George Bailey interview recording, 1997 July 25
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| Doris Dixon | Sorry, Mr. Bailey, could you please state your full name and date of birth? | 0:04 |
| George Bailey | George Bailey, 10/17/34. | 0:09 |
| Doris Dixon | And Mr. Bailey, where were you born? | 0:16 |
| George Bailey | In the rurals of Sunflower County in around Indianola, Mississippi. | 0:20 |
| Doris Dixon | And how many years were you there? How many years did you stay in there for? | 0:26 |
| George Bailey | Oh, in the rural I lived until I was 10 years old in the rural and then we moved to town up Indianola. That's where I lived until I was 18. | 0:35 |
| Doris Dixon | Okay. And then at 18? | 0:44 |
| George Bailey | I went in the United States Air Force and stayed four years, eight months, and 23 days. And then I came back to the Delta, Mississippi and lived around. I worked as a Gas Land supervisor and I worked there and it went from town to town and I left there and went to Shreveport, Louisiana and I came back from there, went to Columbus and we pipelined all the way to Kokomo, Indiana. And then I decided I was tired of pipelining. I went to Chicago and lived for three years, four years, three or four years. And then I came back south and I lived there at home for five or six years | 0:49 |
| Doris Dixon | Back in Indianola? | 1:42 |
| George Bailey | Yes. | 1:43 |
| Doris Dixon | And do you remember much about those first 10 years in the country? | 1:47 |
| George Bailey | Yes, I remember quite a bit. It was everyday routine, every day was practically the same thing. We worked in the fields during harvest time and when harvest was over we went to school and played around, didn't do nothing. And far as outside relationship with other people, well in the rural houses are mile or two miles apart, so usually you just play right around with your own family, which I had a sister and a brother. On Sundays we'd go to Sunday school and church. | 1:53 |
| Doris Dixon | Were your parents sharecroppers? | 2:54 |
| George Bailey | Yes. My parents were sharecroppers. And being a sharecropper, you don't see much of town. You go to town probably three or four times per year, but you have all the other items which come from the general store like candy or something for the kids. They'll come from the general store which was located out in the farming area. So other than that. I guess, well by raising most of your food you didn't really have no reason go to town anyway. So that's about that. | 2:59 |
| George Bailey | And the only thing was kind of hectic, what I think would set people back in as far as education was because sometimes some areas had to split section. When it was time to work in the fields, we had to go to the field and then when all the field work was done, then regardless of what month it was, that's the month we went to school, see. So things like that. So more than less everybody was programmed to stay their own little area, do their own little thing I guess. | 3:36 |
| Doris Dixon | So did your settlement have a name? What was it? Are you on a particular plantation? | 4:19 |
| George Bailey | Oh yes. It was known as the Kindlock Plantation. It was located 12 miles south of Indianola, Mississippi. | 4:26 |
| Doris Dixon | Could you spell that for me? | 4:36 |
| George Bailey | K-I-N-D-L-O-C-K. Kindlock. | 4:40 |
| Doris Dixon | Okay. And what do you remember about the Kindlock Plantation? | 4:46 |
| George Bailey | Well it was not a beautiful thing to remember because the most exciting thing was during the summer breaks when all the cotton and everything had been cleaned and then you just didn't have anything to do but play around, fish or hunt or whatever. But during the fall you go to school, we had a church, we went to school in the church. And I think the church had four, it was combined for school and church, had four rooms to it. And I think two grades would be in each room and therefore we went through the eighth grade. And then when I finished that I started going to school uptown. So other than that, it's not anything really exciting to tell about a country boy. They just play and walk the road. It is no movies to go to and if you don't hunt or fish or check around with the girls and laugh and talk, that's about all to do. | 4:51 |
| Doris Dixon | Now at 10 you moved to the town of Indianola? | 5:57 |
| George Bailey | Yes. | 5:59 |
| Doris Dixon | Did your entire family move? | 6:00 |
| George Bailey | Oh, yes. We all came to town. | 6:02 |
| Doris Dixon | And do you know why your parents decided to go to town? | 6:06 |
| George Bailey | Well, things seemed a bit better in town. The schools was better and then jobs was better. But see, at that time you could live in town but you could work on the farm, see. So my father and mother, they would go out and do day work and there was more bills. Because I think at that time they was paying three or $4 per day for chopping and then you could save your money then and at the end of the year you would have more than you would if you would try to make a crop and then give half of it to the owner and then the pay your bills. You pay what you owe, then you wouldn't have anything. | 6:10 |
| George Bailey | So more than less it was a little more comfortable and clothing was better and then the kids could relax because we had a variety of churches to go to. Then we had movies and then you go to stores and just like a general store on a farm, if you go there, if they didn't have what you wanted then you had to take something else for that store because it wasn't a variety, you just had to take what you could find. So it was a little bit better and the school was large and it was nice. And then we had football teams and basketball teams and things like that. It was just different in town than was in the country. | 7:00 |
| Doris Dixon | Did you like it better in the town? | 7:48 |
| George Bailey | Very, very much. But I never was the kind of guy that liked the field work, I couldn't handle it. So that's why as soon as I got out of school I immediately volunteered and went in service and I never just really depended on the delta for a living. Since then I've come back and stay a while or two or three months or something like that. But I must have been going around until after this civil right movement began. Then I came back home and then I've been here since '72. | 7:49 |
| Doris Dixon | So you spent your teenage years in the town of Indianola and went to high school there? | 8:20 |
| George Bailey | Yes, I finished high school in Indianola. | 8:43 |
| Doris Dixon | Okay. What was the high school like there? | 8:43 |
| George Bailey | Well the high school was really exciting and really fun. It was a good school and we learned a lot. And then we had a lot of good games and things. But there's some things that the Black kids didn't have, the White kids, like school buses and things, we didn't have that. But we were programmed I guess to know that the things that we didn't have, we couldn't miss them. If you never had something, you couldn't miss it. So therefore—Other than that the school was very, very great. And, well— | 8:44 |
| Doris Dixon | Could you tell me how, you said you were programmed? | 9:25 |
| George Bailey | Well I mean you just program yourself. Just like I said for an example, hey you know got to walk to school this morning. You get up and go on the school, you don't worry about a bus or a ride or nothing. That's your only means of transportation is walking, that's the only thing you get up with on your mind to go. If you're going to school, you walk. So it was cold and it's muddy and it was wet, but that was the general idea. If you wanted to go, you didn't have no other alternative, so you go ahead on. | 9:28 |
| George Bailey | Excuse me. Other than that—And then I got a job at, when I was 10th grade at the bakers shop there in Indianola. And I would work a while in the morning and until school time and then I'd go back and work in the afternoon. And that was a big help towards myself and the family, see. It was about $23 a week, but on the other hand, $23 was $23. And that way I could buy my own clothes. My mother didn't have to do that. I could get my clothes and I could practice taking care of myself and help take care of my other brothers and sisters or whatever. So it was bad enough but not as bad as it could have been. | 9:58 |
| Doris Dixon | [indistinct 00:10:53]. | 10:52 |
| George Bailey | Well there were people didn't have jobs, didn't have a part—time job after school. But we all made it one way or the other. And other than that, I don't—It was a slow goal but it was the only goal. So that fool. | 10:58 |
| Doris Dixon | Now when you moved to the town of Indianola, did you still have maintained ties with friends and did you still have friends and family in the country? Was there like a network between the two? | 11:18 |
| George Bailey | Yes, my friends, the ones that were still out there, I would go out on weekends and talk with them, maybe spend the night or they would come to town and spend the night with me on weekends and things like that. But with this school and the rural didn't go no further than the eighth grade, right? Sooner or later we all was going to be back together in town going to school anyway. And then as time went by, everybody migrated. The country is just, everybody was leaving the country. So for better or worse, so just like now you don't see or you might see one or two people living out there now taking care of fish pond or something like that. But in the yesteryears, everybody practically lived in the country just for miles and miles and miles. You can see houses, houses, and houses with families in them. | 11:28 |
| George Bailey | But now it's not like that. So other than that, I can't—By being raised in this south, there's a lot of things that, we didn't have some books and things that other kids have. And because I can remember when I volunteered and one in the Air Force, now my score on the test was the highest of the people in the low lands of Mississippi. But when we got to San Antonio, Texas and they combined all of us together and they gave us another test and then I come out low, low, lower, at real low. And then I found out then that those people in the same, we all was high school graduates, but to study the classes and things and subjects that I've been taking, they couldn't compete with those guys up north because I didn't know anything about chemistry and physics and all that. And they kids knew it. | 12:25 |
| George Bailey | So that's a very, very handicap right there because you can't know something that you never even been taught anything about it. So other than that, I don't know why St. Louis or Chicago schools would have different books from other people and we all supposed to be on the same level. But that's the way it was because those guys were making good marks and some studies that I couldn't make nothing because I didn't even know what physics was. So things like that. | 13:27 |
| Doris Dixon | Did you have certain advantages over people from other parts? | 14:00 |
| George Bailey | Well, I imagine I had advantage in the PT area because my wind was long but we was used to, that was our relaxation was running and enjoying. That's the only thing, we didn't have nothing else to play with. So I was very physically healthy. So other than that, we about equalized. Other than that, I never got tired of running and playing and exercising nothing because I was used to it. That's about all I know. I mess around. That's about it as far as I know. | 14:06 |
| Doris Dixon | Tell me about your friends. Tell me about the young men you grew up with. What kinds of things did you all do? | 14:47 |
| George Bailey | Well, really and truly, there wasn't a whole lot to do. But we would take, I'd say for an example, my friend Sylvester Berry, he and I would get together and give a yard party and we'd invite some more kids there. We all would sing and dance and eventually somebody else would give one and we all would go there and then we'd team up together and go to a movie on Saturdays and Wednesdays. | 14:53 |
| George Bailey | And then we all would just, school kids would chip in together and rent a truck and we'd all get on there on the Saturday night and go on a hayride to the next town, which was usually we would go to Leland, Mississippi. And we'd go over to the fountain and meet people over there and laugh and talk. And I thought at that time we thought we was enjoying and. If you don't know nothing else, I guess. So it wasn't bad then as when it is now, you look back over it and see how much you was deprived of. Then you seem like it was rough then, but while you was going through it, it was just a normal thing. | 15:23 |
| Doris Dixon | And did you know your grandparents? | 16:13 |
| George Bailey | Very, very, little. I didn't know my grand people at all. They died before I was old enough to remember. | 16:16 |
| Doris Dixon | Did your parents tell you much about them? Where they came from, or? | 16:29 |
| George Bailey | Well my mother taught me a little about my grandfather but it wasn't that much. I know he came from Louisiana somewhere, but I don't know. Matter of fact most of my people on my mother's side is from Louisiana, but I never know anything about them. Just when mama came up in the Delta of Mississippi, I don't if she went back down to Louisiana, I don't remember. So I guess that's just part of my life I never know. | 16:35 |
| Doris Dixon | Did your family attend church? | 17:03 |
| George Bailey | Yes, girl. | 17:03 |
| Doris Dixon | You did mention that, I'm sorry. | 17:08 |
| George Bailey | Yes, indeed. We were highly heavy church members. My mother was a mother of the church and we all was raised in it. All my sisters and brothers and cousins. We all was a church going people. | 17:10 |
| Doris Dixon | How were the services different then from today? Were there differences in the services? | 17:31 |
| George Bailey | Well, I wouldn't say different because they all preaching out of the same Bible but looked like it was more feeling in the church services then. And people cared about people more than they do today. There was nothing wrong with looking out for your neighbor where they just different, it's just different. The whole world have changed. It's like if we were leaving the house out in rural and we didn't care enough to lock the door, just go ahead on. Things like that. But now you have to lock up everything just, but I guess that's just the world changing. Other than that, we'd have a nice time in church. | 17:42 |
| Doris Dixon | Yeah. You didn't lock your doors. Did you have guns and other things to protect yourself? | 18:28 |
| George Bailey | Oh, the guns was not to protect anything. That was for putting extra meat on the table. | 18:33 |
| Doris Dixon | Okay. | 18:37 |
| George Bailey | That was, you hunt with your guns. You didn't need, if something [indistinct 00:18:42] people could settle they arguments other than guns most of the time in that they didn't shoot it out, they would box it out or something of that nature. But the guns were strictly for hunting and things. | 18:37 |
| George Bailey | Hey Doctor. | 19:00 |
| Doris Dixon | So when there were arguments or dispute, people usually boxed or fought? | 19:07 |
| George Bailey | Well, there's always been somebody going to disagree and sometime they resort to violence, maybe somebody might get cut or stabbed. Well maybe occasionally somebody would get shot. But the main purpose of the gun was to hunt and protect a intruder maybe, if somebody come from a distant land and try to break in, but just a day-to-day thing. Nobody never thought of no gun that was shooting nobody with. | 19:12 |
| Doris Dixon | Who taught you, I mean self-defense fighting, was that something that you were taught how to do when you were a boy? | 19:40 |
| George Bailey | Not really, it's just something, just is an instinct of human health. If somebody hits you, you hit them back. So that's just order of life, I guess. Because I don't recall many times anybody sit me down and said, look, you do this and you do this. If I take your sandwich, if you can't get yours back, take one from somebody else. That's just life. Take your girl and you can't get her back, get another girl. Just, you don't have to be taught things like that. Just like you don't have to teach a dog to run a rabbit, he'll run him anyway. So that's just how it go. | 20:00 |
| Doris Dixon | What were the lessons that your parents tried? | 20:36 |
| George Bailey | Well, more or less my parents was heavy on the golden rules. Do unto others as you want people to do you. And that things was, there was a line about places you go, things you do. And they would teach you things about other people and they would tell you that how the world was based upon it. That you don't do this with this White person. You don't bother this one. You stay on here, you stay in your area. He stay in here. So we just raised that way. That was, and then it didn't look complicated because they'd stay out of my way, I'd stay out of their way. [indistinct 00:21:23] | 20:43 |
| George Bailey | So that was about it as far as my mother was a very, very understanding person and she could sit down and explain life to me the way she saw it. And I tried my best to abide by it and I made it all right. So when I went in service, I saw that a lot of things she told me was real right and a lot of things she tried to explain to me that what she didn't thoroughly understood, but she brought me close enough to her to catch on and go along with the program too, see. | 21:23 |
| Doris Dixon | Excuse me. Now was the Air Force desegregated by the time you went in? | 22:11 |
| George Bailey | It was prejudice in it but it was desegregated. | 22:16 |
| Doris Dixon | How did it work? You said it was prejudiced. | 22:22 |
| George Bailey | Well you got prejudice among the Black race. So it's the same thing when you got, for some reason the White guy feel that he got power over you and therefore you have to take your own way and show him that you are there with him. So regardless of what he think, and you going to run across some things, it happens right now, an everyday thing. Some White people think that they should be go through the line first or whatever. They think that way because I imagine they was raised that way. | 22:22 |
| George Bailey | They was taught that as a child. So therefore I rarely saw a little of that in service. But it was handled all right. Because you always had somebody could take care of things like that, see. And other than that, I associated with a lot of White people and we've got along real good, but it's all my of my life has been based like this her. We socialize or whatever in the daytime, but at nighttime he go his way and I go mine. So that's just the way it is. Just working on a job. When he go home, he go to his house, I go to mine so we don't see one another till the next day. | 23:00 |
| Doris Dixon | Do you remember any superstitions, any folklore, anything that kind of stick in your mind about the superstitions and things that people held onto back in those days? | 23:42 |
| George Bailey | Well, superstitions? Give an example of what you talking about. | 24:17 |
| Doris Dixon | Don't cross the path of a black cat and things like that. | 24:22 |
| George Bailey | Yeah, people say that now. So therefore, on the other hand, well all of those things, well some people believe in it now. So therefore I guess it was at that time I believed in it then myself. But really to get right down to it ain't nothing to that. If a cat going to the left, he's just going to the left is the way I see it now, but other times. And let me see something else they used to do. Cross your finger when you tell a tale or something like that. They had all that little kind of stuff. But I think that all came about the Black man didn't have nothing to do to amuse himself and they had to do something. They tell jokes or tell tales about different things. That was just a way of life because I can remember people used to sit up at the fire at night and just talk, talk, talk about tales that, I look at it now, that wasn't the truth. They was talking about, some of it might've been, but all of it wasn't. That was their enjoyment. | 24:27 |
| Doris Dixon | Do you remember any of the tales that they were telling? | 25:52 |
| George Bailey | I couldn't say word for word, but it would go something from like, he would tell about his granddaddy, what he killed 30 rabbits and a bear, and that's a bunch of junk. No, I can't remember it because I was really too small and wasn't paying too much attention. But I could get, looking back at it now, I could see that was a part of their enjoyment and maybe one would have some old home brew. They would make their own little firewater, they say. Make their own beer and drink it. They sit up and laugh and talk. So that's the just a plain common country life. | 25:57 |
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