Mozelle Riddick interview recording, 1995 July 25

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Kisha Turner	Let's see here. Okay. Can we begin by you just stating your full name and when you were born?	0:02
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Mozelle, M-O-Z-E-L-L-E.	0:06
Kisha Turner	Okay.	0:06
Mozelle Bond Riddick	[indistinct 00:00:18] R-I-D-D-S.	0:06
Kisha Turner	Okay. And were you born here in Norfolk?	0:24
Mozelle Bond Riddick	No, North Carolina.	0:25
Kisha Turner	In North Carolina. What part of North Carolina?	0:27
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Sunbury, North Carolina.	0:32
Kisha Turner	What county is that?	0:32
Mozelle Bond Riddick	[indistinct 00:00:37]	0:32
Kisha Turner	Is that the county?	0:32
Mozelle Bond Riddick	No, that's the name of the little place. It's Gates County.	0:40
Kisha Turner	Okay. Gates, G-A-T-E-S?	0:41
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yes.	0:44
Kisha Turner	Okay. Okay. When did you come to Norfolk?	0:46
Mozelle Bond Riddick	1944.	0:47
Kisha Turner	1944. Okay. And what brought you from Gates— Did you move from Gates to Norfolk?	1:00
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Sunbury. I'm not— Sunbury is my home town.	1:04
Kisha Turner	Okay.	1:07
Mozelle Bond Riddick	In Gates County.	1:07
Kisha Turner	Okay. So did you move from Sunbury to—	1:09
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Norfolk.	1:10
Kisha Turner	Norfolk.	1:10
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Me and my husband, because he was working here.	1:13
Kisha Turner	Okay.	1:14
Mozelle Bond Riddick	My husband was out here. He had a job here and he moved my daughter and I to Norfolk.	1:14
Kisha Turner	He found work in the war industries or—	1:22
Mozelle Bond Riddick	No, he used to work for a private concern.	1:25
Kisha Turner	Okay.	1:28
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Food distributing.	1:28
Kisha Turner	Okay. And what did you find when you got to Norfolk in '44?	1:33
Mozelle Bond Riddick	No jobs.	1:43
Kisha Turner	No jobs?	1:44
Mozelle Bond Riddick	No. It was hard to find a job. The jobs that you got, you had to pay for them.	1:44
Kisha Turner	What do you mean?	1:46
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Housework. They would ask for a percentage of whatever you were going to make. For maybe three times, you don't even make that much. If you made $25, you had to give them a percentage of that each week until the job was paid for. They called it paying for the job.	1:47
Kisha Turner	Is this like an agency?	2:06
Mozelle Bond Riddick	It's a private agency.	2:06
Kisha Turner	Okay.	2:06
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Mm-hmm. Because I went to the unemployment agency and [indistinct 00:02:16]	2:07
Kisha Turner	So even right during the war, it's still hard to find work here?	2:17
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Well see, this was after the war, '44.	2:20
Kisha Turner	Okay.	2:21
Mozelle Bond Riddick	After the war. So I went down to the base, put in applications but I never got called. So that's why I decided to do a barbershop. Because I got tired of working for younger people for nothing. Yeah. So I went to barber school. [indistinct 00:03:03]	2:32
Kisha Turner	Okay. Was it—	2:33
Mozelle Bond Riddick	40 years ago.	2:33
Kisha Turner	40 years ago?	2:33
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Mm-hmm.	2:33
Kisha Turner	So was that '45? No, what am I thinking about? '55.	2:33
Mozelle Bond Riddick	'55. Let's say '54.	3:03
Kisha Turner	Okay.	3:11
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Mm-hmm.	3:11
Kisha Turner	So you went to barber school in '54.	3:18
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Mm-hmm.	3:18
Kisha Turner	Was this a segregated school you went to?	3:21
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Well, it was an all Black school. Not necessarily segregated because we did have one barber college.	3:23
Kisha Turner	Okay.	3:29
Mozelle Bond Riddick	This lady, she just got to training some of us in her barber school on the weekends. Barber shop, I meant. She taught me to cut hair. And I never applied for the segregated school, which we had on the [indistinct 00:03:44] street.	3:30
Kisha Turner	Okay.	3:43
Mozelle Bond Riddick	But they had to teach the Blacks because that's the only way they could get— if they wanted to get the benefits, state benefits.	3:45
Kisha Turner	So Ms. Jenkins—	3:57
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Mm-hmm, Ms. Jenkins.	3:58
Kisha Turner	She— Is this her name?	4:00
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yes, uh-huh. But she sold her business to [indistinct 00:04:07] She retired about 20 years ago. Mm-hmm.	4:03
Kisha Turner	So she— How long had she had her establishment here before she retired?	4:12
Mozelle Bond Riddick	About 30 years.	4:17
Kisha Turner	Really?	4:17
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yeah.	4:17
Kisha Turner	Okay.	4:17
Mozelle Bond Riddick	She was a long-time barber. She retired early though. And she sold the place. She made barbershops— And this was a barber college at one time. After the benefit— We couldn't get the grants and things that we needed to to run the school. That's why it was changed back to the barbershop.	4:18
Kisha Turner	Were there both men and women?	4:43
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yes.	4:48
Kisha Turner	Was it generally a male-dominated field? Or were there just as many women who were barbers in the area, as men?	4:51
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Well when I first started, it wasn't. We had a few ladies, but mostly males, yes.	4:59
Kisha Turner	Okay.	5:05
Mozelle Bond Riddick	But now it's just about equal.	5:06
Kisha Turner	Really?	5:09
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Mm-hmm.	5:11
Kisha Turner	Okay. Did you have any problems with men? With a woman cutting their hair?	5:12
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Oh, they— they wasn't cutting their hair.	5:15
Kisha Turner	Did they?	5:15
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yeah, because Ms. Jenkins always had a great clientele. And I had made two [indistinct 00:05:25] 25.	5:19
Kisha Turner	Okay.	5:19
Mozelle Bond Riddick	I've slowed down quite a bit because I'm really getting ready to get out of it [indistinct 00:05:39] I enjoy it. I really enjoy it.	5:32
Kisha Turner	Okay. So let's see, you all bought the shop when? Did you work for her before you bought the shop?	5:43
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yes, I always worked with her. Mm-hmm.	5:52
Kisha Turner	Okay.	5:53
Mozelle Bond Riddick	From the time I finished school until she sold out and she sold it to me and my partner named Rufus Scullins, is a fellow. He works [indistinct 00:06:06] he off on Saturdays.	6:02
Kisha Turner	Okay. Was it always in this location, on Wilson Road?	6:09
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.	6:11
Kisha Turner	And was Wilson Road different when you began working here?	6:13
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Well we had a few Whites in the area, but they moved out.	6:17
Kisha Turner	White businesses? Shops or—	6:22
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yeah, there was a drugstore around the corner. Around the corner— No, that was a Black one. This really has always been more or less [indistinct 00:06:36] we haven't had to really— Right across the street here was an upholstery shop. Used to do car refinishing across the street, right there. When I came over here [indistinct 00:06:48] this block.	6:25
Kisha Turner	When you started out, what was it— Were there a lot of Black businesses? Were you all members of the Tidewater Business Association?	6:50
Mozelle Bond Riddick	We used to have a barber association. Okay, when I first started I worked over there on Cascade Boulevard. That's when I was a barber.	7:04
Kisha Turner	Okay.	7:10
Mozelle Bond Riddick	And then I left there and I've always [indistinct 00:07:14] different shops. Then I started working on Harmony Road. And that area was just barbershops and beauty shop. You could walk out one and walk into the other. But as I said, it was predominately Black. We never had— I never ran into the problem of segregation as far as our shops were concerned, but I never worked in a White shop.	7:10
Kisha Turner	Your clientele was all Black, so you—	7:39
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yeah. Once in a while, the Navy came in and the fellows didn't know where to go, they would follow their shipmates to the shop. But I didn't have any problem. They didn't either, you know? They might come back a couple of times when they was— until they found a White shop. You know. Lots of shops just did the White clientele.	7:43
Kisha Turner	How many shops did Ms. Jenkins own?	8:03
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Okay, Cascade Boulevard— one on Cascade Boulevard, she used to have one in [indistinct 00:08:14], one on [indistinct 00:08:15] and this one. So that's four.	8:07
Kisha Turner	She was quite a businesswoman.	8:24
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yeah she just stayed up here. Yeah. [indistinct 00:08:26] Kind of bothers me.	8:29
Kisha Turner	You mentioned sit ins?	8:34
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yeah, some of them on Granby Street. You had Grant's and Woolworth. And well [indistinct 00:08:44] little corner that the Blacks could get sandwiches and soda. But we weren't able to go to the counter and get full dinners like the Whites could. [indistinct 00:09:03] it really don't work. You had plenty of Black restaurants, little pop shops they call them, little candy shops. So really, I didn't experience as much as the people that worked in the area. I never worked in some of the White areas.	8:36
Kisha Turner	Were they students who sat in? Were they protesting?	9:23
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yes. You'd see it on the news at night.	9:27
Kisha Turner	This was in the '50s?	9:30
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Mm-hmm.	9:31
Kisha Turner	Of course the public transportation was segregated.	9:36
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yes. You had to sit in the back. Back of the bus. Yes.	9:39
Kisha Turner	You have two entrances to the bus or just one?	9:43
Mozelle Bond Riddick	One, because you had to pay your money at the front.	9:45
Kisha Turner	Okay.	9:46
Mozelle Bond Riddick	You had to walk all the way back to the back.	9:48
Kisha Turner	Was it the same situation where if it became crowded, then you would have to get up?	9:51
Mozelle Bond Riddick	No, I never been asked out. But we would start standing from the back, if it was crowded and stuff. Standing from the back. I'd never been in a situation where they asked us to leave the White people. Virginia is a [indistinct 00:10:14] state where that's one of the things I said. They weren't as bad as further down south, as far as making you get up and give your seat to someone.	9:56
Kisha Turner	By the time you came here, had you finished with all the schooling, other than the barber— your training to cut hair?	10:25
Mozelle Bond Riddick	The school at home?	10:34
Kisha Turner	Mm-hmm.	10:35
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yes. I went to an all-Black school.	10:35
Kisha Turner	What was Sunbury like?	10:39
Mozelle Bond Riddick	It was a little hamlet. We enjoyed it. Most of them were farmers. And the White bus used to pass by [indistinct 00:10:50] and all this, that, riding to the White school. Because my husband used to have to walk about ten miles a day, five miles going and five miles back to go to school and the bus would pass right by him. It was a long time before we can use the buses in Sunbury. So we went through that too. As far as school and things like that, it was very, as I said, small. They knew everybody by name. [indistinct 00:11:21] Schools were segregated. Now the schools have become integrated since I left there.	10:40
Kisha Turner	What was the name of your school?	11:32
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Gates Training School.	11:33
Kisha Turner	Training school.	11:35
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Mm—hmm.	11:35
Kisha Turner	Were most of the Black schools called training schools? I've heard that from other people.	11:35
Mozelle Bond Riddick	It was high school. They're high schools now, yeah.	11:39
Kisha Turner	Okay.	11:40
Mozelle Bond Riddick	It was Gates Training School.	11:40
Kisha Turner	Back then it was Gates Training School. And how big was it?	11:45
Mozelle Bond Riddick	What do you mean, in sports classes?	11:51
Kisha Turner	Yeah.	11:57
Mozelle Bond Riddick	[indistinct 00:11:58]	11:57
Kisha Turner	Okay.	11:57
Mozelle Bond Riddick	[indistinct 00:11:59] We had students from all over the county, so you know what they had to do, they would have to come and get rooms in the homes in Sunbury.	12:00
Kisha Turner	Mm-hmm.	12:09
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Because didn't have any transportation. From all over Gates County, we had people to come to our high school in Sunbury	12:15
Kisha Turner	By chance, did you ever learn anything about Black history?	12:22
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Not really. We would've had to knew, but in the history books [indistinct 00:12:33] Some of the first Black people [indistinct 00:12:37] having the Black history book.	12:30
Kisha Turner	Were your parents farmers?	12:37
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yes. Mm-hmm.	12:44
Kisha Turner	Did they own the land?	12:46
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yes.	12:47
Kisha Turner	Did your parents buy that land or did they inherit?	12:50
Mozelle Bond Riddick	My dad bought it. Mm-hmm.	12:54
Kisha Turner	And what crops?	12:58
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Cotton, carrots, corn, soybeans. Big gardens. We raised hogs and chickens. So that was all mixed. This is what I'm saying, even in a small place like Sunbury, I didn't feel— They tell me I should've felt depression but I didn't because my dad had everything that we needed, you know? My mother sewed, so she made our clothing. It was [indistinct 00:13:26] the three of us. Small family. We did real well. My daddy was a hard worker. Really hard worker. He lived to be 81. My mother lived to be 89. Yeah, so I was blessed.	13:00
Kisha Turner	Did they stay in—	13:48
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Sunbury.	13:49
Kisha Turner	Sunbury.	13:50
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Mm-hmm. Same house that I was born in.	13:50
Kisha Turner	So you were born by a midwife?	13:54
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yes, Mm—hmm. Yes.	13:56
Kisha Turner	If someone was sick or anything, was there a hospital or doctor that would come to the home?	13:59
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yeah, the doctor made it to the home. He was White.	14:06
Kisha Turner	Was it a White man?	14:06
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yeah, he was White. But he was good with patients. We would have to go to Suffolk, Virginia for hospitalizations.	14:12
Kisha Turner	So you were—	14:17
Mozelle Bond Riddick	It was 21 miles from—	14:17
Kisha Turner	Okay, 21 miles.	14:23
Mozelle Bond Riddick	I say Suffolk because we had some other hospitals, but that's usually the one that they sent the people from Sunbury to. Now they go to a hospital in Elizabeth City and Hobbsville. Elizabeth City is 27 miles from Sunbury and Hobbsville's about 28 miles.	14:24
Kisha Turner	Were there any Black businesses in Sunbury?	14:40
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yeah, we had stores, markets and gas stations.	14:45
Kisha Turner	Really?	14:51
Mozelle Bond Riddick	They were small, yeah.	14:51
Kisha Turner	Do you remember—	14:57
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Only had one stoplight there.	14:57
Kisha Turner	One stoplight?	14:57
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yes.	14:57
Kisha Turner	Do you remember the names of any of the Black-owned—	14:57
Mozelle Bond Riddick	[indistinct 00:15:06] he had the store and the STNS [indistinct 00:15:13]	15:06
Kisha Turner	Okay.	15:07
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Then he has the grocery store and gas pumps. We had one of them Gatlins. He had the same thing. He had a grocery store and gas pumps. But as I said, it was small. Once you passed by them, you were were almost out of Sunbury. Now for the [indistinct 00:15:32] things, we had to go to Sunbury proper. You know, to get your appliances, we bought the cars there [indistinct 00:15:41]	15:13
Kisha Turner	Was Sunbury predominantly Black?	15:40
Mozelle Bond Riddick	No.	15:44
Kisha Turner	No, okay. So you— It was a minority [indistinct 00:15:51] yeah.	15:46
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Well most of the Blacks in Sunbury, unless they rented from White men to farm, they lived in the area not because— But most of them, when they bought their land, that's the way they bought it. You know? But the only time they didn't live in the area that they rented to, it's because they were farmers for the White men and they lived in his house. We were fortunate, we had our own house.	15:51
Kisha Turner	Did you attend a church in the town?	16:27
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yes.	16:29
Kisha Turner	What church did you attend?	16:30
Mozelle Bond Riddick	St. John AME Zion.	16:31
Kisha Turner	Did you go every Sunday?	16:35
Mozelle Bond Riddick	[indistinct 00:16:37] every Sunday, yes.	16:36
Kisha Turner	You enjoyed it then?	16:59
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yes. Yes.	16:59
Kisha Turner	Were your parents active?	16:59
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yeah. They used to tell me that my dad was president [indistinct 00:17:00] and he was one of them strict people. And I got on it. You know, he was just as strict with me as he was with everybody else. Yeah. [indistinct 00:17:09]	17:00
Kisha Turner	How big was your church? I mean the structure. Was it a small—	17:08
Mozelle Bond Riddick	No, it was a large church. Largest Methodist church in that area.	17:17
Kisha Turner	How old was it? Do you know?	17:20
Mozelle Bond Riddick	[indistinct 00:17:23] it was old. It burned and it [indistinct 00:17:28] yeah.	17:29
Kisha Turner	How did your family celebrate Christmas or birthdays or something?	17:33
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Christmas, my mother cooked all this food and everybody— From Christmas Eve until New Year's Eve, we're at the house eating, having a good time. We had a wonderful time. Birthdays, most of the time we would do birthday parties and things [indistinct 00:17:57] Small. Thanksgiving, my mother would find [indistinct 00:18:03] we had the Thanksgiving dinner. Fourth of July, we had all the treats, ice cream.	17:42
Kisha Turner	Okay.	18:06
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yes. [indistinct 00:18:11] it was nice. Very nice. Yeah. Christmas was a big time, between Christmas Eve and— We just celebrated.	18:07
Kisha Turner	These people, was it family or people in the community?	18:19
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Everybody just came around.	18:21
Kisha Turner	Everybody.	18:21
Mozelle Bond Riddick	We had a good time. Family. Because my mother was from a real large family and they would be in and out a whole lot.	18:21
Kisha Turner	In terms of a community in Sunbury, the people who you interacted most with, were they people who owned farms right around or worked near you? Were they—	18:36
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Well see, in a small place like that just about everybody relatives.	18:47
Kisha Turner	Okay.	18:50
Mozelle Bond Riddick	So you were always around a lot of kin. Just had a good time. We had a family reunion just two Saturdays ago. And I had just lost my sister on the 9th of June and we still had 90 in attendance and it's 37 years old. We've been celebrating for 37 years. That's my mother's side of the family. So you see how we just close.	18:51
Kisha Turner	Did you share certain types of responsibilities you had, like maybe the farming or taking care of each other's—	19:22
Mozelle Bond Riddick	I hated to farm. My brother too. I worked on the farm a little bit but I used to do the house chores.	19:33
Kisha Turner	Okay.	19:39
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Cook the dinners with my mother. Putting the midday dinner and the supper on. [indistinct 00:19:47] during the supper.	19:41
Kisha Turner	Okay.	19:47
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Putting the supper on.	19:48
Kisha Turner	Two separate—	19:49
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yeah. And we had just a bigger—	19:50
Kisha Turner	Earlier in the day?	19:54
Mozelle Bond Riddick	12:00. Because see, when they farm, they went out and started working at 7:00.	19:56
Kisha Turner	Okay.	19:59
Mozelle Bond Riddick	And had breakfast. They came back to the house at 12:00 and stayed from 12:00 to 1:00. We had to have all this big dinner ready for them.	20:02
Kisha Turner	Okay.	20:06
Mozelle Bond Riddick	See, they ate just like you would. People ate dinner now, then they would come for the [indistinct 00:20:13] about 6:00, then you had another thing for supper.	20:07
Kisha Turner	Yeah.	20:18
Mozelle Bond Riddick	And I used to help with the washing. I used to do household things. I didn't like farming.	20:18
Kisha Turner	Did other families help out your dad?	20:25
Mozelle Bond Riddick	My brother. I had a brother.	20:28
Kisha Turner	Your brother.	20:29
Mozelle Bond Riddick	He hated it too but he helped.	20:29
Kisha Turner	Okay. You said your father was pretty strict? Is that what you said? Because— Did you say that?	20:30
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Mm-mm.	20:40
Kisha Turner	Oh you didn't? Okay.	20:44
Mozelle Bond Riddick	We were learning there though. I mean, he didn't put up with no mess.	20:44
Kisha Turner	Oh right, I understand.	20:46
Mozelle Bond Riddick	He wasn't abusive or anything.	20:46
Kisha Turner	No.	20:46
Mozelle Bond Riddick	But once he spoke, you did it.	20:49
Kisha Turner	Right. What about socializing? That's what I was going to ask you about. In terms of dating or anything like that.	20:50
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Fellow came to your house, it's 8:00 or 9:00 they went home.	20:59
Kisha Turner	Stay until 9:00? About how old were you when you could have guys over?	21:03
Mozelle Bond Riddick	16.	21:05
Kisha Turner	Okay. 16.	21:05
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yeah. If you didn't go home, my dad would start [indistinct 00:21:13] And as far as going out a lot, I didn't because as I said, the movies and things were 21 miles away and the fellows didn't have any cars. So it's more you go to each other's house. I'd go visit my friend and she would come by my house and visit me. So it was— I guess you would call that the olden time, huh? It was nice. Yeah, it was nice.	21:09
Kisha Turner	As far as Saturdays and recreation, were there any sports?	21:42
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yeah, we had baseball. We went out to the games.	21:46
Kisha Turner	Were girls and boys playing? Or men and women?	21:51
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Just the men.	21:52
Kisha Turner	Just the men?	21:56
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Mm-hmm. And they had places that you could go and something like a park. You could go and sit out, drink sodas. We thought that was great.	21:56
Kisha Turner	Mm-hmm. It sounds good.	22:06
Mozelle Bond Riddick	We thought it was great. Then you came home Saturday, you get ready to go to church Sunday morning.	22:09
Kisha Turner	Were your parents from—	22:14
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Sunbury.	22:20
Kisha Turner	Sunbury?	22:20
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Born and raised in Sunbury. Mm-hmm.	22:21
Kisha Turner	Okay. Did they ever tell you about how things were maybe when they were younger? If they were any different by the time you came along?	22:24
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Well they had to work harder. That's the reason that my mother and father sacrificed so much because they said they wanted you to come up better than they did. My mother used to go out and wash for people and iron and clean the house. We had to come home and do work. They got married when she was about 19. My daddy was 11 years older than her.	22:32
Kisha Turner	Okay.	22:50
Mozelle Bond Riddick	And he was one of these people that when he got married, he got married to have a family [indistinct 00:23:01] that's what he did. He worked hard, very hard. He was in the Army. World War I.	22:53
Kisha Turner	Did he ever talk about that?	23:10
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yeah. How hard it was, yes. How they put him on the front lines because he was in the infantry. He got burned by gas once. Then he had a place on his back and he didn't know where it came from. When he put in for his benefits, [indistinct 00:23:30] they said that gas had burned his back all the way [indistinct 00:23:31] and things. It was hard. And then when he came from there, he went to Rochester, New York. They used to make bricks. He tried it but he was like my brother, he didn't like other places but Sunbury. That's where [indistinct 00:24:01]	23:11
Kisha Turner	What kind of work did he do to acquire the money to buy the home? Because he had saved up.	24:05
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Well you know, that's why he was in the service for a while. And okay, his father had the land and it was all the sisters' and brothers' name was on it. So he worked and farmed and bought everybody out.	24:13
Kisha Turner	Oh, awesome.	24:31
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Paid them off.	24:36
Kisha Turner	Okay.	24:37
Mozelle Bond Riddick	[indistinct 00:24:37] That's how he became in possession of it.	24:37
Kisha Turner	Okay.	24:40
Mozelle Bond Riddick	And then across the— it's the divider, the highway around my daddy's property. There was a lady [indistinct 00:24:50]	24:41
Kisha Turner	Mm-hmm.	24:50
Mozelle Bond Riddick	She decided she wanted to sell it. Because he used to farm it [indistinct 00:24:55] So he [indistinct 00:24:55] finally bought it. He was smart. Yeah. Without having been college educated. Now you do. But around that time, if you was smart you [indistinct 00:25:17] Because my mother didn't have to go out and work that much. She did sometimes, but she didn't have to. He took care of us.	24:53
Kisha Turner	Mm-hmm.	25:17
Mozelle Bond Riddick	[indistinct 00:25:27] during the summer months so [indistinct 00:25:29] the money for all his crops [indistinct 00:25:38] I brag about my daddy, don't I?	25:27
Kisha Turner	There's nothing wrong with that.	25:41
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yeah.	25:42
Kisha Turner	Nothing wrong with that.	25:42
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yeah.	25:42
Kisha Turner	What was the closest kind of city? Did you say Elizabeth City or Suffolk?	25:46
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Suffolk was the nearest, 21 miles. Elizabeth City was 27. Edenton, North Carolina 28. And that was past [indistinct 00:26:00] 32. [indistinct 00:26:04] Suffolk was very good on shopping at the time.	25:49
Kisha Turner	You did your shopping in Suffolk?	26:05
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yeah. Clothes. You know, as far as clothes. Mm-hmm.	26:05
Kisha Turner	What was it like when you would travel? Did you travel by— How did you travel to Suffolk without an auto?	26:16
Mozelle Bond Riddick	[indistinct 00:26:19] my daddy had a car.	26:18
Kisha Turner	Okay. So you would drive.	26:18
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yes.	26:18
Kisha Turner	What was it like? Was it exciting, or did you enjoy visiting?	26:27
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Well you had to plan on one thing. I'm going to buy me a dress and a pair of shoes. That's all you get.	26:33
Kisha Turner	[indistinct 00:26:40]	26:39
Mozelle Bond Riddick	It was hard to find something to eat. We had to go to a window. There wasn't going inside. We had to go to the window [indistinct 00:26:51] I told my daughter that's how people used to carry brown bags because in Suffolk— Okay, I used to go visit my sister in New York. You always had to take food because it was so hard for Blacks to get something to eat [indistinct 00:27:06] Sunbury to— Well we had to take the bus in Suffolk.	26:39
Kisha Turner	Mm-hmm.	27:09
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Then from Suffolk to New York, it was hard to find places that we could go and eat so we always had to cook that chicken and bring the greasy bag. That's how people got in the habit of carrying brown bags on the buses and things. We still do it. [indistinct 00:27:30] we could eat.	27:10
Kisha Turner	Was your sister older than you?	27:32
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yes.	27:33
Kisha Turner	What community did you move to when you first came to Norfolk?	27:39
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Liberty Park.	27:44
Kisha Turner	Liberty Park?	27:44
Mozelle Bond Riddick	[indistinct 00:27:47] there's houses down the street from there. That's where Liberty Park used to be. You been out there?	27:55
Kisha Turner	I've never been there.	27:57
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Okay. There were homes [indistinct 00:28:00] I forgot what they call it now. That's where Liberty Park was. Right there.	27:58
Kisha Turner	Did you like it?	28:03
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Yeah, it was nice. Very nice. Nice friendly people, nice neighborhood. Most of the [indistinct 00:28:15]	28:12
Kisha Turner	Well once you start [indistinct 00:28:20] people get so busy they didn't have time for [indistinct 00:28:21]	28:14
Mozelle Bond Riddick	We had nice people in the park.	28:20
Kisha Turner	Did most people own their homes?	28:23
Mozelle Bond Riddick	In the park? Liberty Park was the projects.	28:27
Kisha Turner	Okay.	28:28
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Mm—hmm. Yeah, one of the better projects. I can't [indistinct 00:28:29] at the time. It was nice.	28:28
Kisha Turner	So it was relatively new though?	28:53
Mozelle Bond Riddick	No, it was old.	28:54
Kisha Turner	[indistinct 00:28:54]	28:54
Mozelle Bond Riddick	[indistinct 00:28:54] so they could house all these workers that came here to work.	28:54
Kisha Turner	And what kind of work— You said your husband was—	29:01
Mozelle Bond Riddick	In wholesale groceries.	29:04
Kisha Turner	Okay.	29:04
Mozelle Bond Riddick	He worked with the government for a little while. Not that long.	29:05
Kisha Turner	And what church did you join?	29:21
Mozelle Bond Riddick	St. Thomas AMES Zion, over there in Beach Park. [indistinct 00:29:24]	29:23
Kisha Turner	Did you ever go to Church Street or—	29:23
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Church Street? The shop [indistinct 00:29:30] over here because [indistinct 00:29:40] the Blacks just grouped up, you know?	29:27
Kisha Turner	Mm-hmm.	29:41
Mozelle Bond Riddick	But now they're clearing out into the White areas [indistinct 00:29:49] Beach Street, places like that.	29:41
Kisha Turner	And kind of final question now, do you see any change now from how it was when you first got here? What kinds of things have you seen change over the years?	29:54
Mozelle Bond Riddick	As far as what?	30:08
Kisha Turner	As far as businesses or people or just the situation?	30:09
Mozelle Bond Riddick	Well, most of the people don't know [indistinct 00:30:16] Everybody's so busy trying to get, I guess. [indistinct 00:30:25] they don't take the time. I find a lot of [indistinct 00:30:25] at my church. Yes. [indistinct 00:30:25]	30:14
Kisha Turner	Okay.	30:24
Mozelle Bond Riddick	I was there all day Sunday [indistinct 00:30:44]	30:25
Kisha Turner	Thank you.	30:49

Item Info

Title:

Mozelle Riddick interview recording, 1995 July 25

Date:

July 25, 1995

Creator:

Riddick, Mozelle Bond

Contributor:

Turner, Kisha

Description:

Name: Mozelle Bond Riddick; Date of birth: 1925-01-19; Place of birth: Sunbury, NC; Occupation(s): barber; barber shop owner; Residence: Norfolk, VA
Informant ID: 1263; Interviewed by: Kisha Turner.

Occupation:

Location:

Format:

Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

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

Series:

Related Resources:

See below

Provenance:

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

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

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

Identifier:

RL00170-CS-1335
744528cd-3c5a-4352-ab67-450359cd7dc2
behindtheveil
362ec4da-f55b-400a-acd5-b5cd6e3f2794
ark:/87924/r4377j45w
362ec4da-f55b-400a-acd5-b5cd6e3f2794

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4377j45w

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Mozelle Riddick interview recording, 1995 July 25

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1. Mozelle Riddick administrative file, 1995

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Mozelle Riddick interview recording, 1995 July 25

Transcript

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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