Ruth Simms interview recording, 1995 August 01

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Doris Dixon	Okay, Ms. Simms, could you state your full name and date of birth, please?	0:05
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Okay. My name is Ruth Tolliver Simms. I was born December the 13th, 1935.	0:08
Doris Dixon	And where were you born?	0:19
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Itta Bena, Mississippi.	0:20
Doris Dixon	And is Itta Bena where you grew up?	0:24
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Itta Bena, Mississippi. I grew up here.	0:26
Doris Dixon	Okay. What are some of your earliest memories of growing up here?	0:28
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Okay, the earliest memories, the one that really stands out is the death of my father. I was six months old then my grandmother had to tell me this because I did not know. I was six months old when my father died, and he was very ill. So my grandmother told me, "See, he knew he was going to die" and before he died and they said I was so small, they had me on a pillow. They said he called my grandmother to the bed and told and handed me to her on this pillow, and he said, "Now I want you to take care of my children, especially my little girl, my little baby here." And he handed me to her and he said, "Now when you leave here I want you to take her home with you." He said, "My wife is still young and I know she going marry again and you take my baby home with you." So I lived with my grandmother until her death.	0:34
Doris Dixon	And when did she pass?	1:35
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Let me see, she was 73 when she died. Probably, let's see, about 19—I'd say about 47. Maybe. It might have been a few years but it's around there because she was 73 when she died. So I stayed with my grandmother.	1:35
Doris Dixon	What do you remember about her?	1:57
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Oh. I remember her. She stands out in my mind when I was very young, I was about five years old. My mother was a school teacher. So when I was five years old she carried me to school with her. So then I knew right then that I wanted to be a school teacher because I wanted, my mother taught in a church, at Berclair, Mississippi. That's about four or five miles from here, and I wondered how could she teach all those kids? Just one person maybe about 35 or 40, and she was doing such a great job because she would teach the big kids first and then the big kids would help her with the little kids.	2:03
Ruth Tolliver Simms	And I said, "Yes, this is what I want to be." So when I came home I told my grandmother, I said, "I want to be a teacher." She said, "You do?" I said, "Yes, I know what I want to be." I said, "But suppose something happened and—" you know how a kid think, and later on I said, "Suppose something happened to you, how would I go to school?" She said, "Well, you really want to be?" I said, "Yeah." And I never dreamed this. Okay, when I got to ninth grade, I went to Rust College, they had a high school there, and so they said, "Well, when you graduate from 12th grade, no more high school students, we going to strictly college because you're messing with our accreditation." So I went on and I finished high school. She sent me to high school. Then I started in college and my sophomore year she died, my grandmother. And I wanted, I say now, "Wonder what going to happen to us?"	2:48
Ruth Tolliver Simms	So, I said, "Now how am I going to make it to college?" And she had left her will in the bank and had already got a lawyer that made out of will. Now this lady couldn't have. She couldn't read, only could write her name. She had a third grade education, she couldn't read. And I said, "She left a will?" And I begin and in this will, she stated she leaving this money for me to complete college and they were supposed to be giving out money, that's where the lawyer decided, and I thought that was the greatest thing. And I said, "Now I know I got to finish college" and I did because she made it possible. She made it possible for me. And then I started working on my master's at Delta State in Cleveland, Mississippi. Then when Valley State, Mississippi Valley got the master program, then I finished there. But I did all these things because of her.	3:59
Ruth Tolliver Simms	And I wished I could tell her this. I wished I could see her and tell them that I did this because she did too, and she would just sit and talk to us and tell us this. She always said this and listen. She said, "Be nice to people because the very person you see going up the ladder, you going to meet them coming down. You don't never know when you going to need anybody. So be nice." And that was her motto, "Be nice." And another thing that I remember by, she was a midwife and if they had the money she still would perform the duties, and if they didn't have it she still performed the duties. And in the wintertime, this very land that we are standing on now, she would have it plowed up and plant greens, and in winter time when the people didn't have anything to eat, they could just come here and pick them greens.	5:07
Ruth Tolliver Simms	All kind of turnips and mustards and they would just eat. And if they didn't have meat to cook, she would give them meat. Long time ago people had a smokehouse and she would kill these hogs and smoke those hams, and they were delicious. And she say, "You got it?" She knew the family, people that had a whole lot of truth. She say, "You got anything to cook them with?" "No, ma'am. I'm in the street, I don't have anything." She'd give them meat to cook. That's why God helped us so much because she helped other people and she was just good too. Okay.	6:06
Doris Dixon	Now you grew up in this land right here?	6:41
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Mm-hmm. Well, see where that truck is over there?	6:52
Doris Dixon	Mm-hmm.	6:54
Ruth Tolliver Simms	She had a nine room house over there and I lived in it till I started having my children and it got burned. Then I bought me a trailer and I moved here. See, I had—it was five of us, three boys and two girls. So it's one boy living, he lived in Chicago, my sister lives over there, I live here. So just two of us and two of us down here.	6:55
Doris Dixon	How many lived with your grandmother?	7:22
Ruth Tolliver Simms	All of us.	7:24
Doris Dixon	Okay.	7:24
Ruth Tolliver Simms	All. We three lived with my grandmother.	7:26
Doris Dixon	And what do you remember about your home and your neighbor's home?	7:28
Ruth Tolliver Simms	My home is different. My grandmother was a person that—My grandmother, we used to live over there, she owned from that tree all the way down to that antenna way down there. If you notice way down there, it's a TV antenna almost to the highway on this side, and on that side she owned from there all the way down to the highway. And our home was different because we had everything. People worked for her so we didn't have to farm. And I was a water carrier and I had to work. My brothers, they worked on the farm. They plowed the tractors and drove the tractors up there. But when it was hot and everything, I was the water person. And then when I got old I went to the bank to get the money to pay to help out and they helped her and see she owned all the land.	7:33
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Then after she died, the man came and asked, and I knew she would mind that, she said—They asked would they sell the land and make plays for people who lived out in the country. And I told my brothers, I said, "Let's sell it to them. Let's sell it to them, and look what happened." Then after my heart, after the house got burned, and I came over here and plead, trees were planted and it just made a beautiful neighborhood. Before, there was never land. So we sold land to this construction in Indianola, and they built these houses. And she would buy lots, like White people would tell her, "Such and such a lot." You see a long time ago, if you didn't pay your taxes, if somebody died and they didn't pay their taxes, then if you had some money you could go and buy it. So she would buy. She bought a lot of houses and sold them.	8:47
Ruth Tolliver Simms	That's why she helped the community so much. And that's what I remember by her. And you know, what was amazing about her, she wore a little black hat on her head, a little old cotton dress and some shoes, and she just dressed like that. She never used the money. She never used it, she never enjoyed it. But she was happy, she had everything she wanted. And I think about her like that, if people now had what she had, I don't know what they would do. When you're around a person like that, it makes you understand a whole lot. You never get so high that you can't recognize people and be nice to people.	9:45
Doris Dixon	What was the most important to her?	10:41
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Us, I guess. I guess that was important to her because now out of the five, I'm the only one that went to college because nobody's wanted to go. But she could've sent us all if she had wanted to, but nobody wanted to go but me. I really wanted to go and I went and it paid off. It paid off. And I never shall forget her as long as I live. She's constantly—In the park that's named after her, the Dorothy Street Park.	10:44
Doris Dixon	Okay.	11:19
Ruth Tolliver Simms	The Dorothy Street Park is named after her..	11:19
Doris Dixon	Is that her? Was her name Dorothy Street?	11:21
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Dorothy Street.	11:26
Doris Dixon	Okay.	11:26
Ruth Tolliver Simms	And the park is named after. Did you see that when you came through?	11:27
Doris Dixon	Mm-hmm.	11:29
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Well, that park was named in her honor.	11:30
Doris Dixon	And what was her occupation?	11:36
Ruth Tolliver Simms	A farmer. She was a farmer. Had land on her. She owned the land. She owned 160 acres because she had both on this side and way back over there. So she owned 160 acres.	11:39
Doris Dixon	Did she ever tell you any stories about her when she was coming up earlier?	11:55
Ruth Tolliver Simms	She didn't tell sad stories and she'd tell funny stories and you'd forget them. She wouldn't tell you nothing sad. She always told you funny stories and then she'd laugh. She'd tell you ghost stories, you know like things you know too. If something was funny how the people would scare you a long time ago, jump off and behind you, put on sheets and things and scare you to death. Isn't that funny?	12:03
Ruth Tolliver Simms	And they were saying, she say, "You always could tell when a ghost was around because it's real hot and when you walk in that spot, it's real hot in that spot." I always wanted to see about that hot spot. But that's what she'd always say. She'd tell us ghost stories. Things that would make you laugh. Things funny. She didn't say no sad story. You know like some people would tell you a struggling story. She didn't tell you that. She always told a funny story to keep you laughing.	12:30
Doris Dixon	Did you know any of your other grandparents?	12:57
Ruth Tolliver Simms	No, she was the only one that I knew. She was the mother, the father, the grandmother. Because after Dad gave us to her, my mother, and she built up my mother house right over there beside her. But we lived with my grandmother and we would jump from one porch to the other. They were just that close. We could jump off my grandmother's porch over to my mother's porch. But we didn't ever spend the night with her. We stayed with her, with our grandmother. See, my dad had three children with me. Then my mother married again. She had two, a boy and a girl. So it was five of us. So now they could stay over there but we had to stay with her. We belong with her, so we stay with her.	12:59
Ruth Tolliver Simms	And we had that house, it was so huge, it had nine rooms, and let me tell you, this is what she would say, every year she made a good crop, she'd build a room. She said when she first started out it had three rooms. When she died it had nine. We called her Big Mama. I said, "Big Mama, you had too many good crops." I said, "Nine rooms is a lot to clean up." And you know a long time ago they were big rooms, not little room, they didn't believe in that little. Gray, big room and all the antique was in there, all her antique furniture and everything, but it all got burned up. I had pictures of her and everything burned. I had the house painted, I had panel put in it and everything, but I didn't have the wires checked because I didn't know, and it burned up from the wire. And that's how it got destroyed from the wires.	13:46
Doris Dixon	When was that?	14:49
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Wires? Well—	14:49
Doris Dixon	When was the fire?	14:49
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Oh, Lord. Let me see. I've been over here about '70—Oh, this happened in '79—About '75. Because I've been over here since '78, '74, '75, something like that. Been a long time.	14:53
Doris Dixon	And where'd you go to grade school?	15:08
Ruth Tolliver Simms	I went there and then I went—	15:11
Doris Dixon	To Berclair?	15:13
Ruth Tolliver Simms	No, no up there at Brazil Center.	15:14
Doris Dixon	Okay.	15:17
Ruth Tolliver Simms	I went to grade school, the Brazil Center and high school as well.	15:17
Doris Dixon	You went to high school before?	15:20
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Uh-uh, I went to high school at Rust College.	15:25
Doris Dixon	Oh, okay. You meant to tell me that.	15:26
Ruth Tolliver Simms	See after eighth grade I went to ninth grade at Rust. We were the last ones we'd see.	15:29
Doris Dixon	And did you go to school all of the year like most kids?	15:33
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Yeah, I went then I'd come home in the summer from Rust. Yeah, that's where she wanted me to go. She was a Methodist. So, Rust is a Methodist college. So we went there. I went there.	15:44
Doris Dixon	Were your grandmother and your mother actively involved in your education?	15:58
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Yeah. See my mother went to Rust. Yeah. See, my mother died before my grandmother did and then my grandmother died. But yeah, they were interested in me. Yes.	16:03
Doris Dixon	And what do you remember about high school at West Commons?	16:24
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Oh, church. Church, church, church, church. That's what it was all about. Rust is a very religious institution. Church, because you're not far from Rust. Well, 45 miles, I think that's where it was. A lot of kids from Memphis went to Rust College. When I was—it's breaking. (knocking noises)	16:27
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Yeah, so that's what I remember, going to church all the time. Everything was church, church, church but they all had some excellent teachers. Great teachers and they had been there for years and years and they knew how to teach. What I learned in Rust carried me through. (microphone rustling)	17:09
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Oh, shoot. Down.	17:27
Doris Dixon	I got it. What was your first job? First job?	17:43
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Teaching.	17:44
Doris Dixon	Teaching?	17:44
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Mm-hmm. I didn't know what else. When I got out, that's all I knew to do, teaching. My first job and last job was teaching.	17:44
Doris Dixon	And what were the wages like when you started?	17:54
Ruth Tolliver Simms	I was getting around like—When I first started teaching, I wanted to have to make it over $250. Guess what? My mother made $50 a month. So she had to love it to work. "$50?" I said, I told my mother—See, here what we did, we called my mother Little Mama, we would call our grandmother Big Mama. I said, "Little Mama, how you going to make it off of $50 a month?" She said, "They need help, so I don't—" She wasn't worried about it because her mother, she said, "I don't worry about it some. I'm just doing that to help, so they need help." That's what she felt.	17:58
Ruth Tolliver Simms	And then she'd have her mother on the phone. She'd keep her books for her, keep everything together. She sure would. She was a big help to her mother. That education really paid off for her. See because if my grandmother couldn't do it, my mother did everything. She did, and then what would happen at the end of the year, the other White folk around here would come to her for her to do that, books. So she did that, books. But then all of them that were farmers around here, my grandmother knew them and they would come because she was like their bookkeeper. She only did it at the end of the year. She'd tell them how much they made, how much they paid out, how much they took in, and they depended on her to do that. Sure did.	18:35
Doris Dixon	Now what school system were you teaching at? Can you think of any school?	19:29
Ruth Tolliver Simms	I have at Sunflower County. I taught one year here, right up there at the Brazil Center and then the rest of the years I taught in Sunflower County. I first taught at Inverness. Then, okay, when they had the integration, and I didn't want to go, I wanted to stay Inverness because it was all Black. Then they said, "Well, you can't. We need English teaching. You got to go. If you don't go there, you won't go and won't work anyway." I said, "Okay, I'll go. You want me to go?" I said, "I'll go, I'll go. I don't want you to mess up my life. I got to go. I got it. Sure. Take care." So I went on to move here and then this was a point where he would try to be, "Oh, it'll be closer to your home." I said, "That's true." I said, "Okay." So I went there and I taught there until I finished in '91. I retired in '91.	19:34
Doris Dixon	And what was your experience integrated? Was the school more integrated?	20:28
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Yeah, well it was mostly White at first, then gradually the kids came in because one time they had about 40 Whites and about maybe 10 Blacks. See, that we were right there at the integration, and that's when I got transferred. Well, then gradually, they just dropped out, dropped out, dropped out. That's what they did, and down there where I was teaching, those White kids don't go any further than eighth grade. That's funny to me. That's funny. Now, they doing better because they got their own private school but then they didn't even have a private school. See, when they got it together then now they're doing better. But they would drop out of school at their grade and they would meet me on the street and say, "Ms. Simms, I'm not going to school." I said, "Why? You graduated already from there?" "No, ma'am. I got to work on the farm." That's what they did. That's what happened to them. They didn't want to go to high school with the Black.	20:34
Ruth Tolliver Simms	So, that's what they did. They quit school.	21:39
Doris Dixon	So, they quit school because they didn't go to school with Blacks? Did they—?	21:41
Ruth Tolliver Simms	They—See, Gentry was all Black in Indianola, so they didn't want to go to school. See, after they didn't mind. See, when they young they don't mind it so much. But when they get to be—See, what was happening was the parents would want those—I'm saying this now, this is me, the older boys mixing with those Black girls, it wasn't that bad. They didn't want to. That's what I say it was. They will become free, because see, kids are kids. When kids are young and want to be with each other, they'll be with them. They don't look at the color of their skin, and we find that now in the schools that when the kids come to school and you can tell those that are sheltered, and their parents have taught them a lot.	21:44
Ruth Tolliver Simms	But they first few days they'll stand off and look and eventually they'll work themselves up to where they'll just be with them and eventually they'll get where they start being friends. Start sharing. I'd just watch them. I wouldn't say anything, and I would only think about it. See, when I started working with these kids, I would mix. Now I had mostly White, but I would mix my White and my Black kids together. I assigned seats. That was my way of not saying you sit there, you sit there. But that's what I would do. I would assign seats. I had a White and a Black there, and I didn't have but a few and then they got where we had maybe—and it ended up one or two Whites to 25 Black. They got them all out, and they see. And one reason then, some of them are so poor they can't afford the private school. They may have to stay there till they get eighth grade. When they get eighth grade they gone, don't go any more to school. I just couldn't understand that, and I worked with the kids a lot.	22:33
Doris Dixon	And was this, well up until '91 you saw the same pattern?	23:49
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Mm-hmm. Same pattern, and those were the kids that were very, very poor. See the White people called them White trash, but we just called them poor kids. And they didn't miss, no. After eighth grade they didn't go to no school. Maybe you could find one or two. If you watch these senior classes like Gentry, you might find two or three Whites. Two or three. You never find half. You never find a third. It's just like that. Well, I do understand. You look at them and you wonder, and some of them are really smart. They talk to me and I said, "Well, you too smart to quit school. Why you want to quit school?" "I got to go work and help my parents." They won't come out and tell you why, but you know why they do. See, it's terrible. It's sad. It's always going to be prejudice. This prejudice, no matter how it looks, it's still going to be prejudice.	23:53
Doris Dixon	Do you feel that you ever were treated like a second class citizen?	25:08
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Not—They respect me because in Mississippi they respect you because of your position. All they know about is teaching. A long time ago they didn't have no lawyers, didn't know anything, nothing but teachers. So they respect you because you are what you are and then out there, you had to carry yourself in the way that you got to be respected. See? And so they had to respect me because I respected them.	25:14
Ruth Tolliver Simms	The principal first that I had, the principal was White, when I first went to this school in the new year, when they had this integration and the principal was fired. And I noticed that when I opened my door, he would wear some soft shoes, soft sole shoes, and he would stand outside your door. Listen and see what you're saying. You open the door to go to bathroom there, he's standing out there. See White folk different than Black folk. See they sneaky. See he was standing out there, would have been a Black man, he'd come on in and sit down. Because I have had Black principals after that who would come in and sit down in the back of the classroom because they have to give a report on it. See what I mean? But he would give his report from standing out there.	25:54
Ruth Tolliver Simms	He would give his approval standing outside your door. So when he would get up and make an announcement, he would always say this, "I tell you one thing about Ms. Simms, she stays in the room and she's always busy." And he would go to the mailbox and instead of coming through the front door, he come all the way around and come in the back door. See who was out their room. See I didn't play that. I wasn't there to be out of my room. When I went there I taught. See and I enjoyed what I was doing and I have children now who come up to me and say, "You made me what I am." I said, "No I didn't." "Yes you did. You helped me." Because I taught that. See a lot of problem things that our students can't do is read, and I would assign them a lot of reading material.	26:44
Ruth Tolliver Simms	I would get this book and I would order these books from them like Tom Sawyer and all those books and that's fine, and they would order their own book and then I'd say, "Now you take these books and you can make your library." Everybody had to read the book, but you can copy that out of the book. You had to read it. Then you had to defend what you write about. And I asked you a question and they want to know why. How did I read all the books? I said I had to read them, said, "In Rust, you have to read them. You're taught to read. You had to get that." So then when they go to high school, the teacher in high school assigning them the same book, and some of the kids say, "They'd ask us, 'How come we got these books from Ms. Simms?'" "So, you mean to tell you already got these books?" They'd assign them what they already have.	27:36
Ruth Tolliver Simms	They didn't have to worry about it. They had all the books. We had a reading list. We had a book to read every month, and I said, "Now you take it and make your library out of there. It's your book. Don't say it. Don't say, 'I don't have a book.' You got it. It's yours." And that's what they would do. And they would make a library. They would get those books, a lot of them said they got them and now they carry them in high school. Said, "You know that paid off Ms. Simms what you did." I said, "I know, because we had to read a lot."	28:24
Doris Dixon	You mentioned knowing how to care for yourself. What kind of lessons did your grandmother and your mother teach you about that?	29:00
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Well, she taught this, don't run up the forbidden. That was one of the things. And don't repeat everything you hear. And the one thing that all of us should remember is this, and this is what she said, "You can be friendly but don't be friends. You can't be friends to everybody." And you can't. You cannot be friends to everybody. But you can be friendly to everyone. You see what I mean? You can't. Just because a person laugh and grin in your face that don't make them your friend. That's what my grandmother always told us, but be nice to everybody. Speak to everybody. You know we southerners speak. That's what we known for.	29:09
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Only time we don't speak is when we go up north because nobody speaks to you. But here, everybody. See how the folk wave and speak as they go by? They speak. But not that I'm trying to be friends with everybody, but I'm just speaking and being polite. See, you can't be friends with everybody, but you can be friendly, and that was a good thing. That was a good lesson because some people try to be friends with everybody. That's where you going to have a mishap. So it's rough, but it's good. It's good. Was a good lesson.	29:56
Doris Dixon	How were you expected to behave in front of adults? Both Black and White?	30:37
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Me?	30:41
Doris Dixon	Mm-hmm.	30:41
Ruth Tolliver Simms	My youth way. My way. Just be nice to everybody. Be nice to the Black, be nice to the White. Don't go in there with a chip on your shoulder. Nobody never done anything to you. Why would I? I never shall forget, I was riding the bus. Once this year I had went there to Chicago to visit. This Black man cursed this man out, this White man, "Yeah, you treated me like I was a dog in Mississippi." That poor man didn't have a thing to do with what happened in Mississippi. He probably never been to Mississippi. Why you going to mistreat somebody for something somebody done to you down here? The people that just sit there, they haven't done a thing to you. Don't even know you. Why you going to go there with this big chip on your shoulder and being so rude and so out of order? See what I mean? That's what I say.	30:43
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Don't take out something. Okay, if that person over there do something to me, I'm going to go come over here and take it out on you. You don't know me. First time you met me the other day you came here, I'm going to be rude to you for something that someone else has done to me? That's what I feel about it. Treat them all nice.	31:43
Doris Dixon	Do you remember a point at which people stopped treating you like a child or when you considered yourself to be grown up?	32:07
Ruth Tolliver Simms	When I got out of high school at Rust, they started treating me like an adult. You still like, I always said, "I'm glad when I get to college so I can get grown." You know what I mean?	32:15
Doris Dixon	Yeah.	32:29
Ruth Tolliver Simms	That's when it started.	32:29
Doris Dixon	What was different about the way they changed?	32:30
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Well, they even talked to you about worldly things. Things that you understood them, but they talked to you differently. Whole different conversations, how you're doing in college, what are you taking, that and when you're in high school they don't ask you that. How you, "Oh, how are your grades?" Or whatever, you know all things. But when you get in college they come and they talk to you different. More an adult, but you are. They treat you better. Then they begin to look up to you. They do, and people who are uneducated, they really look up to you, most of them, and they do.	32:32
Doris Dixon	Now, when you were at Rust for high school, was there a dormitory or—?	33:20
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Yeah, we had a dormitory, bed and them. Well, let see, it wasn't always a dormitory. Dormitory for the girls, dormitory for the boys. They didn't make any, they didn't like to have no senior dormitory. You just moved from—Okay, you had different floors. You in college. You know the high school stayed upstairs, college girls stayed downstairs. So you just moved downstairs. I told them, "Now we are independent, we can be on our own, we can stand downstairs. We don't have to worry about going upstairs, locking us up." That's what we always say, they locked us up because we were young, they had to watch us and guard us leaving.	33:23
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Yeah, but see when you go to high school out of college, you come back, you know everybody. See, you already know them. You don't have that few come in that you meet, but you just think about it. You'll be there in high school, you'll be there in college. You've been there a long time and you meet a lot of people. A lot of people that you've met that were acquaintance of yours, they've died. You ask about, "Well, I thought she was working there?" "Oh, no. She dead." Say, "Oh!" You get good news and you get bad news.	34:00
Doris Dixon	What were the most important people in your community?	34:46
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Now?	34:50
Doris Dixon	Then?	34:50
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Then? My grandmother. My principal, the night a Brazil Center was named after him, L.T. Brazil, he was the principal. He was an important person and my grandmother was a very important person. That's about the only Black person I can think of that just stood out in the community and did something for the community, because he was the principal. She helped a lot too. But L.T. Brazil and Dorothy Street. They stand out in my mind.	34:51
Doris Dixon	And why does L.T. Brazil stand out?	35:30
Ruth Tolliver Simms	He was the principal of the school. He would come down and always had something funny to tell you. Tell you little jokes. And then he was a great man because he was smart. So he was a great person. He couldn't help but stand out.	35:33
Doris Dixon	Was there an NAACP here?	35:53
Ruth Tolliver Simms	No, not then.	35:55
Doris Dixon	Is there one now?	35:55
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Yeah.	35:59
Doris Dixon	Where was it then?	36:01
Ruth Tolliver Simms	I don't know because it was already—I started going and then I became the—I'm the secretary of the NAACP now. So it doesn't function like it should but we do have one here, which is just nice to say we have one. If things come, we have a problem or something, we can call a meeting and meet.	36:01
Doris Dixon	Now when did you first vote?	36:32
Ruth Tolliver Simms	After I was married. I mean, a long time ago. I started voting, I said, "Shoot, I'm going and voting." My grandmother paid a poll tax but she never voted.	36:34
Doris Dixon	She paid the poll tax and didn't vote?	36:50
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Look, she paid the poll tax and I guess the White folk voted for her. I don't know that, I'm saying that. I'm saying it because I know she paid full tax because they would come. They'd call my grandmother, "Hey, Dorothy" you know how White folk call you, "Hey Dorothy," years ago. And so she said, "Hey, Dorothy. You need to pay your poll tax." I know they voted for who they wanted to vote her for. Now I can see, then I didn't know any better because I didn't even know what they was talking about. But I would hear her and I'd hear her mention this, but I'm sure they voted for who they wanted to vote for on her poll, because you could only vote if you were a property owner. Back in those days, a person just couldn't come up there and vote. See, but if you were a property owner, then you could vote. You'd pay poll tax and vote. See isn't that funny? Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King changed all that. That's when I started voting. When he marched down that highway through Itta Bean.	36:51
Doris Dixon	Down number seven?	37:51
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Down number seven. He marched down number seven. He stood there in the park. That little park there in Itta Bena, right there. Right up there in town. No little park in town.	37:52
Doris Dixon	Across city hall?	38:05
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Yeah, across from city hall. In that he came in and stood up in that park. They walked down Harry and I went there to see it, and I left my children at home. I said, "I'm going to leave my children at home." I said, "I'm going to see him." And I walked, I saw him and then they went on and a lot of people joined them from Itta Bena and then they went on down to their zone on dial number seven. A lot of kids went to jail, a lot of folks went to jail. When they got the bails on, they put them in jail. I don't know, for what? No, I don't know. I remember that. I never shall forget. That stands out in my mind. And I said, "Now it's time for me to vote." Never thought about voting, never thought nothing about it until he came through and made that talk about voting, "You need to vote." That was a great man. He's the reason we are voting today.	38:06
Doris Dixon	What kind of healthcare was available for your grandmother? What happened with your grandmother?	39:10
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Oh, my grandmother paid, she had a doctor. We had a doctor named Dr. Hopper. That was the doctor. He was White. She paid her own, I don't know what the other folk had, but my grandma had her assisted money where she could pay all the doctor's bills.	39:14
Doris Dixon	Did you ever travel long distances?	39:38
Ruth Tolliver Simms	I went to Chicago.	39:38
Doris Dixon	Oh, I mean as back in the days of Jim Crow?	39:38
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Chicago. Yeah, yeah, yeah Chicago. But I, being small, it didn't bother me. I didn't know anything about it anyway. I just traveled. My grandma go, I go too. Went to Chicago too. Yeah, see we traveled. So it wasn't any problem because we didn't understand about it then because we're too young. It been like that all the time, but I tell you an incident that happened to me, I was going to the drug store and this lady, this old White lady was sitting outside the doctor's office and she told me, I never shall forget this, bring her an ice cream cone. I got her an ice cream cone and she licked off it and then she handed it to me and I got it and when I got around beside behind the building, I threw it away. So I went home, I said, "Big Mama." I said, "Do you know Dr. Hopper's wife—" I saw the doctor, "Gave me an ice cream cone she had licked off." She said, "Well, what did you do?" I said, "I threw it away." She said, "That's what you're supposed to do."	39:45
Ruth Tolliver Simms	We never discussed that any, that's all that was said. I said, "Uh-huh." That was ugliest thing for her to lick it, I didn't ask her for it, I didn't ask her, because see my grandmother had given me money, if I wanted to buy ice cream, I could have bought ice cream. Well, she did. So I said, "On the dollar, she probably been doing that all time. Giving the kids ice cream cones she had licked off of." That's right. Gave me a ice cream cone. That stands out. I never shall forget as long as I live. The idea.	40:50
Ruth Tolliver Simms	She licked up that ice cream cone and gave it to me. I didn't even ask her. She said, "Wait a minute" she licked, "Wait a minute" lick, and she said, "Huh?" I just say, "Thank you." Went around outside that thing and I threw that thing. I rushed home to tell my grandma what she had done. She said, "You did right though." And she never said anything. I said, "That was something." Now you know that was something. Now that was the only incident I ever had happen to me. Oh, and another thing that they would do that they don't do now, and I noticed this an awful lot. You know when you used to go in a door behind them, they used to slam it in your face. Now they hold the door for you. Sometime if you're even down the street, they hold it open to you until you get there. They hold the door until you get there, and I know to hold, they'd slam the door in your face and things have changed, haven't they?	41:25
Doris Dixon	What do you think hasn't changed?	42:38
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Oh, I know they're prejudice. Let me see what happens. I know it so I can't think of it now, but I know something. I know they're prejudiced. I know they don't want to eat with you, but they do if they have to, like if you're in an organization with them and all of y'all get a table together. But I know they don't want to eat there, and then notice this, all them always be together. "Go on, come back and—" All of them, they always try to be together. And if they ride, all of them, you go in your car, they'll get in your car with you together. That hasn't changed. They always think that you should clean up behind them. I didn't believe in that. Everybody wasn't born to be a maid. I know I wasn't because I've never done a thing in a White person house. Never. I didn't have to.	42:42
Doris Dixon	Two more questions. What were the gathering places? This is as an adult living Itta Bena, what were the gathering places in your neighborhood of community?	44:11
Ruth Tolliver Simms	The church. Church. They seem to gather in the church, and if they had something at the school, they would gather then. Church and school, they would go there.	44:30
Doris Dixon	Have there been particular activities over the years? Particular events that brought people together?	44:44
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Mm-hmm. Okay, like that reunion we had?	44:52
Doris Dixon	Mm-hmm.	44:54
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Reunion, bring them together. Weddings, bring them together. Big church affair conferences and all of that brings them together. They get together, and you know funeral brings them together. People go to funerals and don't go to church. They go to funerals. Funerals really bring them. Some people you never see at church they go to funerals. That brings them here in this little town right here. Yep. Those things really bring them together.	44:55
Doris Dixon	As both [indistinct 00:45:31] how you got your news? How does news travel?	45:29
Ruth Tolliver Simms	We'd get ours through the newspaper and the TV and then before then we'd listen to that radio. But I get mine through the newspaper, and a lot of people do take the newspaper. Most people right here, they get newspapers. That's our main thing is newspaper. Well, television. I don't forget television because I always look at the six o'clock news.	45:40
Doris Dixon	Before when you were younger?	46:03
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Well, we got it through the radio.	46:10
Doris Dixon	Let's say for instance, the Emmett Till case, how did news of that travel? Things like that were special?	46:17
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Now, we got that—Well, it was pretty close to home.	46:19
Doris Dixon	Right.	46:20
Ruth Tolliver Simms	Got that through a lot of people telling about, "You know that boy got killed. The man that—"	46:21

Item Info

Title:

Ruth Simms interview recording, 1995 August 01

Date:

August 1, 1995

Creator:

Simms, Ruth Tolliver

Contributor:

Dixon, Doris

Description:

Name: Ruth Tolliver Simms; Date of birth: 1935-12-13; Place of birth: Itta Bena, MS; Occupation(s): educator; teacher; Residence: Itta Bena, MS
Informant ID: 1174; Interviewed by: Doris Dixon.

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Language:

English

Digital Collection:

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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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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Ruth Simms interview recording, 1995 August 01

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1. Ruth Simms administrative file, 1995

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Ruth Simms interview recording, 1995 August 01

Transcript

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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