Lenzie Barnes interview recording, 1996 October 23

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Ben Glenn	Where you were from, here at North Carolina?	0:02
Lenzi Barnes	I was born in Selma, North Carolina, that's in Johnston County. Smithfield is the county seat, and I was born in 1916. Right now I'm eighty years of age, soon will be eighty-one years of age. At an early age before I started the school, my father left Johnston County because of the Klan and we moved into Pitt County, in Farmville, North Carolina, we stayed there about a couple of years. And North Carolina Mutual heard that my father had left Johnston County because they were familiar with all the successful Negroes throughout North Carolina.	0:04
Lenzi Barnes	They were concerned about him and they called him into Durham and interviewed him and wanted him to come to Durham to do some building for them. They talked with him in 1923 and we came to Durham and looked around in 1923 in the summer. And the next year we came into Durham, but we were in and out of Durham. As a little boy, I was in and out of Durham since I was four or five years of age. Durham was a city of industry, I might say. They had trolley cars here, came here as a little boy. And I remember we rode down Main Street, say around 1922.	1:23
Lenzi Barnes	Blacks, "Negros" as they were called in those days, had businesses on Parrish Street. I would say, between Mangum and Corcoran Street on the north side of that Parrish Street, I believe that was a 100-block east. They owned businesses in there, and it was called the Black Wall Street of the South at that time. I was concerned about just how North Carolina Mutual got started. As a small boy, I would say at the age of ten or eleven, I was quite curious as to how the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance got started. I was in the same class with a young man whose grandparents worked for some of the Dukes. This old gentleman told me how North Carolina Mutual got started.	2:40
Lenzi Barnes	John Merrick, the founder of North Carolina Mutual, was the barber of Ben Duke. And as you know, Ben Duke was the son of Washington Duke, the founder of the tobacco industry here in Durham. Washington Duke died in 1905 and he never knew what he had done for tobacco, but his son kept eyes on it, especially Benjamin Duke, who was the older of the two boys. As I said, as it was told to me by the people who worked around the Dukes as gardeners and as butlers, and what have you. They lived there on Chapel Hill Street, right there where the Downtowner—the motel has been renamed.	5:00
Ben Glenn	Is it the temporary road?	6:51
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah.	6:52
Ben Glenn	Uh-huh.	6:57
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah. It was the Downtowner, but now it's something else. I can't think of the name, but it's right across the street from an Esso Service Station. And just in the next block is the North Carolina Mutual. And of course, North Carolina Mutual bought that from the Dukes. That was Duke property. And as I said, Mr. Merrick was the founder, but he was a barber. He used to shave in Duke every morning. Duke's servant would drive the buggy by there and Mr. Duke would get out and go in and John Merrick would shave him. And I think it happened around 1905 or somewhere therein, but he mentioned to Mr. Benjamin Duke, that he wanted to start a [indistinct] for his people, to bear the Colored people. And I think he used the term "Colored." Then told him, said, "That's a very fine idea. You're going to need an agent and a doctor. A doctor to examine and you need an agent to go out and get the policy holders."	6:57
Lenzi Barnes	And said, "I'll help you set it up. I'll supply you with the money." That's what John Merrick got Mr. Moore, who had just finished Shaw University Medical School at that time, got him to be the doctor. And then Dr. Moore got his nephew, Charles Clinton Spaulding to be the agent, the writer. Charles Clinton got a job washing dishes at one of the hotels here then, I can't recall the name of it right now, but they're on the end of my town, I'll tell you where it was located. It was located on the northwest corner of Roxboro and Main Street at that time. That was the largest hotel in Durham at that time too.	9:01
Ben Glenn	It's not there anymore.	10:45
Lenzi Barnes	No, it's not there. Courthouse is there now.	10:47
Ben Glenn	Okay. Yeah, I know what you're saying.	10:49
Lenzi Barnes	The new courthouse is there right across from the Presbyterian church there. The church is on the northeast corner and this hotel was on the northwest corner. I think they got their charter, I believe it was in 1911, and the North Carolina Mutual started. That's the way it got its start. I'm told that because of the progress that Blacks had made that a lot of influential Blacks throughout the country visited Durham. Booker T. Washington came here in 1915. DuBois came, one of the founders in NAACP came. And Booker T. Washington founded Tuskegee and all influential Blacks throughout the country came to Durham. And I remember Johnson who wrote the Negro song, "Lift Every Voice and Sing," perhaps you've heard about it.	10:50
Ben Glenn	Yeah. The Black National Anthem.	12:32
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah. Came to Durham and he taught us. I was in the third grade and he taught the Negro National Anthem.	12:34
Ben Glenn	The man who wrote it.	12:45
Lenzi Barnes	The man who wrote it.	12:46
Ben Glenn	Wow, that's impressive.	12:46
Lenzi Barnes	James Weldon Johnson. That was quite impressive.	12:48
Ben Glenn	Yeah, impressive.	12:57
Lenzi Barnes	That was quite impressive. And I got to see him as a little boy. That was around 1926, '25 or '26, somewhere back there, James Weldon Johnson. At that time, Dr. Shepard was starting the school, the National Training School Chautauqua. And he'd been given this land down here and he changed the name of it back in 1924, I believe. I believe that year he changed the name to North Carolina College for Negroes. That's when the state began to take it over. He had about a wooden building down there then, and they began to take it over and then he first built that administration building there, that's still there. And then he built Anna Day Shepard.	12:58
Ben Glenn	Oh, can you explain that?	14:40
Lenzi Barnes	Anna Day Shepard's Hall for Women, dormitory for women. The other two, and then later on he built the dining hall just in the back of the administration building. And then around '35, they built a little gym, that first gym, because they used to play their basketball over at Hillside School, which is now on opposite street and it's Operation Breakthrough, that's where North Carolina College for Negroes played basketball because they didn't have no gym. And as I said, during those days, all of our Black doctors in Durham were graduates of Shaw Medical School in Raleigh and the first Black doctor who came in here from Howard University I believe was Dr. J. W. B. Curtis, the first Black man that came in here from a school other than Shaw University.	14:42
Lenzi Barnes	And the next Black doctor to come in here, I believe, was a native son. That was Dr. Bruce. He came in here, I think he was the graduate of Meharry. He came in here in the late '20s, the early '30s. And the next doctor to come in here was Dr. Cleland. He was from Howard University, but prior to his coming in here, though, a fellow by the name of Turner came in here from Howard University. His home was in Raleigh and he finished at the top of his class—	16:42
Ben Glenn	Really?	17:44
Lenzi Barnes	—at Howard University. But he never did do much practice because the people didn't have any money to pay him. And he didn't develop into— He never did much practice. I didn't know. He and I, Bruce, didn't much practice. The leading doctor in this town that did most of the practice with Dr. J. W. D. Curtis. And as I said, he's the first one here. And then Cleveland came in. Of course, Bruce came before Cleveland, and Turner came before Cleveland, Turner was second man to come in here from Howard University. And Bruce was from Meharry, I believe. And then you had a Dr. Thompson who came in here from Meharry too. But Dr. Thompson came in here long about that time from Meharry. And I would say, let me go back. J.W.D. Curtis was the first of Howard University and a Dr. Thompson was the first of Meharry.	17:44
Ben Glenn	And where is Meharry?	19:14
Lenzi Barnes	That's in Nashville, Tennessee, and that's a medical school, you see? They're the only two schools. We had several Black medical schools, including Shaw, but only two of them survived. That was Meharry and Howard Medical School. And they still exist. And we had a pharmacist in here from—Ms. Pearson had a drug store and she finished the pharmacy school in Shaw. And there was another man, Dr. James. I think he finished. Not positive, but I think he finished the Shaw Medical School and he made good as a pharmacist.	19:16
Lenzi Barnes	Another one of the leading doctors of my time back then in the early '20s, along with Curtis, of course he was here when Curtis came, was Dr. Dan Mills. Dr. Dan Mills was a graduate of Shaw Med School. He lived pretty—he would be—I know he was living up to the time that World War II broke out. And, let me see, he might have been living in the early '50s and his house is there in the 1200 block. I believe the 1200 block of Faber Street right across from Weavers Cleaning, right there on the corner from Stanford L. Warren Library. It's a historical house now. That was his house. Dr. Curtis lived further down on Fayetteville Street perhaps around 1500 block down there, diagonally across from Burthey's Funeral Home there. We had a white house down there.	20:34
Lenzi Barnes	As I said, now, the first pharmacist was Dr. Garrett came in here around 1933, I believe, '33 or '34. And he came in here. He was the first, he finished school of pharmacy at Howard University. And he still had a drug store here up until about two years ago, I think. He's still living. I think he's 102 years of age.	22:08
Ben Glenn	Wow.	22:43
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah. He's 102 years of age and—had to have been born, 1895. I'm not positive, but I know he's he just celebrated the 102nd birthday here and I attended his 100th birthday.	22:44
Ben Glenn	Oh, okay. That must have been huge.	23:17
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah, it was a big affair. His son, Nathan Garrett, sponsored that birthday party. And his son is quite the influential person. He was on the board of governors, North Carolina choose the members of the board of governors here in North Carolina. He's also mentioned as one of the presidents— There were two people in the running for president of North Carolina Central University, he and Chambers. Nathan Garrett, very brilliant fellow. He's got a CPA, accounting, and he's also a lawyer too. Got a law degree.	23:19
Ben Glenn	Wow.	24:04
Lenzi Barnes	So he's well learned.	24:05
Ben Glenn	So these doctors that you're talking about, are they people you remember yourself going to them—	24:09
Lenzi Barnes	Oh, I remember. Yeah, Dr. Dan Mills. And another doctor here was quite popular who was a graduate of Shaw University they finished around 1905 or 1903, somewhere back, was Dr. Strudwick. He was one of the leading physicians here during, say, World War I or during the early '20s, together with Dr. Dan Mills and the two pharmacists, Black pharmacists, were Dr. James and Mrs. Pearson. Dr. James had his drugstore up there on Parrish Street in that complex there that we called the Black Wall Street, on the south, on Parrish Street right next to North Carolina Mutual. And he filled a prescription for Dr. Moore and Dr. Mills.	24:14
Lenzi Barnes	Walgreen was a White drug store there on the corner, north west corner of Mangum and Main Street. Also, sometimes they filled a prescription for some of the Black physicians also, but most of them were filled by Dr. James and Pearson drugstore. That was a lady pharmacist who was the pharmacist there in Hayti, they had drug store in Hayti and James was those downtown.	25:32
Lenzi Barnes	And during those days, the Dukes made a great contribution to the welfare or the Black community at that time. I remember they made a contribution to St. Joseph Church there where the Heritage Center is located now, then Duke. And right there where St. Joseph Church is now, I would call other than Parrish Street, that was another section where you had a whole lot of Black businesses. For about two blocks in there. You had Black businesses in there.	26:27
Ben Glenn	This is the Hayti Town?	27:45
Lenzi Barnes	Hayti. That was the Hayti section. You had about two blocks of Black businesses in there.	27:46
Ben Glenn	Did you go there yourself?	27:56
Lenzi Barnes	Oh yeah. I was a little boy and I used to shine shoes there.	27:57
Ben Glenn	Oh, really?	28:02
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah. Shine shoes when I was twelve years of age, twelve or thirteen years of age, in that area.	28:03
Ben Glenn	So you moved to Durham—	28:10
Lenzi Barnes	Around '23, I would say.	28:10
Ben Glenn	Okay. And how old were you when you came to Durham?	28:20
Lenzi Barnes	I was about seven years old, I would say, but I can remember as a little boy because I remember the post office when we came into Durham and the post office was there where Central Carolina building is on the northwest corner of Corcoran and Main Street now.	28:20
Ben Glenn	So it's not the big one that's there now?	28:50
Lenzi Barnes	No, there was a little old one-store building.	28:52
Ben Glenn	Okay.	28:56
Lenzi Barnes	But then they tore that down and they build a store for Alice Stone. Dry good store, cater to women.	28:56
Ben Glenn	Okay. Was that a Black church?	29:08
Lenzi Barnes	No, that was White church. And Durham was a hustling and bustling city at that time. We didn't have these shopping malls then. Everything was located downtown and you'd go downtown around four-thirty or five o'clock in the afternoon, the people were so thick you were rubbing up against people.	29:12
Ben Glenn	Really?	29:40
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah. On Main Street because that was when the factories let out, see?	29:41
Ben Glenn	Okay.	29:44
Lenzi Barnes	And the factories employed, tobacco's at its height then. I remember when American Tobacco Company put out "no smoking." Women didn't smoke and they put out this slogan and they had a lady on the billboard and in front of her was a coffee table and on this coffee table was a box of candy. To the right of that box of ten was a pack of cigarette or a carton of cigarette. And the slogan said, "Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet." She was reaching out. And that started women smoking. It started women smoking.	29:44
Ben Glenn	They told them they would get fat if they didn't start smoking.	30:58
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah. Yeah. "Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet." And that started women was smoking. And I remember, and it was during this time in 1924 is when the Dukes, they had talked with Trinity College, it was a Methodist school and it wasn't located here, but it had moved to Durham early and down here around Sanford somewhere in that area. Perhaps you heard about that.	30:58
Ben Glenn	There was a plaque in front of the library.	31:38
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah, they relocated in Durham and the Dukes earlier had said that if they would change their name from Trinity College to Duke, they would endow them with some money. They gave them twenty-four million dollars.	31:40
Ben Glenn	Wow.	32:03
Lenzi Barnes	That was a whole lot of money.	32:04
Ben Glenn	That's a lot now, I can imagine.	32:05
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah. That was a whole lot of money. Twenty-four million dollars. That was James Buchanan.	32:07
Ben Glenn	Is that when they started building West Campus?	32:13
Lenzi Barnes	That's when they started building.	32:15
Ben Glenn	West campus.	32:16
Lenzi Barnes	And they started, they opened up that hospital out there around 1933. Because when I go up there now they said that I was one of the first patients.	32:19
Ben Glenn	And you remember going to Duke Hospital?	32:30
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah. I went to Duke Hospital and I was one of the first patients because when I go out there, "You've got a low number." Yeah, I still have that number.	32:40
Ben Glenn	So when you went there when you were younger, was that the old Gothic part of the building? The old stone structure?	32:44
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah. Yeah. That was it. They got that stone from up there, the western part of North Carolina out in the mountain. That's where that stone came from. With the Gothic architecture. But they were still working on the church there. They were still working on that. That was completed, oh, it was a long time.	32:50
Ben Glenn	Really?	33:24
Lenzi Barnes	They complete that. And that's some building.	33:24
Ben Glenn	It really is.	33:24
Lenzi Barnes	Took them a long time to build that.	33:25
Ben Glenn	Did you happen to know the architect who built the—	33:30
Lenzi Barnes	He was a Black man, I understand.	33:33
Ben Glenn	Was he from Durham?	33:34
Lenzi Barnes	No. No.	33:36
Ben Glenn	Okay.	33:36
Lenzi Barnes	I didn't know him. I never met him, but I understand he was Black. And some of his grandchildren graduated from Duke University.	33:37
Ben Glenn	Oh, I remember that.	33:51
Lenzi Barnes	I remember when James Buchanan died. He died in 1925. I was about [indistinct 00:34:02]. He died early, about sixty-five, I think. My father died early too. And of course Benjamin died in '29 and he was older than James Buchanan. He was the one that helped start the North Carolina Mutual.	33:57
Ben Glenn	Oh, okay.	34:02
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah. That started when he was approached by—	34:45
Ben Glenn	Merrick was his barber, wasn't he?	34:50
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah. Merrick was his barber.	34:51
Ben Glenn	His father, uh-huh.	34:51
Lenzi Barnes	Merrick used to shave him every morning. The butler would bring him by for a good shave and he had to understand, had a black horse and a buggy, and come by there every morning, and that's the way North Carolina Mutual got started.	34:52
Ben Glenn	You had mentioned that you were a shoe shiner in the Hayti district?	35:10
Lenzi Barnes	Oh, yes.	35:15
Ben Glenn	When you were younger. Did you have other jobs when you were there in Hayti?	35:15
Lenzi Barnes	No, I worked in a barber shop. In Benny Hicks Barber shop.	35:25
Ben Glenn	And where was that?	35:32
Lenzi Barnes	That was down on Pettigrew Street.	35:33
Ben Glenn	Oh, okay.	35:34
Lenzi Barnes	I shined shoes in there and the little boys would come in there and I'd take them in the back and cut their hair. I got to be a barber. I never was a licensed barber, but I used to cut hair. In fact, when I went to college, I used to cut hair for 15 cents per head. I finished high school, Hillside.	35:35
Ben Glenn	Oh, okay. So here in Durham?	36:07
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah. I finished Hillside in 1934 and I went on to college. I went to North Carolina College for Negroes, I registered there. I'd go down to Atlantic City every summer. When I finished high school, I went to Atlantic City and I got a job, a job down on the boardwalk. I worked at Ferlan Goods and I did some bell hopping at night. And when I came home in September, I had enough money to take care of me for the whole year. I paid my tuition. Tuition was, what? $80, I think. I paid my tuition for the whole year.	36:08
Ben Glenn	How did you end up in Atlantic City?	37:05
Lenzi Barnes	Well, there was a lady here from Durham who my brother— Oldest brother married a young lady in 1927 who was from Durham and her sister finished Hillside in 1926, I believe, I think, or '27. And she married— She first went to Baltimore and then she got Atlantic City. She didn't go to college, though, she came back down here. She told that, "When you finish high school, you come to Atlantic City, I want you to go to college. Then I'll get you a job." She was [indistinct 00:38:04]. I was little boy. [indistinct 00:38:08] slick blue suit, I used to be. I used to sing in the [inaudible 00:38:15] Club and I played scholastic football because we didn't have a football team at Hillside. I would've been on it if I had a chance. We had a basketball team, child, but I couldn't make the basketball team. I made that scholastic football. I played football and I played baseball.	37:08
Ben Glenn	Oh, really?	38:36
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah, scholastic baseball. I was pretty good at baseball and back to— As a little boy, I said, I worked in a barber shop, shined shoes down there on Pendergrass Street. And later on, I also came back up in the Hayti. I came back up into just on this side of St. Joseph Church for a shoe shop and heard a guest had this shoe shop and he permitted me to put a shoe shinning stand. I bought a two-share shoe shinning stand and I put it in there.	38:37
Ben Glenn	It was in the store?	39:24
Lenzi Barnes	It was in the store. I put it in the store and people, it was so conspicuous that people, I had a sign, "shoe shine," and I would—	39:34
Ben Glenn	Shine shoes? Okay.	39:48
Lenzi Barnes	And I said, I finished high school in '34 and I went to college and I went down to Atlantic city when I came back, I had enough money.	39:48
Ben Glenn	How old were you when you were shining shoes? [indistinct 00:40:03].	39:59
Lenzi Barnes	I started shining shoes when I was about eleven years old. Yeah, I was entrepreneur.	40:02
Ben Glenn	How long did you do that for?	40:08
Lenzi Barnes	I did that—I learned to press too. And I was pressing clothes up on Main Street when I was in college and shining shoes up on Main Street. I did that on Saturdays and Sundays when I wanted to.	40:14
Ben Glenn	So this was while you were in college?	40:28
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah, while I was in college and nobody was living here then, but me and my mother, I lived off campus and I made enough money to keep me and my mother and food.	40:30
Ben Glenn	So you were supporting your mother?	40:51
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah, while going to college. In 1936, when they were getting ready to open Beechwood Cemetery and the caretaker whose name was Nunn, N-U-N-N, we had a very good relationship because I lived there on Fayetteville Street where St. Joseph Church is now. And he would come up sometime, he'd drive by, he'd stop and talk with me and I'd walk down the cemetery sometime when I wasn't doing nothing when I didn't have no class and I'd talk with him. Incidentally, I took a pre-med course in North Carolina Central too. I was pretty good in math and majored in math. To my surprise, the math instructor wanted me to go on and get a master and get a PhD. But I didn't think I was that good. But I later found out that I could've done a PhD.	40:52
Ben Glenn	You must have been a particular guy.	42:14
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah, because he told me, he said, "You good, sir." I remember one day he sent me to board and some, I believe it was, and one of the students said, "Mr. Barnes ain't got no book," he said. And Dr. Elder, who later on got to be the second president North Carolina Central, "Mr. Barnes doesn't need no book. As far as Mr. Barnes is concerned, you can throw the book out the window. I could put a problem on the board and Mr. Barnes, he could go up there and figure it out and work it." And he told me—I stopped by his desk, he told me one day, out of class, of course, but, "Stop by my desk when the class is over." I stopped by his desk. He said, "Weren't you born in February?" I said, "Yeah." I said, "How do you know?" He said, "You do things just like me. Your method." He said, "You're good in math and don't know it."	42:17
Lenzi Barnes	And yet I was a poor student in chemistry, but I understand, I talked with, after coming back to Durham, I talked with one of the chemistry instructors down there. And he had heard about me. I was one of the eldest boys. And he told me, he said there was something between you and that chemistry teacher where y'all had personality clashes. Because if you could have gotten—if you did well in math, chemistry should have been a breeze for you. But there was a personality clash between that instructor and me. I won't go into that. I had some difficulty with him and he never did give me good marks in chemistry. He never failed me, but he didn't give me what I deserved.	43:25
Ben Glenn	Did you enjoy school?	44:25
Lenzi Barnes	I enjoyed school. I would've gone back to school. I would've gone on to school. I would've gone to med school, but when I finished school, I was offered a job teaching and the job didn't pay but fifty dollars a month and I made more money than that shining shoes and pressing clothes while I was going to school. I didn't take it. So North Carolina Mutual heard about it. And during those days, I had the gift of gab. I was good at talking and I had a good—I could sell you mud and you would've thought it was gold. They wanted me and they signed me up as a special agent, a 100 dollars a month.	44:26
Ben Glenn	Wow.	45:34
Lenzi Barnes	And all I had to do is walk around and talk to people about North Carolina Mutual.	45:35
Ben Glenn	Were you actually selling policy?	45:41
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah, I was selling policy too.	45:43
Ben Glenn	And what year was this, you got hire?	45:45
Lenzi Barnes	It was in 1938.	45:47
Ben Glenn	Okay. So they actually hadn't been—they weren't that old as a company at that point, were they?	45:47
Lenzi Barnes	They weren't too old. I think they started in 1911 and they wanted me and they gave me a 100 dollars and I worked with them a year and Dr. Shepard, the founder of North Carolina Central, heard that I was working so his barber and my barber, the man who cut his hair, his barber was my barber also, but he didn't have to go to the barber shop. The barber came down school and cut his hair in his office. Not only he didn't even go to the haberdasher. The haberdasher came to him, seller came to him, measured him for his suit, and a tailor came—	45:55

Ben Glenn	Would he kind of help out everybody else?	0:00
Lenzi Barnes	Who?	0:01
Ben Glenn	Dr. Shepard.	0:01
Lenzi Barnes	Oh, yeah. So he told a barber, he said, "Next time you see Lenzi Barnes tell him I want to see him." So I was just cutting my hair, one Thursday afternoon after I'd finished my report, and the guy said, "Barnes, Dr. Shepard want to see you. He told me, tell you to come down and see him." I said, "What does Shepard want with me?" He said, "I don't know." Said, "He just told me to tell you to come down and see him."	0:06
Lenzi Barnes	So when he finished cutting my hair, I walked down to school, which was about seven or eight blocks. I walked on down there to see Shepard. I got down there [indistinct 00:01:02]. I walked in his office. He had a outer office, and I had to go to the secretary. Tell her that I was there to see Dr. Shepard. [indistinct 00:01:15] "North Carolina Mutual. You're not going to get nowhere with North Carolina Mutual unless you marry some of them girls, and none of them girls will marry you." So [indistinct 00:01:38].	0:43
Lenzi Barnes	He said, "Don't you have some relatives in Washington D.C.?" And I said "I got some relatives in Washington D.C." "I just looked at your transcript. See, you didn't do bad, see, you made some pretty good scores." Said, "You took all, you took physics and you made A and B in physics. The only one that you didn't do well in was chemistry. And Dr. Elder told me that you were good in math. And I talked with the doctor." I took history. It was elective. I got a major in history.	0:52
Ben Glenn	Oh.	2:22
Lenzi Barnes	By being elective. I could read a chapter in history tonight and give it to you the next day verbatim. I thought everybody could do that. No, people couldn't read.	2:22
Lenzi Barnes	And I was good, and Dr. Elder told me. I mean, the history teacher told me, "You stop by my desk." [indistinct 00:02:46] had already told me to stop by. "You dummy." His name was Dr. Jordan. He said, "You stop by my desk after class." I stopped. Said, "What you doing now—" Said, "This is your field." He said, "You don't have no business down there in that science! Taking chemistry and physics and math." Said, "This is your field." So he said, "You're a A student, but I can't give you no A, because the man who wrote the book get an A, I get Bs and I give you Bs." And look, I never made anything less than B.	2:33
Ben Glenn	Okay.	3:18
Lenzi Barnes	I mean in history.	3:18
Ben Glenn	In history. Did you end up taking quite a few courses in history?	3:19
Lenzi Barnes	Huh?	3:32
Ben Glenn	Did you end up taking quite a few courses?	3:32
Lenzi Barnes	I did, after he told me I was good at history. And I knew it, too. But I figured, I said, "Why would I go to school, pay to go to school to take history when you can read the newspapers, and the magazine?" And I was a subscriber. Ever since I finished high school, I started subscribing to Time Magazine. And if you read the Time Magazine from cover to cover, you'll get all the history, and I stayed abreast of everything. And I could tell you what was going on in the world, and I was good at it too. I still take Time Magazine, but it's not as good as it used to be.	3:33
Lenzi Barnes	So he told me, Dr. Shepard, fact, Dr. Shepard said, "Dr. Jordan wants you to—" Said, "He's going to retire in a couple of years." He was a old man then, and he was, because he died in '43, and this was '39 when the man—'39 to '40 when Dr. Shepard told me. He said, "And he has recommended that you take his place." Didn't have [indistinct 00:04:56].	4:26
Ben Glenn	Uh-huh.	4:56
Lenzi Barnes	And he taught American History [indistinct 00:05:03]. But we didn't have but 200 students there at that time.	4:56
Ben Glenn	Wow.	4:56
Lenzi Barnes	Never wanted to go over 200 student while I was a student and everybody knew everybody. He said, "I'd like to have you teach here but I can't pay you." He told me. And when the lady bought my transcript in—he asked about that—the lady who keeps your records, and he told her to bring my transcript up. She was, yeah. "But thing about it, I can't pay you. You want too much money." He knew that I'd turn down a teaching job. He knew what Mutual's paying me, and he couldn't pay me fifty dollars a month. And that lady died back here in the '80s, she was down there with her [indistinct 00:06:09] president of Tuskegee.	5:11
Ben Glenn	She was the secretary?	6:12
Lenzi Barnes	She was the keeper of records.	6:12
Ben Glenn	Okay.	6:12
Lenzi Barnes	They call her—it's another name that they give her.	6:12
Ben Glenn	The registrar.	6:19
Lenzi Barnes	The registrar!	6:19
Ben Glenn	Okay, okay.	6:19
Lenzi Barnes	Yes. The registrar. That's right. And [indistinct 00:06:31] so she brought my record in [indistinct 00:06:34] and she heard when he offered me this job. And I was in there after I retired, last year, I used to go down there to see her, and she said, "Barnes, I'm so sorry." She was sick then. Real sick.	6:25
Lenzi Barnes	She said, "I'm so sorry you didn't take that job Dr. Shepard offered you. Nobody wanted that person who got that job." Said, "You would have been the better person. But nobody wanted the other person, we wanted you." Said, "But Dr. Shepard couldn't—" Said, "He didn't have the money to pay you, but he told you the truth." And she said, so "But we wanted you. He couldn't pay you. And you were recommended. You were highly recommended." So I didn't think I was a good student.	7:02
Ben Glenn	I guess somebody did.	7:46
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah. They thought I was a good student.	7:49
Ben Glenn	So did you stay on then with North Carolina Mutual?	7:49
Lenzi Barnes	No. No. He said, "Don't you have some relatives?"	7:50
Ben Glenn	Oh.	7:58
Lenzi Barnes	He said, "With your transcript, you can pass one of those civil service exams." He said, "All you got to do is make seventy, and I can get you a job." He had good contacts. I said, "I've already passed the exam." During those days they didn't give the civil service exam [indistinct 00:08:28]. I started taking the exam, my freshman, in the fall. I started school then, fall of '34, and spring of '35 I started running to Washington. My sister would send me the announcements.	7:58
Ben Glenn	So you could take it if you went up there.	8:48
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah.	8:49
Ben Glenn	Okay.	8:49
Lenzi Barnes	So I'd go, and I'd catch a train at—I used to catch a train out of Raleigh around five o'clock. Riding those buses or someone would take me to Raleigh. And I get that seat and I get into Washington around eleven o'clock, eleven-thirty next morning. I'd walk in the exam. They'd start giving the exam at nine o'clock.	8:49
Lenzi Barnes	I'd fill out the forms, fifty-four. And there were allowed to give it in Washington, you could stand to take it, and they would send it. And I'd go on in and take them. I'd get up and take one, and go, and I'd be at the exam, nine o'clock.	8:49
Ben Glenn	So you had already passed the test [indistinct 00:09:35].	9:33
Lenzi Barnes	I passed three.	9:35
Ben Glenn	Oh, okay.	9:35
Lenzi Barnes	He said "Where are your marks?" I said "they're at home." He said, "Let me see them." In twenty minutes, I walked home. The lowest mark, I made 96 on one exam.	9:35
Ben Glenn	Oh wow.	9:35
Lenzi Barnes	I passed three exams. The lowest mark I made was eighty-five. And he called, tell me to call his secretary in there. He said "We don't get one of these often." And he called a secretary in there, and he dictated a letter to North Carolina Mutual. "I'm resigning." But he didn't ask me.	9:37
Ben Glenn	He wrote your own resignation letter?	10:27
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah, he wrote it, and he said, "You sign this letter." And I signed the letter. And he put it in the envelope, and put a stamp. He mailed it himself. He had his own post office down there too. He was something.	10:29
Ben Glenn	Mm-hmm.	10:53
Lenzi Barnes	And he said, "The end of fourteen days—" He said, "You're going to be with them two more weeks, and the end of fourteen days," said, "you come back in here, and you're going to Washington, and we're going to get one of these jobs." Yeah. And, "I didn't know you'd passed these exams." He said, "I wished I'd known while you were in school here. You were in school here and were taking these exams." So—	10:53
Ben Glenn	What made you decide to take the civil exam in the first place?	11:24
Lenzi Barnes	Well, I took a pre-med course, but I said, "If I get in the government—" Government paid good.	11:25
Ben Glenn	Better than schools.	11:35
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah.	11:36
Ben Glenn	Better than North Carolina Mutual.	11:36
Lenzi Barnes	There weren't no Negroes in government in those days. They didn't have no Negroes. You could put on your exam, you put on, they had that—when you filled out that form, the application we called fifty-fourth, you had to put on there whether you were Negro, White, or whatever you are. You put your race on there. It said, "Race."	11:36
Lenzi Barnes	And they would tell you, they had a choice of three. There were three candidates for the job, and they chose the one that they wanted, and they never picked you. Yeah. I passed the archivist exam. Archive. I passed that exam. I made the highest mark on the post office exam.	12:04
Ben Glenn	Really?	12:29
Lenzi Barnes	And then the general clerk exam. I made good on the general clerk exam. And so—	12:29
Ben Glenn	So which one? Did you apply for all of them then?	12:37
Lenzi Barnes	No. You're ahead of my story.	12:39
Ben Glenn	Oh. [laughs]	12:41
Lenzi Barnes	So I signed, he mailed that letter. Say, that was on Tuesday. The next day, the vice president was in my living room.	12:43
Ben Glenn	You are kidding.	12:56
Lenzi Barnes	Vice president of North Carolina Mutual—	13:01
Ben Glenn	Oh. [laughs]	13:04
Lenzi Barnes	—was in my living room, pleading with me—	13:04
Ben Glenn	Not to leave.	13:07
Lenzi Barnes	—not to leave. He said, "We've got a good thing." And so he just about convinced me to leave—to stay.	13:07
Ben Glenn	To stay with him. [crosstalk 00:13:26].	13:25
Lenzi Barnes	Stay with North Carolina Mutual, and that they were going to give me—well, they were paying me 100 dollars, and short after that, well, I'd been promoted. I was getting 135 dollars.	13:25
Ben Glenn	Oh, wow.	13:38
Lenzi Barnes	Was good money. Grown men weren't getting but twelve dollars a week then. Average of twelve dollars, and they weren't paying those clerks up there for seven, eight dollars a week. I was making good money with them. And—	13:40
Ben Glenn	Was North Carolina Mutual quite large at that point?	13:59
Lenzi Barnes	Oh yeah.	14:01
Ben Glenn	Okay.	14:01
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah, it was the largest Negro business in the world at that point. At that time it was, not now.	14:01
Lenzi Barnes	So then the next day—vice president came on Wednesday. On Thursday, I looked up, Mama said, "Mr. [indistinct 00:14:32] in here to see you." Well, all of them are dead now [indistinct 00:14:40] call my name. But he was assistant to this vice president, so. He said, "Lenzi," he said, "I'm not coming in the house, so you come on out here and get in my car." And I got in his car. He was driving a Packard. That's an outstanding automobile. And it was a new Packard of that year, too. So I got in the automobile, and we road down Cemetery—it was—drove down to Beechwood Cemetery. Cornwallis Road didn't come through here then, but he drove into Cornwallis Road which was a dirt path.	14:15
Ben Glenn	Oh.	15:25
Lenzi Barnes	He drove in there and he parked. He said, "I understand that [indistinct 00:15:42] was down here yesterday. Came here to have a talk with you. Didn't want you to go to Washington. Dr. Shepard got you that job." Said, "You take that job."	15:26
Lenzi Barnes	He said, "I'm an old man, and you're a fine young man, and I watched you grow up. They don't have nothing against you in this city." Said, "You're a fine young man, but they're not going to do nothing but mess over you. Like Dr. Shepard told you, it's a family institution. You're not going to get anything. So you take that job in Washington. You'll live good. You will live good." Said, "You will live in accordance with the American standard of living. Every time the standard of living goes up, your salary will go up. The government workers live good, and you take that job." But I knew that, you see, because I'd been in and out of Washington, see, because of my people at—my brother-in-law was a Pullman porter.	15:49
Ben Glenn	[indistinct 00:16:40].	16:40
Lenzi Barnes	But he lived good as a Pullman porter. Pullman porters lived good. Pretty good. Pullman porters and postal workers lived good during that day. They lived better than teachers.	16:40
Ben Glenn	Really?	17:07
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah. So they were looked upon as the best livers in the Negro community. Pullman porters, anybody who worked on the trains.	17:07
Ben Glenn	Okay.	17:31
Lenzi Barnes	And Pullman porter and government worker, but you didn't have no government workers in the South. Very few. Every once in a while you'd come across a city where they'd have them, but they didn't have any carriers here.	17:31
Lenzi Barnes	I remember when I came out of school, I applied. I passed that exam, postal exam. I passed in Washington I showed—I went down there and showed Mr. Allan, who was postmaster at that time. I showed him the results of my exam. He told me, he said, that job wasn't for no nigger college graduate, that job was for White high school boys.	17:43
Lenzi Barnes	He said, "The last nigger I had in here—I had two niggers in here, and one was at [indistinct 00:18:27]. And he died in 1921. And that nigger, Willy, he retired in 1926, I believe. '26 or '27." He said, "I said then I wasn't going to have no more niggers." And he meant it, too. And no Negroes got any job there until 1957, and they tried to make me the guinea pig. [indistinct 00:18:57] my mama told me no. [indistinct 00:19:02] take that job [indistinct 00:19:04]. And I'd had several years [indistinct 00:19:07] post office, so I didn't accept it.	18:10
Lenzi Barnes	So back to my story with Dr. Shepard. And then that wasn't enough. As I told you, his assistant came. He told me to take that job. "Don't you listen to them no more, boy." The next day, the president of Central—the President of North Carolina Mutual. He told me, and he said, "You don't need to go." He knew me, because I grew up with one of his sons.	18:53
Ben Glenn	Oh, okay.	19:38
Lenzi Barnes	His baby son. Said, "You don't need to go to Washington." Said, "We got a place for you right here in this institution. A man like you." Spaulding owned then, and unless you were a member of the family, you didn't get nowhere in that company. So after talking with this man the day before, and he told me, he said, "Don't you listen." I was convinced to go. So I didn't pay no attention to what the president, what Spaulding was telling me. So at the end of fourteen days, I went in there, I came by the school and picked up that letter. That acceptance letter. And it was going to a senator in Washington. He had good contacts.	19:42
Ben Glenn	I guess so.	20:43
Lenzi Barnes	And I picked up that letter, and I left out of here that day. I told Mama, "I don't know what will be the outcome, but I quit North Carolina Mutual."	20:43
Ben Glenn	So you didn't have a job yet when you left your job?	21:00
Lenzi Barnes	I didn't have no job.	21:05
Ben Glenn	Oh, okay.	21:05
Lenzi Barnes	I didn't have no job.	21:05
Ben Glenn	That's scary to go off and [crosstalk 00:21:09].	21:05
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah. I picked up that letter around three o'clock. I caught that train. Same train, getting on in Raleigh. Caught that train about, got no after eleven o'clock that night [indistinct 00:21:24]. I got up the next morning, I walked into that man's office—I know he had sent it off addressed to a senator, and I handed— I walked into the outer office and his legislative aide was there, and I gave him this letter. He opened it, and he read it. I hadn't read it. I still haven't read the letter. [laughs]	21:09
Lenzi Barnes	So he picked up the telephone, and he talked to the senator. Told him that a young Negro was out there, is here, with a letter from a Dr. Shepard, who is president of the North Carolina College of Negroes at Durham, North Carolina. "Send him in," I heard him say on the—"Send him in."	22:04
Lenzi Barnes	I walked in, and he stood up. And he was sat in a chair, that high back and all, like judges sit in. Swivel chair. Across from him was another chair, just a chair, an ordinary chair. "Have a seat." He extended his hand and shook mine. "Have a seat." He said, "Are you a student for Dr. Shepard?" I said, "Yeah." I said, "I finished there last year." I said, "He's a very fine man."	22:27
Lenzi Barnes	He said, "Let me see your letter." He read the letter. He picked that telephone up, and he called the Commerce Department. And he said, "Do you know where the Commerce Department is?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "Do you have car fare, taxi fare?" I said, "Yeah. I can get it." He said, "You go on over there," said, "they're waiting for you."	23:12
Lenzi Barnes	I got over there. I left his office before twelve o'clock. And I got in that office, and I heard them, themselves. I gave them—gave me a letter, and he kept the letter from Dr. Shepard. And I gave them his letter, and I heard one of them say, "He's personnel, personnel department." And I heard somebody say, "This letter calls for immediate action." At one o'clock, I was on the payroll.	23:43
Ben Glenn	Wow. At the Commerce Department?	24:25
Lenzi Barnes	I stayed there for about a year, and I got a job. I know a White man came by my desk. Probably that time, a Negro didn't have anything but jobs as messengers.	24:29
Ben Glenn	Right.	24:51
Lenzi Barnes	But I had a terrific job. It was terrific. White man came by my desk said, "Barnes, I don't understand how you have a White man's job." That's the only difference between me and the White man. I qualified, he didn't. And he didn't like that. So then—	24:53
Ben Glenn	How old were you at this point, then?	25:08
Lenzi Barnes	Twenty-two or twenty-three.	25:09
Ben Glenn	Okay.	25:09
Lenzi Barnes	[indistinct 00:25:13]. And so yeah, I was a youngster. I had the [indistinct 00:25:26].	25:13
Ben Glenn	Oh, okay.	25:52
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah.	25:52
Ben Glenn	So this was about the time you went to D.C.? Okay.	25:54
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah. So I stayed there, and I got a room with a couple who—the man was one of the officials of the Black schools in Washington. They were segregated at that time, and White [indistinct 00:26:22].	25:56
Ben Glenn	Okay.	26:20
Lenzi Barnes	So I came home. That weekend I asked them. I ate with them too, on the weekend. And so I ask him—on other times, I ate out. On the weekends I ate with them. I asked what is the best place for Negroes to work. They said, "Post office is number one. Number two is the Bureau of [indistinct 00:27:03]. Number three was teaching. [indistinct 00:27:10]. And number four was the police department." So of the— I didn't want to be no policeman [indistinct 00:27:22] had passed the post office exam.	26:20
Ben Glenn	Mm-hmm.	27:28
Lenzi Barnes	The next week I went back to the senator [indistinct 00:27:44] and he knew that I [indistinct 00:27:44]. He said, "Well," he said, "let me call the department" They had a vacancy [indistinct 00:28:01]. He sent me out [indistinct 00:28:01]. And at the end of that [indistinct 00:28:09].	27:43
Ben Glenn	Mm-hmm.	27:43
Lenzi Barnes	Shortly after I got there [indistinct 00:28:25].	28:01
Ben Glenn	Oh, World War II?	28:21
Lenzi Barnes	World War II [indistinct 00:28:27] World War II.	28:21
Ben Glenn	Uh-huh.	28:27
Lenzi Barnes	I'm a decorated soldier. I got two Bronze Stars [indistinct 00:28:34]. The invasion of Southern France, and the Battle of the Bulge. And I have yet to get one red nickel for my service.	28:27
Ben Glenn	Are you [crosstalk 00:28:44]?	28:43
Lenzi Barnes	I was eligible, but I've never gotten—	28:44
Ben Glenn	Hm.	28:47
Lenzi Barnes	The only thing worth anything was the G.I. Bill of Rights. I mean, was the schooling, and I didn't take advantage of the schooling—so the other—I was good at engineering too, and I'd been dabbling in building. My father was a builder. I knew how to build houses [indistinct 00:29:20]. So I never did get anything. I got a certificate for a loan. I still got it here somewhere, but I never wanted a loan, because you had to pay it back. I could borrow money from the banks and keep looking. I could get it through the Veterans Administration after I had established myself.	28:47
Lenzi Barnes	So I stayed there, and I was eligible. I had thirty years then in 1968, but I wasn't old enough. I had to wait—I had to wait till '69.	29:48
Ben Glenn	So it was thirty years service in the post office?	30:13
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah. Yeah.	30:16
Ben Glenn	Okay.	30:16
Lenzi Barnes	In the whole government.	30:16
Ben Glenn	Oh, okay.	30:16
Lenzi Barnes	But I had to wait until I was fifty-five years of age, so I had enough leave to take me two years.	30:20
Ben Glenn	Did you never take a vacation?	30:32
Lenzi Barnes	No. I took vacation, but I had enough sick leave and annual leave. You can't carry that now.	30:35
Ben Glenn	Oh right. I was wondering, yeah.	30:43
Lenzi Barnes	They said that I'm the cause of it. [laughs] I got away with it. People telling me that, "You were the cause of it. Shortly after you did it, they don't let nobody do that, carry that much. You got to take it or lose it." And I came out, and they sent me my check [indistinct 00:31:08]. I came out on '68. I had back trouble too. And they sent me a certificate—	30:54
Ben Glenn	Okay.	31:22
Lenzi Barnes	Once a month. Almost at the end of two years, I went back in. I worked two months. And I'd already put in my retirement, so I was retired, technically. April the eleventh, 1970, I retired.	31:24
Ben Glenn	So did you stay in D.C. for those several years that you were not working?	31:48
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah. I stayed there, and I did a whole lot of traveling. I traveled abroad. Used to go down to San Juan. A lot of times. But it was legal you see, since I was—I had enough leave to take care of it. So then I went back and I retired. They had a ceremony, and all this service. I was a good clerk, too.	31:51
Ben Glenn	So you were a clerk while you were in the post office?	32:33
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah, but when I—for the last twelve years though, I gave civil service exams.	32:35
Ben Glenn	Oh, okay.	32:46
Lenzi Barnes	People said I was crazy. I gave two exams a day. One at nine and—but even that I felt was monotonous. You get tired of coming there. I came out, and then I came down here and I took a road survey course Well, it was through the North Carolina Department of Transportation [indistinct 00:33:32].	32:46
Ben Glenn	Okay.	33:27
Lenzi Barnes	I came down here and I started building houses, and I built about, pretty close to fifteen houses. I did that. I'd build houses and I'd sell them.	33:34
Ben Glenn	Did you design them too?	33:51
Lenzi Barnes	No. I got my—down Fuquay-Varina. I'd go down there. There was a group of architects, and they would sell me plans for about fifty dollars.	33:52
Ben Glenn	Oh, okay.	34:04
Lenzi Barnes	And they'd sell me the plans about fifty dollars, and I would redesign them, like I did this house. I redesigned this house. This house had a basement, and—had a basement for three buildings. So put the garage in it. I redesigned this house altogether. That chimney wasn't there. And so then—	34:07
Ben Glenn	You built this house?	34:39
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah. So then the North Carolina Department of Transportation—I had a pretty good rapport with the Internal Revenue, and they recommended me to North Carolina Department of Transportation. Because whenever, see, the bank recommended me to Internal Revenue, whenever were foreclosing on somebody for taxes, they'd come and see me and see if I wanted to buy their land, and sometimes I'd buy the land.	34:40
Lenzi Barnes	But this helped the government or something. It has to do with the—forgotten the name of it, but they have to do with protecting the land, and they told me for environmental, in this area, South Durham, they want the—soil and water, you see, and I couldn't put a septic tank in. Environmental Protective. Yeah. They're the people who came to see me.	35:27
Ben Glenn	Okay.	36:16
Lenzi Barnes	They told me not to buy no more land. They said, "The land that you've bought, we going to let you put a house on." And I had [indistinct 00:36:26]. They said, "We're not going to let you build more houses, so don't buy no more land." So that's what I told the Internal Revenue. "I can't buy no more land from you."	36:16
Lenzi Barnes	So then they recommended me to North Carolina Department of Transportation. The Affirmative Action program came into being, and they were threatening to withdraw federal funds, highway funds, from North Carolina. And they came to see me. North Carolina Department of Transportation came to see me, and they wanted to get me involved in highway work. I'd been recommended, and because I had money. I had about, possibly about two or three-hundred thousand dollars. Internal Revenue knew it.	36:38
Lenzi Barnes	And so they said that I'd have to pass the exam. I said, "Well, I've passed the building exam." So I'd already taken the building exam, and I made good marking on that. And they issued me a general contractor's license. Yeah, I—	37:20
Ben Glenn	Sounds like you were always one step ahead of them.	38:01
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah. I got my general con, so then, out there—my first job was on 220 out of Greensboro into Asheboro. On the 220. It branches off there at 85, 85 going to Charlotte, and 220—come off of 220 and go into Asheboro. Are you familiar with—	38:03
Ben Glenn	Yes. Uh-huh.	38:38
Lenzi Barnes	I had five miles of that.	38:39
Ben Glenn	Oh, okay.	38:41
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah. I made some money off that job. And then my next job was 95. That was in '79 or '80.	38:42
Ben Glenn	That's up north of here, right?	39:01
Lenzi Barnes	No. That's down here around between—down here. 95 from Rocky Mount. 95, Richmond to Jacksonville, Florida.	39:03
Ben Glenn	Yeah, yeah.	39:14
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah. From Richmond to Jacksonville, Florida. Goes through Fayetteville.	39:16
Ben Glenn	Right. I was thinking about [indistinct 00:39:21] 95 down in [indistinct 00:39:21].	39:20
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah, it goes through Fayetteville. Bypasses Fayetteville. Because they used to use that 301, so you ought to be familiar with it, because you're from that area.	39:22
Lenzi Barnes	So I had a contract between Kenman-Wilson. I was working under [indistinct 00:39:48] firm of out of Durham. They didn't want to pay me. North Carolina Department of Transportation made them pay me though. After last time, they owed me thirty-thousand dollars.	39:33
Ben Glenn	Wow.	40:00
Lenzi Barnes	And they wouldn't pay me, so I went over to the Department and told them. And before I got home, a man was here with my check. When I told them, man said, "We paid them six months ago, and they haven't paid you?" I said, "No, they haven't paid me." Got on the telephone and called them. When I got home, the man came here right after I got home, with my check for thirty-thousand dollars.	40:01
Lenzi Barnes	So on that job, I decided I'd take the highway exam. Because the building exam, I knew that well, you see, because I was brought up in building. The exam consisted of a country club, and you had to get the pitch and everything. You had to figure down to all your finishing nails and all of that, and I finished that thing. They gave us six hours. I finished in less than four hours. About three hours and a half.	40:27
Lenzi Barnes	It was about 200 people taking that exam. I was the only Black. And when I went up to turn my paper in, man said [indistinct 00:41:19]. He said, "Well, we know you passed, because you were just smiling. You went from your plan to your desk."	41:10
Lenzi Barnes	See, the plans were over there, say, where that record player is, and the desk is where you were sitting. There was a desk in the front. And I was going in, taking a ruler and going in, measure, and I'd come back over and sit down, write it up. They said, "We know you passed." I figured that job down to a tee. About a month after I did that, or six week, I got the results saying I passed.	41:28
Lenzi Barnes	And then of course I, as I said, while I was on 95, I went in to take the highway exam. And I told the lady, I told them when I went in there, I went in there at nine o'clock, I said, "I'll be out of here by twelve o'clock." They said, "If you do, you'll be the first." And I stayed in there from nine to quarter to five, and I didn't even go to the bathroom.	41:58
Ben Glenn	Wow.	42:31
Lenzi Barnes	[indistinct 00:42:35]. They give you thirty—fifteen questions. They had sixty questions. They had thirty questions in all. Fifteen—sixty questions. They give you sxity. Thirty from the book. What we call a bible. A highway bible. A red book. And thirty from your knowledge.	42:35
Lenzi Barnes	You see now, what you got to know from the book, you got to know where to look. So you got about fifteen hundred pages in that book, and you got to know where to turn, you see, and had I not had experienced highway work, I wouldn't have known where to turn, but I was familiar with that book. And in the question from the exam, I knew where to turn to the book, as I said.	43:04
Lenzi Barnes	And then they gave you a question, say, from your knowledge. They gave you a question. You're constructing a highway, and the highway is 100 feet wide, and you got a stretch of, say, 200 yards. And at its highest point, it's twenty feet high at the highest point. How many cubic yards of dirt are you going to take out of there to make it level? They don't want no hills in the highway.	43:37
Ben Glenn	Sounds like your math background did you good then.	44:28
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah. Yeah. That's where my math comes in. How many cubic yards?	44:30
Ben Glenn	If you know what to do, it's easy.	44:39
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah, if you know what to do, but if you didn't know math, you couldn't get it. So I got back—I mean, when I finished—quarter to five. I got told, "we have to run people out of here." Said, "We're going to close at five o'clock. We're going to run you out of here."	44:39
Lenzi Barnes	[indistinct 00:44:58] I got that back and I passed. And my license reads both highway and building. Qualified [indistinct 00:45:15]. And my license on it. I can do as much [indistinct 00:45:22]. That contractor down there in Central. I did some work for him, because I widened 211.	44:58
Ben Glenn	Oh, okay.	45:36
Lenzi Barnes	Running from Bladenboro into Clinton. I widened that, going to the beach. I did that in '81. That's my work down there. And anyway, that Crowell. You ever hear of Crowell?	45:36
Ben Glenn	No. Uh-uh.	45:43
Lenzi Barnes	C-R-O-W-E-L-L. He has that section down there.	45:43
Ben Glenn	Okay.	45:55
Lenzi Barnes	Yeah. And so then I was getting old, and I said—I did a couple more jobs [indistinct 00:46:10]. I said, "I'm going to stop." In '87, a young man came by here. He was out of Tuskegee, and he wasn't able—he hadn't passed the test. So I came out of retirement, and he and I worked together.	45:55
Ben Glenn	Oh, okay.	46:08
Lenzi Barnes	But his name was [indistinct 00:46:31]. And another. And I've helped another fellow. Another fellow by the name of—I've forgotten his name. He was from North Carolina State.	46:29

Item Info

Title:

Lenzie Barnes interview recording, 1996 October 23

Date:

October 23, 1996

Creator:

Barnes, Lenzie

Contributor:

Glenn, Ben

Format:

Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

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

Series:

Related Resources:

See below

Provenance:

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

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

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

Identifier:

RL00170-CS-0031
136729d3-6886-4e53-b6a8-38603c030cea
behindtheveil
151be476-2e01-4c70-a0ba-535e53707773
ark:/87924/r4hq4468p
151be476-2e01-4c70-a0ba-535e53707773

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4hq4468p

Sponsor:

Sponsor this Digital Collection

Lenzie Barnes interview recording, 1996 October 23

Transcript

Item Info

1. Lenzie Barnes administrative file, 1996

2. Lenzie Barnes interview recording, 1996 November 25

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Lenzie Barnes interview recording, 1996 October 23

Transcript

Item Info

Related Items

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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