a little bit about how the way James City started to deteriorate. And that was happening sort of in the late '30s.

39:16

Annie Joyner Gavin

Yeah.

39:28

Chris Stewart

Started to happen in the late '30s. Do you know anything of what happened? Were Whites starting to get more militant and starting to want more land? Or what?

39:28

Annie Joyner Gavin

No, I think for the most part there was an understanding. I'm in my place and you in your place. But yet they got along. But the Blacks had started to stand up for their rights. For instance, had a White postmaster. And he was too lazy to get up and get your mail and didn't have boxes. And so the Whites went to the law about him. Get us a Black postmaster if he didn't want to get up and wait on us. So they did.

39:37

Chris Stewart

The Blacks went and asked for a Black postmaster?

40:19

Annie Joyner Gavin

Mm-hmm.

40:21

Chris Stewart

And when was this?

40:22

Annie Joyner Gavin

Oh this was years and years ago. You had to be prepared, you had to have an education. And a guy named Richard Sawyer, that particular family went down through the ages as teachers and stuff. So he was the postmaster and eventually it just all kind of went into one.

40:23

Chris Stewart

Where did you go to school? Where did you start going to school when you first started?

40:49

Annie Joyner Gavin

I started school at, first school I went to was Catholic.

40:52

Chris Stewart

It was, what was the name of it?

41:00

Annie Joyner Gavin

St. Joseph. They still have it. I know whether they have a Catholic school now or not, but they have a church.

41:01

Chris Stewart

In New Bern?

41:06

Annie Joyner Gavin

In New Bern.

41:06

Chris Stewart

So you would go, the first school you went to, you would go across the bridge over to New Bern?

41:08

Annie Joyner Gavin

Yeah, we all had to. Not the first one because we had elementary over here.

41:12

Chris Stewart

Oh, you had elementary here.

41:16

Annie Joyner Gavin

But I basically went to AME Zion's School. This was a Black school connected with Livingstone College. And at that time, our Presiding Elder was, I would say headmaster. But there, you were taught prayers and you were taught discipline. It was a church school.

41:17

Chris Stewart

This was elementary school. Your first school that you went to?

41:42

Annie Joyner Gavin

Uh huh.

41:43

Chris Stewart

Miss, I don't know if she might even be related to, Lavinia Joyner.

41:49

Annie Joyner Gavin

Hmm?

41:53

Chris Stewart

Lavinia Joyner. Do you know?

41:53

Annie Joyner Gavin

Lavinia, yeah. Lavinia's my uncle's wife.

41:55

Chris Stewart

Oh. She talked about, I'm going to interview her on Thursday. She talked. Well, but when I just started talking to her.

41:58

Annie Joyner Gavin

She and I are almost the same age.

42:04

Chris Stewart

Really?

42:05

Annie Joyner Gavin

Mm-hmm.

42:05

Chris Stewart

She told me that when she was young, that the people used to, older people in the community would conduct school in different places throughout James City. Because until there was a formal elementary school.

42:07

Annie Joyner Gavin

Well, old man Sawyer taught school in his house and he was educated. And Miss Alvania Finner. But for the most part, she taught in the public school.

42:30

Chris Stewart

She did?

42:50

Annie Joyner Gavin

Mm-hmm. But she's right. Well I don't, Lavinia didn't learn too much. She was my uncle's wife. She was right that they would teach in the house and you paid something like 10 cents a week or something. You'd learn to read and write.

42:53

Chris Stewart

So which church was the AME Zion school at in?

43:13

Annie Joyner Gavin

Well it was located in New Bern, over in Duffyfield.

43:17

Chris Stewart

In Duffyfield. So even to go to elementary school—

43:31

Annie Joyner Gavin

You could go to elementary school there too.

43:33

Chris Stewart

Were there any school houses here in James City?

43:36

Annie Joyner Gavin

Yeah, there was a schoolhouse right across the railroad. Right over in that area where they were going to put that addition to the new road. But I understand they didn't give them the money.

43:39

Chris Stewart

Yes. That's good.

43:55

Annie Joyner Gavin

And they had already paid us off because I had some problem with that. But I understand they're not getting that grant. But anyway, the Baptist had schools and some of those people taught in the home at the beginners.

43:55

Chris Stewart

What was the name of the elementary school in town? Do you know?

44:17

Annie Joyner Gavin

Well the school that I attended was called Sutton School behind Headmaster, you might say. Sutton School.

44:20

Chris Stewart

And where was that located?

44:30

Annie Joyner Gavin

Duffyfield.

44:31

Chris Stewart

So your elementary school, you went to New Bern?

44:33

Annie Joyner Gavin

Yeah.

44:36

Chris Stewart

How did you get there?

44:37

Annie Joyner Gavin

Walked the bridge.

44:39

Chris Stewart

How long was it? How far away was it?

44:40

Annie Joyner Gavin

It was about five or six miles.

44:43

Chris Stewart

A long walk.

44:50

Annie Joyner Gavin

But you got used to it.

44:50

Chris Stewart

Yeah.

44:50

Annie Joyner Gavin

That bridge itself was long. Then you go straight up that bridge, to the veteran cemetery. Before you get to veteran cemetery, you turn in Duffyfield.

44:51

Chris Stewart

What did you do to pass the time on your walk?

44:57

Annie Joyner Gavin

Well there were a lot of us and we would be tagging and playing and talking. We got used to it. It wasn't bad.

45:00

Annie Joyner Gavin

Finally my daddy bought me a bicycle. But the purpose of the bicycle was, by this time, he had lost his foot and he had a cafe down there. He made meals for the men, my daddy was very smart, at the factory. The factory's all on that railroad over there. Fertilizer factory where the boats would come up and get the bag.

45:05

Annie Joyner Gavin

And so he bought me a bicycle when I was nine years old. And before I went to school I had to cross that bridge, go downtown New Bern, but wasn't a lot of traffic, and get his meats for the day. Because it didn't have freezers and things that you got now. And I had to cross that bridge and get his meats before I went to school. Then I'd come back and bring his meats. Then I go back and have to go over in Duffyfield as far over as the veteran cemetery. But you get used to, it's not bad.

45:32

Chris Stewart

You were getting good exercise.

46:08

Annie Joyner Gavin

And we walk sometimes and then about five or six of us and walking and tagging, talking, and it's not bad. We got personal training really because we would train good manners and all that kind of stuff, which you don't get in the public school. Because my chair meant the public school.

46:13

Chris Stewart

Did they also teach you reading and writing and—

46:34

RL00170-CS-1011_01

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John Hope Franklin Research Center