Lucinda Gulledge interview recording, 1995 August 01
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Lucinda Gulledge | Now, I was reared and born in Hernando, Mississippi. | 0:02 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, what year were you born? | 0:03 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Hmm? | 0:18 |
Paul Ortiz | What year were you born? | 0:18 |
Lucinda Gulledge | In Hernando, Mississippi. | 0:21 |
Paul Ortiz | Yes, ma'am. When were you born? | 0:21 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Oh, June the 30th, 1913. | 0:23 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, what was the Black community like in Hernando? | 0:33 |
Lucinda Gulledge | That community was fine. That was in the hills. That was up in the hills. That wasn't like down in the Delta. | 0:39 |
Paul Ortiz | Oh, okay. | 0:45 |
Lucinda Gulledge | It was fine. | 0:45 |
Paul Ortiz | Can you describe it for me? Was it a farming community? | 0:49 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah, farming community. Right. Mm-hmm, farming community. Everybody was farming at that time. That's been down through the years. | 0:52 |
Paul Ortiz | Would Black families share with other Black families— | 1:07 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Right. And white families would share with other Black families. They shared together. At that time, they shared together. | 1:09 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, had your family always lived in Hernando, your grandparents or great grandparents? | 1:17 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm, always lived in Hernando. | 1:30 |
Paul Ortiz | Did stories about your grandparents pass down? | 1:36 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yes. He used to tell me some stories about my granddaddy. That's what you're talking about? When he was in slavery, he was a slave. | 1:39 |
Paul Ortiz | Your grandparents would talk about that? | 1:57 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Would talk about that, right. That little old girl—I never forget I used to be down on the floor, and they would be sitting around the fire in yester years, talking about what happened in that day and how the old master did them. They had to go to the field and work and the wives had to stay at the house, like that. Sure did. | 2:01 |
Lucinda Gulledge | At that time, I studied that when I was going to school, too, back down through the years. They were sold. You remember? They were sold. This old master over here would buy so many slaves, you see, and that one over yonder would buy so many slaves. That's the way my grandparents come up. They was bought and sold. He would talk to us about that. Then when I growed up, I came down to the Delta here, and I married. | 2:25 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, how old were you when you moved to the Delta? | 3:05 |
Lucinda Gulledge | I was about 20. | 3:10 |
Paul Ortiz | 20? | 3:13 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm. | 3:13 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, can you tell me what kinds of values did your parents and grandparents teach you when you were growing up? | 3:23 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Nothing, but they farmed. They was farmers, that's all. The farmers, we just farmed. He wasn't teaching thing. He was just talking about how he was brought up back down—he was a slave. You know, slavery. | 3:33 |
Paul Ortiz | Your father? | 3:56 |
Lucinda Gulledge | My father wasn't. | 3:58 |
Paul Ortiz | Oh, he wasn't? | 3:59 |
Lucinda Gulledge | No, he wasn't. He was just a farmer, that's all. Wasn't nothing like that going on when he come along. Sure wasn't. They had done freed the slaves. I used to could remember my history book, but I done forgot that when the slaves was free. I don't. Can you remember? Did you have history of it? | 4:04 |
Paul Ortiz | 1865. | 4:25 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Was it? Yeah. I used to I had a history of it, but I can't remember that far back. Sure can't. | 4:30 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, what are your earliest memories of childhood growing up? | 4:40 |
Lucinda Gulledge | My earliest memories of childhood was going to school. Really it was just segregated in that. You know how that was. The Blacks didn't have nothing to do with the whites. The whites didn't have nothing to do with the Blacks in that day, and on and on until the '60s, see. That run a long time. It was in the '60s before this thing broke down. Can you remember that? | 4:47 |
Paul Ortiz | I've read about it. I was born during the '60s so— | 5:16 |
Lucinda Gulledge | You read about it. Anyway, you read about it. But it was in the '60s before this thing broke down. Sure was. Yeah, it was in the '60s. People came down from Chicago, came down from Detroit and New York, down here in Mississippi, and they got this thing to going. Really did. They got it to going. Now, everybody, brothers and sisters look like now. Everybody happy. You got to the school. Just as many Blacks there as there is the whites. Everything is just fine in the way of being segregated. | 5:22 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, what was it like back in the older days before that time? When you first came to the Delta, what were race relations like then? | 6:09 |
Lucinda Gulledge | It was rough then. Yeah, it was rough then. Sure was. It was rough then. You didn't see no Blacks working in these stores and nothing of the kind. It was rough then. The business of it, when I came to the Delta, it wasn't nothing but farming because the people would leave town, go to the country and work, because they couldn't even get no jobs here. | 6:20 |
Paul Ortiz | Were you living in Greenwood, Mrs. Gulledge, when you first moved? | 6:48 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yes, I was here. I've been here. I've been here in Greenwood ever since 1942. | 6:55 |
Paul Ortiz | 1942? | 6:58 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm. That's when the movement first started. People what knew me—just like I had some friends in Jackson around—they would call me. People would want to come down. The white people were really scared. They had to have a place to stay when they come down like that. People in Jackson would call me and tell me so-and-so and so-and-so would be down. They got to have somewhere to stay. I said, "Send them on to my house." I was right here. I said, "Send them on to my house. Send them on." | 7:00 |
Lucinda Gulledge | This man I was telling you about a while ago did this writeup. I'm going to show it to you before you go. He stayed right here two week, right here in my house. Two weeks, right here. He got the notice to come here. You see what I mean? See, he had other contact. The other people he contact, they told him to come here. I said, "Oh, he can come to my house." See, I wasn't like the rest of the Colored people, scared. "No, he ain't coming to my house." A lot of them didn't let them come in their houses. I said, "They can come here." They come here, and I ain't never did have to trouble. They stayed as long as they want. Stayed all night. Yeah, they stayed all night. Sure did. When I didn't cook for them, they would get up and go in there, and fix something their self. Even I had some white ladies to come. Sure did. It was rough, but we made it through. Yeah, we made it through. It was kind of rough. | 7:40 |
Johnny Matthews | [Indistinct 00:09:00] | 8:58 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Johnny? | 8:58 |
Johnny Matthews | Huh? | 8:58 |
Lucinda Gulledge | This is the young man is— | 9:03 |
Paul Ortiz | Hi, sir. | 9:05 |
Johnny Matthews | Fine. How you doing? | 9:05 |
Paul Ortiz | Thank you. Fine. | 9:07 |
Johnny Matthews | Matthew. | 9:07 |
Paul Ortiz | Paul Ortiz. Pleased to meet you. | 9:09 |
Johnny Matthews | Glad to meet you. | 9:10 |
Lucinda Gulledge | He come from out of state. He stayed with Dr. Kennard and them. | 9:10 |
Johnny Matthews | Oh, yeah? You're talking to the right lady here. She can give you information. Okay. | 9:10 |
Lucinda Gulledge | What were we talking about. Oh, yeah, the people coming in. | 9:12 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay, from Jackson and— | 9:27 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah. | 9:29 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, how would people in Jackson know to contact you? | 9:31 |
Lucinda Gulledge | These people, they would tell them down there. The people here would come through by my house and talk to me. See, they had problems in Jackson. They would go on down there, and they would tell them down there. | 9:37 |
Paul Ortiz | The headquarters of— | 9:52 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mississippi. You know Jackson, Mississippi? That's the capital of Mississippi. | 9:53 |
Paul Ortiz | It was the headquarters of the NAACP? | 10:00 |
Lucinda Gulledge | No, just that's the capital of Mississippi, see. They would come down. They would go to Jackson, see, to come and join all of them. You know what I mean? They was in Jackson. Lots of them had to go get the information down there. | 10:07 |
Paul Ortiz | Is that students and- | 10:22 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah, all that was in it, too. Yeah, all that was in it, the integration. All that was in it, too. | 10:25 |
Paul Ortiz | How did you first get in contact with people in Jackson? | 10:37 |
Lucinda Gulledge | It was people here working. People was here working. Then when they go to Jackson, they give them my name. Then whenever they want something here, they would contact me. | 10:43 |
Paul Ortiz | I see. Mrs. Gulledge, do you remember who some of those people were that would— | 10:58 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Lift that and give me that brown envelope right in this drawer right here. Right there. That's it. All right, let me see can I call their names somewhere. This here is '67. One of them was Chip Seward. He was up from up north. But [indistinct 00:11:50] and Paul, and Ronny and Laura. Greenwood, Leflore County. I'm looking for some of these leaders now. | 11:06 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Let's see. He was back over here on the front page, I think. His name is over here on this front page. These people would come down here to work on welfare. Colored people wasn't getting any welfare. This is welfare people come down to go to the—they went to the welfare office downtown, you see, and contacted the welfare folks up there, so the poor people here could get some help. Let's see. | 12:05 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Right here where they said, "They should be sent." Look in there. Lucinda Gulledge. They got this. See right here? Look in there. So I was one of them. "They should be sent," right there on that bottom line. That's when they would send them down. You see that, don't you? | 13:24 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay, right here. | 13:52 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm. | 13:53 |
Johnny Matthews | You got the paper? | 13:53 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah, I had the paper. It must be back over here. [inaudible 00:14:31] You can look right there, now. You can look. There it is right there. | 14:06 |
Johnny Matthews | Excuse me. | 14:38 |
Lucinda Gulledge | One of these ladies is Marian Wright, attorney at law. | 14:49 |
Paul Ortiz | Called Marian Wright? | 14:56 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah. | 14:57 |
Paul Ortiz | Is she Marian Evelyn Wright? | 14:57 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah. | 15:02 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 15:08 |
Lucinda Gulledge | That's her. And Mildred Leventhal. Leventhal. And Paul Brest. | 15:09 |
Paul Ortiz | They would just come and stay here? | 15:19 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm, working. | 15:20 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, did you have people stay here before that time, during earlier times? | 15:36 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah. | 15:45 |
Paul Ortiz | Before 1967? | 15:47 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah, when they come here. | 15:49 |
Paul Ortiz | When did you start hosting people in your house? | 15:52 |
Lucinda Gulledge | It was '60s. During the '60s. | 15:55 |
Paul Ortiz | Did you ever host people on voting rights, people who were trying to do that? | 16:08 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah. Sure did. I had two lawyers here one time. Paul Brest, that man there, he's one of them. But Marian Wright, she stopped by, but she went on into Jackson. You see those names on there? | 16:14 |
Paul Ortiz | Yes. Mrs. Gulledge, when did you first begin getting active? | 16:39 |
Lucinda Gulledge | When those leaders come in, telling us what to do, what they wanted us to do. I think the first thing is when we—let me see. I think the first thing I did—they went to boycotting these stores, these all white stores. We went over there and boycotted Liberty Cash store, right over there on Main Street. | 16:55 |
Paul Ortiz | Liberty Cash store? | 17:19 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Uh, huh. Over there on Main. Liberty Cash grocery store. | 17:20 |
Paul Ortiz | Why were you boycotting the store? | 17:31 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Because it was segregated, no Blacks. | 17:33 |
Paul Ortiz | No Blacks working? | 17:37 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Uh, uh. No Blacks were. | 17:37 |
Paul Ortiz | The goal was— | 17:42 |
Lucinda Gulledge | When we got through with that, the Black was a manager. | 17:42 |
Paul Ortiz | Oh, really? | 17:44 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm, sure was. | 17:44 |
Paul Ortiz | Your goal was to try to get Black people equal- | 17:49 |
Lucinda Gulledge | That's right. Equality. Right. That's what the whole thing was about. | 17:52 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, who were some of the— | 18:01 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Want to get that? | 18:04 |
Paul Ortiz | Who were some of the local activists here in Greenwood, local people who are important? | 18:05 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Myself and him, Johnny Matthew. That's two. Either folks done died out and left here. Let me see. Johnny. Johnny. Johnny. Johnny. | 18:12 |
Johnny Matthews | Yeah? | 18:43 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Come here. He wants to know, just when it first started, who were some of the important people. I told him myself and you. | 18:44 |
Johnny Matthews | I came from North in '62, at just about when it began here. It was going a long time before that, but we really got started in '62. Now, Sam Block, Willie Peacock, Bob Moses. | 18:56 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Jake McGee. | 19:11 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay, I've heard some of those names before. | 19:12 |
Johnny Matthews | Yeah, I'm sure you have. They was the leaders. Bob Moses was our director here. And Peacock I'm sure you heard of him now. Bob Moses, I think it was Bob Moses was [INTERRUPTION] right now. But those were the main persons. They were what you call SNCC. I was with SCLC, which was Dr. Martin Luther King, but we always coincide together. But SNCC really got it—Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, that's what that came to do. We was in SCLC—which that is still in existence, SCLC in Atlanta, Georgia—under direction of Martin Luther King Jr., at that time. | 19:14 |
Johnny Matthews | So I worked directly with Dr. Martin Luther King through, but I would—I guess I could say I worked with both of them, SNCC and Dr. Martin Luther King, because I was very more or less in voter registration. At that time, we just couldn't vote. They would ask you how many bubbles in a bar of soap, you'd get up to the registrar, or how many windows in the courthouse. All those things we had to go through with before we—I think they had a poll tax one time. They want us to pay a poll tax to get to register to vote. | 20:00 |
Johnny Matthews | It was just fearful for us down here. The ones that had jobs, they would lose them and then attempt to vote. A lot of farmers got kicked off their farm. That went along with Medgar Evers. That's the one got killed down there in Jackson. Then I worked along with his brother, Charles Evers. He came in right after. But way back before that time, Medgar Evers was NAACP. We had three organizations at that time, NAACP, SNCC, and SCLC they called SCLC, but SCLC. | 20:34 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Southern Leader— | 21:09 |
Johnny Matthews | Southern Christian Leadership Conference. | 21:10 |
Lucinda Gulledge | That's what— | 21:17 |
Johnny Matthews | That's the way that come about. Really, when they came into Greenwood, as far as we're concerned—someone by the name of Willie Peacock and Sam Block, those were the directors. Now, those were the ones really went through hell. We all did, of course, but they were spearheading things, okay. | 21:20 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yes, they were. | 21:42 |
Johnny Matthews | Our information came—we had the legality part came through Jackson, from Washington through Jackson, to us. We had direct contact with somebody in Washington. That's direct contact, but you had to use your head down here because not have a lot of [indistinct 00:22:10] that we took. I think I got to started headed out. I was working with Bill Goins for a while. [Indistinct 00:22:16] down there for a long time. But those are the leaders we had. But it was just impossible, you might say, to register—getting to vote, a lot of people did. | 21:53 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Now, the way we had to register, wasn't nobody voting here for nobody. They would send some people from Washington. | 22:30 |
Johnny Matthews | Registrars came in. | 22:39 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah. We got down in the basement of the old post office. Those people registered us in the old post office and carried our name back to Washington, and then sent them back to the county. | 22:43 |
Johnny Matthews | Yeah. What she's saying, we had a mock campaign. We wasn't really legal. We'd set up over at churches who wanted to register to vote. | 23:00 |
Lucinda Gulledge | That's right. | 23:12 |
Johnny Matthews | We would get all the names of people and compile them and send that to Washington, letting them know that we wanted to register to vote. That was where it started the registration, voting. All that went along with the integrating of our restrooms, and that's when we went and got in jail. We got— | 23:17 |
Lucinda Gulledge | In the schools. | 23:37 |
Johnny Matthews | In schools and stuff. But we really got it started right here in Greenwood. | 23:37 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Sure got it started. That started heavy, too. | 23:40 |
Johnny Matthews | Just filled with a lot of people back in the shed house. She had a lot of white lawyers staying with her. But you couldn't even think. If you were sitting down like this when they first came here, man, that was just out of the question. You'd have to work here and get your ass back to Jackson before dark. I mean for your safety. We were already scared under the bed somewhere, but we're talking about your safety. They would call you white trash. Now, you know that. We were marching from here up to the courthouse. When they first got here, we just had to get people like her. I wasn't stationed there. I just came in here from North, but this is my home here. But I came here in '62, back from the North. I was born here. [Ambient sounds]. The ones that did stuff were people like her. They had something to lose. Myself, I lived with my mother at that time. They couldn't bother nothing but put me in jail. | 23:49 |
Paul Ortiz | Mr. Matthews, do you have time later on in the week? Maybe I could sit down with you and— | 24:50 |
Johnny Matthews | Of course. | 24:53 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 24:53 |
Johnny Matthews | Tomorrow at 2:00? What time do you come back? We had a— | 24:55 |
Paul Ortiz | Tomorrow I'm going to be out at Indian Knoll up at—are you busy Thursday, say about two o'clock? | 25:08 |
Johnny Matthews | All right. Come by Thursday about 2:00. | 25:18 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 25:18 |
Johnny Matthews | That will be fine. I'm glad to talk to you. | 25:19 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay. I'll just come here? | 25:22 |
Johnny Matthews | Yeah, just come right here. | 25:22 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 25:26 |
Johnny Matthews | We used to have to say, "Wait till dark to get here," but now we have a little better days. You can come now. | 25:27 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 25:29 |
Johnny Matthews | Fine. | 25:29 |
Paul Ortiz | I don't want to take too much of your time today. | 25:29 |
Johnny Matthews | All right then. Go right ahead, you all. | 25:29 |
Lucinda Gulledge | There's time to take time now. | 25:29 |
Johnny Matthews | Yeah. | 25:29 |
Lucinda Gulledge | There's time to take time. Yeah, time to take time. | 25:29 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, earlier you were saying you moved to the Delta when you were about 20. What was the first area that you moved into? What was the first county? | 25:34 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Grenada. | 26:03 |
Paul Ortiz | Grenada? | 26:04 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm. | 26:05 |
Paul Ortiz | Could you describe- | 26:05 |
Lucinda Gulledge | My auntie lived there, and I just stopped there with her and lived there with her. That's where I married at, in Grenada County, my first marriage, in Grenada County. | 26:06 |
Paul Ortiz | I haven't talked to anybody in Grenada County yet. Can you tell me what the Black community was like in Grenada County? | 26:17 |
Lucinda Gulledge | It was all right. Yeah, it was all right. It was fine. Then when I left there, I come here. It was better there. I don't know what [inaudible 00:26:37] better there than it was here, because that's in the hills. The hill people look like they was more civilized or something than Delta folks. But these people down here, they come to be [inaudible 00:26:55]. They are all right now. | 26:26 |
Paul Ortiz | Back in the older days, there was a lot of differences in people. | 26:58 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yes, it was. Right. Yes, it was. | 27:00 |
Paul Ortiz | Was there a difference in how long you would work, your work hours? | 27:03 |
Lucinda Gulledge | When? You talking about back in the old days? | 27:11 |
Paul Ortiz | Yeah. | 27:11 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yes, it was—the time we'd go to field, like that? Yeah, we would be in the field about 6:00 in the morning and work till about 7:00 that evening. But we would stop off for dinner and everything. Yeah, we would stop off at dinner. | 27:12 |
Paul Ortiz | When you were young, when you were growing up, did you work a lot in the field? | 27:45 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah, I did. I worked in the field, farming. Sure did. | 27:49 |
Paul Ortiz | What kind of crops did you family raise when you were growing up? | 27:56 |
Lucinda Gulledge | They raised fine crops. They raised cotton, and corn, and sweet potatoes, and sorghum, and peanuts. Just anything growed, they planted it and they raised that stuff. They had sorghum mills. Carried the sorghum to the mill and grind the sorghum, make molasses. | 27:59 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay. Was your family farming on halves? | 28:24 |
Lucinda Gulledge | You talking about my father? No, he had his own land. He had his own land. | 28:33 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, what role did church play in your family's life when you were growing up? | 28:45 |
Lucinda Gulledge | They let them come to the church and have meetings. They let them come to the church and have meetings. That's where they could go. Mm-hmm, going to the church and have meetings and pray and sing. | 28:54 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, now when you moved to Grenada and you got married, what were you doing to make a living? | 29:22 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Farming. | 29:28 |
Paul Ortiz | You were still farming? | 29:29 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm, still farming. | 29:31 |
Paul Ortiz | What were the differences between farming in the Delta and farming in the hills? | 29:35 |
Lucinda Gulledge | It was a lot different, because you could make more in the Delta. You couldn't make as much in the hills as you could make in the Delta. It looked like the crop would grow better in the Delta than they did in the hills. Yeah, they would. | 29:42 |
Paul Ortiz | So it was you might take one step forward and two steps back. | 30:02 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Right. | 30:07 |
Paul Ortiz | Your crops grew better in the Delta- | 30:07 |
Lucinda Gulledge | That's right. | 30:09 |
Paul Ortiz | —but race relations were worse. | 30:10 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Oh, yeah. They was worse. Now, you're talking. The race relation wasn't worth nothing. Sure wasn't no more than what the Black man was doing for that white man, was working. You know what I mean? That's all. That's all it was worth. | 30:13 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, when you came to Grenada, during your time there, were there cases of white racial violence? | 30:40 |
Lucinda Gulledge | No. No, everybody it looked like was—in the hills. That's in the hills. It looked like everybody was just doing better in the hills, were down in the Delta at that time. Because most the time in the Delta, the white man owned everything. They owned all the land, all the plantations. You know. You done read about it. We, as we workers, anyway we weren't nothing but slaves, see. You had a time to go to field and time to work and everything. We weren't nothing but slaves. Just had to work for the white man. That's just the way it is. You had to work for the white man. Then when you pick your cotton, carry it to the gin, he give you what you want you to have. He ain't never tell you what you made. He'd go tell you what he liked. That's the way that went. | 30:49 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, what would happen if a Black sharecropper said to the land owner, "I think I should be making more on this crop"? | 32:05 |
Lucinda Gulledge | He would tell him to move. Put him off the place. Put him off the place. Tell him to move. Put him off the place. I know a man on number seven, between here and Grenada. That man made, one year, 30 bales of cotton. Then when the man settled with him, he told him he had come out in the hole. He said, "But you can get anything you want for Christmas." All that kind of stuff. | 32:16 |
Paul Ortiz | So there were a lot of company stores? | 32:54 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm. | 32:55 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 32:56 |
Lucinda Gulledge | The Blacks just didn't have no say-so over nothing. Didn't have no say-so over nothing in them days. They had a store. They called it commissary store, a store. You had to go there and get what you want to eat or get a bunch of groceries you want. Get a wagon load. But the man putting it on the book. Then when time comes and you pick that cotton, you ain't getting nothing. That's true. They can tell, "What you want? Get it." He's putting it on the book. But when he settled with you, you ain't getting nothing, but he will tell you that you can get anything you want. You're still in debt. You're still in debt. Getting in debt for another year. | 33:01 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, how did you as the head of a household, how did you deal with that situation? How did you even try to make ends meet? | 34:03 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Working by the day. Working by the day. Oh, man, I have chopped corn for 60 cents a day. I go to church right now. I'm a Sunday school teacher in my church. Sometimes, when I'll be teaching Sunday school, I'll cut in through there and tell them that I have chopped cotton for 60 a day. That's right. But we made it though. We lived. 60 cents a day. That's right. I have picked cotton for 35 cents a hundred. Sure have. That was back in that day. | 34:18 |
Lucinda Gulledge | On down through time when the civil rights movement come on into Greenwood, Dr. King and all them, I had a friend. I was back here in the house just like I am now. I heard a car horn blowing, and I went to the door to see who it was. He said, "Come on." I said, "Where are you going?" He said, "We're going to meet Dr. King." I said, "Where he at?" Said, "He leaving Grenada." Man, I got in that car and went on up that road. You talk about people. They was on that highway, marching with Dr. King. He was coming this way. He said, "Come on, let's go meet him." So we went and met him. He come on here. I was so tired on that highway. | 35:08 |
Lucinda Gulledge | One man in the movement, he come up to me. See, they would watch you, your accident, everything, so you get tired or sick or something. He looked at me. He said, "Lady, ain't you tired?" I said, "No, I ain't tired." I was so tired I couldn't hardly hold myself up. He said, "All right." Marched on, coming to Greenwood, coming on down the highway. He come to me again. He said, "Lady," he said, "I suspect you better go get in the car with the doctor." So I got in the car with the doctor then, come on to this Greenwood playground right here. That's where they rested for a while. That was the day Dr. King was to speak here. He spoke at the courthouse downtown. So he was coming in. We all met him. He already had some with him. He came on to the playground. He said, "We'll go rest, eat lunch, and then we'll go to the courthouse." | 36:08 |
Lucinda Gulledge | After we ate lunch, it wasn't long before two motorcades come in. Police come in to where we were to escort him up to the courthouse. We went on up to the courthouse. Got up there. Some white man told him, said, "Dr. King," said, "We don't mind you speaking, but you got to speak on the ground." There's a little balcony up there. You can walk the steps and stand up on. "Don't mind you speaking, but you got to speak on the ground." Dr. King said, "I'm going to speak up here on these steps," and he did. Sure did. Wanted step, to be down here, and they didn't want him to get up there on the courthouse. So he said, "Everything around this courthouse belongs to us today." That was the county. See what I mean? That wasn't the city. That was the county. When we left there, then they marched on to Morgan City, on down. Went on through [indistinct 00:38:28], on back to Jackson, but I didn't. I come on home. I was tired. | 37:23 |
Lucinda Gulledge | That was a very, very nice thing they did, because he had a right to speak there, because that's where we vote. You voted at the courthouse. That's why they weren't allowing so many folks to go vote. But after that happened and everything, anybody who registered could vote. | 38:34 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, can you tell me about your first experience in trying to register to vote? | 38:59 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah, sure I can. We couldn't go to the courthouse. We had to go to the old post office, to the basement. They didn't allow us up there to the courthouse. We had to go to the old post office, in the basement. Some white man came down from Washington, and he had a table set up here on my porch. People was coming across town over here to vote. You see what I mean? You know what kind of voting it was it, just to get your name down so they know how many people can vote. That's what that was all about. | 39:05 |
Paul Ortiz | Oh, that was the Freedom Vote? | 39:52 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Right. Yes. See how many people can vote. But those names was carried in though. Those names was carried in, because they were in line up there to vote. You see what I'm talking about? They were in lining up there. These people come in from Washington to set up all that, and they had them names in. When we did get where we could register, we had to go down in the basement. These people was from Washington, came down. I got my receipt right now. We had to go down in the basement at the old post office to register before we could go to the courthouse and vote. | 39:55 |
Paul Ortiz | But you had a table in front of our house? | 40:39 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm, on the porch. | 40:44 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay. So people from the neighborhood could come and— | 40:45 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Right. Folk from Carrolls County was coming over here. | 40:48 |
Paul Ortiz | Oh, okay. Were there other people that also opened up their house to that? | 40:52 |
Lucinda Gulledge | No, they were scared, man. They were scared. | 41:01 |
Paul Ortiz | You were the only person in Greenwood? | 41:05 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Only in this block. | 41:06 |
Paul Ortiz | In this block? Okay. | 41:06 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm, only person in this block. I think it was a couple more across town somewhere. It's over one of them cafés over there somewhere. Yeah, in this block, I'm the only one over here. Sure am. | 41:06 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, would you go out and do canvasing, go from door to door and try to get Black people to sign up? | 41:28 |
Lucinda Gulledge | After they got the news, they come on here. I didn't have to go. | 41:38 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay. They just would come. | 41:42 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm. After they found out what I was doing here, they came on here. They was glad to get here to put their name on that book. Now, they can go over there to the courthouse and vote. All that's done away with now. You can go vote if you want to. Yeah, there was a time they wouldn't allow them to vote. Wouldn't allow anybody to vote but the white man. | 41:46 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, what would happen when, say, a Black person tried to vote, went to the courthouse or something and tried to vote? Earlier you were talking a little bit about one of the questions they would ask you, some kind of question about bubbles and soap. | 42:12 |
Lucinda Gulledge | No, they didn't ask—bubbles and soap? What did you say then? | 42:28 |
Paul Ortiz | I heard that the registrar would ask questions that no one could answer when you would try to register. | 42:41 |
Lucinda Gulledge | No, they didn't do us like that. They didn't do us like that. All they wanted to do is you just like you got that book. I'm going to come in here and come to you, and tell you I want to register. You ask me what my name, and you put my name down. That's all. You carry my name into the courthouse. That's all. Wasn't none of those questions and things like that asked here. | 42:50 |
Paul Ortiz | So you could just vote? | 43:27 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah, you could just vote after you registered. | 43:27 |
Paul Ortiz | No, I mean before that. | 43:31 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Oh. I don't know, because I didn't fool with them until I got where I could do it. | 43:32 |
Paul Ortiz | When did you decide that you were ready? | 43:41 |
Lucinda Gulledge | That's when those people come in here. Those people come in here, because you couldn't do it till they come in here, not no Black people. Those people from Washington had to come in. We had several registrars. We had several registrars. We had several registrars out there at the post office. | 43:44 |
Paul Ortiz | Post office. | 44:14 |
Lucinda Gulledge | There were several people down there registered me and a lot more of them. They couldn't nothing about that. | 44:14 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, when you had your table set up here, would whites ever come in and monitor? | 44:30 |
Lucinda Gulledge | I'll tell you what did happen, I think, around here in this place right here. We call this Baptist Town. I think there's a lady down on the end of the street back down there. She used to have a café. I think she had one around there. They set up one around there, and they went around and made her take it down. | 44:40 |
Paul Ortiz | Oh, they made her take it down? | 45:08 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm. | 45:08 |
Paul Ortiz | By their store? | 45:10 |
Lucinda Gulledge | By the café. | 45:10 |
Paul Ortiz | By the café. | 45:11 |
Lucinda Gulledge | They made her take it down. Then we put one out here on my porch. I said, "I think they ain't going to bother this one," and they didn't. They didn't. They didn't bother it and didn't bother me. I ain't never had no trouble there. Sure ain't. | 45:16 |
Paul Ortiz | I wonder why they bothered the café but they didn't bother here. Why- | 45:39 |
Lucinda Gulledge | They sure didn't. | 45:43 |
Paul Ortiz | Why was that? | 45:43 |
Lucinda Gulledge | I don't know why it was, but they didn't. They really didn't. The rest of these men—which Johnny talked about some of them—these coordinators and all, Jackson, they would go to Jackson and tell the people down there, "Contact Mrs. Gulledge." People called me from Jackson. White people called me from Jackson. I don't know them today. They would just call me and tell me what they wanted me to do. | 45:49 |
Lucinda Gulledge | At that time during the, what you call it, the Civil Rights struggle. People were just plain scared. And so I don't guess you could blame them for it. They was plain scared. And this one lady and my son and her daughter was the only two kids in my integrated that school. She wouldn't carry her daughter over there unless I went with her, she was just plain scared. Some people just had that fear, but I never was. Never was. And so when they went from Davis to Greenwood High, I'd get in my car, I'd go over there and pick both of them up. Pick both of them up, bring them on home. | 0:00 |
Paul Ortiz | How many other students were there? | 0:53 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Wasn't but two. | 0:59 |
Paul Ortiz | Two. | 0:59 |
Lucinda Gulledge | But down through time, I think there was about three or four more come in, that Tudor McGill girl and my son, that's three. And Catherine there were four. There were about five more. But they was in Greenwood High, then, but they didn't go to this one here, only two over here. | 0:59 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay. So Mrs. Gulledge, you had a son who was in the first integrated class at Greenwood High School? | 1:22 |
Lucinda Gulledge | No, at Davis. | 1:32 |
Paul Ortiz | Oh, at Davis. | 1:33 |
Lucinda Gulledge | At Davis. | 1:34 |
Paul Ortiz | That's an elementary? | 1:35 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Right, right over here. Davis Elementary, right. | 1:36 |
Paul Ortiz | How old was he, and what grade was he in? | 1:39 |
Lucinda Gulledge | I think he was in sixth or seventh grade. I think he was. But that same year, he passed it. That same year he passed, he didn't have to go but one year. That same year he passed, he was passed to Greenwood High. That's the high school over there by the highway. He must've been about seventh, eighth grade, because he had the paper route— Alright. | 1:43 |
Paul Ortiz | And there was one other student that— | 2:16 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah, one other student, her name was Catherine Edwards. | 2:18 |
Paul Ortiz | Catherine Evans? | 2:21 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Edwards. | 2:21 |
Paul Ortiz | Edwards, okay. Did you know her parents, Mrs. Gulledge? | 2:22 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yes, I do, but they live in Chicago now. Daughter's in Chicago, sure is. Yeah, they're in Chicago. They lived right down the street on the corner from me down there, at that time. But they're all in Chicago. | 2:29 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, was that part of an organized effort? Was there an organization that was involved in that with you? | 2:49 |
Lucinda Gulledge | No, no. No more than what they call the civil rights movement. I think that's what they called it. Yeah, it was. It had to be. The civil rights movement. | 2:57 |
Paul Ortiz | Were there other local leaders who were supporting that? | 3:13 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Oh yeah, yes there was. | 3:17 |
Paul Ortiz | Who were some of those leaders? | 3:18 |
Lucinda Gulledge | One of them was Mr. L.C. Mayswine. James Moore, David Journ. Let's see. Johnny Matthews. And they were supporting that because if this one didn't pick them up, then the others come pick them up. They was in that together, you know. | 3:25 |
Paul Ortiz | All pick up the kids and take them to school? | 4:01 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm. | 4:02 |
Paul Ortiz | Oh, okay. So other people— | 4:02 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. | 4:02 |
Paul Ortiz | Was that in the late '60s? | 4:02 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah, that was in the last '60s. Sure was. Really was because—yeah, that was in the late '60s, mm-hmm. | 4:25 |
Paul Ortiz | I was trying to track that down. What year was your son born? | 4:25 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Hmm? | 4:30 |
Paul Ortiz | What year was your son born? | 4:31 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Let me see, what year was he born—'49, I think it was. '49. I think it's '49. Let me see, that make him how old? | 4:56 |
Paul Ortiz | In '69 he would've been, he was born in '49, so in 1969 he would've been 20. | 5:01 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm. Let's see, was he 20 then? Well, probably so because now he started in that before he was 20 because see there was those stores here around here like where I live on the corner there and on the corner there. But he was in there. But he hadn't started, he hadn't went to the school, hadn't integrated the school at that time. But he was in the [indistinct 00:05:38] stores until then. | 5:06 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 5:33 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Uh-huh. That's what he was doing then. And they had a little black boy and they picked him up and carried him out there on the farm on account of labor, a busload of children. And my son was in that busload. They didn't stay out there but a week. They didn't do nothing but feed them, because the other guys was watching. The other Civil Rights boys was watching. And so that man come from Jackson and told them to get [indistinct 00:06:18] children, because there were no kids back then. | 5:33 |
Paul Ortiz | Now where was he staying for a week? | 6:21 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Who? | 6:23 |
Paul Ortiz | Your son. | 6:24 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Here. Oh, little old place across—number seven, my daddy called Captain Larry. The farm. Something like a farm for prisoners. | 6:26 |
Paul Ortiz | Oh, he was arrested? | 6:37 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yes, uh-huh. That's what I'm telling you, they arrested a busload of them. Mm-hmm. And then some of them up there in jail were nothing but teenagers. | 6:39 |
Paul Ortiz | And that was because they were boycotting— | 6:54 |
Lucinda Gulledge | That's exactly right. Right there, that store, used to be right on this side of the street. Yes, I believe that corner. And that's the store they would boycott. | 6:56 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, was your son in high school at that time? | 7:10 |
Lucinda Gulledge | No. Uh-uh. No, no. Because this school over here, Davis, that's the elementary school. But see, he left that and went to high school at the Greenwood High. | 7:14 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay, so he was in elementary school when he was arrested? | 7:26 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Uh-huh, uh-huh. Sure was. | 7:29 |
Paul Ortiz | So they would arrest kids? | 7:31 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah, sure did. Arrest a heap of them. Really did now. Mm-hmm. Because he didn't go to Greenwood High until he was passed at this school over here. They had whole bus painted black. And that's what they doing, picking up them children in that old black bus. That's right. I can tell you the story. | 7:33 |
Paul Ortiz | Were there other things they would do to try to discourage you from— | 8:03 |
Lucinda Gulledge | No, no. Uh-uh, they didn't bother. They didn't bother. They didn't come here and bother me no kind of way here. Sure didn't. | 8:07 |
Paul Ortiz | Were there people in the movement keeping an eye out for you? | 8:17 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Well, some of them was, but most of them was afraid. Most of them were afraid, even my next door neighbors was afraid. Sure was, they really was afraid because the people in Jackson would call different people they wanted to come in but they didn't have nowhere to stay. And they would tell them to come to my house and I'm the only one would let them in. Other people, now they would let them in, but they were really afraid. They were afraid to let them in. And I told them they were welcome here. Sometime I have two or three here. | 8:22 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, who was the first group that stayed here, and what were they trying to do? | 9:04 |
Lucinda Gulledge | I know you rubbing my brain now. I believe it was those people who were—those people came into town and get these people on the welfare, some ADCE. Wasn't welfare then, they call it ADCE because it's only people they had like that. | 9:09 |
Paul Ortiz | And it says they should be sent to Booker care of Mrs. Lucinda Gulledge. Who was Booker? | 9:58 |
Lucinda Gulledge | He was one of the workers, Booker [indistinct 00:10:08]. He dead now, but he was one of the workers. | 10:08 |
Paul Ortiz | Where was he from? | 10:12 |
Lucinda Gulledge | He was from over in the delta somewhere. | 10:14 |
Paul Ortiz | He was black? | 10:18 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah, he was black. Uh-huh. | 10:19 |
Paul Ortiz | So he was a native Mississippian? | 10:23 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm. | 10:26 |
Paul Ortiz | And he was working in the movement? | 10:29 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm. | 10:29 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay. Oh, Booker Nelson, yeah. | 10:35 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm. | 11:05 |
Paul Ortiz | And let's see. I also talked about Mrs. Weir. | 11:05 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah, she dead. | 11:05 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 11:11 |
Lucinda Gulledge | She was one of the workers, too, just like me. | 11:11 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay, was she from Greenwood? | 11:11 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm, she lived on the next street right there. | 11:11 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay. And what did she do? | 11:13 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Well, she helped with the registration and vote. | 11:15 |
Paul Ortiz | Voter registration. | 11:19 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm. | 11:19 |
Paul Ortiz | What was her first name? | 11:21 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Who? | 11:23 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Weir. | 11:24 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Ruby. | 11:25 |
Paul Ortiz | Ruby Weir. | 11:26 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm. | 11:27 |
Paul Ortiz | And it also says Mrs. Scales. | 11:31 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Bertha Scales. I didn't know her. I think she across town over there somewhere. I really didn't know her. I didn't know Bertha Scales. | 11:40 |
Paul Ortiz | But she was Black also? | 11:50 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. | 11:53 |
Paul Ortiz | And it says she's been replaced by Mrs. Missouri Gray. | 11:56 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Missouri Gray stayed on down in the next block. She dead, too. | 12:01 |
Paul Ortiz | So a lot of the activists have passed away. | 12:06 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yes, they have. They really have. But they would send clothes down here to the needy people, and I would tell them the clothes would come and then they'd come in here and get them clothes. Different ones. | 12:09 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, did you know Mrs. Ruth Reading? | 12:32 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah, I knew her. She stayed right back there. Yeah, I knew her. | 12:34 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay. It says here she was a member of the committee. | 12:38 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm. That was the welfare committee. The welfare committee. She's trying to get those poor people on some aid. Those poor people wouldn't get nothing. Wouldn't get nothing. | 12:43 |
Paul Ortiz | So that, and then you helped organize the Greenwood Welfare Committee. | 12:59 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm. | 13:10 |
Paul Ortiz | It also mentions the St. Francis Mission, Mrs. Gulledge. What was that? | 13:27 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah, the Catholics. | 13:34 |
Paul Ortiz | Catholics. | 13:36 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm. It's gone. The church is still here, but they had a mission, they had another building, called it a mission, that would help people. They were Catholic people. They would help people, give them some clothes. | 13:38 |
Paul Ortiz | Oh, okay. | 14:00 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Like that. | 14:00 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, were you also involved in the Greenwood Voters League? | 14:15 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm. | 14:19 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay. When did that start here? | 14:19 |
Lucinda Gulledge | You know what I told you, the voting had started on my porch? | 14:20 |
Paul Ortiz | Uh-huh. | 14:24 |
Lucinda Gulledge | That's when it started. Folk come down from Washington and said everybody would want to register come down to the old post office. That's when it started. That's in, let me see. | 14:30 |
Paul Ortiz | Oh, okay. | 14:38 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Let me see, where is my— | 14:38 |
Paul Ortiz | Because I went to a meeting last week with a couple of my colleagues. | 14:51 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Did you? Let me see if I can find that. | 14:53 |
Paul Ortiz | I'll help. Here. Mrs. Gulledge, I was wondering about a couple other things in the letter here. You talk about this organization called Star. What was Star? | 17:16 |
Lucinda Gulledge | It was an organization like a fraternity order. Like Easter Star. | 17:26 |
Paul Ortiz | Oh, okay. And it was a Black organization? | 17:32 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yes, uh-huh. [indistinct 00:17:42] my certificates. | 17:33 |
Paul Ortiz | Oh, you logged it? | 17:46 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Uh-huh. | 17:46 |
Paul Ortiz | Oh, okay. | 17:46 |
Lucinda Gulledge | I'm the matron of it. | 17:49 |
Paul Ortiz | Oh, okay, so that organization was active, too? | 17:52 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm. Easter Star. | 17:58 |
Paul Ortiz | Because it says here Dan McDevitt with Star told me they were going to try and desegregate some of the local chain stores. | 18:00 |
Lucinda Gulledge | When you start talking about that, you know me, and you start talking about that. | 18:10 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay, and that was done through the Eastern Star, or— | 18:14 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Well, it was done through the Stars and the rest of them. We was all together. | 18:21 |
Paul Ortiz | Other fraternities? | 18:29 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm, yeah. Uh-huh. They was done all together. | 18:32 |
Paul Ortiz | So you knew Dan McDevitt? | 18:37 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah, uh-huh. | 18:39 |
Paul Ortiz | Was he from Greenwood? | 18:40 |
Lucinda Gulledge | No, uh-uh. He just coming through like the rest of them. They just come in there and work and get things done and then they gone. Get us started out. | 18:41 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, did this gentlemen named Chip Seward, did he stay here? | 18:55 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah, here. Right here. | 19:02 |
Paul Ortiz | Oh, okay. | 19:02 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Stayed right here. He got the message when he got to Greenwood to come here to my house. It's where he stayed. Yeah, he wrote that. And he sent me that back after he was gone. I told him I wanted a copy of it. But he did that, he sent me that back. You might see on there where it says sorry he was late getting it back to me. | 19:09 |
Paul Ortiz | Oh, right, yeah. "Sorry about the delay, the matter slipped my mind." | 19:41 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm. He sat up half the night in the kitchen with the telegraph getting his business together. | 19:52 |
Paul Ortiz | And he was working mainly on the welfare— | 20:01 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yes, he was. Mm-hmm. | 20:04 |
Paul Ortiz | And he would stay here during the day and then sleep- | 20:12 |
Lucinda Gulledge | He'd sleep here at night, uh-huh. | 20:15 |
Paul Ortiz | How long was he here? A few months? | 20:18 |
Lucinda Gulledge | No, he was here about a couple of weeks. He was here about a couple of weeks. | 20:22 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay. Now Mrs. Gulledge, did you have people stay here before that? | 20:31 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Let's see. Yeah, two white ladies stayed. Mm-hmm, two white ladies stayed. Sure did. | 20:34 |
Paul Ortiz | So a lot of people stayed here. | 20:44 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm. Other folk was scared to let them stay at their house. And you know how that go. The only somebody over here was me. There was somebody else across town might've let 'em, but I think [indistinct 00:21:19] don't make [indistinct 00:21:21] some place over there. | 20:49 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, one of the things I wanted to ask you about, it says here that the Black community in Greenwood was kind of spread out. That's what it says here. There does not seem to be a coherent community in Greenwood other than Baptist Town. | 21:20 |
Lucinda Gulledge | That's where it is now. | 21:56 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay. What were some other Black neighborhoods in Greenwood? | 21:59 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Called GP. GP, right here, Brittney. There's two more, let me see. This is Baptist Town, and that's GP over here, going to [indistinct 00:22:17] by Greenwood High School. And this is Brittney back over this way. And so that about covers it in the buckeye. | 22:03 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, how did Baptist Town get its name? | 22:32 |
Lucinda Gulledge | I don't know no more than that. It had that when I got here. | 22:34 |
Paul Ortiz | Oh, okay, so it goes way back. | 22:38 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. It goes way back. | 22:39 |
Paul Ortiz | Oh, it talks here about this organization called the Friends of the Children of Mississippi. | 22:50 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm. | 22:55 |
Paul Ortiz | Was that like Head Start? | 22:56 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah, it was like Head Start? They still got the Head Start going. Yeah, they did that, too. Sure did. Uh-huh. They still got that going. | 22:57 |
Paul Ortiz | Oh, that was the program before Head Start? | 23:11 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. | 23:15 |
Paul Ortiz | I talked to somebody in Clarksdale who's involved in that. | 23:20 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yes, some Blacks in Clarksdale, but I think when they left Clarksdale they had to skip on to Greenwood because they was hitting the dust over there. Them folks didn't want them stopping there in no kind of way. Uh-uh. | 23:23 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, what would you do in Greenwood if you had, say, some spare time? What were some of the good places to go to go out to eat or go to a movie? | 23:49 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Go to any of them now. | 24:03 |
Paul Ortiz | But I mean back in the older days, back— | 24:05 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Oh, you couldn't go nowhere. You couldn't go nowhere but, let me see. You couldn't even go up there to the Christian club, you couldn't go there. Wasn't no place. | 24:07 |
Paul Ortiz | Somebody was telling me about a theater called the Dixie Theater. | 24:26 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Oh, that's right down on Johnson Street down here. Well, it used to be down there, I think they moved it on Walter, I think. | 24:29 |
Paul Ortiz | Did Black people go there? | 24:41 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Uh-huh, Black people go there. Uh-huh, sure do. Yeah, Black people go there. Yes, sir, they do. Well, I'll tell you. The same boy I was telling you about. | 24:42 |
Paul Ortiz | Chip Seward? | 25:07 |
Lucinda Gulledge | No, a Colored boy. We got together and went and met Dr. King in the march. He was a McGee. Silas McGee. Yeah. Him and his brother, they integrated the theater downtown. | 25:08 |
Paul Ortiz | The Dixie Theater? | 25:25 |
Lucinda Gulledge | No, Le Fleur. | 25:30 |
Paul Ortiz | Oh, Le Fleur. Okay. | 25:30 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah. Uh-huh. | 25:32 |
Paul Ortiz | Was the Dixie Theater already integrated? | 25:34 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Uh-huh, it was already integrated down here. Yeah, it was already integrated. But they integrated that one downtown, up on Main Street, I think. Le Fleur Theater. | 25:37 |
Paul Ortiz | How did they do that? | 25:51 |
Lucinda Gulledge | They went on in there. They put them out when they got there, but they went in there. Then that caused a commotion, but they finally integrated, you see. They had to, or close it down. See, that law had passed. | 25:52 |
Paul Ortiz | The Civil Rights Act. | 26:10 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah, that law had passed. They was going because that's how it goes. Stand aside, we going to do what we want to do. They wasn't going to abide by the law, or the Civil Rights Act. Boy went on in there. Sure did. Then everybody was going in and then it wasn't long before they closed it down. | 26:12 |
Paul Ortiz | The Le Fleur? | 26:32 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Closed it, closed it up. | 26:32 |
Paul Ortiz | Were there other things that closed down? Pools or— | 26:47 |
Lucinda Gulledge | No. No, uh-uh. No, because wasn't too much of swimming going on then. Uh-uh. They ain't closed nothing down but that theater. And so it wasn't long before they was glad for everybody to be in there because they wasn't getting no support, they wasn't getting no nothing, see what I mean? This guy say comes into your grocery store in the other part, other people can't come. Well, you going to soon be out of business. | 26:57 |
Paul Ortiz | So the Black community had a pretty successful boycott? | 27:41 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah, they did. Mm-hmm. So they finally got together. They're together here real nice. Sure is, real nice. In the churches [indistinct 00:27:58], they together real nice. Sure is, because white churches downtown, they were criminal, they [indistinct 00:28:06] supposed to be up there. They sang Christmas carols, they together now, both of them. But after all, there still going to be some hatred in them. But they don't show it. | 27:44 |
Paul Ortiz | Try to hide it more. Mrs. Gulledge, what have been the major changes you've seen in the Black community since those days or before? | 28:23 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Oh, there's been lots of change in the Black community. But what you talking about? | 28:37 |
Paul Ortiz | Well, changes like earlier you were talking about how so many Black people used to work in the fields. | 28:46 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, there's lots of change. Now they all got good jobs, jobs come in, Bowling Piano, Picture Frame, and Urban, these folks got good jobs. Man, doing good. These jobs done come in here. Mm-hmm. Sure is. Yeah, that Picture Frame and Urban. Uh-huh. | 28:53 |
Paul Ortiz | What year did the Picture Frame come in? | 29:20 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Huh? | 29:22 |
Paul Ortiz | Did those come in during the '60s? | 29:23 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah, I think they did. Right behind there, right up in there somewhere. Picture Frame, and let me see what [indistinct 00:29:34]. Bowling Piano, and Urban. That's three right there. Uh-huh. I think there's another one down that road somewhere, Bowling, Picture Frame, and Urban. I think that's all, I think, back this way. That's it back this way. I'm trying to see what was going on back towards 82, back that way. But it ain't nothing back there. | 29:24 |
Paul Ortiz | Is there a cottonseed— | 30:19 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Huh? | 30:19 |
Paul Ortiz | Is there a cottonseed oil plant? | 30:23 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Oh, yeah. Uh-huh, it's right over here. | 30:24 |
Paul Ortiz | I was interviewing somebody about the union campaign and the piano. | 30:28 |
Lucinda Gulledge | It's right down there by Bowling. Talking about the piano and organ place? | 30:37 |
Paul Ortiz | Yes, ma'am. | 30:42 |
Lucinda Gulledge | That's down there by Bowling. That's down there by Bowling. | 30:42 |
Paul Ortiz | Do you know anybody who was active in that when they were organizing the Piano? | 30:47 |
Lucinda Gulledge | No, I don't. I really don't. I think they came in behind there. I think they came in behind, that's when them jobs come in. When everything got quiet. When everything got quiet, that's when them jobs come in because most of those jobs—the Civil Rights people, they put them jobs in here. Lots of them did. A company. | 30:52 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, just a couple more questions. I don't want to take up your entire day. What were the things that inspired you the most through all of the struggles during the toughest times? What were the things that really inspired you? | 31:36 |
Lucinda Gulledge | You say during the toughest times? | 31:48 |
Paul Ortiz | To keep on going. | 32:00 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Oh. It's the old folks and the willpower, I guess. Because I kept on going, and the children in the schools. That was one of the things was the school. I was helping the kids get in school. Encouragement. So they made it. | 32:00 |
Paul Ortiz | It looks like you played a really role here in the neighborhood. Were there other Black women who did that, too? Helping kids out, and— | 32:36 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Well, Miss Wendy, she would cook. Uh-huh. She did. Yeah, she did. She's about the only one of us ever did. Helping the kids out, that's right. Yeah, she did. But I'm going to tell you what it was with these people—they just had that fear. They just had that fear. And you just couldn't get it out of them. I guess it's just like a growing child, they have to grow out of them, I guess. They just had that fear. Uh-huh. They just had been, I don't know, what you call it? Partial slavery all their days and things like that. They just had that fear, but I never had no fear. You couldn't get none of these folks to let none of the White people stay at their house. And when everybody come to Greenwood and they had go to Greenwood, they send, "Go to Lucinda." Sent them here. | 32:48 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, what were some of the things that set you apart that you said you didn't have that fear? Was that something you got from your parents? | 34:04 |
Lucinda Gulledge | I guess it must've been. I guess it must've been. I guess it must've been because I wasn't afraid, I wasn't scared of them. Wasn't afraid. Sure wasn't. | 34:11 |
Paul Ortiz | Your parents teach you to stand up for your rights? | 34:28 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Stand up for your rights, that's right. That's exactly right. Stand up for your rights. And I already had something to do with that. Part of my own self, stand up for your rights. And you see, another thing what helped me, I always believed in the things that was right, and I would read the Bible. You heard me tell you I was a Sunday school teacher, I would read the Bible and I believed in the Bible and that's God's Word. And that darn thing kept me through, was God's Word. He ain't got no respect of person, He made everybody. He made me and a one man made. | 34:31 |
Lucinda Gulledge | When He was getting ready to make Man, the three Godshead got together, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. He said, "Let us." I said lots of people read the Bible and don't pay it no attention. He said, "Let us." And then He wasn't by Himself, was He? Somebody had to help Him, didn't He? He said, "Let us make Man." All right, when He said, "Let us make Man," one of the heads said, "If you make it, he'll sin." And the other head said, "I'll go down and redeem them." That was this God. It was three Godshead, in the Trinity. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. | 35:23 |
Lucinda Gulledge | And so that's what you got to do, you got to read His Word and believe in His Word. And He'll straighten it, He'll take all fear from you. He take all fear from me. When those three God's head, He said, "If you make it, he'll sin." And the Son spoke, said, "I'll go down." And Jesus Christ gave His life for me, see what I mean? He go down and redeem me, and if you believe in Him, he'll restore you right back. And that's what helped me, nothing but that. That's all, that's what hold me, because God ain't got no respect to person. And in one scripture He said, "He that doeth His will, him will He heal." He ain't got no respect, He made all of us. He made everybody. | 36:23 |
Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Gulledge, did most of the people in Baptist Town go to one church? | 37:24 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Well, they got different churches. Some Methodist, some Baptist. | 37:30 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 37:33 |
Lucinda Gulledge | And some goes to Sanctified, because down on the next street, we got a Sanctified preacher down there. His family go to the Sanctified, and then some goes to the Methodist, and some goes to the Baptist. | 37:35 |
Paul Ortiz | What church do you go to? | 37:52 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Baptist. Uh-huh, Baptist church. That's my church right around the corner. | 37:55 |
Paul Ortiz | Is that McKinney? | 38:00 |
Lucinda Gulledge | That's it. | 38:00 |
Paul Ortiz | Oh, okay. | 38:00 |
Lucinda Gulledge | Yeah, that's it right around there. That's McKinney Chapel— | 38:00 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay, Mrs. Gulledge, are there anything that you wanted to add that we haven't talked about? | 38:14 |
Lucinda Gulledge | No, while we was talking I was thinking, but I don't think there's nothing else to add. I don't think. If there is, when you get to where you going, you just write me a note or something and I'll write back to you and send it to you. | 38:19 |
Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 38:31 |
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