Paul Riddick interview recording, 1995 August 02

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Mary Hebert	Have your first interview and state his or her full name, and tell me when and where you were born.	0:03
Paul Riddick	Okay.	0:07
Mary Hebert	Okay, if you go ahead. [indistinct 00:00:11]	0:07
Paul Riddick	Okay. My name is Paul R. Riddick. The R is for Reynaud, R-E-Y-N-A-U-D. I'm a lifelong resident of the city of Norfolk. I was born in February of 1948. I'm 47 years old.	0:11
Mary Hebert	Okay. And what were your parents' names?	0:27
Paul Riddick	My father's name was Jacob L Riddick. My mother's name is Louise Smith Reed, R-E-E-D.	0:30
Mary Hebert	What did they do for a living?	0:40
Paul Riddick	My father was a funeral director. My mother was a domestic worker.	0:42
Mary Hebert	And what part of the city did you grow up in?	0:48
Paul Riddick	Well, I always say that I lived in Norfolk, wherever White folks let me live and characteristically in southern towns housing patterns depend upon the city administration. And our redevelopment and housing authority in the city of Norfolk is I would say more or less guided the living patterns of Blacks in Norfolk. And I'm a part of that.	0:50
Mary Hebert	But what section did you grow up? Did you grow up in the Huntersville section?	1:19
Paul Riddick	Okay. Initially I would say I grew up in a section that was called Brewster's Park, which is on Princess Anne Road right in front of the old Booker T. Washington High School. And I would say about a quarter of a mile from the existing Booker T. Washington High School in Norfolk.	1:23
Mary Hebert	You mentioned that you lived where the city administration allowed you live. How did they put restrictions?	1:48
Paul Riddick	Well, at one point I moved from Reservoir Avenue, which is probably the first place that I ever knew of my own existence as a child over into an area called Atlantic City. Atlantic City was off of Colley Avenue in Norfolk and in Atlantic City. It housed a large segment of the Black community as well as a pretty large segment of the White community. There was a pretty good coexistence there.	1:54
Paul Riddick	The redevelopment and housing authority, along with probably some city administrators, decided that this area would be good for expansion of a medical center. Now, of course, it has been said, and there's a book by a school administrator, I cannot think of the name of it, but the fellow who wrote the book was a fellow named White, Hap White. And it said that Atlantic City, aside from being developed for housing, was also diluted to keep Blacks from eventually going to school with Whites.	2:30
Paul Riddick	Now, when I lived in Atlantic City, I was 10 years old and your school system was still segregated. And there was a school right at the corner of Colley Avenue and Fairfax Street, and this is where I was told that I would eventually go to school. If I'm not mistaken, in the book that Hap White wrote, he alluded to a former mayor of Norfolk Duckworth, having this school torn down to prevent Blacks and Whites from going to school.	3:11
Mary Hebert	So there was a conscious effort to the school segregated even after the Brown decision?	3:44
Paul Riddick	Right, exactly.	3:48
Mary Hebert	Where did you go to school? Where'd you go to elementary school?	3:51
Paul Riddick	The first elementary school I attended was a school called Douglas Park, which was on Link Street in Norfolk. And that is probably now about a quarter of a mile from the existing Booker T. Washington High School. It was a four room school. After that, I went to a school called John T west Elementary. The building is still there, but it is no longer a school. And that's on Bolton, B-O-L-T-O-N, Street in Norfolk. Even though I lived in Atlantic City, I still caught the bus at my own expense to John T west Elementary School.	3:54
Mary Hebert	That was a conscious decision by your parents to have you keep on going to West or was there no other school?	4:32
Paul Riddick	Well, the only school, there was a White school in the neighborhood, but there was no other Black school in the neighborhood. And it was my desire to go to that school because I had friends there. And at that time I think you could ride the bus for 20 cents.	4:41
Mary Hebert	Were you conscious of the disparities between the White schools and the Black segregated schools?	4:54
Paul Riddick	Not at that point. Not at that point because that was on the elementary school level, and I think on the elementary school level, their parents might have been conscious of it. School administrators, Black school administrators and teachers were conscious of it, but I don't think on the elementary school level children at that time had become aware of differences.	5:00
Mary Hebert	Did you grow up hearing about the civil rights movement? I mean, you would've been in grade school and grade school when Martin Luther King and the whole bus boycott in the city?	5:22
Paul Riddick	I believe that my consciousness of these efforts were probably created, or should I say, were probably paramount during my last one or two years in junior high school and my first year in high school. In high school, during my first year there at Booker T. Washington High School, which had a student body of probably 2,800, and that school was an old, inadequate school. The student body, when I first went to Booker T., marched down to the school administration building, the school board administration building to protest the conditions of Booker T. Washington High School. I would say that this march took place in 1964.	5:32
Mary Hebert	Had the school started desegregating by '64?	6:36
Paul Riddick	In 1964 in Norfolk, you had one or two schools who had at least four to five Black students. Norview High School comes to my mind as being one of the first schools to have Blacks. I remember very well that there was a fellow by the name of Andrew Heidelberg, who was an excellent athlete and who played football at Norview. He was the first Black football player to play at Norview. He was a running back and he set all sorts of school records there, but he also faced all sorts of unbelievable acts of racism and discrimination. One of the things that comes to my mind as far as he was concerned, and this had to be, I would say, maybe '63, Norview played a school called EC Glass in Williamsburg. And after the game when they fed all the football players, Heidelberg had to eat in the kitchen alone. Yeah.	6:43
Mary Hebert	So anyhow, he was accepted for his athletic ability, but he wasn't accepted anywhere else.	7:53
Paul Riddick	Right. And Murray and Granby also had at least five or six Black students to attend.	7:58
Mary Hebert	Now this march, did you take part in the march?	8:06
Paul Riddick	Yes, I did. Yes, I did.	8:08
Mary Hebert	Did y'all gather the signs and things like that?	8:09
Paul Riddick	Yes, they were signs. The entire student body, and I don't even know, and I think I probably need to go back and check the newspaper to see what type of coverage we got, but it seems to me that was in maybe September of '63 or '64, September of '63 or '64, and we marched from Booker T. Washington High School in a very orderly manner down to the school administration building, which at that time would've been maybe on Charlotte Street and Bank Street, I believe, somewhere around the intersections of Charlotte and Bank Street.	8:13
Mary Hebert	Do you know how the march was planned?	8:53
Paul Riddick	The march was planned by some students. One of the fellows who planned the march was a fellow by the name of Thomas Scott, who was very active at Booker T., a young lady by the name of Eleanor Southhall. And I'm sure that there are other persons who planned the march, but they were seniors in high school and they planned the march. And probably in retrospect, there were probably some teachers in the school who said, "Well, listen, we've had this long enough," but they couldn't put their jobs on the line, but they did get the students to do it. And which is admirable.	8:56
Mary Hebert	How did the administration react? I mean, the school administration and—	9:42
Paul Riddick	They could care less about how many Blacks walked down to the school administration building, what the temperature was outside, what the weather conditions were, because they had no real concern about Blacks, Black schools at that point. So much so that this was in '64, so after that maybe three or four years, they decided, "Okay, we do need a new Booker T. Washington High School, but let's put it out on Tidewater Drive in Ocean View and just call it Washington High School with no denotation of Booker Taliaferro Washington.	9:46
Paul Riddick	And this brought the adults in the Black community to the forefront and insisted that Booker T. Washington High School be built on the same site that it had already existed. But what happened, the land was acquired to the east of the school. The new school was built, and then the existing school was torn down for your green space and your athletic facilities, tennis courts, football field.	10:29
Mary Hebert	So the parents were successful getting the school [indistinct 00:11:07].	11:04
Paul Riddick	The parents were successful in getting the school to remain on the exact same site and keeping	11:07
Mary Hebert	And keeping the name Booker T. Washington.	11:13
Paul Riddick	And keeping the name Booker T. Washington High School.	11:13
Mary Hebert	How did the principal react to the march? Did he support it or she support it?	11:15
Paul Riddick	At that point, there was no such thing as that, "Well, if you leave the school, you're going to be marked absent," It was, I would say, implied consent.	11:21
Mary Hebert	So there was no retributions to that?	11:36
Paul Riddick	No retribution. No retribution.	11:36
Mary Hebert	Did your parents encourage education? Did they stress its importance to you as you were growing up?	11:41
Paul Riddick	I think when I came along, the entire Black community saw the importance of education. I started school when I was, what, six years old? So it'll be around '54. And so there was no even a hint of a civil rights bill, affirmative action, minority set asides. And so persons who were starting out were encouraged to get the best possible education that they could get in order to succeed.	11:46
Mary Hebert	Was your father considered a prominent member of the community being a funeral director and owned his own business?	12:27
Paul Riddick	Yes, I would consider him being a prominent member of the community and his father before him who was a contractor. So they had worked pretty hard to maintain a name and a image in the area, and also to help as many people as they possibly could.	12:33
Mary Hebert	In what kind of ways did they help others?	12:51
Paul Riddick	By giving them information I would say. That's the first thing that comes to my mind. As far as my grandfather's concerned, I would say he helped others because he built homes for individual, fine structures that they could afford became homeowners. I had an uncle who developed, I would say a 15 acre track of land in Virginia Beach across Norfolk Academy, who gave middle class persons an opportunity to buy a brand new home and to live in a proud community.	12:56
Mary Hebert	Did you grow up basically middle class neighborhoods?	13:35
Paul Riddick	I didn't grow up in middle class neighborhoods. I never lived with my father. I was born out of wedlock. And so although I had the influence, or should I say the affluence, I never lived in a middle class neighborhood.	13:38
Mary Hebert	Okay. So you lived with your mother.	13:52
Paul Riddick	Right.	13:53
Mary Hebert	Who did she work for?	13:55
Paul Riddick	I don't even remember. Yeah, I don't even remember.	13:55
Mary Hebert	Did she ever resent her going off to work for these White people and you were—	14:01
Paul Riddick	Did not. And as a younger person I did not, but I think after I became an adult, I had resentment.	14:04
Mary Hebert	Would she go off early in the morning and be gone all day?	14:12
Paul Riddick	Yeah, early in the morning.	14:13
Mary Hebert	Who would take care of you during the day, in the morning?	14:13
Paul Riddick	I have an older sister. But also went to a kindergarten and let me see. And well, and then by the time I started going to school, by the time I got out of school, things weren't like they are now as far as having to worry about children being at home by themselves. Yeah.	14:18
Mary Hebert	I've heard of kindergartens in people's homes? Is that where you went to kindergarten?	14:44
Paul Riddick	I went to an actual school. it was run by a lady named Mrs. Jetto, J-E-T-T-O, Skinner, and it was right at the intersection of Carrie Street and Reservoir Avenue, and I would say it was a one room school. And as far as preparation for first grade and further, it was probably one of the best settings that you could get because she was a very strict disciplinarian. And she insisted that you learn the basics. And I would say in some ways that was probably better than you getting there from children, whether it's public school or a private institution. And then I think about it in this had to be in, let me see, '48. It had to be about '51. I cannot even imagine how much it might have cost, if it cost any more than 50 or 75 cents a week. Yeah, I can't imagine.	14:51
Mary Hebert	And so your mother would pay for that?	15:56
Paul Riddick	Yeah.	15:56
Mary Hebert	I've heard a lot about, back in earlier times of community was responsible for raising children that any adult in the community could call a child back to order if he or she got out.	16:00
Paul Riddick	Exactly.	16:11
Mary Hebert	That's what it was like when you were growing up?	16:12
Paul Riddick	Exactly. Exactly. And there was always a great deal of respect for adults in the community, always a great deal of respect for adults. Even if it were a person in the community that was a wino, you better call him Mr. Whoever he was. If it was a man named Jim and Mr. Jim was a wino, you better call him Mr. Jim, and you better not disrespect him because of his plight in life at that particular time. You respected your elders.	16:13
Mary Hebert	At what point did someone become an adult, or how old were they when you were required to call them Mr. Or Mrs?	16:52
Paul Riddick	It seems to me that, I don't know whether it was an age or whether it was a person who had responsibility. Certainly, if a person was married and they had a family that they were raising, it was Ms. Somebody or Mr. Somebody. And I have no idea of how old they must have been at that time. But if they had children, then they were Ms. or Mr.	17:01
Mary Hebert	In the neighborhoods that you grew up, did you have a lot of children around to play with?	17:26
Paul Riddick	Plenty of children, plenty of children. Always.	17:32
Mary Hebert	Y'all played normal kid games, hide and go seek, those kinds of things, cowboys and Indians?	17:34
Paul Riddick	The difference when I was coming up and children today is that we were more creative with less. We made skate boxes, and a skate box was a two by four with an old skate on each end and a Coca-Cola crate and, which was our probably resemblance of a motorcycle in our mind. We had horses that were made of sticks, and the real creative children would take a old paint can, the top of a paint can, which was silver, and bend it over the stick and would have a saddle. Most of the kids rode bareback though.	17:42
Paul Riddick	And then when I was coming up, if adults told you to go and play, you just found a way to play. You didn't have to have a Sega Genesis, you didn't have to have anything. They said, go and play. You just went out and played.	18:21
Mary Hebert	You got into the backyard or the front yard and just play.	18:38
Paul Riddick	Right, right.	18:39
Mary Hebert	Were there any neighborhoods that were considered bad neighborhoods while you were growing up? Neighborhoods you weren't allowed to go into?	18:43
Paul Riddick	No, no. The difference, I guess what I came up is that during segregation, everybody had to coexist. So you had persons in the neighborhood who were considered mean, but because you had a person in that particular neighborhood that was considered mean, did not mean that neighborhood was not a nice neighborhood.	18:49
Mary Hebert	So you had people of all social classes living—	19:15
Paul Riddick	Right next to each other, right next to each other,	19:17
Mary Hebert	All professionally.	19:20
Paul Riddick	Right.	19:21
Mary Hebert	Did you spend much time on Church Street in those shopping area?	19:25
Paul Riddick	Yes. Yes. After I moved from Atlantic City after the Housing Authority came in and tore down where I live, it's called a medical tower that's there. It's probably one of Norfolk's first medical tower. Yeah, one of Norfolk's first new medical towers. They had medical buildings downtown on Butte Street and York Street as I remember. And so I moved over to Young Park, which was one block from Church Street. So I know everything there is to know about Church Street, good and bad.	19:29
Mary Hebert	Could you tell me some about it? I mean, I've heard a little bit about the businesses there, like the Booker T. Washington Theater and the [indistinct 00:20:10].	20:02
Paul Riddick	Yeah, well, on Church Street, and I'm going to say my boundary is, as far as how far I was allowed to go on Church Street would be probably from 18th Street, which was where the old Plaza Hotel used to be. I'm sure you've had a chance to go by the Plaza Hotel. All the way down to maybe Fin Church Street where the new post office is now. Between those areas, I would say there had to be over a hundred businesses. Also in those areas upstairs, over those businesses, people lived also,	20:10
Mary Hebert	These are mostly Black owned businesses?	20:48
Paul Riddick	Jewish, Jews primarily owned those businesses initially, when I first moved there. Greeks had sandwich shops and confection areas. There was a company called Vincent Lascara, which was a leather good company, right on Church Street. There were four drug stores on Church Street at that particular time. There were, I would say, one, two, three, four, five movie theaters. And I would say maybe at least 20 grocery stores. It was little small mom pop stores, but had what you needed, barbershops beauty shops. There were two pool parlors, one record company, furniture stores. Everything that a community need to exist was right there between 18th Street and Fin Church Street on Church.	20:50
Mary Hebert	And that was destroyed when they started building the interstate system?	21:54
Paul Riddick	That interstate system—	21:58
Mary Hebert	Tidewater?	21:59
Paul Riddick	Tidewater Drive didn't have an effect on that. Tidewater Drive was south of that, or well, I should say east of that. It was destroyed for no reason at all. It was destroyed by another redevelopment of the housing authority. And to this day, I can't truthfully say, I think it was by design, but I don't know why. Well, I guess in all communities, I think after a period of time, it's believed that you should recycle land.	22:00
Paul Riddick	This was probably one of the areas where land needed to be recycled, but the importance of persons being in business was not there. As far as the Blacks who had businesses there, they were renting. They did not own the property, so they had no real say so. When the housing authority dealt with the landowner, the landowner got the money for the property. Persons who could find a place to be in business did get some relocation funds, but they were minimal. Right.	22:36
Mary Hebert	And so these businesses were bought up. And what happened?	23:11
Paul Riddick	Well, most persons just went out of business. Persons went out of business for two reasons. One reason is with integration, with integration, Blacks stopped going to Church Street to spend money. You have the invention of the Southern Shopping Centers, the Janus Shopping Centers and Military Circle, and this probably was 50% of the reason that these businesses died.	23:16
Paul Riddick	And the other 50% was that by not being owners of the property, these persons could not put up storefronts to house the type of businesses that they once operated on the income. Okay? Persons probably rented storefronts from anywhere between 90 to $250 a month. By the time it came around to recycle this land, persons were saying, okay, I need $7.50 a square foot. Now, I'm not going to say that the persons could not comprehend that, but the businesses, the pop type businesses could not afford $7.50, $9.50 a square foot.	23:48
Mary Hebert	And so they went out.	24:39
Paul Riddick	Right, went out of business.	24:39
Mary Hebert	How did that affect the surrounding neighborhood?	24:41
Paul Riddick	Well, how it affected the surrounding neighborhood meant that everyone in the urban core had to get in a car to go and get whatever goods or services they needed. And at that time, it was fashionable for all businesses to leave the inner city. I think about all the automobile dealerships. We had a Chevrolet dealership, we had a Pontiac dealership, a Cadillac dealership, Ford dealership, Sears Roebuck. It was fashionable for everybody, if not leave Norfolk, but get as close to the borderline as possible. Most of those businesses, your automobile businesses went to the border, the border being Newtown Road, right where Virginia Beach started.	24:46
Paul Riddick	And this is because this is where the dollar was. This is where your young families were moving to suburbia for the purpose of, I guess, additional land around the homes that they built or bought. And so business fled. I have a bitter, bitter, bitter appeal as far as Sears stores concerned, because not only did they leave Norfolk, but then went all the way out to either Pembroke Mall area, which is on Independence Boulevard or all the way out to Greenbrier. And so I had a real problem with that. And so I don't shop as Sears.	25:37
Mary Hebert	So went completely out of—	26:17
Paul Riddick	Completely out.	26:17
Mary Hebert	So when you were growing up, Church is really this bustling business—	26:23
Paul Riddick	Hustling, bustling pride of the community.	26:29
Mary Hebert	Did you ever have a job on Church Street? Did you work when you were in high school?	26:31
Paul Riddick	Never, never. Never had a job on Church Street. I cut grass. I had a lawnmower, but I never had a job on Church Street.	26:36
Mary Hebert	Is that where high school students would hang out after school? Would you go out there and get sodas and things like that?	26:42
Paul Riddick	Well, high school students went to a place called the Booker T. Drive-in which was on Park Avenue, which was right near the school. This is where high school students went. Most of the people who went up on Church Street to hang out, that was not acceptable. That was not acceptable in the Black community to hang out on Church Street.	26:47
Mary Hebert	Why is that? Was it considered rough or what/	27:17
Paul Riddick	Well, I mean, on Church Street, if you were drinking beer, if you were shooting pool, I mean, it was just an adult place. Church Street was an adult place.	27:17
Mary Hebert	So it wasn't for teenagers?	27:30
Paul Riddick	Wasn't for teenagers. You went to the movies on Church Street. But other than that, I mean, you might buy a hotdog on Church Street, but there was no place like the Booker T. Washington Drive-in that sold no alcoholic beverages. They just sold cherry Cokes, hotdogs, hamburgers, things like that. And this is where kids went to the drive-in. And right after that, right across the street, they opened another place called Carol's Drive-in. And so this is where kids went. And Church Street was for adults, and kids respected that.	27:32
Mary Hebert	I've seen this photo, I guess it's of Church Street, where it was big tattoo parlor sign on that, would that have been on Church Street?	28:05
Paul Riddick	If it was, I don't know when it was.	28:14
Mary Hebert	It was probably in the '40s.	28:17
Paul Riddick	In the '40s. Well, yeah, that predates me. And they probably did have a tattoo parlor on Church Street at that time. Maybe it was attractive to naval, naval persons. Yeah. And that had a big influence on Norfolk, also the Navy.	28:19
Mary Hebert	How so?	28:36
Paul Riddick	Well, okay, now, by being in the height of segregation, people in the military had to come down to Church Street for whatever they wanted to do.	28:37
Mary Hebert	So the Black Navy?	28:49
Paul Riddick	Yeah, Black Navy men had to come down to Church Street. So then if you were in a barbershop, then not only did you see people from your area, but you happen to see people from all over the country and see styles, fashions, dialogue from all over the country that were Black and of the Black vernacular.	28:51
Mary Hebert	Do you remember some of the signs and symbols or segregation that were around when you were growing up like the Black only water fountains and White only water fountain?	29:13
Paul Riddick	I didn't experience it. I knew it existed. But I've never in Norfolk that I can truthfully say in my lifetime saw. I experienced just as much segregation as anyone else. But I never saw a Black only water fountain in my life. I was very active in the Boy Scouts, and fortunately enough, able to make trips throughout the country with the Boy Scouts. Whenever these trips were taken, they were Blacks and Whites on the bus together. What stands out in my mind is that we were coming back from Philmont Scout Ranch in Simran, New Mexico. Well, let me start on our way out there. We stopped in Memphis, Tennessee, and the fellow who the White Scout leader got off the bus and went into this restaurant and told him, told the restaurant owner that he wanted like 45 hamburgers, 45 orders of french fries and Coca-Colas.	29:24
Paul Riddick	Once the guy started cooking all of this, then we started getting off the bus. And so the guy stopped, said "Hold it. Blacks can come in here. And the Scout leader said, "Well, okay, cancel the order." Well, here's a man had a chance probably make more money in one shot than he did all week. So what he did, he lowered the blinds, put a closed sign up, and let us come in and eat. Coming back, we stopped in Lynchburg and the White Scouts could go in the bus station to eat, but the Blacks had to go around the back and order from a window. In Norfolk, we could not go to the movie theaters down on Granby Street. And as far as riding in the back of the bus is concerned, that was just about over when I started riding the bus. You could sit just about, anywhere, you wanted to sit on the bus. What	30:30
Mary Hebert	Well, but beaches and would you ever go to—	31:20
Paul Riddick	Oh, yeah. Yeah. I remember now going down Shore Drive and crossing the Lesner Bridge and looking down and seeing the White Beach. As I traveled over to Seaview Beach and Parker's Beach and in Norfolk, we had City Beach, which was all Black beaches.	31:22
Mary Hebert	You mentioned the Boy Scouts. Was it integrated by that time?	31:38
Paul Riddick	Boy Scouts? When we traveled to national Jamborees, when we traveled to national attractions, the groups that left were integrated, but all of your troops were still segregated. And the Black Scout District was called the Chesapeake District. And the [indistinct 00:32:07] had a Scout district. It was called Gosport, which was a Black district. And they were all always segregated. I'll never forget, I collected flat patches. I belonged to an organization, a fraternity in Boy Scouts called The Order of the Era. And over in Hampton, there's a section called Kecoughtan. And all of these chapters have flat patches. And I still have a Kecoughtan flat patch, which has confederate flags on it. Okay? So it had confederate flags on it. I'm talking about '60s. And this was there emblem.	31:42
Paul Riddick	Recently, we have a national basketball player of prominence by the name of Allen Iverson, and he got into an altercation over in Kecoughtan a couple years ago, and he was convicted and sent to prison or sentenced to prison. And it didn't surprise me because Kecoughtan still has the aura of the old, I guess you'd say, redneck era. And what I did was to get my flat patch out some 30 something years later when this happened and showed friends of mine that this is the mentality of this particular section of Hampton, southern Hampton. And that mentality still exists there	32:46
Mary Hebert	In Hampton?	33:24
Paul Riddick	Yes.	33:25
Mary Hebert	Who was your Scout leader? Who's your Scout Master.	33:29
Paul Riddick	The first Scout Master I had that really had an impact was fellow by the name of Raymond McDonald. And this Scout troop was at Queen Street Baptist Church. And Mr. McDonald was a civil service worker. He had children of his own. But every Tuesday he came out and volunteered for free as a Scout Master. And I would say he probably had the greatest impact. And after that, after I joined the organization called the Order of the Era, then there's a fellow by the name of Nat Watson, who was very prominent in Boy Scouts. And we went on national trips to Philmont Scout Ranch and some around New Mexico and to National order of the Era conferences at the University of Illinois or somewhere like that. Mr. Watson was the leader on that level.	33:35
Mary Hebert	Do they teach us citizenship, voter registration, those kind of things? Was that part of it?	34:26
Paul Riddick	No, I think at that point you knew that being Black, I don't think voter registration was a question at that point. And I think I say, the reason I say it was not a question is because that was a period shortly after Blacks had their ability to register the vote. And so I don't even think it was a question. I think at that time, anybody who turned 18 years old, well, 21 I think when I registered to vote, I think you had to be 21.	34:31
Mary Hebert	It was second [indistinct 00:35:02].	35:00
Paul Riddick	Yeah, I think it was 21. Yeah, if I'm not mistaken. I don't know when they changed it to 18.	35:01
Mary Hebert	Right around the time you [indistinct 00:35:11].	35:07
Paul Riddick	So anyway, but I think it was just a given that you were going to register to vote, and I don't think anybody had to really promote it. It was something that you knew you were going to do.	35:11
Mary Hebert	Y'all didn't go door to door with the voter registration campaign?	35:19
Paul Riddick	I'm sure that they had strong voter registration campaigns. There was a lady by the name of Evelyn Butts who defeated the poll tax in the state of Virginia. I think it was a case went to the Supreme Court. And right after that, Ms. Butts had a massive voter registration drive. I think that's basically what she's more remembered for in this area is voter registration.	35:24
Mary Hebert	Do you think the Scouts were important in your sense of civic duty?	35:50
Paul Riddick	I think it was very important. Scouting was extremely important in the Black community then. All churches had a Scout troop and all Scout troops had at least 40 boys in the Scout troop. So you're talking about probably as many as 500 or 600 young Black men in Norfolk who got together weekly and who competed in competitions, whether it's rope tying. It just had a strong, strong foundation. Strong foundation.	35:54
Mary Hebert	And did it give you good role models too?	36:28
Paul Riddick	Very, very good role models. Very good role models.	36:30
Mary Hebert	Did you go to college? And where did you go to college.	36:34
Paul Riddick	Yes. Yeah, yeah. I went to Norfolk State and I didn't graduate from Norfolk State, but I was there I think from '67 to '69. Then I started working for the federal government during the height of the Vietnam War. Anybody who wanted a job at the naval base could get a job.	36:36
Mary Hebert	Were you drafted?	37:02
Paul Riddick	No, I wasn't drafted.	37:03
Mary Hebert	You worked for the federal government?	37:04
Paul Riddick	Worked for the federal government, yeah.	37:06
Mary Hebert	So you had a job?	37:08
Paul Riddick	Yes.	37:09
Mary Hebert	And did that exclude you from you being drafted?	37:09
Paul Riddick	No, I was classified 1A, I believe for a while and never got drafted.	37:18
Mary Hebert	Did your family attend a church here? What church?	37:24
Paul Riddick	Yeah, the church. Now my mother belonged to Mount Carmel Baptist Church, and I believe that was a church that I was baptized in.	37:25
Mary Hebert	Was she a minister, a community leader or a civic leader? Did the minister take charge?	37:39
Paul Riddick	Well, back then ministers had jobs. You ad some churches who were able to pay enough, pay a minister enough that all he did was minister. But back then, all ministers had to go to work, and then they went to their churches on Sunday. And the minister there during my time was Reverend Charles Warren, I believe. And he had a job, so we've just been fortunate in recent years to have a minister making in excess of $50,000 who can be supported solely by contributions of the church.	37:41
Mary Hebert	Who are some of the most important people in the Black community during this time?	38:19
Paul Riddick	I would say some of the most important persons in the Black community, names that come to my mind as far as if you say professional people, you had the fellow by the name of PB Young who ran the journaling guide. You had lawyers, you had a female lawyer by the name of [indistinct 00:38:46] Diggs who had a partner by the name of Bertha Douglas. And all of your Black doctors were prominent at that point.	38:24
Mary Hebert	What about school teachers?	38:56
Paul Riddick	School teachers? I would say at that point, there was a lady by the name of Mrs. Peters, she worked out at at the central office, but she was probably the most prominent professional educator in the area. Marion Caps, who taught at Norfolk State University for years was a prominent educator whose name I heard during Negro History Week at that time. Back then, your school teachers had such a great interest in kids because they were adults. They knew about the prejudices, they knew about the inequities. And so they took a special interest even more so sometimes than I would say, than teachers do today because of the inequities.	38:58
Paul Riddick	And back then teachers would pull you to the side and let you know that you had to work harder and that you had to come in and pay attention. When I think about discipline in schools now, as opposed to discipline when I was going to school, I mean, you might have had one or two persons who cut up. Heck, I cut up from time to time. But you knew what you came there for. And those teachers let you know that you knew what you came there for.	39:54
Mary Hebert	So they didn't tolerate disruptions?	40:22
Paul Riddick	No disruptions whatsoever.	40:25
Mary Hebert	So discipline problems weren't—	40:27
Paul Riddick	Very minimal. Very minimal. Very minimal.	40:30
Mary Hebert	Did you ever notice that your school books were used or were hand and downs from the White schools?	40:32
Paul Riddick	Never questioned it. I knew that they were old, they were ragged, but I never questioned it. I knew that the uniforms that I used in recreation were hand me downs when the White community, but never questioned it. And I think this is probably the key as far as the civil rights movement is concerned, is that people started questioning it and people started saying at the local, state, and national level, "Listen, let's question, let's make some noise about this."	40:37
Mary Hebert	When you were growing up, did you ever feel like you had treated this a second class citizen?	41:12
Paul Riddick	No, that never occurred to me because I was treated just like everybody else. Yeah, treated like everybody else.	41:16
Mary Hebert	But once the civil rights movement started, the questioning started.	41:25
Paul Riddick	Right.	41:28
Mary Hebert	You mentioned Negro History Week. Did you hear a lot about Black national figures such as Booker T. Washington? Well, you went to Booker T. Washington.	41:32
Paul Riddick	Yeah, well, you Booker T. Washington, your George Washington Carvers, and as I said, then it was Negro History Week and now it's Black History Month. And I don't know when the accomplishments and the contributions of Blacks will be so incorporated in our schools that we won't have to denote a special period during the time of the year. Just like you know about your Thomas Jeffersons, your Abraham Lincolns, when will it be so incorporated that you don't have to have a specific period?	41:43
Mary Hebert	So you talk about, say Du Bois, during the time period he was at?	42:17
Paul Riddick	Right.	42:19
Mary Hebert	And Booker Washington.	42:19
Paul Riddick	You don't have to have a denoted period.	42:24
Mary Hebert	Did your family belong to the NAACP?	42:32
Paul Riddick	No. My father might belonged to it, but I don't think so.	42:35
Mary Hebert	Was he part of the Negro Chamber of Commerce with or Black businesses organization?	42:37
Paul Riddick	No, he wasn't. But there was never a Black Chamber of Commerce in Norfolk. It's something that we're looking at now, but there was two organizations that brought Black business persons together. One of them was called TABCA, and TABCA was Tidewater Area Business and Contractors Association, TABCA.	42:43
Mary Hebert	And what did that do? That just brought business leaders together?	43:14
Paul Riddick	Yeah, it brought Black business leaders together. Ant that time, I was young at that time and not in business, and I guess they shared concerns as far as businesses were about.	43:17
Mary Hebert	What did you go on to do after you worked for the federal government?	43:34
Paul Riddick	I sold life insurance and after I sold life insurance, I sold automobiles for about four or five years.	43:40
Mary Hebert	So you went into the business world yourself?	43:44
Paul Riddick	Yeah.	43:47
Mary Hebert	Was there ever any desire on your father's part for you to follow in his footsteps and work for the funeral?	44:11
Paul Riddick	Yeah. Well, I started working in the funeral business in 1977, and I'm still in that business.	44:11
Mary Hebert	Were some of the heroes as you were growing up, people like Joe Lewis or people in the Negro Baseball League?	44:11
Paul Riddick	No, my hero was my father. I didn't have any heroes as such. Joe Lewis was leaving, was off the scene when I came about. A person that I really admired to no end was Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali was one of the greatest men that ever lived, who speaked to me in my eyesights.	44:17
Mary Hebert	Yeah, me too. I've been interviewing people who are a lot older than you, so Joe Lewis comes to mind rather than Ali or George Foreman and people like that.	44:43
Paul Riddick	Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I would say Muhammad Ali was probably, if you're going to look at a boxer, would be probably the greatest in my eyesight.	44:51
Mary Hebert	What was the most important things that your parents taught you?	45:01
Paul Riddick	So many things, so many things. I had a great influence from my grandmother, my mother's mother. And I think from her I got independence. I think that's the greatest thing is independence.	45:07
Mary Hebert	You mentioned your grandmother. Would she ever tell you about what it was like when she was growing up? Was she from Northfolk?	45:27
Paul Riddick	Oh, she was from North Carolina. The greatest thing that I remember, I remember one day my grandmother was very fair, very fair skinned, and one day she was visiting us because she lived in Washington DC and I was holding her hand and her hand being so much lighter than mine. I asked her if she was Colored and this had to be around, I'd say it had to be around '55 or '54. And she told me, she looked at me, she said, "There is no such thing as a Colored person." And so I think as far as being an advocate of civil rights that might have been born right there with that statement from her.	45:34
Mary Hebert	Did you become involved in the movement at all? I mean, the Black Power Movement was taking off in the late '60s. I mean, did you become active in any?	46:18
Paul Riddick	I became active later on in life.	46:24

Mary Hebert	— the NAACP.	0:00
Paul Riddick	Yeah. But as far as just my independent involvement, I always believed that it was important. I always spoke down at city council. I spoke against police brutality. And I think that was probably one of the most paramount things going on. Not only nationwide, but in Norfolk was police brutality.	0:03
Mary Hebert	What period was this?	0:22
Paul Riddick	I would say anywhere from — Well, police have always been brutal to Blacks, but my involvement, I would say maybe '68, starting in 1968.	0:24
Mary Hebert	So, you were 20 years old?	0:37
Paul Riddick	Yeah.	0:38
Mary Hebert	And you were speaking out against—	0:38
Paul Riddick	Right.	0:39
Mary Hebert	Did the sit—ins have any influence on you, that happened in the earlier sixties with the Norfolk State students sitting in?	0:41
Paul Riddick	No, I wasn't involved with that. And it didn't have any influence. And I guess I can shamefully say that I was just so caught up in being young that I didn't get involved.	0:48
Mary Hebert	Well, you were a teenager at that point.	1:03
Paul Riddick	Right.	1:04
Mary Hebert	What made you start speaking out against police brutality and that kind of — Did you witness it?	1:07
Paul Riddick	Oh, I witnessed it. And I just — Yeah, I witnessed it and I just knew it wasn't right.	1:13
Mary Hebert	When did you decide to run for the city council? At what point did you—	1:22
Paul Riddick	I think the first time I had a thought of running for city council probably was — Probably around 1979 or '80, but I never did run until 19, I don't believe, 88 in the citywide election.	1:25
Mary Hebert	And what motivated you to run?	1:46
Paul Riddick	I just believed that I had something to represent as far as my community was concerned. A different perspective as far as being outspoken, as far as Blacks are concerned.	1:49
Mary Hebert	And when were you first elected?	2:05
Paul Riddick	I was first elected in '92, and that was after Norfolk had gone to the ward system. When I ran citywide, I think there were seven people running, and I came in — There were three seats available, and I came in fourth. And I think I might have got something like 4,600 votes. But the closest person to me got about 7,000 votes. So, I got beat pretty bad in a citywide election.	2:07
Mary Hebert	So, there weren't any districts or wards?	2:33
Paul Riddick	No.	2:34
Mary Hebert	You just ran—	2:34
Paul Riddick	Citywide.	2:34
Mary Hebert	Oh, okay.	2:34
Paul Riddick	But I'm proud of what I got running citywide.	2:38
Mary Hebert	How did that impact Black candidates? I'm not sure what the racial makeup of [indistinct 00:02:48] who voted for who, but —	2:42
Paul Riddick	I would say that the votes that I got were primarily — I'd probably say 80% Black, 90% Black. Because that was the pattern of voting at that time. During that particular election, you had three incumbents who had the blessing of the power structure in Norfolk. And so, they had all the money behind them and they got all the votes.	2:48
Mary Hebert	And the ward system is more equitable?	3:15
Paul Riddick	The ward system is equitable in terms of Blacks or certain Whites becoming elected. We have a fellow who is an elected candidate, an elected person who was—	3:19
Mary Hebert	Do you need to get that?	3:30
Paul Riddick	I don't think so. Who was White. And he had 98% or 97% of the White vote, but couldn't get elected because he couldn't get any Black votes. And you had another lady, Evelyn Butts, who I mentioned earlier, had 97% of the Black vote but couldn't get elected because she couldn't get any White votes, right?	3:36
Mary Hebert	And so, the ward systems—	3:55
Paul Riddick	Yeah.	3:57
Mary Hebert	I'm just about finished with my questions. Is there anything else that you'd like to add that I haven't asked you about that you would like to include on the tape?	3:59
Paul Riddick	Well, Norfolk was an unusual area as far as civil rights and civil rights movement and things that have impacted the country nationally. During the assassination of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, Norfolk never really suffered any burnings or overt demonstrations. And I don't know whether that's good or whether that's bad. It might have served well to burn down two or three buildings, and then maybe the plight of Blacks in Norfolk now probably would not be as far behind as it is.	4:07
Paul Riddick	And that sounds sort of bad, I guess, to say maybe we should have burned down one or two buildings, but Norfolk has been a fortunate area because the Blacks in Norfolk have not done those overt things. Norfolk has gone back to a segregated elementary school system, and the Black community adjusted to that. We have 10 schools that are racially identifiable where the population is 99% Blacks. And so, I really believe that the city of Norfolk really could be sitting on a time bomb because Blacks have always been so submissive, I guess you'd say.	4:52
Mary Hebert	Or has the city administration — Or at that time in the sixties, was it that oppressive?	5:37
Paul Riddick	Oh, yes. Yes, it was. It was an extremely oppressive administration. And fortunately, we don't have that type of administration now. But I think the vestiges of that still exist in lot of areas.	5:42
Mary Hebert	You mentioned there's racially identifiable schools. Are they inferior to the White schools or—	5:56
Paul Riddick	In terms of the goods and services, they're not supposed to be. But I think they create inferiority just by being there, looking at persons who just look like you. So, that whenever you have an opportunity to interact with somebody else, you might think that they're greater, they have a special talent and more ability.	6:04
Mary Hebert	Okay. I'll stop this now.	6:24

Item Info

Title:

Paul Riddick interview recording, 1995 August 02

Date:

August 2, 1995

Creator:

Riddick, Paul Regnaud

Contributor:

Hebert, Mary

Description:

Name: Paul Regnaud Riddick; Date of birth: 1948-02-03; Place of birth: Norfolk, VA; Occupation(s): city council; funeral director; insurance agent; Residence: Norfolk, VA
Informant ID: 984; Interviewed by: Mary Hebert.

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English

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Behind the Veil

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

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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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cfe551d7-0238-4892-8f56-8fa7e845730c
behindtheveil
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ark:/87924/r4bp08c28
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Paul Riddick interview recording, 1995 August 02

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1. Paul Riddick administrative file, 1995

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