Pealie Elloie interview recording, 1994 July 15

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Kate Ellis	Tell me your name and when you were born and where you were born?	0:01
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I'm Pearlie Hardin Elloie. I was born May eleventh, 1938, in Kennedy, Texas.	0:06
Kate Ellis	And this is Kate Ellis, on July fifteenth, which I can't believe.	0:16
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I know. (laughs)	0:21
Kate Ellis	Okay, 1994. I'd like to start, well, you actually were going to start talking about, or had mentioned that you had, last weekend—	0:27
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Last Monday.	0:36
Kate Ellis	— last Monday, had been hearing stories from your aunts about—	0:36
Pearlie Harden Elloie	No, not from my aunts. I went home, and home is Texas, to the funeral of my oldest aunt, who was ninety-two at time of death. My mother was the second-oldest child of a family of thirteen. And this may be a history to you, too. Thirteen kids, but there were living, eleven kids living. And my aunt who died was just kind of remarkable. And I was telling you earlier that as my two sisters and my brother and I drove from Houston to San Antonio, we were sort of kidding around. We said, "Well, I don't guess nobody's going to be there to really— who's going to give the obituary? Because they probably don't have any peers left." But it was amazing, when we got to the church there were four to five people who could talk about knowing my aunt and my mother when they were children.	0:41
Pearlie Harden Elloie	And they talked about things that we didn't even know about. And my second sister, the middle girl, baby daughter, her youngest daughter, was with us. And she was enthralled just to hear something about Madea's past and about the aunts that even we didn't know. So we said to her, "This is history. You need to open your ears and hear what's going on." So it was exciting. So it was kind of akin to what you're doing here, sitting, just listening to people and hearing about what happened a long, long time ago. Yeah, it was great. It was great.	1:37
Kate Ellis	I mean, in the things that they were telling you, did they talk at all about their experience of segregation or—	2:18
Pearlie Harden Elloie	No. You see, in that time, and this was a funeral, and at funerals, people remember joyous times. They remember good things about people. They remember when people were happy. And although that everybody there had to have gone through it, had to have lived through it. That was not the pressing issue. The pressing issue was this is a woman who lived a good life, who lived a long life, and these are her joys, and we want to remember her joys and her happy days. And so, that's what people talk about at funerals. They don't really talk about sad things. The obituary is always on the upbeat. It's never on the downbeat.	2:26
Kate Ellis	"She live a hard life, in a segregated world."	3:11
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no.	3:12
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	3:18
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Emphasis is on things that are important. The family, that person's character, the good things that person did, how people remember him, how he's going to be missed, what kind of impact he had on his family members? What kind of mother was she? What kind of friend was she? What kind of wife was she? What kind of Christian was she? Those are the things that are important to people. And so that's what you talk about. Because the whole issue of Jim Crow has nothing to do with something that we caused. It has to do with what other people caused and how they perpetuated it.	3:18
Pearlie Harden Elloie	And so, we're not going to spend the energy talking about that that we had no control over. [indistinct 00:04:08] Carrie and her peers had no control over how things happened. And so, they just happened. And probably in those days, it was people felt more powerless than they do now. But I'm not really sure, because my grandfather, who we call Papa, was a remarkable man. My grandfather was a farmer. And I can recall when we would go to the country during the summer that we would get in the wagon and Papa would take us to town, selling whatever he was growing.	3:59
Pearlie Harden Elloie	And he was also a preacher. So he was called Reverend Lewis. And I can vividly remember, we were sitting in the bed of the wagon and we had gone to town with Papa to sell a load of something, I don't know what the load was. But a White man said to Papa as we got into the town part, he called him, he said, "Uncle," or something. And so my grandfather said to him, "What you call me?" He said, "Well, Uncle," something. He said, "Well, I didn't know your daddy was a Black man." And that was remarkable. So, I'm talking about maybe 1946, '47. Before 1950, I'm sure. I know I wasn't twelve years old then. And so, that's the kind of history that I come from, in terms of I think people of strength and probably knowing what's going on, but also demanding a sense of respect from people, even in the light of fear of danger.	4:46
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Because in those days, you just didn't talk to anybody like that, because that could present a severe problem for you. And so, that was a vivid memory. I guess that's the most vivid memory I have of my grandfather. My grandfather died in 1960. I don't know if it's a saying down South, or a superstition down South, or something down South. But down South you hear a lot of people say that when a baby comes into the family, somebody's going out. So, that person's making room for the new. So, when I was pregnant with my son, my grandfather died. Ah, it's probably not always true, but that's one of the morays that kind of goes on in the Black community. So, I had my grandfather in my life for a long, long time. And so, he was remarkable. He was really a remarkable person. So, it would've been interesting to speak to somebody like that.	5:57
Kate Ellis	Yeah. This was in Texas?	6:55
Pearlie Harden Elloie	In Texas.	6:59
Kate Ellis	Where did you grow up?	7:00
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I was born in a small town called Kennedy, Texas, but my family left there when I was like, two. So, I really grew up in Houston, Texas. So, some of my family went to Houston, some of them went to San Antonio, my grandfather lived in a small town called Cuero, Texas, and then some of my dad's family remained in Kennedy, Texas. And so, we're sort of kind of spread out around there. My daddy was a native Texan. My mother was born in Alabama. And I think the first maybe three or four Lewis's were born in Alabama. The rest of them were born in Texas, I think. I'm not really sure.	7:02
Kate Ellis	How did they find each other? Your mother and father?	7:54
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Well, we hear different kind of stories. Depends upon how romantic people want to make it. And I just heard another one when we were home last time. Well, the two stories that I heard was that my mother and the sister who's next to her had gone to a baseball game, and my daddy was playing baseball. Or this man, was my daddy. This guy was playing baseball.	7:59
Kate Ellis	This is Texas?	8:27
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Yes, in Texas. Okay, and that's how they met. And this was in, I want to say somewhere close around Kennedy, maybe Karnes County. I don't know. That's what I had heard. And then just when we were home, the other story that I just recently heard was that my father worked for my grandfather on the farm. Now that was new. I never heard that before. So I don't know how they met, but they did meet somewhere in Texas. And my mother and her sister had left home and they were working in this small town, which was unusual for girls in those days. But they left together and they moved to this little small town and they were sort of working. And I think, this is my Aunt Nelly. My Aunt Nelly and my mother both met their future husbands when they were there in that little small town, working.	8:28
Kate Ellis	What kind of jobs did they have?	9:25
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I have no idea. I have no idea. I would think that they probably were working as domestics, because I don't know what else was there. And that's the sad part about it, because my mother finished— It wasn't like four year college. It was like two year college. My mother really had a degree, and she could have taught in maybe a larger town, but in this particular town, there were no jobs available. So, she just kind of took what she could get. So, I'm sure they probably were domestics. There were also some meat packing plants in that area. So, I know my dad worked in a meat packing plant for a while, but I'm not quite sure particularly what they did.	9:26
Kate Ellis	So, you pretty much grew up in Houston. Who was in your household that you grew up in?	10:21
Pearlie Harden Elloie	My dad, my mom, my two sisters, my brother, myself, and a variety of dogs. Always animals.	10:26
Kate Ellis	Really? I see we've got animals [indistinct 00:10:39].	10:35
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Yeah.	10:36
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	10:36
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Yeah, that's my fetish. Always. My dad died in '81. My mom died in '89. And so, everyone is still there. My two sisters and my brother are still in Houston. I'm the only one who's not there. I left to go to college, but everybody else is there.	10:40
Kate Ellis	Where did you go to college?	11:14
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Dillard.	11:14
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay. And then you stayed in New Orleans after that? And that would've been? [indistinct 00:11:26]—	11:17
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I finished in '60.	11:22
Kate Ellis	Okay.	11:25
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I finished in 1960.	11:27
Kate Ellis	Will you tell me what you remember about the community that you grew up in and what the neighborhood was like in Houston?	11:31
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I grew up in a real small community. Houston is divided into wards. And the wards that I can remember as a child were the Fourth Ward, the Fifth Ward, and the Ninth Ward. And I lived in the Fourth Ward. The Fourth Ward was a fairly close community, very, very close physically to the CBD. And I lived on this street called Victor.	11:42
Kate Ellis	CBD?	12:08
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Center Business District.	12:09
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay.	12:13
Pearlie Harden Elloie	All right. I lived on this street called Victor. V-I-C-T-O-R. And we could walk from Victor to downtown if we really wanted to. And we did as we got older. Gives you something to do. And our address was, I will never forget it, it was 1510 Victor Street. I even remember who lived on each side of me. And it was such, in those days, I thought this was a wide, wide, wide, wide street. On either side of the street were ten little houses and there were families in each of these ten houses. And as a child, I can remember, I just thought it was such a big, big community. And then when I got older and I would go back and I says, "It's a little bitty street, I can't believe it."	12:13
Pearlie Harden Elloie	But we live in a community where, the most amazing thing about how things have changed, I'm talking about twenty houses on this small community. And of those twenty houses with children, only two houses did not have a father in the house. There was a father in every single house where there were children. And I guess, see, my most vivid memory would be— one would be in the summer, one would be in the winter. The summer memory would be of the boys playing baseball in the middle of the street. And they would use what we call slats, just big, wide pieces of board, to hit balls with and everything.	13:04
Pearlie Harden Elloie	And my most vivid memory of the winter was everybody would get up early, early, early Christmas morning and share their toys with everybody else. You could just say, "What did you get?" It was just wonderful. You'd be up before dawn. And if you got skates, then you'd be skating up and down. If you got a bicycle, you would be riding up and down. And now you look at kids, they're still in the bed at eleven o'clock, because it's just another toy. But I guess those are my most vivid memories of living on Victor Street. We were close to our church, we were close to our school. We were close to our major grocery store.	13:55
Pearlie Harden Elloie	It was a good community. It was a community of poor people, but it was a good community. It really was. It was a good time to grow up, as far as I'm concerned. And because, see, we lived in our own world. We did not have to fight. As children, you did not have to fight discrimination, not really. All of our neighbors were African Americans. We went to African American church, African American school. We had almost no contacts with people other than our own people. And so, our world was comfortable. Our world was secure. And you may hear, I don't know, but there's a saying that it takes a whole village to raise a child. In those days, it really worked like that. If you did something wrong, then, I mean, you hear from the neighbors, and for sure you're going to hear from your mama once they told her.	14:41
Pearlie Harden Elloie	That was a sense that you belonged to this community, and this community had the responsibility of keeping you straight, and you had the responsibility of obeying. And almost in every community of people of my generation grew up, there was always the oldest person in the community that everybody had to mind, everybody had to obey. And in ours, it was a couple called the Jacksons. And we called them Mama and Papa Jack. And that was the first time I'd ever seen a National Geographic Magazine, because Papa Jack, he was a rag man. You know what rag man is?	15:45
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Rag man goes around, he collects old rags and books, and he sells them. So, you call him rag man. And so part of what he would collect from people would be magazines. And he had them in the shed on the side of his house. And he would just leave the shed open. And we spent hours and hours and hours in there reading books. And that's the first time I had seen all this nice stack of National Geographic Magazines. So, they were good times. And it was only when people moved outside of that safe, secure environment that children had to face it. Now, our parents faced it every single day, because they had to go into the work world. But our world was school and church and play. And in all of that, we were surrounded by people who were like us and who loved us. So, it was not bad at all.	16:28
Kate Ellis	Did your parents— Would they talk about it? I mean—	17:23
Pearlie Harden Elloie	No, no.	17:28
Kate Ellis	They'd protect you from knowing? Or not just—	17:30
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Well, what is there to talk about? Do you come home and you talk about the fact that somebody called you, "Boy," or somebody called you a nigger? Or that you didn't get the same kind of money that the White man got? What was that a talk about? If you had to deal with that all day long, your family was your centering point. And so, when you went back into the bosom of your family, you basked in the love of your family. You didn't spend your time rehashing all of that stuff that you had nothing to do with and you couldn't control. The one thing that families did is that they gave you a sense of what you need to do to protect yourself, especially with our boys. Black mothers in those days did extraordinary things to make sure that their boys were not coming into contact with policemen, because they didn't want to see their boys get killed for no reason.	17:40
Pearlie Harden Elloie	And so, boys were encouraged to be quiet, not to say anything, don't stand in defiance of a policeman. The best thing can do, leave it alone if you can. Girls were not given quite that much, because we were not as prone to the danger that our male counterparts were. And so the lessons that were taught to us were lessons of survival more than anything else. And that's what Black families taught their children.	18:44
Pearlie Harden Elloie	You come in after dark, you make sure that you don't go to that neighborhood, and even if you work in that neighborhood, don't you be in there after dark, don't you run through that neighborhood, make sure you walk in that neighborhood, don't go with four or five other boys, don't dress a certain kind of way. And all of this was to protect their children. And so, these are the kinds of things that were told to children. Wasn't a rehash of all of the burdens that White people put on Black people, because that was seen as White people's problem. We had to live with it, but it was not anything that generated from us. And so, we didn't spend our times dealing with it.	19:16
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I think as we got older and we had to deal with it more in terms of moving out. See, when your children, the attitude there was childhood should be joyous. But it should also be, as you get older, it should be time, the opportunity for people to do the kinds of things to preserve you, to protect you. And so what was told to you, depended upon your age and your sex and what you did, so that if you were a girl and as you got older, and especially if you had to work among them, you were taught to protect yourself physically, to protect your sexuality, not to let anyone encroach upon you. That's what girls were taught.	20:01
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Boys were taught to keep themselves from harm, in terms of just being in the view of someone who would do something to you for no reason, other than that he had power and you didn't. He had authority and you didn't. And he was White and you were Black. And so, these were the kinds of lessons that were taught to us. And so, those are kinds of things that parents talked to their children about. Other than that, we probably talked about the same thing that your family talked about at night. What you're going to eat? What you did at school today? Why were you fighting with this kid down the block? That's the kind of things that people talked about.	20:57
Kate Ellis	As you went out into the world more, and as you were getting older, how did your perspective change? I mean, first of all, excuse me.	21:46
Pearlie Harden Elloie	That's okay.	21:55
Kate Ellis	What I mean is, and then I don't know if when you went to high school or eventually you got a job or whatever, but if you found yourself outside the neighborhood more—	22:00
Pearlie Harden Elloie	What happened?	22:10
Kate Ellis	Yeah. And did your perspective shift or did—	22:12
Pearlie Harden Elloie	No. I grew up in a strange community, I guess, very much unlike New Orleans. The high school that I went to, I was still surrounded by Blacks. There were no Whites. I had no reason. The first White person that I knew, I must have been about eleven or twelve, maybe. Right around that age, between nine and twelve. I can't remember the exact age. But I had an appendectomy, and it was at the local public hospital. And I can recall, I woke up one morning, this woman was standing there, it's a White woman, and she said, "Pearlie?" And I said, "Yes?" And so we talked and she said, "Do you know me?" I said, "No". Well, it ended up that she was the wife of my father's boss, and she was part of the volunteers, and she had come to do whatever they do.	22:15
Pearlie Harden Elloie	That's the first time I can remember entering into a conversation with a White person. And sometime later she came back into the room, I didn't recognize her. So, I can even understand people's perspective, because in those days, all White people looked the same, and they all looked like they had brown hair to me. I was so unfamiliar with them, and so underexposed, that I couldn't even differentiate features, eye coloring, hair coloring. They were all just one color to me. And so, when I went to high school, again, I was in this kind of closed community. The first job that I had in high school, I worked in a cafeteria. I was a bus girl in the cafeteria. It's the first time I had ever— Not the first time I had ever witnessed differences, but in terms of every single day. In this particular cafeteria, there were White girls from the country who worked on the serving line.	23:14
Pearlie Harden Elloie	No Blacks could work on the serving line. You could only be a bus girl, or you could work in the kitchen. The Whites could eat off of the serving line, and there were pots in the kitchen that the Blacks could eat out of. And so, see, that was a major difference in how they treated the African American employees and how they treated their White employees. And all of the Black girls who were bus girls, well, like my contemporaries, we were in high school, we were doing well, were going to college. But okay, that's how we were treated.	24:22
Pearlie Harden Elloie	The other thing that I can remember as a child, we used to shop at a grocery store called Wine Gardens. And I can remember my mother and I used to go, I'm the youngest of four. And in the African American cultures, the youngest child is almost always referred to as the baby. I'm now fifty-six. And when I went to my aunt's funeral, I was introduced to all these old people as, "This is Maggie's baby." So, get used to that. And I'm a grandmother myself. So, you get used to that. Anyway, I can remember.	25:07
Pearlie Harden Elloie	So, I was always with my mother. You just carried your baby around with you all the time. And I can remember we went to Wine Gardens this Saturday, and I must have been about six, seven, something like that. And I told my mother, I said, "I'm want some water. I'm thirsty." She said, "You can't get no water here." I said, "Well, why?" She said, "Well, they don't want us to drink out their fountain." My mother did not like ugly things. And so I think the way she dealt with it was just not to talk about. She didn't say to me that they don't want Black people to drink out of the fountain. She says, "No, that's not for us." So I said, "Well, I want water. Or buy me a Coke." And she said, "You can't have a Coke."	25:47
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I said, "Well, why?" And if you went to the Coke machine, it's the most amazing thing in the world, that the Cokes were for White people only. And even if you had the money, you could not get a Coke from that machine. That's amazing, huh? So, I was a little child then, so I remember that. I can also remember some years later, I must have been about eleven, twelve, thirteen, we moved off of Victor Street onto a street called West Gray, with the larger house, but it's on the busy street. Heavily trafficked street. And we used to sit on the porch. And that's the first time that I had heard that someone had directly called me a nigger. I was sitting on the porch one day, and a White man passed. And he said to me something. And his other comment to the guy he was with was, "A pretty little nigger girl."	26:40
Pearlie Harden Elloie	And I couldn't believe. And I said, "Madea!" So I went, I called my mother. That's the first time I can remember somebody calling me a nigger. And I was young. But there were incidences of hatred, I think, that you had to deal with, of lack of understanding. And this man's thing, maybe he didn't even— When I came to New Orleans, and when I first started working on this job, I started working here in 1965.	27:41
Kate Ellis	Really?	28:20
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Probably longer than [indistinct 00:28:20]. In 1965. And the boss's secretary was from, Mississippi, and she called people 'Nigros'. She said she couldn't say 'Negro'. So, and that hasn't been that long ago.	28:20
Kate Ellis	No.	28:33
Pearlie Harden Elloie	That hasn't been that long ago. But those were kinds of things that were— I had a lot of exposure to good people too. And I always hasten to say that to people. That probably for every negative experience that I confronted, I was faced with threefold good experiences and positive experiences. I went to college on a scholarship that was established by a White man in Houston. This man had lots of property. All of his tenants were Black. And so he left his estate to scholarships for Black kids. And I was one of the first E.E. Worthing scholars to come out of Houston. So, it's not all bad. They're good people. They're good people. That's kind of pretty much the kind of way I grew up.	28:34
Kate Ellis	Yeah. Just to ask you a bit more about those experiences you've described. In the cafeteria, and when I say this, I mean, not to sort of say, "Oh, but just tell me the bad things," but I'm just interested in—	29:40
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I hear you. Okay.	30:01
Kate Ellis	Yeah. In the cafeteria, how did you respond? Did you talk with your friends about it?	30:01
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Ah, we knew how to get around that. See, that's the thing that's so amazing, that people didn't realize that that did not have a big downer on us. Our self-esteem was more than you couldn't eat behind that counter. But the other thing was, they failed to realize, is that you can't continuously put roadblocks in front of people and not have people figure out how to get over and around those roadblocks. We ate off of that steam table every single day. They just didn't know it. We did exactly what we wanted to do. And it was something we talked about, but our talk, more than about what was going on then, was about the money we were making, what we were going to do with the money we were making, because we were all teenage girls. So probably if we had been adults, if this had been what we were going to do for the rest of our lives, it would've had more of an impact on us.	30:05
Pearlie Harden Elloie	This was transitory. This was a transition period for us. We were on to better and bigger things. And we knew it. We knew that in order for us to do what we wanted to do, what we needed to do, and what we must do, that this was just the way to get there. There was no other way to make money, except to work and make it in their world. And that's what we did. And so, things like that, you say, "Okay, I'll live with this now, but it's not going to stop me from doing what I need to do." And so, again, while you may talk about it, you spent more energy trying to figure out how to get around it, than lamenting about the fact that you couldn't do it. That's what you did. See, there were incidences, after incident, after incident, of the things that people did because you were a different skin color.	31:05
Pearlie Harden Elloie	When I came to Dillard, two or three girlfriends and I went downtown, and there was a store called D.H. Holmes. This is a predecessor to Dillard's Department Store. And we tried on hats, I don't know, just doing something. And the sales girl said, "You can't try on those hats." And we said, "Why?" She said something about the grease in our hair or something. So, we had seen White people try them on, and said, "Well, yeah, we going to try these hats on." And she called the security guard. And the security guard wanted to know why we were trying the hats on. We said, "Well, we going to try these hats on because other customers were trying them on." And the woman said that we could buy the hat, take it home, if it didn't fit, then we could bring it back. And we said, "Why go through all that trouble when we can try it on right here?"	32:01
Pearlie Harden Elloie	So the security guard says, "Well, where are you girls from?" And one of us answered. And when he found out we were from Dillard, he said, "Well now, you all need to go back out there to Dr. Dent's school and stay up away from this store." But those are the kinds of things you'd go out of the store and you'd just die laughing about, because it wasn't even important. It truly wasn't important. Because if you had to get ahead, you would get ahead somewhere. But I think sometimes people didn't realize the strength of this group of people, the strength that the family gave you. And the family not just your blood, but your peers, your contemporaries.	32:49
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Because if you did not have people to support you, it probably would've slayed you. I don't know anybody, except those who of us who were physically harmed, I don't know anybody who has been mentally devastated on a permanent basis from Jim Crow. I don't. I don't know anybody. We were strong people. It changed us. It made some things different, but it did not destroy us. We are much too strong for that. And then we have a spiritual base. The spiritual base within the Black community is constant. And it's been that sustaining force in our lives.	33:32
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I'll tell you an interesting story. And I really thought this was why you were coming to me. I was part of the suit that integrated Tulane University. I was a party to that suit. Barbara Guillory and I. And this was in 1961, something like that, between 1961 and '62. I finally went in '63. But the interesting thing was that when I finished Dillard, I got a job at the welfare department as a trainee. I always wanted to be a social worker, so. Part of what the welfare department did was to offer scholarships for the employees for graduate school. You just had to go back and work for them. But you had to go to LSU. That was the closest school. And talk about racist. So anyway, at that time, I had a professor at Dillard called Dr. Fury, Dr. John Fury. I don't know if Dr. Fury's still alive or not.	34:13
Pearlie Harden Elloie	He was this little bitty, feisty Irishman. And Dr. Fury came to me and said that there were a group of people who were thinking about challenging Paul Tulane's will, Paul Tulane's will set aside money for the education of young White men, which was already broken because they did young White women and somebody else. They just didn't do Black people, and was I interested? And I said, "Well, sure." I'll tell you a little bit about me in a minute, and my mother's dismay sometimes. But, anyway, I was fired from that job. Once the suit was initiated, the excuse was that they would not offer me a scholarship. Well, that's okay. I kind of understood why I was fired. But sometime throughout that, I was pregnant with my second child, who subsequently died after birth. But I can remember going to court one day and the judge turned to our attorney and he says, "Well, I don't even know why she's trying to break—"	35:40
Pearlie Harden Elloie	No, "I don't know why she's in this. She needs to go home and raise her babies." So, that's a little bit of what it was. But the interesting thing about this was that, and sometimes I wish it had more of an impact on me than people kind of wanted it to have, because maybe, I don't know, maybe it would satisfy whatever. But not one single time did this alter who I was or add anything to it. It was just that I wanted to go to graduate school. There was one here. They wouldn't let us go because we were Black. Somebody had to do it. I didn't mind doing it. I wasn't fearful. The whole while I was at Tulane, I entered in January of '63, there was only one overt racist incident. I mean, a lot of them, but you learn how to deal with that kind of stuff.	36:55
Pearlie Harden Elloie	And I can remember Fred Sutherland was Assistant Dean or something like that. Dean Kindelberger was dean in those days. And Fred Sutherland called me into his office. He was so sweet. And he was this look of concern on his face. And so, he read this letter to me and it was from some racist in Cincinnati. And he was talking about, "You all admitted this Aunt Jemima in and you send me a corn pone recipe?" And all that kind of stuff. And he looked like you. See how you look?	37:54
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	38:25
Pearlie Harden Elloie	And it did not— and so I kind of smiled and he just didn't understand my ability to sweep this off. And I said, "Well, this doesn't matter to me." I said, "That's this man's problem." And that's how we've been able to deal with a lot of things. You put it in perspective. This man's racism was not my problem. As long as he could not personally deal with me, I wasn't going to try and change him. I wasn't going to even give him the energy of stewing about it. This was a sick person who had nothing else to do, but to sit down and write this letter from Cincinnati, Ohio to New Orleans, to dig at me.	38:26
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I thought to send him the recipe, because it wouldn't have made me any difference. But it affected Dean Sutherland so much. I said, "Please don't let that bother you. It does not bother me at all." And there were other incidences, but that's to be expected. That's to be expected. It's to be expected now, in 1994. If you leave your house and you think that there is no racism, there's no Jim Crow left out there, and you are not ready for it, it will floor you. It is here.	39:07
Pearlie Harden Elloie	And the other thing that I see, I guess the other appreciation that over the years, and this was one of the rudest awakening that I have ever had. I used to think that White people just didn't like us. Well, they have a lot of people they don't like. They don't like Jews. They don't like Spanish people. They don't like nobody but themselves. And I can remember sitting in a group. And I don't know where I was, I was fully grown. It was a professional group. And someone made a slip of a tongue and the racism about Jews came out. And they could have bitten their tongues. And then you open your ears and you see the racism that's there. You see the prejudice that anybody who's different, that's who they don't like. And that's who they deal with.	39:47
Pearlie Harden Elloie	And so, that really sort of centered me too. That kind of helped me, that it's not just us, that we have worn the brunt of it, but whenever somebody is different from that so-called majority, they want to deal on them. They only want those that look like them, that speak like them, that talk like them, same color eyes that they have, to be a part of that. And that's their problem. But then I've met real, real good people in this world, people who tried to make things better out of bad situations. I guess some of the most frightening times that I could remember were the days of civil rights struggle. I can remember when the three young men were killed in Mississippi. I can remember when— I don't know how young I was, how old, I don't know what my age was. I remember Emmett Till's story.	40:44
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I can remember feeling fearful for Dr. King and what he was doing. Those were the days when we struggled, openly and overtly, with Jim Crow, that it really came home. When you went saw boycotts, or you participated in them yourself. You saw a city not ride a bus for months and months and months. And when you saw on television dogs attacking people, and people laughing and joking. And when you saw little kids trying to go into a public school system here and mother standing out jeering. I can remember all of that. I was grown in those days. But I think when the struggle became an open struggle, no longer sort of veiled in secrecy, when it became open and people discussed and fought it in court and fought it in the street, that's when it impacted, I think, us more that— it is impacted me, I know— more than any other kind of way.	41:49
Pearlie Harden Elloie	My mother, who I said to you earlier, was the kind of person who did not like ugliness. She was a soft woman. And my mother always said to me, "Pearlie May, I don't understand you." Because I was feisty. I was fearless. I was verbal. I protected myself, my honor, always. I never did just sit and was quiet. And my mother used to be very, very fearful for me. And I think she probably was until the day she died, because she felt that, she used to tell me, "Your mouth is going to get you in trouble."	43:03
Pearlie Harden Elloie	And she really believed that you could not openly defy or speak against something that was not right. And I tried to say to my mother, but she was another generation, and I understood that, that nothing's going to happen to me. Of course I never know that, but I felt nothing would happen to me. I said, "Somebody has to say something. Somebody has to be open about it." And so, when I agreed to join the suit, I didn't tell my mother until some time later, because I knew she was going to worry, and which she did. She worked the whole time, until I was out of Tulane University. Away from the [indistinct 00:44:37].	43:50
Kate Ellis	Sometime in the 1970s.	44:36
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Well, that's the way she was. So, you never know what causes a person to be what they are. Because here was a girl who was born in a good, confident family, who lived in a nurturing environment, but who ended up being a little bit of a rabble rouser, and probably a little different. I'm probably more like my grandfather than I am anybody in my family. I'm very much unlike my sisters and my brother. They almost have my mother's impression of, "Are you going to ever stop?" Kind of thing. But my sister, who's next to me, in addition to being sisters, we are best of friends. We're best of friends.	44:44
Pearlie Harden Elloie	She always says to me that, "I learn a lot when we are together," because we see things from a different perspective. She's in a little— she's almost like a nun. You know where nuns live? They used to live anyway. Where they're protected from everything and they can be ninety-nine and they look seventy, because they don't have any worries. They haven't been outside of the world. And so there are no stresses. They haven't had those things impact them. My sister's existence is almost like that. She has the most amazing ability to only attend to those things that personally impact her. (laughs)	45:41
Pearlie Harden Elloie	And so we're very different. (laughs) But I guess that's all part of what— And we grew up in the same time. We're like eighteen, nineteen, twenty months apart. We're not even two years—	46:19

Pearlie Harden Elloie	You tell me.	0:01
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay. Okay. I think the generational differences are fascinating.	0:07
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Yeah.	0:09
Kate Ellis	Just in the interviews I've done, I hear people in their fifties talk about Jim Crow and race issues in a somewhat different way than—	0:10
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Younger people?	0:20
Kate Ellis	Than older people, than people in their sixties or seventies or eighties. I mean, I'm wondering if you can tell me a bit more about how you think— I mean, you've talked about it a little bit, but how your parents' perspective might have differed from yours as far as how you deal with Jim Crow.	0:21
Pearlie Harden Elloie	With Jim Crow?	0:44
Kate Ellis	Yes.	0:49
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I think people of my parents' generation understood it, faced it, but dealt with it almost like we dealt with it in the cafeteria. You found a way to get around it. Never openly defy it because you couldn't. You had an economic stake there. But never to let it— what do I want to say? Never to let it stop them from doing those things that they needed to do. See, I think it would've been very, very difficult for people of my mother's generation to challenge someone. It would've been difficult, and dangerous. But as time passed, we were able, because the whole attitude in the community was let's face it, let's fight it, let's destroy it. And so, you were able to openly say to people, "You're racist and this is wrong, and you're doing it simply because of color."	0:49
Pearlie Harden Elloie	You may have had some fear in you. You may have, but at least you had the law at that point, which offers some protection. And you also had an aura of this is the time to attack it. This is the time to confront it. And so, times make a difference about how we look at things and how we confront things, or whether or not we even confront things.	2:08
Kate Ellis	Yes.	2:34
Pearlie Harden Elloie	An interview in the 1950s of this type would've been very different than an interview in the 1990s.	2:34
Kate Ellis	How do you think it would've been? What do you think would've happened?	2:44
Pearlie Harden Elloie	It would've been more veiled. There would've been much more suspicion. You probably would not have gotten an awful lot of truth. You probably would've gotten what people thought you wanted to hear as opposed to what they wanted to say to you, because fear of what is going to happen to this information; how is it going to be used? Is it going to come back? Am I going to be identified? How is it going to impact my children? Will it mean that I'm going to lose my job?	2:46
Pearlie Harden Elloie	See, but right now, this is July fifteenth, 1994. Whatever I say to you, it won't impact my job. It won't impact my child or my grandchildren. It won't make a difference in my life. Not really. Even if it's put on the front page of The Times-Picayune, it won't make a difference because no one would take someone's job right now openly. You know?	3:18
Kate Ellis	Right.	3:45
Pearlie Harden Elloie	So that makes a difference. I think we are able to be more honest with each other in today's time than we would've been in the '50s.	3:46
Kate Ellis	Yeah, which is one of the reasons why your grandfather's retort to that man who called him uncle was—	3:55
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Listen, my grandfather was amazing. He was amazing. Honestly, he was absolutely amazing. And I have an uncle who's just like him. Just like him in terms of that kind of attitude. My Uncle Jimmy, who's still alive.	4:04
Kate Ellis	What do you remember about him?	4:23
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Well, my Uncle Jimmy was one of my uncles who never married. And so, he lived in the same little town that my grandfather lived in. And so, sometime in the summer he'd come, he'd visit us and he'd go and visit Aunt Carrie and he'd go and he'd visit Aunt Nelly. And so, we can recall that my uncle Jimmy was very, very outspoken. Very outspoken. Actually spent some time in prison because of so something to do with White people. I can't remember what it was.	4:25
Kate Ellis	Really? You don't remember?	4:54
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I wasn't as—	4:57
Kate Ellis	I'd love to hear.	4:58
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Let's see. What did my Uncle Jimmy do? I think he must have had some kind of altercation with a White man. So he spent some time in jail for that. In this little itty-bitty town in Texas. And so, that's the kind of person he was. So my uncle Jimmy sort of reminds me of my grandfather more than any of the other uncles. He was very feisty and still is very feisty, even though he is on a cane.	5:02
Kate Ellis	He's still in Texas?	5:31
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Oh, yes, yes. He's still there. Yeah. Everybody in my family's in Texas. I'm the only one here.	5:32
Kate Ellis	Oh.	5:37
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Yeah.	5:39
Kate Ellis	Did they tell you to come home?	5:40
Pearlie Harden Elloie	My mother did. And my sisters now. I guess since we're all getting older, they said, "What are you going to do when you retire?" I said, "Well, I don't know what I'm going to do." But I really feel as if I've grown up in New Orleans because I came here to go to Dillard. I never went back. I never went back. So I'm very comfortable here, very comfortable.	5:42
Kate Ellis	It's an interesting city.	6:09
Pearlie Harden Elloie	It is an interesting city. This city is exciting, but this city has— I'm not sure how to say it except this city has a romantic attachment to the past that's keeping it from progressing.	6:10
Kate Ellis	Really?	6:30
Pearlie Harden Elloie	To me. And when people here are able to stop romanticizing the past, they'll be able to look at reality through clear lenses. And I think they'll be able to make a difference in the city. And I think only then will the city reach its potential. This is a fascinating city, it's a beautiful city, but I think it's yet to reach its potential.	6:31
Kate Ellis	Seems like if it doesn't start heading in that way, it's going to run into real problems.	7:03
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Absolutely.	7:10
Kate Ellis	Let me ask you a little bit more about what you remember from school. I'm sure your history books didn't talk about African-Americans.	7:12
Pearlie Harden Elloie	No.	7:25
Kate Ellis	Did your teachers? Did your teachers?	7:26
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Mm-hmm. Look, the most amazing thing, and maybe this is why I'm so— I consider myself well grounded. When I came to New Orleans, people didn't know about the Negro spiritual. The Negro National Anthem, I'm sorry. I said, "What do you mean?" They never heard of James Weldon Johnson. It was a big thing for them. I grew up in elementary school. Every single morning we sang the Negro National Anthem. We celebrated Juneteenth. We never had to sit in Jim Crow sections or anything but the bus. And in my neighborhood, it was so Black, we didn't even had to sit in there because everybody on the bus except the driver was Black. And so it's been amazing to me how many of the things that people have talked about, I grew up with. I grew up with Black history. I grew up with knowing about the contributions that Blacks have made to the development of this country.	7:30
Pearlie Harden Elloie	It wasn't anything brand new to me. Now what I remember, I remember when I was in school, we never had brand new books. That every book that we got was from a White school with a White child's name in it. But again, I can remember a teacher in particular used to say to us, "Now, you see these books that they're giving us? We should have brand new books, but we not going to let that stop us. We going to learn out of these books." And that's the attitude. See, you have choices in life. You can either let something devastate you or you could say, "I'm not going to let it hamper me." And so I can remember from being a little girl that in most instances, these were the attitudes of the people that I came into contact with. These were strong people. And so yeah, we never had new books. And that was the day in Houston called Fat Stock Day. It's like they at the rodeo.	8:38
Kate Ellis	Fair Stock?	9:44
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Fat Stock.	9:45
Kate Ellis	Fat Stock.	9:46
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Like cattle and stuff. And they would have a day when they would have a parade. And I can remember that the Black schools, when they finally had the Black schools parade, it was always behind the horses. So here the kids are walking in cow shit. But I can also remember my mother saying, "You would not march in that parade." My sister was a, they call them flag girl, like a baton twirler or something like that. She couldn't march. My mother would not let her do that. She says, "You're not going to march like that." I can remember on Juneteenth, that was the only day that we could go to an amusement park. But that was just one day. We had 364 days to live. And so we couldn't let 364 days be impacted by the fact that we couldn't go there, but we could go there for one day.	9:47
Pearlie Harden Elloie	So in most instances, you chose not to go there that one day. There were lots and lots of things that were there because of the way society was in those days. It was mean, it was hateful. It was absolutely unnecessary. But in most instances, Black kids were taught not to take it. But you were taught to handle it. That's the only thing I can say. You were taught that this is what it is. It's nothing to do with you, but don't you let it stop you from doing what you need to do. And so you were not devastated by it, and you didn't dwell on the White man's sins about it. But what you did, you dwell on here's an opportunity for you to do something. The churches did it. The schools did it. And that's what most of us were. I mean, I was real Protestant, so when I went to church on Sundays, our spiritual leader was a Black man who suffered the same things that my parents did. And so those kinds of lessons we got in church too, not just school. Excuse me.	10:42
Kate Ellis	The thing you had just been saying was talking about the minister in your church. It was a minister, yeah.	12:00
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I guess. No, not really. I was really talking about the fact that, and the kind of community that I grew up in, is that we were constantly nurtured by the important people in our lives because they were all like us. If I had been Roman Catholic, I don't know, because Roman Catholics, the priests were White. The Blacks sat in a special section of church. And I don't think Blacks got any nurturing in the Roman Catholic Church in those days, but I did at the Baptist Church. We had our own movies. When I came to New Orleans, people were still sitting in Jim Crow sections in the movies. I had never done that before. In the 4th Ward, we had our own theater. And so we went to the Rainbow. Matter of fact, I used to work at the Rainbow Theater.	12:07
Kate Ellis	Really?	13:01
Pearlie Harden Elloie	And the Whites had their own theater. But because we had our own, I never even thought about— I thought about it, but if you don't have to deal with something every single day, I don't think it has that kind of major impact on your life. We were not constantly reminded in these little niceties of life that we were different. We didn't have to sit in the back of the church. We didn't have to sit in the loft in the movie theater. We sat anywhere we wanted to at the Rainbow Theater. It probably was an old raggedy theater, but it was ours. And that's the way we looked at.	13:01
Kate Ellis	What did you think when you came to New Orleans?	13:36
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Well, the thing that got me, I guess, more than anything else was that people seem to have some sense of pride in doing this. And they would say, "I live in an integrated neighborhood." I said, "Well, what does that mean?" Said, "Well, we play with White kids. And the kids next door were White." And I said, "Well, did y'all go to the same school?" "Well, no." And they got to a certain point, they couldn't have parties together. I said, "Well, that's not integrated." I said, "You just happen to live in a neighborhood where other people live." And I don't really think, and my friends who are from here and who grew up under those circumstances probably have more of— their feelings are more revengeful and full of hatred than people who grew up in situations that I grew up in. Because they were constantly thrown into a situation where they were made to feel different.	13:40
Pearlie Harden Elloie	You're different because you don't go to this child's party, even though he may live two doors from you. You're different because you sit in a certain section of the church. You're different and you sit in a certain section of the theater. We had none of that. And so our environment was much more nurturing. It may have been poorer. I'm sure it was. I'm sure our church couldn't compare to probably St. Leo or St. Raymond in that day. St. Leo apparently. But it was our church. And so you were free to move around. You were free to sit where— the only segregation you had is that children sat in certain sections. They didn't segregate you by race or gender. They separated you by age.	14:51
Pearlie Harden Elloie	And it was a nurturing environment for children. Very much so. Very much so. And I was amazed that people saw this as being a little bit better than what they call pure segregation. But I think what people failed to realize that in that community where there was a sameness, that it was a nurturing community that created a different kind of person. A person who was probably better rooted in his own ethnicity, didn't even understand it, but we were— it just created that. And also made you a more tolerant person in the end because you had something to go back to that was still good and still supportive of you. And I found that to be a little bit different. I found those kind of differences when I came to New Orleans and move out among people, especially those people who were raised in certain sections of New Orleans.	15:40
Kate Ellis	Sort of more integrated?	16:51
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Well, so they say.	16:54
Kate Ellis	So-called?	16:54
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Yeah.	16:55
Kate Ellis	It's just striking, some people I've talked to who grew up in, again, what they would call integrated.	16:56
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Yeah.	17:02
Kate Ellis	And saying that they had White friends when they were young. But some have talked about it and some haven't, about the fact that many White kids at a certain age would stop talking to them.	17:03
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Of course they would.	17:13
Kate Ellis	And I mean, I would think that experience in itself and that sort of betrayal.	17:14
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I mean, to me, it would have been devastating if my girlfriends who I grew up with on Victor Street had stopped speaking to me at age ten, eleven when we started going— I would have just not known what to do. Now, we stopped speaking when we were angry with each other and you just didn't speak to them for about a week or so. And that's what I don't quite understand, that people are not able to see how this must have filled their child with such self-doubt, with such sorrow. And had I been a parent in that neighborhood, I would not have permitted my child to play with those children. I just would not have. Because that's not healthy for a child to have to live with at seven and eight. That at some point people just stop talking to you, even though you've been the best of friends. No, it's not healthy for children. That makes Black kids feel less than adequate.	17:19
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I don't know what it did to the White kids. I have no idea what. It must have done something to them too. But had I been a mother of a child, and though I would've protected my child better than that. I truly would have. I can remember when it was time for my child to go to school and others— and there were some schools that were just opening to Blacks or very free Blacks and certain schools. And I said, "No." When you are five and leaving home for the first time and leaving mother and daddy and going into a strange environment, that environment should be as nurturing as possible. That is no time for children to fight racism. That's no time to expose your children to anything other than a nurturing environment. I don't care what they can get. What they can get.	18:18
Pearlie Harden Elloie	And so that's the kind of decision that a lot of us made for our children. And if you know, that's the kind decision that people are returning to when they go to colleges. The enrollment at Historically Black Colleges and Universities is flourishing. People are leaving environments where they're not nurtured. My sister, this niece of mine who went to the funeral with Aunt Carrie, my niece, who's— I want to say Frankie, Frank is thirty-six, something like that. Frankie went to Vassar for I think one or two years. She was so unhappy. I mean, academically, it wasn't a problem. But it was not a good match for her and her little girlfriend. And they left and moved into— she never went to a historically Black college, but she went to a school where the kids, even though they were of a different ethnicity, they were a better match with her in terms of economically and social development.	19:18
Kate Ellis	What school is that?	20:22
Pearlie Harden Elloie	She went to— well, she went to so many schools before she finally finished. She went to school out of USC, then she went to University of Texas at Austin. Vassar had such an elitist whole thing. That's where you went school?	20:24
Kate Ellis	No. No, but it's a place— No, I looked at that school. And I said, "Mm-mm."	20:41
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Well, but you see, the thing was that in order for a poor young Black girl to go to Vassar, it was like, "Oh, wow. Look at what this [indistinct 00:20:56]." But failing to realize what is it doing to this child who's leaving the family for the— I can remember my daddy said, "Why y'all have that girl up there? I don't know, bring her home." So she finally brought herself home.	20:47
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	21:09
Pearlie Harden Elloie	And so that's the kind, I think, and when you put kids in a nurturing environment when they're young, they're going to face it anyway, but they're strong enough to face it. So they leave the family, but they leave with the foundation, and they leave with a degree of self-confidence that makes it possible for them to withstand racism and Jim Crow and all that stuff that's out there because the foundation has been laid for them.	21:10
Pearlie Harden Elloie	And that's the benefit. That's what I see schools needing to do, families needing to do. Even in this day and time, I think we fail our children when we fail to— and I don't mean just lay on it. But I think you have to let people know, your children know that there's still elements of racism out there that they have to be strong enough to withstand. And to say it doesn't exist, it's not being realistic at all. It's ill preparing children, both Black and White, because I think White people of goodwill are raised in different kinds of children. Just like Black people of goodwill, raise different kinds of children. I really believe that.	21:44
Kate Ellis	Why don't we start with this form?	22:31
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Okay.	22:47
Kate Ellis	So I can let you move on with your day. And if thoughts come up, you know—	22:47
Pearlie Harden Elloie	They will, but I won't call you.	22:54
Kate Ellis	Well, I mean, even while we're doing this form.	22:56
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Okay.	22:56
Kate Ellis	I know. I wish you could record all the thoughts, but—	22:56
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I know. It's like—	22:56
Kate Ellis	Because I'm sure it's the kind of thing that gets you thinking.	22:56
Pearlie Harden Elloie	It does. It does. It really does. It does.	22:56
Kate Ellis	Sort of, yeah. Okay. But at least while we're here still, if you think of something.	23:10
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Okay. All right.	23:13
Kate Ellis	That jogs your memory. What's your address?	23:14
Pearlie Harden Elloie	3638 Virgil Boulevard. V-I-R-G-I-L.	23:18
Kate Ellis	And what's your zip code?	23:23
Pearlie Harden Elloie	70122.	23:25
Kate Ellis	What's your occupation? What's your title?	23:32
Pearlie Harden Elloie	My title here is Director Office for Children, Youth and Families. And I direct most of the programs for this agency that relate to children and young people. And the major one being Headstart.	23:35
Kate Ellis	How would you like your name to appear on written documents?	24:05
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Pearlie Harden Elloie. Always Harden. Always. I'm the first graduate, college graduate of my mother's children. I'm the first in the generation. And I give honor to my family by using that name. Matter of fact, when I finished college, I was married, but I maintained my maiden name. So when my mother and them were there, I wanted them to hear their name. And so I maintained Harden. So that's on my college diploma.	24:08
Kate Ellis	And then once you got out of college, did you take on—	24:43
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Yeah.	24:48
Kate Ellis	That's your married—	24:49
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Yeah. Mm-hmm.	24:49
Kate Ellis	Did she appreciate that?	24:51
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I know she did. My aunts didn't understand, but she—	24:53
Kate Ellis	But she—	24:58
Pearlie Harden Elloie	— She understood Pearlie.	24:59
Kate Ellis	So are you married now?	25:03
Pearlie Harden Elloie	No, I'm not.	25:04
Kate Ellis	Okay. What's your former husband's name?	25:08
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Well, he's not my former husband. I was just not— I don't know. How can I say this? This is horrible. (laughs) Oh, you going to learn a lot about Black folks. I'm separated. What? Sorry. He's my husband, but he's not my— I don't know. Yeah, he's my husband. Legally, he's my husband. His name is Charles. (laughs) Yeah. He's a good man. He is. He truly is.	25:09
Kate Ellis	His middle name?	25:38
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Lloyd.	25:41
Kate Ellis	But it's his last name, which is Elloie?	25:47
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Elloie.	25:48
Kate Ellis	Is he the only person you've been married to?	25:51
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Mm-hmm.	25:51
Kate Ellis	What was his date of birth?	25:54
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Four six thirty-eight.	25:56
Kate Ellis	Oh, so you're real close in age?	26:00
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Right there together. We went to school, undergraduate school together. That's where I met him.	26:02
Kate Ellis	Oh, you met him. Okay.	26:05
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Mm-hmm.	26:06
Kate Ellis	All right. Where was he born?	26:06
Pearlie Harden Elloie	New Orleans. He's a native.	26:09
Kate Ellis	The last thing about New Orleans, I find compared to even Atlanta, I could be wrong with this, but I think there are a lot, I just feel like I've met a lot more Native New Orleanians.	26:14
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Oh, yeah. They don't live home.	26:24
Kate Ellis	No, they stay. Whereas, Atlanta seems to have a large population of people that migrate.	26:24
Pearlie Harden Elloie	That's right. No, people from New Orleans do not leave home.	26:32
Kate Ellis	And what's Mr. Elloie's occupation?	26:38
Pearlie Harden Elloie	He's a lawyer.	26:41
Kate Ellis	What was your mother's? Oops. I knew I did that wrong. What was your mother's full name?	26:45
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Maggie Zelma Lewis-Harden.	26:54
Kate Ellis	Did you say Zelma?	27:01
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Z-E-L-M-A. Lewis.	27:02
Kate Ellis	And Lewis is her maiden name?	27:05
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Uh-huh.	27:05
Kate Ellis	And her date of birth?	27:10
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Eleven. No. ten eight zero four, 1904.	27:14
Kate Ellis	And she was born where?	27:21
Pearlie Harden Elloie	She was born in Alabama. I'm not sure where though in Alabama. I think right outside of Montgomery, but I'm not really sure.	27:23
Kate Ellis	And what did she do when you were growing up?	27:34
Pearlie Harden Elloie	The first five years of my life, she was a homemaker. When I went to— so from kindergarten till I was grown, married with the child. She worked in school cafeteria. My daddy was a truck driver.	27:40
Kate Ellis	And what was your father's full name?	28:07
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Lowyel, L-O-W-Y-E-L. L-O-W-Y-E-L. Harden.	28:09
Kate Ellis	I put Elloie. I was just filling out whatever part of the forms I could. I'm like, "Oh, well I know the last name's Elloie." And as I was doing it I thought there's something wrong with this picture.	28:16
Pearlie Harden Elloie	That's not ending up right, huh?	28:31
Kate Ellis	Did your father have a middle name?	28:36
Pearlie Harden Elloie	No.	28:38
Kate Ellis	What was his date of birth?	28:40
Pearlie Harden Elloie	You know, I never knew. June twenty-sixth. He was three years younger than my mother. So that made him 1907.	28:43
Kate Ellis	And he passed in 1981?	28:51
Pearlie Harden Elloie	No. Yeah, 1981.	28:54
Kate Ellis	And where was he born?	28:58
Pearlie Harden Elloie	He was born in Kenedy, Texas. Around about that way.	29:00
Kate Ellis	Okay. And you've got, you said three brothers and sisters?	29:09
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I have two sisters and one brother.	29:11
Kate Ellis	What are their names and birthdays?	29:13
Pearlie Harden Elloie	The oldest one is Betty H. Leadon, L-E-A-D-O-N. That's my oldest sister.	29:15
Kate Ellis	When was she born?	29:25
Pearlie Harden Elloie	She was born January seventh, 1933. The second oldest child is—	29:26
Kate Ellis	Was she born in Kenedy? Were they all born in Kenedy?	29:34
Pearlie Harden Elloie	All of us were born in Kenedy.	29:34
Kate Ellis	Okay.	29:34
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Mm-hmm. Second oldest is my brother, Leon Preston Harden. He was born April twenty-ninth, 1934. The next is my sister Inez H. Young, I-N-E-Z. And she was born August first, 1936. And then me.	29:38
Kate Ellis	And your children's?	30:18
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I have one child, Charles Junior. He was born November twenty-eighth, 1960.	30:21
Kate Ellis	In New Orleans?	30:36
Pearlie Harden Elloie	In New Orleans.	30:37
Kate Ellis	And you have a grandchild?	30:37
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I have three grandchildren, yes.	30:44
Kate Ellis	My mother wants one.	30:47
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Everyone wants grandchildren.	30:50
Kate Ellis	She had me when she was a bit older and she has friends who are a good ten or fifteen years younger.	30:54
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Oh, she is having a fit, huh?	30:59
Kate Ellis	Who have grandchildren already. Yes.	30:59
Pearlie Harden Elloie	My girlfriend is like that. My girlfriend is seven years older than me and her daughter just married about two years ago. "She's going to make me grandma." I said, "Leave her alone or she'll never make you a grandmother."	31:01
Kate Ellis	No.	31:15
Pearlie Harden Elloie	So my grandchildren called her Aunt Helen.	31:16
Kate Ellis	Oh, really? That's too cute.	31:18
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Oh, she made them.	31:22
Kate Ellis	Okay. So you said you spent the first couple years of your life in Kenedy. So what I wrote down, I need to write the places where you've lived and when. So I wrote 1938 to 1940.	31:30
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I lived in Kenedy. So from 1940 until, well, how do you say this? Now see, I left Houston in '56 to go to school, but I went back home for the summer. So I was officially a resident until 1960 when I married. So from 1940 to 1960, I was a resident of Houston, Texas.	31:34
Kate Ellis	Okay.	31:57
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Oh, I had an interesting story to tell you about when I went to vote.	31:59
Kate Ellis	Oh.	32:01
Pearlie Harden Elloie	If you want to know about that?	32:01
Kate Ellis	Yes, I would.	32:01
Pearlie Harden Elloie	When I went to register to vote.	32:02
Kate Ellis	Yes.	32:04
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Okay. It was 1960. I was a college graduate, Magna Cum Laude. Okay? Scholarships. So I went down to vote and this old racist cracker said to me, "Fill out this form, girl." I said, "Okay." I filed it out. And in those days, you had to give your birth. This is how you had to give your age. It was a thing for an age. You had to give your years, your month, and your day. To the day. And so he looked at the form, he said, "It's wrong." I said, "Where?" "I can't tell you." I said, "Well, then you have to tell me." I'm pregnant too. "You have to tell me." "I don't have to tell you anything. You graduated from college and you don't even know your age." So I knew then what was wrong. I said, "Fine." I went back the next day and registered. I was a different person. And he was there. And when I finished and it was okay, I said, "I registered today." That was 1960. And that was still going on. It's amazing. It's amazing. Yes. It's amazing.	32:04
Kate Ellis	What'd he do when you— Did he just grimace when you said that?	33:25
Pearlie Harden Elloie	He just looked at me and turned redder.	33:29
Kate Ellis	[indistinct 00:33:33].	33:29
Pearlie Harden Elloie	But it's just like I was telling you, you just said, I don't know what happened. I flunked that. You didn't flunk a test. They use all kind of things to keep you in your place. And you had to let people know, there is no place except where I want to be. My place is where I want to be, not where you want me to be. And that's what had to happen with people like that.	33:37
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	33:59
Pearlie Harden Elloie	They made you stronger. They didn't realize it.	34:01
Kate Ellis	Okay. Now your education history. Starting, I guess with elementary school. What was the name of your school?	34:08
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Gregory Elementary School. I went there from first to sixth grade.	34:16
Kate Ellis	So that would be what year?	34:22
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Shoot, I don't know. Let's see. I was sixth in 19, What?	34:26
Kate Ellis	In '44?	34:29
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Yeah, well say 1944. And then count sixth years, whatever.	34:33
Kate Ellis	So you were six. Okay. So—	34:36
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I went back—	34:37
Kate Ellis	Sixth grade.	34:38
Pearlie Harden Elloie	From kindergarten to first grade. All right.	34:39
Kate Ellis	Wait. To sixth grade?	34:46
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Kindergarten through sixth grade.	34:47
Kate Ellis	So were you five in kindergarten?	34:50
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Yeah.	34:51
Kate Ellis	Okay. So then you were—	34:53
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I probably went September. I was whenever.	34:53
Kate Ellis	Okay, so 1943 to sixth grade.	34:57
Pearlie Harden Elloie	See, I hadn't thought about that one, ages.	35:00
Kate Ellis	So I'm looking at my hands.	35:05
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I know. Because it was 1930—	35:06
Kate Ellis	To 1950. Does that sound right?	35:06
Pearlie Harden Elloie	No, that's not right. Okay. 1943, I was five. 1943.	35:11
Kate Ellis	And then sixth grade you would've been eleven?	35:15
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Yes.	35:15
Kate Ellis	So 1949?	35:16
Pearlie Harden Elloie	That makes more sense to me.	35:24
Kate Ellis	Okay. Yeah.	35:26
Pearlie Harden Elloie	That makes more sense.	35:26
Kate Ellis	And then where?	35:27
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Then I went to Booker T. Washington High School from grade six, from grade seven through twelfth.	35:29
Kate Ellis	Okay. To '56?	35:48
Pearlie Harden Elloie	To '56. I can tell you the year I left there. And then I went to Dillard University from 1956 to 1960.	35:49
Kate Ellis	You got a BA?	36:09
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I have a BA.	36:09
Kate Ellis	In what?	36:09
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Sociology.	36:12
Kate Ellis	Okay.	36:16
Pearlie Harden Elloie	And then I went to Tulane University School of Social Work from 1963 to 1965. Got an MSW. Then I went to Tulane for a year, 1968. I just did some coursework in early childhood education. I've attended classes at various points and times, and I really can't even give you dates anymore. It's been so many of them. Loyola University, Harvard. I went to Harvard for a summer.	36:16
Kate Ellis	Okay.	37:13
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Texas Tech. I have lots of different things, what I call continuing education, but they're not really continuing education. But I went to school for special classes and things at many of them.	37:22
Kate Ellis	Okay.	37:33
Pearlie Harden Elloie	And most of that has either been in early childhood education or in management.	37:38
Kate Ellis	Was the management, is that part of that Harvard? Is that the—	37:56
Pearlie Harden Elloie	No, I went there for the Early Childhood Education Seminar. Yeah. They do it all day now.	38:00
Kate Ellis	Okay. Now as far as your—	38:09
Pearlie Harden Elloie	That's the way I met the up north races.	38:11
Kate Ellis	Oh, yeah. How do you like that? What do you think of that? The variation in that?	38:13
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I felt it was very, very dishonest. They feigned liberalism and understanding and openness, and many of them were not at all. That was one in particular, I wish I could remember her name, but there were about the whole class of maybe 150, there were maybe ten Blacks, all females. And it was apparent that she didn't understand how or why we were there. And she even made a comment one day about southern Blacks taking up spots that could be used to train. No. Why the school had to admit southern Blacks who were not as qualified as kids from this very community. So we kind of knew what she's talking about.	38:22
Pearlie Harden Elloie	But again, that was her problem. We didn't deal with that. But it's amazing people's inability to see themselves. And she really felt that. I don't know what she felt. But the school had yet to tackle with that. They were not as liberal as they said they were. And then as they thought they were. And as they were projected as being. And that's when they had very few Black people to deal with. So when they started getting more and more Black kids on campus, especially in the undergraduate, because that's what makes a difference in the undergraduate level. My goodness. They were so surprised when they were challenged about a lot of things. They understand, "We are good people. What are you challenging?" It was all foreign to them.	39:25
Kate Ellis	I contend the north almost needs— the northerners and liberal, everybody, racists in general need southern, White Southerners to kind of project all of their own racism on, like it's their problem. Oh, the south is so bad. They're the ones that had slaves. We're the ones that came down and, you know?	40:10
Pearlie Harden Elloie	That's true.	40:33
Kate Ellis	They really need that.	40:34
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I can kind of understand why people call them Yankees now. And you know what the most amazing thing was? That the admiration that I felt for the strength of southern Blacks was affirmed when I met northern Blacks.	40:36
Kate Ellis	Why? What do you mean?	40:55
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Because I felt that in many ways, we were stronger, we were more— we confronted things, or we were hell of a lot less fearful of articulating what we felt and how we felt. When things changed, they changed because southern Blacks made a change. They changed because we took our destiny in our hands. We confronted. Not northern Blacks. And even the ones who were from the north who participated in the struggle had southern roots. They may have been first generation from Chicago. Like Jesse Jackson may have lived in Chicago, but he was from South Carolina. He was educated in South Carolina. And I have found that a strength in southern Black people I have not seen anywhere else and anywhere else. And an ability to be very real and to assess things as they are, as opposed to other kinds of things. Yeah. So just interesting.	40:58
Kate Ellis	Yeah. All right. Okay. Your current and most important previous jobs? Now—	42:04
Pearlie Harden Elloie	This is the only job I've ever worked since graduate school.	42:12
Kate Ellis	What's the full title of this organization?	42:17
Pearlie Harden Elloie	This is Total Community Action. This is the local community services agency, officially designated community services agency. We came out of the old anti-poverty program, OEO. Okay? This agency was born out of that.	42:19
Kate Ellis	And that was, you said 1965?	42:43
Pearlie Harden Elloie	'65. We were incorporated December '64. Began staffing the agency in '65. So I came on when it was being staffed.	42:45
Kate Ellis	Okay. Yeah. Wait, I'm not sure I heard you properly. Did you say that it was incorporated in '65?	42:58
Pearlie Harden Elloie	In 64. December '64.	43:07
Kate Ellis	And you started?	43:07
Pearlie Harden Elloie	'65.	43:07
Kate Ellis	Okay.	43:08
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Either June or July. I think July of '65.	43:10
Kate Ellis	As far as what I should— obviously, I have your job title now. I want to say something else though, as far as the jobs that you've done here. You've done social—	43:15
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Well, since I started out as assistant to the associate director. So I've always worked with programs that dealt with children. I monitor the daycare program. I've directed adult education programs for the agency. Most interesting job, I used to do all kind of special initiatives too. But the most interesting thing that I did when I was here, was it Medicare? Medicaid? Medicare or Medicaid. It must have been Medicare. Medicare was initiated, there was an emphasis of letting the community know about the programs that were coming up. And so I administered a program called Medicare Alert, where we had to go out into the community and let senior citizens know that this program was coming and everything. So that was intriguing. Because I've actually seen some things start, and so that's been rewarding.	43:26
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	44:32
Pearlie Harden Elloie	But most of my career here has been administering, managing for the agency, those programs that impact children and families.	44:33
Kate Ellis	Yeah. Okay. Have you ever received any awards or honors or held any offices?	44:49
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Well—	45:07
Kate Ellis	Yes.	45:08
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Awards, honors? I mean, I don't know. I don't know how one can answer that.	45:11
Kate Ellis	Well—	45:19
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Except yes, you have.	45:19
Kate Ellis	Well, I mean, it wants me to write down as many as I can, which I will do. But also, if you have something printed out that describes your—	45:24
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I think I'm going to give you that.	45:34
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	45:36
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Okay.	45:36
Kate Ellis	Really, that's why I asked, because —	45:37
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Okay. Okay.	45:40
Kate Ellis	Because the next— well, your religious denomination is Baptist?	45:40
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I'm Baptist.	45:45
Kate Ellis	What's your current church affiliation?	45:46
Pearlie Harden Elloie	Christian Unity Baptist Church.	45:48
Kate Ellis	And what are your past church memberships?	45:56
Pearlie Harden Elloie	I was a Catholic convert for most of my adult life while I was married. This is horrible. After that kind of dissolved and I moved out on my own, I went back to the religion of my upbringing, which is Baptist. So the major part of my adult life, I was a practicing Catholic.	46:02
Kate Ellis	At what church?	46:35
Pearlie Harden Elloie	See, that's the thing about Catholics, you used to go to any church that's close to you.	46:37
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay.	46:40
Pearlie Harden Elloie	In Baptist, you—	46:40

Item Info

Title:

Pealie Elloie interview recording, 1994 July 15

Date:

July 15, 1994

Creator:

Elloie, Pealie Hardin

Contributor:

Ellis, Kate

Description:

Name: Pealie Hardin Elloie; Date of birth: 1938-05-11; Place of birth: Kennedy, TX; Occupation(s): educator; youth services; Residence: New Orleans, LA
Informant ID: 533; Interviewed by: Kate Ellis.

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Language:

English

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Behind the Veil

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

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Provenance:

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

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

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RL00170-CS-1206
44ea4e47-95c8-4242-809b-2d660131a7ef
behindtheveil
18dabaa1-bcfa-4ed5-adc5-e13b2ecaba3a
ark:/87924/r4v69mn1r
18dabaa1-bcfa-4ed5-adc5-e13b2ecaba3a

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Pealie Elloie interview recording, 1994 July 15

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1. Pealie Elloie administrative file, 1994

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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