Walter Grace interview recording, 1994 June 23
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| Walter Grace | Yeah. See, the union is a stronghold out there at McWane and at any plant. But you have to know what you are. What is it all about? You got to be there, just find out. Can't go to one meeting and don't to another one, because if you don't, the people in charge, they'll do what they want to do. And I got so that I was negotiating contracts, and that's another big turning point in my life. So, yeah. They'd say, "What happened?" And I come back and tell them what we talked about. But it used to be the peoples on the committee wouldn't bring the news back to the peoples, or what went on. | 0:05 |
| Paul Ortiz | They were all White? | 1:00 |
| Walter Grace | No, they were Black and White. They wasn't White dude. They'll tell their friends I imagine. But I would just go to the hall and explain it and leave it up to you, you know what I mean? That's you. You can do what you want to do. I mean, because everybody know don't no two people have the same thing. And I said, "Well, you can do what you want to do." All right. But they wouldn't bring it back. "We'll tell you when it over with." Or they'll come down and give the highlights of the thing they went over to pays and don't pays. But I'd tell them exactly what went down, and what I think, and what you think about it, because everybody got a different mind. And whatever you think about it, that what we'll do, because this is for your benefit, not mine. And all this is for all of us. Whatever we make our mind up, we got to deal with it for the next three year. | 1:01 |
| Walter Grace | And now that we used to have a vacation everybody by the end of June, the first two weeks in July. But now they accepted the vacation back to the 20-something. They come the end of this month, they come off Friday, tomorrow for vacation. But it used to be we come off in July. But see, they changed that because we got another pipe shop up there in Utah, McWane. I don't mean we. McWane have another plant. McWane, they have a plant up there in Utah. That's a way of speaking, we at because of McWane. | 1:57 |
| Walter Grace | Well, McWane have a plant in Utah, but they was all White and they have a US Steel contract. We have a pipe shop contract. US Steel is bigger with more benefits, more everything because I would think trying TCI union with a McWane union because not the matter that we ain't union members, but US Steel was bigger and we just had a little place over there outside the track. See, McWane don't combine these places. See, Utah is a total— Was it it? Belongs to McWane. As for the West coast, and the example goes just way back, the plant up here. | 2:39 |
| Walter Grace | So maybe one thing I said about this union, they have a different— They stayed out on strike and we was coming up, and word had got to the coming that people's from Utah was over here talking to us. | 3:39 |
| Paul Ortiz | In '56? | 3:59 |
| Walter Grace | Huh? | 3:59 |
| Paul Ortiz | In '56? | 4:03 |
| Walter Grace | No, this is back in the '70s. No, this— things will change then. They was on strike. Oh, in '56, when we was on strike in '56, we just stayed out there till they starved us out. We went back to work. But over there, and everybody had lost everything and they couldn't get a job, and then you got a job. It's not paying as much as the job you have, so I was going to stay with the job I got. And there's some got jobs and didn't come back. And some just stayed on there with what they had. So I don't know. But then they changed the dates of the vacations there because of Utah. But they said if Utah on strike, McWane on strike, too. | 4:04 |
| Walter Grace | [indistinct 00:04:54] McWane, but it's two different companies, but all the same. But see, now McWane bought up all of Tan City, Coal Clows. They did that before I left there. Bought all of Clows, bought seven of them. And so this pipe shop, they almost got it like they want. I don't know, though, because I'm out. But I know that they doing all right out there. They come off on vacation tomorrow. | 4:53 |
| Walter Grace | But it was definitely well when I was out there because them people out there now, they can make 20-some thousand. I had to go to superintendent and ask him us $20,000 a year. I never had a reverend, no a brother, no matter. I was heading home one night and listening to Reagans. President Reagan was saying he didn't know nobody that didn't make 20,000 a year in the United States. I had never made $20,000. I couldn't wait. I'd been in sales. I did this, I did that. I had never made $20,000. But I want the President to know me. | 5:29 |
| Walter Grace | So I guess I out there talked to the— They come down and he was standing there talking to his phone. He said, "What's the matter?" Yeah, I told him, "I don't know. Let me speak to you a minute, Mr. Lewis." He say, "Oh, something wrong?" I said, "No, ain't nothing wrong." I said, "I want to ask you a question." I said, "Listen. I was listening to President Reagan last night. President Reagan say he didn't know no one that didn't make over $20,000 a year and I had never made $20,000 in my life a year." | 6:09 |
| Walter Grace | He said, "Oh." I kept on talking. He looked at me. "You trying to tell me something?" I said, "I don't know. I just want to know how come I can't make $20,000 because I want the President to know me." He said, "You want the President to know you?" I said, "Yeah, he say he don't know nobody don't make $20,000. Well, he don't know me and I want him to know me, and I want to make $20,000 so the President will know me." He's, "Oh, that's what you trying to tell me." He says, "Well, you stick with me." I said, "Yes, sir. I'll stick with you." I was stuck here all these years. There ain't nowhere for me to go. | 6:39 |
| Walter Grace | And I thought that I was going to get more money. I got more money. I was making over $20,000, but I didn't come home much. I'd go to work at 4:00-something in the morning and it'd be dark in the evening when I get off. In the summer, too, it'd be dark. Id' work 12-13 hours a day. Yeah, you got to be making— I got 40 hours in before Wednesday. But I was doing what I asked. I got what I asked for, but I didn't know that that was the way it was coming. I wanted more money. I didn't ask for more hours. So he give me— Anything come up, I got it. | 7:20 |
| Walter Grace | And any time, "Yeah, when you get off here, you go down and work up." So when I was making that big money, it didn't take as much for me to live on, because I be on the job all the time. And so the checks wasn't coming in, so they asked me where my checks at? They wanted to know why I had not cashed my check. I told them, "I don't have time to cash no checks because when I come to work the bank closed. When I get off the bank closed." And so every payday they let me off. I didn't work on no pay day. That was a break for me. I didn't work no more. | 7:57 |
| Walter Grace | So when I got some, they said, "Well, you go turn them checks in because the counter desk say all the checks in but yours." And they said, "You go there and cash all your checks. If you don't want them, give them to us." I said, "No, I can't get my checks away." So that to getting off, I went to cashing my checks. And I got all my money together and cashed the checks, and I was proud as heck. Boy, I had saved up a lot of money. But I didn't save like no billion there, but in my stature it was a big hunk, a lot of money. | 8:33 |
| Walter Grace | Because I know some peoples out here got— A boy told me when he moved out here, he said, "Well, I haven't had over $100,000." That was in '66 he told me that. I had been out here since '40. I was like what? He said, "Man, I've been over $100,000." $100,000? He said, "Sure. I been here. Saved over $100,000." And I had been saving and saving and saving and saving, and I didn't see no $100,000 in my lifetime. I can see this sat down working there still. | 9:06 |
| Walter Grace | Well, I worked out there till I got— When I got 62 I come home. I told him, "Get up." I was going to go to his thing today. He stayed till he got 65 and ain't got no checks. But not that we know, his time up. All our time is set. But see, if he came off it at 62, he would have got more checks. You know me, because you don't get what you were when you're working, but after you get adjusted— And see, it didn't take me long to get adjusted because I come from 52 cents an hour and I was working right there, and I working a quarter an hour. | 9:39 |
| Walter Grace | And people, he was talking about the service. [indistinct 00:10:33] the service [indistinct 00:10:34] I stayed how much he was making. Told me he had to pay income tax. Income tax, huh? In the Army you go in and at $50 a month. One stripe is $54. Two stripe is $66. Three stripes is $78. Then you go on up to staff sergeant, tech sergeant. And then the first sergeant wasn't getting but $113. That the first sergeant. And these boys, they're talking about he can make more than that as a PLC. I said, "A PLC?" Yeah. Oh, man, what are you talking about? No wonder they getting rid of them so quick. Yeah, because they paying a lot of money. | 10:29 |
| Paul Ortiz | All right. | 11:10 |
| Walter Grace | Oh. | 11:12 |
| Paul Ortiz | When and where you were born and a little bit about the area that you grew up in. | 0:02 |
| Walter Grace | Yes. I was born in 1023 22nd Street North, over here where the Civic Center is now. And it was just ordinary country homes and there was baths and everything was in the backyard, and the water. Wasn't no inside plumbing, wasn't no water in the house or anything. It was just normal thing for us to be raised up in that. Yeah. | 0:07 |
| Walter Grace | And between 10th and 11th Avenue, the address was 1023, of course it's tore down now. Address was 1023 22nd Street North, and then we stayed there up until early age. Then we moved to 1023, right across the street, there was more room because there was more children of us then. And we stayed there until the early '40s, '39 or '40. And then we moved to 1133 Huntsville Road. Then we had inside plumbing and water. Before then, we had everything in the backyard. We didn't have no plumbing in the house or water in the house up until the early late '39 or the 40s. And at that time going to high school, finished high school in '42. | 0:40 |
| Paul Ortiz | Which high school did you go to? | 1:41 |
| Walter Grace | Parker High School. I first went to Lincoln, then I went to Tuggle, they transferred me to Tuggle Elementary School. This elementary school. And then I went back to A.H. Parker A.H. in the class of '42. | 1:42 |
| Paul Ortiz | That's your— | 2:06 |
| Walter Grace | Class of '42 and Parker '42. | 2:07 |
| Paul Ortiz | What was Parker like for you? | 2:13 |
| Walter Grace | It was just high school. Wasn't but two in Birmingham. Erwin and Parker for anyone who went to county. And wherever you live at, you have to make it there in the city. And by me living up on North side, I go to Parker. But if you live on that side, you went to Erwin on the south side, you know. And if you lived in the county, you went to county high school. But mostly by me being over there on Huntsville Road and up on the north section, I went to Parker. Yeah. | 2:17 |
| Paul Ortiz | When you were at Parker, did you feel any kind of discrimination? | 2:54 |
| Walter Grace | Oh yeah, there was plenty of discrimination because there was Phillips High School right up here on 24th Street that's within a hollering distance of my house. Then I had to walk five or six miles to Parker and there was a school right on 23rd, elementary school right there on 23rd Street between 13th and 14th Avenue. Great big school. Then there was another elementary school on 6th Avenue and 24th Street. But yet still we had to go Lincoln. That was by five or six miles. Then it transfers from Lincoln to Tuggle. That's another extra mile. But the other school in my vicinity of the neighborhood where I was reared at but I had to walk those other miles because that was for White. | 2:59 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh. | 3:54 |
| Walter Grace | And so, but we made it. Yeah. | 3:54 |
| Paul Ortiz | What did your parents do? | 4:01 |
| Walter Grace | My father, he went out to McWane in 1922. | 4:04 |
| Paul Ortiz | McWane was— | 4:06 |
| Walter Grace | Cast iron and pipe. Went out there in July of '42. I mean '22. | 4:10 |
| Paul Ortiz | And did your mother work? | 4:22 |
| Walter Grace | Oh she did domestic work. Took in washing and ironing and then she went to working at a cleaners called Tom Joan. And— | 4:23 |
| Paul Ortiz | As a child, did you help her with laundry? | 4:36 |
| Walter Grace | There was a laundry, it was on 19th Street and 11th Avenue. That's where she was working at. But my dad was working at the McWane out there on 35th Street and 12th Avenue. | 4:41 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 4:52 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah, McWane cast iron and pipe. | 4:53 |
| Paul Ortiz | And did you live— Let me rephrase that. Did you know your grandparents during this time? | 4:59 |
| Walter Grace | My grandmother, yes. And she lived with us up here. They come from Pine Apple, Alabama. And they stayed here with me but I didn't know my grandfather and them too much. But I know my grandmother, she was up here with us and she lived in this house before she passed. And she passed in the '80s. | 5:08 |
| Paul Ortiz | Did your grandmother ever tell you stories when you were growing up about her? | 5:36 |
| Walter Grace | No more than she mostly worked— Before she got too old, before she moved in with us, she mostly worked up in Norwood doing domestic work and people house and White people houses up in Norwood. That's where she worked at. And raising kids, them White kids up there. Then when she got too old she had to quit and she moved in with us. We had to take her. | 5:43 |
| Paul Ortiz | Did your mother ever talk about her job as a domestic worker? | 6:15 |
| Walter Grace | No, it was just a way of life that we knew what to do and what not to do. That's the only way she told us. When we reared up under them. There's more don'ts than there is to do. You don't be, you know, don't do this and you don't do that if you want to make it through here. | 6:21 |
| Paul Ortiz | What were the don'ts? | 6:42 |
| Walter Grace | Well don't run out there like these kids now in all this trouble. Well there wasn't none of that coming up and no shooting in school and kids carrying guns in school. Wasn't none of that. And there wasn't no— Like you was scared to get out your house. The little we had, you could leave your house open. Wasn't nobody going to bother it. Nothing in there worth— To us it was, but at the time people wasn't like were living now. People wasn't living like they are now. People, you have to lock up everything you do and you to be careful where you move into the vicinity and you have to— Life is just a whole new ballgame. | 6:45 |
| Paul Ortiz | What was the neighborhood like in the '30s then? | 7:25 |
| Walter Grace | Oh it was nice. The neighborhood was nice compared to what you were trained under living, under the conditions— I wouldn't want to go back there to living those days no more after I got to the good side. But we had lights all up and down the alley in the back of our house. We have lights on the streets. The alleys paved, the streets are paved. That was unthought of when I was coming up. There was no paved— On the main streets was paved. Few cars that was running, they had to pave streets. But the streets I was living on, they wasn't paved up until I say about the late '30s or early '40s. | 7:31 |
| Walter Grace | And then they went to paving the streets in the Negro neighborhood and they put the little lights but there wasn't no lights. And if you didn't know the way in the day, you wouldn't make it at night because you would run into something. I could just go anywhere over there then because I had know which way everything was and which way the alley went, which way the paths went, and whatever. But I just wouldn't want to go back. | 8:17 |
| Paul Ortiz | What was your life like as a child? | 8:55 |
| Walter Grace | I retired? What you say? | 8:57 |
| Paul Ortiz | No, as a child? Growing up. | 8:59 |
| Walter Grace | Child. Oh. But I don't say that I had a better life than some of these people are having now. Of course I didn't, but they talking about child abuse, if they were talking about that when I was coming up, they'd dig my mother out the grave and put her in jail, because she was whooping me. These kids now talking about calling 911 on what their parents do to, because we never heard of so many things that they said. Because it didn't happen to us. Like they said the parents do this and their parents did this and more or less than this and this. Well we didn't have that. We didn't know nothing about it. | 9:02 |
| Walter Grace | What I mean is it probably could have went on. Back then things going on around here that I don't know about. But we didn't know nothing about nothing like that. If you got a whooping, you messed up or you got your whooping, you know understood that was coming. But it was a nice neighborhood. My wrapping up, all I can say that I always liked to work. First little job I had, I used to wash— Miss Emma let me wash her dishes, her evening dishes after school. She gave me 15 cents a week. | 9:39 |
| Paul Ortiz | How did you get that job? | 10:15 |
| Walter Grace | There was a neighbor on the corner and she knew I'd just be hanging out there and I asked her— Be around there trying to get coal and wood in because there wasn't no money. If you didn't get out there and try a way to get larger. No, we didn't get upset. Lady want some money. So it wasn't no money because my parents wasn't making no money and the little money we had, they had to buy clothes, food. And now it wasn't no— To me at the time it wasn't bad, at that time, you know because I was brought up in it. | 10:16 |
| Paul Ortiz | This is during the '30s? | 10:48 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. Yeah I was brought up in it, see, but now— Yeah this is back in the '30s. See but as a child now they don't know what hard time is. Back then, I don't consider it— I don't think I had no hard time because we had ample clothes, only we had to walk for a minute— it was eight or nine, 10 miles, or 15 miles, wouldn't be nothing. And had to be at school before 8:00 on Monday morning. | 10:49 |
| Walter Grace | When my work was there at home, I had to get them big old share about four tubs, had to fill up full of water, and a big old iron pot, before get to school before 8:00. So I had to get up early on Monday morning and we right here about three houses down, the bath was three houses down in their backyard, outdoor toilet. And the water was in their yard, one hydrant. Got all these three houses here, one bath, got all these three houses here, one outdoor toilet and the water was over there in their yard. Then I had to carry the water back up here. Everything we did, we had to get the water to the house. Yeah. | 11:18 |
| Walter Grace | But we made it. Yeah. | 12:14 |
| Paul Ortiz | Who was responsible for discipline? You talked earlier about the different kind of discipline when you were brought as a child. Who's responsible for that? | 12:18 |
| Walter Grace | My mother was more stricter than my father because he'd be so tired when he come in in the evening, and she always to run the house. She did that. Now whatever she said was the law. Wasn't only, that got him too, it was the law. So it wasn't no like it is now. The only thing different than now is kids talking back to the parents, that was not a no-no. You didn't have that talking back. | 12:26 |
| Walter Grace | You come in from school, you get out of your school clothes, and had some more clothes called work clothes. Then you had a pair of shoes you wear to church, had a pair of shoes you wear to school, you had a pair of the older— the shoes go down when they get too old, you get you a new pair, use these to work in, then use the other ones to go to school in. | 12:56 |
| Walter Grace | And right there on 17th Street and 10th Avenue they had— When jobs gone, so they couldn't work, but my father had to go on there, NRA. And they had a place that where go down on 6th Avenue and 11th Street, we'll go get a wagon and go down there and get his meal tickets and we get our groceries and then we'd haul those home. And then he had to help build this red mountain going up with mountain there where the NRA men worked at— | 13:15 |
| Paul Ortiz | What did they build? | 13:54 |
| Walter Grace | Highways. | 13:54 |
| Paul Ortiz | Highways? | 13:54 |
| Walter Grace | Mm-hmm. Yeah, highways. So they had to walk from here about eight or nine miles before you get to work. Yeah. Then they give us shoes, they got some tire soles. At 10th Avenue and 18th, 17th Street they used to have sole your shoes with a car tire. Cut tire to the size of the shoe like a shoemaker do. And they put them on them brogan and they'll last you three or four. You got to put some miles on them to wear out a car tire. | 14:07 |
| Walter Grace | And so my life wasn't too bad as I look back at it compared to what happening now. Like kids are now. Because you didn't see many out at night. You knew better. When night be, you better be at home. But you had so much work to do when you get in at night, get in from school, you had to get the coal in, the wood in, you have to wash the dishes, you have to do this. There's something to do all the time. Like kids now, they'll tell their parents quick, "I ain't going to do that." And there wasn't no money involved. Now you got to pay the kids to work in the house and then take care of them. | 14:47 |
| Paul Ortiz | Did you have sisters? | 15:27 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah, two sisters. | 15:27 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. What kind of responsibilities did they have compared to you? | 15:36 |
| Walter Grace | Oh, well my older sister, she moved in with my grand-mama, took her taking her and moved in her house. They stayed up on 26th Street there. But she still had to go back past our house and go to school over here where I was going to, but she's on this side. And my baby sister, well she was too young by the time she got up of age, we had got water in the house. And my brother and them, all us had to carry water. | 15:36 |
| Walter Grace | And my brother now, the one who's in the hospital, he had a little 10 pound buckets of lard— Which you have lard in, would come buckets like that— And he, that's how much he could carry. And I had to carry two big old buckets to get the water before we go to school. That was our worst day and getting coal in, and we did get a tub or two of coal. You had to get it in off the street because if you don't, see the truck couldn't come up no closer, and had to get that coal and put up under the house. And when you get you coal, had to put up under there until time to use it. Then you have to go back up under there and get it and carry it in the house. That was every day, and had to get the wood in, coal in, and the water in, and oh it just, it's something to do. But now kids don't have nothing to do. | 16:11 |
| Paul Ortiz | Where would you go or where would your parents go to buy things? | 17:12 |
| Walter Grace | Well see we were living right there on 22nd Street between 10th and 11th Avenue. We could walk straight up 22nd Street and all the way downtown. We always would call that, "in town." We go to town that wouldn't be about a mile, a mile and a hey that's a short distance. You'd be glad just to get down there to look at the buildings. Just to get down there and walk around there and if you had some money go down there to Sanitary Market on 24th Street and 2nd Avenue. Called that the Sanitary Market. | 17:21 |
| Walter Grace | And that's where most of the people did they shopping at, unless they go down here on Morris Avenue, another little store down there. They go down there, they sell stuff in bulk, in big pack containers. And we go down there if they had any money they buy some either or something for Sunday. And mostly we raised a few chickens and had a little garden but it wasn't too much that we still had to, didn't have enough property to do nothing well. And the yards wasn't so sad. The biggest one we had up on Humphrey Road, we raised a little more chickens and ducks and things up there. But other than that— | 17:55 |
| Paul Ortiz | As a child, do you remember going to movies or restaurants? | 18:39 |
| Walter Grace | Oh that was up after I got my little job. I had a little job, had a little extra money. But your parents didn't have no money be talking about giving you money to go to no movies because they had to buy clothes and— I mean you already— When you're in this, when you come up in it, you'll know what they can do and what they can't do. So you know what your parents can do. But they didn't have no money. But we didn't know what that then. | 18:45 |
| Walter Grace | But the first radio we had, I bought it. Yeah, I was working out a little grocery store and I had began learning how to read and I had a paper— Rollins Care had a dollar down and a dollar a week, right there on 5th Avenue. We had a Rollins Care store there. But I had learned how to read. So at dinner I asked the lady could I get my little money. I think I'd get my $2 or $3 a week, and she gave my little money and I went down the Rollins Care. And I was going to run down there on my dinner and get the radio and bring it all back home because I had seen it in the paper and dollar down and a dollar a week. I said I can handle that. $19.99. I remember that as good as it was today. | 19:10 |
| Walter Grace | I went to Rollins Care and the man told me what I wanted, salesman asked what I wanted. I told him and, "Well, that's $19.99," he showed me, I said, "Well, here's a dollar and I'll bring you a dollar every week." He said, "No it ain't like that." You said— I wanted to get the radio, move out with the radio after he had my dollar. And he tried to tell me about, I had to get somebody to sign the papers. | 20:04 |
| Walter Grace | In other words, I didn't know much about what he was talking about but what he was talking about is bring somebody down there to stand for it. Because I was a kid and they wasn't going to let no kid could leave there talking about he going to bring the money back week after week. That had taken a long time before that got through to me and he didn't want to give me my dollar back. He said go get your parents and let them come. I said no I can't go get them. They ain't coming down here and do that. | 20:33 |
| Walter Grace | And I carried on so bad, down there, hooping, hollering. Everybody come in said, "What's wrong?" I said, "He's got my dollar and won't give back to me, and won't give me the radio either." So the suit, the manager came up and put me in their company truck, with the radio and the salesman, and carried me home and let my mother sign for it. And that's how we got our first radio. Yeah. | 21:03 |
| Walter Grace | And there was a big thing in our house, a radio. Oh. Down on 22nd Street between 10th and 11th Avenue. That was back in the '30s. | 21:29 |
| Paul Ortiz | What would you listen to? What kinds of programs would you listen to? | 21:41 |
| Walter Grace | Oh, anything that come on. We didn't have no favorite program. Just had a radio. That's it. That's it. We had a radio, we just turned it on. We like ain't no, wasn't no— There probably were programs in the paper, I mean like they do now. But we just turned turned it like Dan Dunn and Sunday night The Shadows and all them and we be sitting there just like this. The Lone Ranger, don't forget him, don't forget the Lone Ranger. | 21:47 |
| Walter Grace | And I could see him just riding that horse down the road. I could just imagination. And it was— I didn't have no bad life. I got more of them whooping, but that was just what you mess up. But other than that it wasn't on like kids now getting in trouble or going to jail and doing this. I can say this for my parents, we didn't have nobody in our household family, we're reared up with my sisters and brothers, all us, to go to jail. We didn't have that problem. | 22:15 |
| Paul Ortiz | Do you remember who owned the house that you were living in as a child? | 22:49 |
| Walter Grace | Mr. Slaughter. And he just let us stay there to keep folk from burning it up. I think 50 cents, a quarter. Anything you give. I think that way I understood it on 22nd Street. See because the thing was so bad back in the '30s, if somebody move out their house, they'll burn it down. | 22:55 |
| Paul Ortiz | Who would burn it down? | 23:14 |
| Walter Grace | The neighbors. They would tear it— Not talking about, ain't talking about just like they arson it or nothing. They would tear that house from the inside out and get all this shingles and make wood to keep warm with, in their house. Why they call burning it up. And then you come out your house be up and when you fool around, you get in there, have it fall down on you because they got all the beams out it. And it's just a shack and people would burn it up. | 23:17 |
| Paul Ortiz | Would that happen often? | 23:46 |
| Walter Grace | If anybody move out. So the red man rather for you to stay in it free or 50 cent or whatever you cared to give him, to keep his house intact because you know can't stay out there and watch them houses all day at night. And so people would be going in there with them axes and things, they'll tear their house up. They would burn it up. And coal train used to can come down the railroad, they throw coal off the track and we go down and pick it up and the train come down and we all— Those were some good days though. I used to love to pick up coal. Yeah. | 23:48 |
| Paul Ortiz | Do you remember having to help out neighbors who were in need during those years? | 24:31 |
| Walter Grace | Well everybody was in need. I mean we had to get together because ain't nobody have nothing. You know what I mean? It ain't like— Everybody— We had some people we knew that— Ms. Johnson and them, Shea Johnson and them, they lived up on 11th Avenue. My parents and all us know them. So I used to go up there to they house and pick up the telephones just to hear it buzz. They had a phone and they just buzz and I just be buzz and listen at the buzz. You know that just something I had never had, or thought of, or just listening to that buzz. I just sit there and buzz and listen and wouldn't be talking to nobody because I didn't know who to talk to. | 24:39 |
| Paul Ortiz | Were they a Black family? | 25:31 |
| Walter Grace | Hmm? | 25:33 |
| Paul Ortiz | Were they Black? | 25:33 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah they were Black but they was on the corner. But they was living it up. They were living better than us. They had a truck and they had— Their parents, their people had a better job. And they lived on the street and we lived on the street. We lived on 22nd Street but they lived on 11th Avenue. It was paved up there. But where we were living at, it wasn't paved, but they had paved it before I got grown enough to move, before we got grown enough to move up to 11th up on Huntsville Road. | 25:34 |
| Paul Ortiz | Did you grow up in a— 22nd at that time, was that primarily a Black neighborhood? | 26:08 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah, oh yeah, all that Black. The whole neighborhood is Black. It's right there by the Salvation Army. It's right there on 22nd Street and 11th Avenue. And they gave us bread every day at five o'clock if you got a sack. You get a sack, you go up there and get some light bread, the bakery been giving them some bread and they bring it over there and at five o'clock then you go up there and they'll give us some bread. And you rather have the light bread. Then we had some big old biscuits. My mother cook the best biscuits and they were cornbread and everything, but we just got tired. I just rather have some light bread. And now I wish I could find some for you. You get the light bread, give it the big biscuit and the cornbread. I got the bread, I'd really have the biscuits and now you can get them canned biscuits but they don't last. | 26:21 |
| Walter Grace | See my mother used to make them scratch and they got canned biscuit but you got be ready to eat when you get them at the stove because they'll get cold right now. And you can get bread plentiful or get that bread is plentiful. But it wasn't about a nickel loaf then and couldn't get it, a nickel loaf be about that long. And if you had a nickel loaf bread that last you a week, you be having to fit somebody be getting their bread for a nickel, get over to a loaf bread and carry it home. Oh that was the days though. But we made it. | 27:11 |
| Paul Ortiz | Now your father worked for McWane? | 27:39 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. | 27:41 |
| Paul Ortiz | Cast iron— | 27:41 |
| Walter Grace | Cast iron and pipe. | 27:42 |
| Paul Ortiz | Did he ever talk about his job? | 27:44 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. It was rough because I went out there in '42. I come out of school in '42. I went out in May there in July 15th, 1942, because I was out school then and I was working at a grocery store and they wasn't paying no money. And I think a quarter an hour. I went at A&P, called the tea company. You had to have your own bicycle and you wasn't working every day. They gave you Wednesdays and Sundays off. And I would make about $7. A quarter an hour, you got to make a heap hour or then go to work in the morning, deliver groceries, then come back. | 27:47 |
| Walter Grace | So I went out to McWane and got hired but I wasn't expecting to get hired there. But I was just riding around and I went out there and seen all them peoples hanging out there, I said, "Hey what they doing over there?" He said "Man, trying to get a job." I just already had me a little job so I was just hanging out there and the boss said, "You. You. You. Hey, you up on that bicycle." "Hey me?" "Yeah you. You want to work?" I said, "Yes, I want to work." "Well bring that bicycle on in here and go to work." | 28:34 |
| Walter Grace | And I went in there, I think was in July I believe it was, was hot. It was July of '42 and stayed until June of '86, 44 years. I wasn't intending to stay that long, but I got in there and they put up ankle fence and I couldn't find the gate. And I got there and I was making— I was 18 then I was making 52 cents an hour in '42. | 29:11 |
| Walter Grace | And I went into service and I came back there and got about a 6 cent raise, and made 58 cents an hour in '46. And I moved in here. I had a GI loan. I had did all right in the service and they gave me a government loan and I was all right. And I come back and I got this house. I had put up $200 in good faith money. | 29:49 |
| Walter Grace | So I decided I wanted to get, when I had been in houses like this, with hot and cold water when I was in service, because I had went all over, everywhere. And that's my whole intent, if I ever get out, I was going get me a home. Which the Lord did bless me with it. But that's when I was making my 58 cents an hour. I tell some people there now they don't want to believe that people let you have a home for 58 cents an hour. | 30:33 |
| Walter Grace | My note was 40 something dollars a month. Then the water bill, gas bill and wasn't no sewer bill yet. Water, gas, and lights, and a telephone and that a utility bill. But your house was 40 something dollars a month and at 58 cents an hour and didn't have, and I had to leave from here to get to McWane, you had to have transportation, didn't have no car, wasn't no cars out. They go the street car back and forth to work. | 31:00 |
| Walter Grace | It was just, I don't consider now since I'm out, I admit it was tough at the time that I was doing it, but after you get into something it just, that's just another habit. I just got ready to go. I knew I had to go to work and that was $17 a week and that was big money. And we didn't start making no money until the '60s in the plant. People, Negroes making money in some different parts of like TCI. | 31:32 |
| Walter Grace | But since I had this job I wasn't going to lose this one to go to try to get hired at TCI, or go to ACIPCO. ACIPCO was doing better. They telling me, "You're a worker. Go to ACIPCO , you can get you a job." But I had this and I was afraid to cut loose this because of my bills because I was in water up to here. I just was making it and if I lose this I'm going to sink. | 32:13 |
| Paul Ortiz | Right. | 32:37 |
| Walter Grace | And so I just stayed in one place, McWane, 44 years. | 32:40 |
| Paul Ortiz | A few more questions about your childhood and your parents. Did you go to church as a child? | 32:46 |
| Walter Grace | Hmm? | 32:53 |
| Paul Ortiz | Did you go to church as a child? | 32:54 |
| Walter Grace | Oh, all the time. We wasn't but a block from church. I still belong to that same church. | 32:56 |
| Paul Ortiz | Which church is that? | 32:59 |
| Walter Grace | Galilee Baptist Church. 1013 23rd Street North. Now it's 1231 24th Street North. That's where we are now, in a new church. But we had built a big church at 1013, 23rd Street North, but now we got a later model one with air and heat and all that in it. | 33:00 |
| Paul Ortiz | What kinds of activities did the church— | 33:26 |
| Walter Grace | Baptist. We're Baptist. | 33:29 |
| Paul Ortiz | And do you remember events or any special kinds of things that you were involved in with the church? | 33:32 |
| Walter Grace | Oh, in the summer before I started working, all kids, you go to bible school in the summertime and then they have workshops. The little workshops where you make crafts and stuff. Only we didn't have it at our church, we went to Tabernacle Church, that was on 25th Street between 10th and 11th Avenue. Because they had it and all the churches got together and you could go up to there about two blocks from our church. And we walk up to that church because we didn't have a bible school but we had some our peoples from our church up there associated with it. And it was the environment. See my sister, she still belongs to Tabernacle. But I never did, I stayed with Galilee. Yeah. | 33:46 |
| Paul Ortiz | Now you mentioned your father working in the NRA job earlier. Do you remember your parents ever talking about politics or getting involved in politics? | 34:33 |
| Walter Grace | No. I had to get my mother involved in it after I come from the war. But before then, there were very few Negroes that was interested in what happening in Washington because they was too interested in what's happening here. See now, you only think of here, you want to know what's going on up there because of their concern you here now. But see at that time we wasn't too much interested in what was going up there because we didn't think that had any effect on us here. And we was just interested in the law here. | 34:45 |
| Paul Ortiz | Did your parents vote? | 35:17 |
| Walter Grace | My mother did before she passed. That was the only one. Yeah, my mother did. | 35:21 |
| Paul Ortiz | When you were growing up or—? | 35:24 |
| Walter Grace | No, after I moved in this house, since '46. See because when I come back I had got a little more— I was a sergeant in there and I was in the Marine and things and I brought a little bit more back and she would listen to me, just like I used to listen to her. And she working up there, she retired from AC Lakes Packing Company right there on 21st Avenue between 23rd and 24th Street. | 35:26 |
| Walter Grace | I don't know how many years she worked up there but she worked up there all our childhood and walked to work and walked back. And I think about it now and daddy, he just walked to McWane and walked back. But when I got out there and got there, I got, I told him, "Listen, I'm going to give you some money. You'll ride to work with me and don't be walking no more." Yeah. | 35:54 |
| Paul Ortiz | Now you said that you came back in 1946. | 36:25 |
| Walter Grace | Six. Yeah. | 36:25 |
| Paul Ortiz | And you encouraged your mom to vote. Now why did you do that? What was the— | 36:31 |
| Walter Grace | Because it was time to move up. For Negroes to start talking to elevate themselves. And while I was in the service, even though it was Jim Crow— The service was Jim Crow, the assignment was Jim Crow. But it didn't bug me at all because I had come from a Jim Crow town. I knew what was going on. I knew how to handle myself. But I was always interested from some peoples that I hear talk about their condition and mine. And they was the people I was in charge of, all them claim they had their own home. They had this, and I was— That wasn't even thought of in my mind but I listened to them talk and I said, "Well why can't I have one?" I said when I get out they tell me where I live there. | 36:41 |
| Walter Grace | And I told them a bunch of lies that I had this and I had that. They were lying too. And so I came back, I put up my $200 and the Lord let me got this house. Then I wrote and told him about it and that I had moved. I said I moved up man, I got a better place. And this I didn't have before I left. | 37:30 |
| Walter Grace | When I left to go to the Army, all me and my brothers then were sleeping together in one room and then my sister sleeping up there, and my mother them sleeping in another room. But that was the way we were living. But after I got from service and they started to wanted to get involved in things and what's going on and how it run and the city now. Well I have, I'll be interested in that. We going to go vote next Tuesday, but I'll be ready to go vote because I know who I'm going to vote for. And at the one time we didn't know about no Negros talking about no voting. But now I know where to vote at. I'm registered up in city hall, I'm a homeowner, and I own this and all of that. | 37:51 |
| Paul Ortiz | Do you remember other Black servicemen talking about politics, starting to get involved? | 38:47 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah, during Southern men, yeah. Oh yeah. Well see now, we are all together. I belong to union up here. Well see, it ain't like it used to be. It ain't no discrimination, now, it's all us in one basket. When we talk, we're not only talking for you, me, in different category, we're talking to all us in one bowl. Whatever happened to you or me, we all get the same. We don't be up there pulling for you and then you know you something different. But now since it is now we all be trying to get ahold of something now ourselves because all of us have to be together. | 38:54 |
| Paul Ortiz | What about the '40s though? What about when you were in service? | 39:39 |
| Walter Grace | In service? | 39:41 |
| Paul Ortiz | Yeah, in the service. | 39:41 |
| Walter Grace | Oh it was discrimination. We was stationed in one part of the camp and the White was stationed on the other camp. And discrimination like the sign, it'll say, had all them Jim Crow signs up about White only and White water here, this and that. And you couldn't eat in the cafe. That was actually happening. And when we was up on the Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, so we were chasing prisoners and that was the coldest place I believe we ever been in my life, because I had never been where snow was before. And it was cold up there. It was cold. For a boy come out the South had never been seen no snow. It was cold. | 39:43 |
| Walter Grace | And you chase a prisoner. They gave you three prisoners and one bullet. And if you let either one of them prisoners get away, you got to do his time. That you don't want to do nobody else time when you trying to do your own and get out. | 40:34 |
| Walter Grace | And they had them Germans up there. We had them chasing the German prison, what they call chasing prisoners. And they have them on the garbage truck. Well if they go warm you stand over here, because you couldn't stand up next to the prison with your gun because they ove power you. By the time they get warm then you let them come over, they get warm, it be cold again. So that was it. But they give them more privileges and us they give them more of a— That was on the east coast, up in Indiantown Gap Pennsylvania where I was there with the Germans. | 40:47 |
| Walter Grace | But when we went to Camp Angelo, no, we come back through Charleston, South Carolina on our way to California and we got to California, we went to Camp Angelo and we stayed there. We had the Italian prisons out there. Had Italian prisons on the West coast and the German prisons on the East coast. | 41:24 |
| Walter Grace | So they let us have a dance on Monday night. And let the Italians have their dance on a Tuesday night and they walk around here like anybody else, supposed to be prisoners of war. And they told us that you have to treat them better so they can go back and tell their peoples how good we are over here or hell they ain't did nothing for us. We at home. | 41:55 |
| Walter Grace | That before we got to go to the Pacific and then that. But other than that, I just don't believe all them prisoners went back home. I believe some out there now, because they had the Italian women as they come in, but they wouldn't put them with no White. A White soldier wouldn't accept them. No they wouldn't accept them Italian prisoners. And so they had put them over there with us, but they wouldn't put them in there. Like they had— we over here in that they about— They call it stockade. There wasn't no stockade. Wasn't that. | 42:24 |
| Paul Ortiz | So what did you and your other friends in the service feel about this kind of treatment? | 43:06 |
| Walter Grace | Well personal feeling, I had no thoughts about it because I had left Birmingham and I know how things were. I didn't have no problem with that in all through service because I know how to carry myself. And when I got in there I made sergeant in the first four months and it was from then on it was just happy go lucky, just do your job, get off, come home, go to town, know how to act. Like they was saying up on the East coast, they fellas just said well go to Chicago, go to Detroit. Well we went up to— We were stationed in Pennsylvania and it was just as Jim Crow as it was here. Yeah. And New York. It was Jim Crow. Philadelphia was Jim Crow. What I mean is it wasn't as openly as it was here, but it was still Jim Crow. Yeah. | 43:14 |
| Paul Ortiz | Would any of the Black soldiers complain about the Jim Crow or challenge it? | 44:18 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah, but it wouldn't do no good. A lot of them got in some trouble. There in Mississippi a bunch of soldiers got in trouble. What I mean called trouble. When the Jim Crow peoples down there, they want them to come up in town so much and had a lower place for them to go. When they had the 99th pursuit squadron from Tuskegee, all them was NCO officers, they were commissioned officers, and they got in a lot of trouble because they wouldn't allow them into the place where the White commissioned officers go. So they had to make up another place for them. | 44:30 |
| Walter Grace | And then they had a NCO club, then they had an officer candidate club, but they had a White and a Black one. And the Black got fed up, so they started going in there where the White was and that was a conflict come up. So they moved them out again and wasn't no big thing like it is now. It just a little bit, they is go down, they put some in jail and they let them out and probably send them overseas or whatever. But it was just, it still was Jim Crow. | 45:08 |
| Paul Ortiz | Did you know of anybody where you were stationed at that would challenge the Jim Crow service? | 45:43 |
| Walter Grace | No, because when I left here, first I went to up here— Camp Fort Benning, Georgia. I went there before I went to Fort Benning, Georgia, I went to up here in Anderson. Camp up here in Anderson. I went to Anderson there while I was inducted in the pass to go to service. Then I come back and stayed two weeks, then I had to go to Fort Benning, Georgia and was— We never run into White soldiers because they lived right before I'm here. Here a town-city. What I mean is all that big field, and they're on that side, they go that way on this side we went other way. So it wasn't no, that we knew of, no more than when you go to town. And it wasn't no big thing in town for the ones that knew, because they knew how they act when they go uptown. | 45:53 |
| Walter Grace | But it was still Jim Crow in their mind. We know how that, didn't like it, but it wasn't too much you could do about that but talk about it. And we talked about it now. We talked about it. And then another thing the government did that they doing now where they didn't do, then they didn't tell us about how many Negros— I got a cousin, he didn't come back. I had two or three cousins, didn't come back. But they never mentioned no Negro doing nothing too much during the war. I just want to know how they got killed. | 46:54 |
| Walter Grace | Of course, I was in the 864 Transportation Corps. And so when I got in there and learned to do the regulation of the service, it wasn't no big thing for me. And then it promoted me so fast because I was already working at McWane and this is a working outfit. And I learned the basics of the soldiers or how they want things done. I went to NCO school for about two weeks or three weeks or something. And then I came back out and I first come out of NCO school, I was a corporal, acting corporal. I never didn't go no PLC. I went from private to a corporal— | 47:23 |
| Paul Ortiz | One question I wanted to ask you about NCO School, who were the instructors? | 0:04 |
| Walter Grace | We had Black instructors there, but the reason the call us Buffalo Soldiers— See up there? See the white? All Buffalo's got white faces. See who in the front? | 0:10 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 0:23 |
| Walter Grace | You see who in the front up there, don't you? | 0:24 |
| Paul Ortiz | All white. | 0:26 |
| Walter Grace | Uh-huh. All white— | 0:26 |
| Paul Ortiz | All white, like they're white— | 0:27 |
| Walter Grace | — At the head. And we was the Black— That's what you call the Buffalo Solider outfit. | 0:29 |
| Paul Ortiz | Did you refer to it like that back then? | 0:40 |
| Walter Grace | No. On my way out, after the war, that's the first time I run up on the company commander as the— Then, he was a first lieutenant, but when we had a company commander, he was a captain. But the Negro, he was a first lieutenant. He wasn't up as high, but he had the same job to do. And— | 0:44 |
| Paul Ortiz | What's that? | 1:10 |
| Walter Grace | — There was— A first lieutenant would be a squad leader and White, and then a second lieutenant would be a squad leader but he'd be Black. | 1:11 |
| Paul Ortiz | So primarily during the war, you served stateside service? | 1:23 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. | 1:31 |
| Paul Ortiz | Were you overseas, were you— | 1:31 |
| Walter Grace | No. When I got to New York— We was trained to fight the Germans in Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania because they said it was cold up there, and it was cold in Europe. And we learned how to load the ships and unload the ships. And then the ship that was going to take us to New York— Well, the war was ending in ETO. So they bought us to South Carolina and taught us how to fight the Japanese. We learned that, left there and then went to— Then out to California, and we stayed out there. Then I got there and got in the training business, to teach them how to load and unload ships, and I stayed out there 19 months. Then after that, the war was over and I came back home. | 1:33 |
| Walter Grace | I stayed in— I did 19 months in California. But I was what they call a hatch foreman, a sergeant. The rank was sergeant, but you was a hatch foreman on the job. You had to know how to run the whole thing. So that's how I got to be, earned how to run wenches and coordinations of this. When they first put up a— Wrote the guideline out of McWane, I was one of the first Blacks to run an overhead crane. I had signed up. "Boy I told you." He said, "That job open out there. I thought you wanted a crane job?" I said, "I do," and I went and signed up. | 2:18 |
| Walter Grace | The job stay up on the bulletin board, three days, in your department. Then if don't nobody want it, then it go plant wide. But see, after I had signed it and the superintendent told me— He said, "Jeff." He said, "Well, I'll tell you. This the first time a job ever been put up, since I been superintendent." A good job that didn't— But once somebody else sign it, didn't nobody else sign it. Well, I had been out there. I had already got into this plant and worked myself up, because when I was— First went out there, I didn't have time to go to the union hall and do this. | 3:12 |
| Walter Grace | We came on a strike in '55, and stayed off nine months. And now today, I don't even know what we struck about. And after we went back to work, I got involved in the union and that's when I— The union sent me to school, I finished UAB. That's a certificate from the union of— Yeah, see? | 3:49 |
| Paul Ortiz | One more question about your life in the service. | 4:18 |
| Walter Grace | Mm-hmm. | 4:20 |
| Paul Ortiz | You were in California for 19 months. | 4:21 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. | 4:23 |
| Paul Ortiz | What was California like? | 4:24 |
| Walter Grace | Like I said, when you're raised up with something— You communicate with more White than you did here, but the soldiers and things didn't. We didn't. They had their thing, we had our thing. But when you go to town, it would be the same, only you would just have more— You could eat anywhere, if you had enough money. But you didn't have too much money where you couldn't eat nowhere, where they go to eat. But if you had the money, you could eat where they didn't because all them people want is money out there. | 4:31 |
| Paul Ortiz | Right. | 5:06 |
| Walter Grace | It was still prejudice out there, now. Just out there in the service and everything. I was in charge of a building called Transit 864, 8767. Anyways, other troops come in and coming in from overseas and going out, and they had another building over there on the other side for the Whites to come through and the Blacks come through this side over here. And we never did— Wasn't no— But it wasn't no conflict for me. | 5:07 |
| Paul Ortiz | All right. | 5:37 |
| Walter Grace | Mm-hmm. | 5:38 |
| Paul Ortiz | So race relations were— I mean, there was still— You still sense that there was discrimination still—? | 5:39 |
| Walter Grace | It was there. It was there. It was discrimination. It was out there— Out here everywhere. It's racist here in Birmingham, but by you being into something and coming up any way, you know how to handle yourself. | 5:46 |
| Walter Grace | I never been in no conflict like that. And when I went to UAB in— Well this, we were all in the same class, because this was a union. They pick out the one they think is eligible too. Who exceeds for the job, for leadership in the union. And as of now, they want me to work. I told them, "I don't work. I don't work with no union. I'm through with you." So I went over there. They sent two Black and two White, and they just asked me. They said, "Why do you sit so close to the teacher?" Teacher be there and I'll be sitting here because everybody back there was grown, and by them talking to one another, and you probably want to get— When you get whatever he put out, it has changed because you can't get the meaning. So I sit up front, well my other three workers, they still over there. I reckon. | 6:01 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. So it's 1946— | 7:07 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. Went back to Birmingham. | 7:09 |
| Paul Ortiz | You went back to Birmingham, and I'm just real curious about the— | 7:12 |
| Walter Grace | Discrimination? | 7:18 |
| Paul Ortiz | Well about discrimination, but then also about— Did you register to vote? | 7:20 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah, I registered in the— I registered in '46, now. | 7:25 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 7:26 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah, because in '46, Negroes had to know everybody up in the White House. You had to know every government you had. In other words, about two or three sheets of paper for you to fill out before. It's some [indistinct 00:07:43]. If you had a school for you to go to, to enlighten yourself on what's going to be asked down there. So as they passed the voting rights, that's when people went to being more involved in it, because it wasn't as many as it is now. Then when I carried my mother down there to register to vote, because she didn't have to go through all that other stuff. And she wanted to be a voter, and so I carried her down there. And she— | 7:31 |
| Paul Ortiz | Who would run those schools to help you register? | 8:18 |
| Walter Grace | We had a school like here, and they had 16th Street Baptist Church, and they had different locales. They had people come out to teach you what— Because after you finish school and don't keep up on what you are doing, you'll drop something. You got to keep in tune, like McWane, over there now. I stayed out there 44 years and of course, I've gotten too old for that. I worked up here for them, a little more slow and— | 8:23 |
| Walter Grace | But I never had no problems with Jim Crow because I know how to handle it. They said, "Don't go over there," well I wouldn't go over there, because I had as much fun over here as I could over here. Some people just want to go over there to see. I didn't care nothing about seeing over there because I feel like it's just as much over here. And when I got this house, I thought that was the biggest thing that could have happened to me in Birmingham. | 8:58 |
| Paul Ortiz | Do you remember other churches that would— Now in '46, we're talking anybody voter registration classes. | 9:22 |
| Walter Grace | Yep. That was serious. That was serious. You knew about it, you always talked about wanting to be a registered voter, but you never would think you could make the grade to go because when you get off from work in the evening, you be so tired. And they have you coming home, if you get home, on the streetcar. Then go back to 16th Street. That was probably a no-no. Then you had to get up in the morning, get back to work. But at the time, gradually, of course on, and you got a car. You got this, and then you can get to go more places and be with more folks. | 9:32 |
| Walter Grace | But Jim Crow has always been here in Birmingham, and now, it didn't bother me as bad as it do now, because people now is— It's more Negroes killing up each other than I ever heard of in my life. | 10:14 |
| Paul Ortiz | Were there other Black workers at McWane, that were registering to vote in '46? | 10:33 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah, there were some out there registered, but very few. Very few. When we used to go to these little demonstrations, these meeting. The ones that didn't demonstrate had to pay $10 a month. Well I mean, they didn't have to, but you'd put your money up if you're in favor of trying to get these things passed. And the people that are going up to the front were going to jail. Somebody got to get them out. So they had it down— We wasn't making no money, but they had it down to $2.50 a week, or $10 a month. So we go to 16th Street Baptist Church and you sign up, pay them $10 a month, you know, which— | 10:40 |
| Paul Ortiz | And again, this is in '46? | 11:17 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. No, we didn't start this here until the demonstration started in the '60s. | 11:18 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 11:25 |
| Walter Grace | You know the late '50s and the '60s is when they started, but in '46, it wasn't nothing thought of like that, because we hadn't started no movement, you know. But when they started the movement, they took money. And you didn't have no big money, you just— They'd tell everybody, because all everybody could sacrifice and put up $10, and you had to have a card in your pocket just like you had your driver's license in your pocket. Because if we walk up on you and say, "Why ain't you over there," then you tell them, say you don't know why or whatever and don't have on identification— See, I'm a member. And he want to see your ID card, then they would show you that. But you couldn't show it out to the plant because they didn't go in for that. That's just a hush mouth. | 11:25 |
| Paul Ortiz | What were you a member of? | 12:15 |
| Walter Grace | The NAACP. | 12:18 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 12:21 |
| Walter Grace | Mm-hmm. I'm a member of the NAACP. It was $10 a month. But you got to pay a little more than $10 a month now. You pay by the year, and— but see, it's still an organization, but SECL, if I tell you what we got now. We got a— | 12:21 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, the SELC? | 12:38 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. They're here in Birmingham now, but NAAC, the big headquarters thing, it was all combined in the same thing. | 12:42 |
| Paul Ortiz | But the 16th Street Baptist Church, they had voter registration classes and— | 12:51 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah, they had— You go ahead and pick up on— It was back before, when you had to know everything. | 12:57 |
| Paul Ortiz | Wow. How did you find that out? | 13:05 |
| Walter Grace | You'd go town and we'll sit down and get to drinking a beer, and everybody go to talking about this and that because— Just like, there's a time that we know from 18th Street, I'd say from 19th Street back to this way, was our way. We never did catch— Very few times you caught Negroes going the other way. From 19th Street, it's mostly White go up that way, and the Black come back this way. All our stores and not, we went up to shop and everything, but what I'm saying is like, if we go to drink beer or anything, they had one or two up there with little beer in the back. But down here, you could stand in a big place and drink, and eat and do anything. That's where we mostly hung out at and that's where we did our talking at. Mostly would be down there. | 13:10 |
| Paul Ortiz | So it would be a place like Bob's? | 13:58 |
| Walter Grace | Bob Savoy and some more. And then, Bob was one of the biggest. And then there was— I can't think of that place right now. It's right down across from Bob, and it's another one over there now, but they have torn down most of the old buildings now, where the shows and theaters and all that used to be. All that down there was hotels and— All that was down there was for Blacks. You didn't go over there looking for no hotel, all your hotels were over here. And that's where we mostly stayed, because we knew from 18th Street back belongs to us. | 14:01 |
| Paul Ortiz | So would you talk about politics when you'd go in? | 14:44 |
| Walter Grace | Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, we'd talk. We'd talk when we get in there and get to drinking. Go ahead and drink beer, and sit up and talk a while. And then you'd get out and catch that late bus before it comes out this way. You had to watch that watch, because it wasn't no cars too much, and you didn't have enough money to have a cab, so you'd sit around and you'd catch the late bus coming back. | 14:47 |
| Walter Grace | But see now— See, I wouldn't dare go out that time and ride a bus or something. I'd have to get out there and— It was dangerous. | 15:09 |
| Paul Ortiz | Working at McWane, now was— Can you talk a little bit about your first job there and then your job progression? | 15:27 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. That was only two jobs at McWane, a White man job and a Black man job. That's just the only way. And the jobs that we had is something that the White's didn't want to do. | 15:34 |
| Paul Ortiz | What were those jobs? | 15:52 |
| Walter Grace | Hm? | 15:54 |
| Paul Ortiz | What were those jobs? | 15:54 |
| Walter Grace | Before caterpillars and things come out, we usually had to dig holes and clean up. They did the most, and then the nastiest job, or whatever. The hottest job. See, I worked on the cublo 25 years, and that was hot. I stayed there and worked down there for over 25 years. | 15:57 |
| Paul Ortiz | What was that field? | 16:19 |
| Walter Grace | Huh? | 16:19 |
| Paul Ortiz | What did you call that? | 16:19 |
| Walter Grace | The cublo. | 16:19 |
| Paul Ortiz | Cublo. | 16:19 |
| Walter Grace | Where they melt iron. | 16:19 |
| Paul Ortiz | Can you spell that? | 16:19 |
| Walter Grace | Huh? | 16:19 |
| Paul Ortiz | Can you— | 16:19 |
| Walter Grace | C-U-B-L-O, cublo. | 16:29 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 16:29 |
| Walter Grace | Mm-hmm. Before you could— I stayed in there so long, I didn't know whether it was warm, hot, cool or what. Wasn't no air conditions, and wasn't no— Well, I had grew up in it, so it just wasn't no thing. I got hurt out there in '71. A cublo blew up and blew this foot off, and I didn't go back on the cublo. I worked around the cublo, but I didn't run it no more after that. I just— They say it just got me so shaky, they told me I just couldn't take it. | 16:32 |
| Walter Grace | Then I ran a little old thing they call a chip crane, until that— Jobs had got wide open, any job you qualified for, you could do it. Let you get it, especially if you had A, B, and C. What they call A, B, and C, you had to have the qualifications and your attendance record, and your seniority. | 17:12 |
| Paul Ortiz | That was A, B, and C? | 17:33 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. | 17:34 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 17:36 |
| Walter Grace | See, I had all those. I had seniority, I had the qualifications and I had, you know. And I knew I could work. | 17:37 |
| Paul Ortiz | You mentioned that there were White man's job and Black man's jobs. | 17:46 |
| Walter Grace | Mm-hmm. | 17:50 |
| Paul Ortiz | When— Did that ever change? | 17:51 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. Before I left there. I had a good job when I left. I got a job in the— I was an overhead crane operator. I was one of the first Black up there. That's what I was telling you about, after they put it on the board, the board wasn't going to come back. And he was running the crane— So another boy who was the boy who told me about the job at the time, he a supervisor now. But he wanted the job that I had. They had brought him up from out that muck up to the little house elevator, a little higher, so he wanted my job. The only way he could get my job is if he get me off that job for another higher job. So he said, "Hey, Jeff. We got a job on the board." So I went over there and I signed. | 17:55 |
| Paul Ortiz | What year was that? | 18:38 |
| Walter Grace | It was in— It wasn't too long after— Let's see, it was in the '60s. '60s, no. No, no, no. Because I got hurt in the '70s. It was— I got hurt on the— It was after '71. | 18:43 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 18:53 |
| Walter Grace | Because I got— Cublo burned up in '71, and I went back in '72, '70— It was in the '70s. And the boy, he had got off his job and wasn't coming back, and they put it on the board. So I signed up for it and I got it, and I stayed there until I retired. | 18:54 |
| Paul Ortiz | But you have been trained as a— You knew how to operate a crane in the service? | 19:11 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. Uh-huh, what you call wenches. What I mean about coordination, so you had to know coordination. | 19:19 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. Did you feel like, that working in the cublo was a step down from what you were doing in the service, or did you— | 19:24 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. Like I said, there wasn't nothing but two jobs out there. Either you get in this field, or you wasn't over there. Now we had some people up there they said was in the machine shop, named Dave Wilson, but all he was doing out there was cleaning up. And sometimes he'd clean around the machines and wash them drills and things. But other than that, he wasn't no machinist. No, he didn't have any Colored machinist out there. | 19:33 |
| Walter Grace | We just got a couple of welders and electricians out there, since the '70s or '80s. In the late '70s and early '80s, they started hiring and training Negroes for these different type of jobs. Now, out there at McWane, any way you qualify, you could get a job. If you a supervisor with qualifications, you could work there. An inspector with qualifications, all of that was out. It wasn't even thought of for a Black man. And they got more Black out there inspecting, and got more of— Got plenty Black inspectors, supervisors, foremen, and everything. | 20:01 |
| Walter Grace | We used to have strikers, which it wasn't no supervisor. You stayed on the clock. But now, when you a company man, you get the same privilege any other White person get, if you're a company person. And then if you're any employer, you were over with the company, but if you're an employee, you're still on the payer check. But see, employers are on salary. | 20:54 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 21:18 |
| Walter Grace | And the employee get paid by the hour. But the employer, he get paid a salary and they have their own negotiations. Like the union had our own negotiations all over 80 is time and a half, and all over 40 is time and a half. See? | 21:19 |
| Paul Ortiz | When you began working at McWane, was it unionized? | 21:39 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. It was unionized, but it was still, the Whites sit on this side and the Coloreds sit on this side, when you go to a meeting. | 21:43 |
| Paul Ortiz | Was it the United Steelworker's Union? | 21:50 |
| Walter Grace | Hm? | 21:50 |
| Paul Ortiz | Which union was it? The— | 21:50 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. We'd go to the union hall, the Whites would be on this side and the Blacks would be on this side. It wasn't no, like that. Not like it is out there now. | 21:56 |
| Paul Ortiz | Right. | 22:04 |
| Walter Grace | Right now, just everybody that go to the meeting hall, just sit anywhere. You get a seat. | 22:06 |
| Paul Ortiz | Uh-huh. So you remember those segregated meetings? | 22:09 |
| Walter Grace | Mm-hmm. | 22:11 |
| Paul Ortiz | You remember the segregated meetings? | 22:11 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah, I been to that. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Right there on 20th Street, at— We had to go to those meetings right there on 20th Street, between 2nd and 4th Avenue. 4th Avenue and 6th. Anyways, upstairs there. But we'd sit on this side and Whites sit on this side, or either Whites sit— Whatever side. We never would— We was sitting between one another and like that, no. It wasn't nothing like that. Uh-uh. | 22:12 |
| Paul Ortiz | What local number was that? | 22:39 |
| Walter Grace | 1057. | 22:39 |
| Paul Ortiz | 1057. | 22:39 |
| Walter Grace | Mm-hmm. | 22:39 |
| Paul Ortiz | United Steelworkers? | 22:39 |
| Walter Grace | Mm-hmm. | 22:39 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. How long did you have those segregated meetings? How long did that last? | 22:41 |
| Walter Grace | Up until they passed the Civil Rights. | 23:04 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 23:04 |
| Walter Grace | Mm-hmm. | 23:04 |
| Paul Ortiz | '65, somewhere— | 23:04 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah, something like that. Uh-huh. And then I was a committeeman, I don't know how long. I negotiated a lot of contracts before I left there. I said we're looking back now, I told you it wouldn't have been hard. It hasn't been hard on me too hard, like some people, because I try to do the right thing and I was reared up like that. My parents, they wasn't hard. It's just as easy to do right as it is wrong. | 23:05 |
| Paul Ortiz | Right. | 23:21 |
| Walter Grace | Uh-huh. And after they sent me to school, I got into it real deep. And right now, I got a— I'm an honorary— I belongs to— Out here at 10th 18th. We meet every third Thursday, but I represent my union, local here. See, I'm an honorary. That's a gold card. | 23:21 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, yeah. | 23:53 |
| Walter Grace | Huh? I can go to Pittsburgh, I can go to any union hall. I can go to McWane union hall now, with that. | 23:53 |
| Paul Ortiz | Uh-huh. | 23:58 |
| Walter Grace | You know what I mean? | 23:59 |
| Paul Ortiz | Right. | 24:00 |
| Walter Grace | And I'm authorized— They say that come from Philadelphia, there. Pittsburgh, I'm trying to say. That's Pittsburgh. | 24:01 |
| Paul Ortiz | This is a great union card. | 24:10 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. That's gold. | 24:12 |
| Paul Ortiz | It's a gold union card. | 24:12 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. See? I think in there. | 24:15 |
| Paul Ortiz | Before I leave, remind me, I want to talk to you about maybe talking to some other retirees. | 24:20 |
| Walter Grace | All right. | 24:25 |
| Paul Ortiz | That you might think that I might want to talk to, to interview. If you can think of any. | 24:27 |
| Walter Grace | So you would like to talk to some? | 24:32 |
| Paul Ortiz | Yeah. | 24:32 |
| Walter Grace | Uh-huh. | 24:32 |
| Paul Ortiz | Definitely. Now McWane was unionized when you came in— | 24:37 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. | 24:41 |
| Paul Ortiz | — But there was still segregation. | 24:41 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. You knew your job and what you weren't going to do, and what wasn't going to happen. | 24:45 |
| Paul Ortiz | Was there a point that Black workers got together and said, "Man, we got to change this union. We got to get it to represent us more better." | 24:49 |
| Walter Grace | That was back after the Civil Rights had passed. It was taking them a long time. They didn't tear the walls down and they didn't— And they had to tear the walls down where it was only one union bathhouse. See, they used to have two bathhouses, one for the Blacks and one for the Coloreds. But see, it was all combined, but they had a wall. So they had to tear the wall down, and down in the plant where the White— Where you have the Colored bath, so they had to do something about that. So we did that. | 25:03 |
| Walter Grace | That's when the Whites and the Blacks went to squalling. It took a little time, but they got it straightened out, out there now. It's no problem now, but it was. At first, it was a problem. But all the old people, that are like I am, that I come along with— Because I didn't have a problem with none of them, because I was there with them and grew up with them. And like the boy having the funeral today, me and him worked together. He was the president of the union, and me and him used to have— And then he was a crane operator for all through his time. | 25:44 |
| Walter Grace | I remember time, I was standing out there looking up at him. I was just out there breathing, and he was sitting down there. Then I was wringing down with sweat. It was hot. Foreman walked up and he said, "What you doing in here?" I said, "I'm just looking at Cross sitting up there in that cool air." He said, "You ain't got no business looking up there. All your work is down here." Yeah. And I finally worked my way up there. | 26:20 |
| Paul Ortiz | Now he up in the crane, was White? | 26:43 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. | 26:47 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 26:48 |
| Walter Grace | Wasn't no doubt about that. | 26:48 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 26:50 |
| Walter Grace | They didn't have any Coloreds working any cranes. They'll have an oiler. They don't have an oiler there until way late. They'd go down there and check, they oil up everything. Didn't hardly any Negroes used to be up there in that crane, and no truck drivers or nothing like that. No moving mechanical things. Those jackhammers and all like that, and shovels and picks and wheelbarrows, yeah. Uh-huh. | 26:51 |
| Paul Ortiz | Did you have— Was there a Black caucus within the United Steelworkers that formed, say in the early '60s to— To fight discrimination within the union? | 27:16 |
| Walter Grace | We had a few. We did have a meeting and make arrangements of doing things. We had sued McWane. They have a suit in against McWane now, but everybody that was on the suit is gone. It's been so long, back in the '60s, when it first come up. And had them to— Well they find that McWane is just as good a plant as any plant now, because the peoples has changed, the leadership has changed, and people out there now, they don't believe in no suits. If you qualify and able to do the job, you'll get the job. | 27:37 |
| Paul Ortiz | Uh-huh. | 28:18 |
| Walter Grace | Now. Out there then, don't care how much qualification you had, you didn't get no job. Uh-uh. No. If you had it, that was a no-no. Shoot, you couldn't get any— You couldn't trust any— Everybody mostly could drive a truck, but shoot, you couldn't drive those trucks out there. But after a certain length of time, as the White people were moving off these jobs. Now I'll tell you another thing about, when were talking about jobs. | 28:19 |
| Walter Grace | The only way you could get a job— Like I had all the seniority, I had more seniority than Cross. Okay? But Cross worked up there on the crane. He had more seniority up there than I had up there. Had I moved up there where he was, I'd have to stay up there— I'd get the rate. After I start making as much money as he is, then I can reach back and get my age and bring it up, and able to roll him. But before then— But I have to do two years on the same job, making the same money that you make. You understand what I'm trying to say? Then that won't be any discrimination. But if I move up there in the time I learned the job, I want your job, that wouldn't work. We have to do two years. | 28:52 |
| Walter Grace | They had a probationary period of two years after you get the rate, and then you can get a job. But you couldn't get no jobs out there. Now if a person move off a job and you move in. Well, if you move in there, then you see another job over there in the same capacity that you want and you have more seniority, but he has more seniority on the job or he have his rights. Because it's more Whites filing discrimination suits now than Blacks, or just about as many. Things have changed, so they're hollering, "Discrimination. Discrimination. Discrimination." | 29:42 |
| Walter Grace | But see, then that's when they put this little toad in there, that you have to stay on the job making the same money that he was making before you were— Before I could roll Cross off a day, I had to stay on the job two years, doing the same job he was doing, but I had more seniority than he did. You know what I mean? And after I got all that straightened out and my two years was up, two or three years anyway, I went on day. I rolled Cross off of day, and I wanted day shift and he— I stayed on day until I retired, and then he come back and got his job back. | 30:22 |
| Paul Ortiz | Uh-huh. | 31:02 |
| Walter Grace | Mm-hmm. But— | 31:02 |
| Paul Ortiz | So then today, you're going to— | 31:02 |
| Walter Grace | Hm? Yeah. | 31:06 |
| Paul Ortiz | You're going to his funeral today. | 31:06 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. I hate that. You know you look back over things, it ain't as bad— And like I was telling you some time back, we was on two different tracks. But you look at it after you get out, and it wasn't as bad. Me and him just— We had our little fights, and he was the president and I was a committeeman. And he thought he had it all and I thought I had it all, and he had his way and I had my way. Well, that's just the way things are. | 31:10 |
| Walter Grace | That's the way things are in Washington now, or in Birmingham. Up at the city hall, down in Montgomery, either I can go down here to this meeting on Monday night, first Monday night in a month, and they're going to say, "We're going to do such and such things, and we're going to have this, and probably you want to." Well you have where you decide what you wanted to be able to— conflict right there, and nothing there but Blacks. Just, that's the way things are. | 31:37 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah, that's where I was going out to today. He's going to be up there in Trussville. And I'm going to miss old Cross. He was just 65, too. And he had, he did 45 years though. I was reading in the paper last night, he had did 45 years. But see, I'd been gone eight. See, I come off in '62, and that— He went back up there, and he just came off last November. He came off 65 last November. | 32:04 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. What would you do after you got off of work? | 32:31 |
| Walter Grace | From McWane? | 32:41 |
| Paul Ortiz | Yeah. I mean, like when you were working, when the day was through, did you do any leisure activities? | 32:42 |
| Walter Grace | No. You'd be so tired and— Well, you had little activities you'd do, like you'd go around— On your way home or get off the streetcars a little before you get home, and walk through the neighborhoods or— And meet folks and— I used to know everybody all the way around here, but now, things have changed. So I know the people next door, but I don't know the people next door to him. I know the man next door here, but the boy on the corner, he had passed. The one who had come out here with me, in the '40s. But it's some more of his folks in there, but I don't know them like I knew him. We just don't do it anymore, communicate like we used to. | 32:53 |
| Paul Ortiz | Uh-huh. | 33:31 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. | 33:33 |
| Paul Ortiz | Would you go to downtown sometimes? You mentioned other jobs or— | 33:34 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. We used to come down through there on Friday and transfer. My biggest problem was stopping down there with the little money I had to run this house, it couldn't work. Now later on up in the years, after I— I'll say in the '70s, after I got to making a little money, I could stop down there. But when I was making this 16, $17 a week, and then rent was— I just don't see it. My rent was running 49, $50 a month, and the utility bill, it was $17. Can you see that? I been trying to get my mathematician, their mind together, to see how it— Plus your transportation back and forth. Plus your clothes, plus your food. And utility bill, then having to have your house. | 33:38 |
| Walter Grace | That's why I'm going to tell you about how I got involved in the union. So we come on a strike in '55. Well I had never been involved in no union and no strike. I didn't know anything about it, so I went out there. I had got down there. They going, "Hey, come on back. We ain't working today." I said, "What, 'We?'" And I knew good and well I just was making it, I ain't got no time to lay off. | 34:31 |
| Walter Grace | "What 'we' ain't working?" "We done struck." "What's struck?" "They struck Saturday night," and I had a fit. And I wasn't there. I was off somewhere messing around, when I should have been at the hall, and hadn't nobody called me or told me. And I got up— It was cold in February. It was cold. And I had got all the way out there on the streetcar and walked all the way from 26th Street to McWane, and they told me we weren't going to work. And we stayed off six months. We stayed off until after vacation, and then we went back to work, and I don't know what we was— We ain't caught up yet. | 34:53 |
| Walter Grace | If you ain't in any shape— That's the reason I got involved in the union. I said, "If things are going to be messing up anymore, I'm going to be in it. If we mess up anytime— If anybody ever be making a decision, I'm going to help." | 35:31 |
| Paul Ortiz | Uh-huh. | 35:43 |
| Walter Grace | It's going to be good or bad, but I ain't going to let nobody else— Because you don't ever know. If you don't go to a meeting and they fixing to strike, they don't know your conditions. Maybe you not able to strike right now. You say, "Well, we'll accept this and try to be able to next year, we would— " But they said, "No, we're going to strike." And those people kept us out there, starved us out. Out there six months. | 35:43 |
| Walter Grace | Getting back to this, I didn't know anything about any— I hadn't read the small print on my contract on my house, so I hadn't been paying my bills all the time. So I went down there, coming up to the third month and told the man. He said, "They don't believe it." He said, "Walters, I'm going to tell you, if you don't be here Friday evening before 4:30, with two notes, we can't hold you. Either you can sign these papers and we'll sell it and give you equity out of it." I said, "Where am I going to stay?" He said, "Well, you go on and read your contract." | 36:08 |
| Paul Ortiz | What year was that? | 36:49 |
| Walter Grace | That was back in the '50s whenever we— I tell you, they had struck. | 36:51 |
| Paul Ortiz | During the strike? | 36:53 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. We were going into three months. Well first off, it started off, I had a little money saved. I could make it. But when the little money run out and, you know, six months, $500 ain't going to last long in six months. Off of work too and nothing going in, like that. So I finally got up two months. I had to come home and sell all the furniture. I called the money up on 2nd Avenue, between 21st, 22nd and 23rd Street. They used to up there, "We buying used furniture. We buy and sell used furniture." | 36:54 |
| Walter Grace | So I called him out here. That man took everything in this house for that $100. I needed $100. He took the refrigerator, the living room outfit, the bedroom outfit. And I got down to [indistinct 00:37:49], that $100. But the next two or three days, it would have been another month. They were going to foreclose. And that's the reason I tell anybody in a union, "Go. See, because you might— " I wasn't in any shape to strike. At first, I thought I was. I had a little money saved, probably about four or $500. I thought that would hold me off. I didn't know anything about a strike. I thought we would be out about a week, and then we'd go back to work. It ran into six weeks. | 37:32 |
| Walter Grace | So the telephone company and them, they don't work, so I went off and got me a job right down the railroad tracks there, and I was— The man asked me could I drive a truck. He had a six-wheeker. I said, "Sure, I can drive it." Come in and they sent me up to Dr. Thrust. I took the examination and I went on off that day, and we had— Because by me not— The whole time I was working, handling bricks, and he had— We're going across the mountain with that load of bricks, they were building up on the mountain, and so when we carried that 4,000 over there the first time, with nothing holding it. They'd load it, but you had to unload it. I had a helper. Don't pay that any attention. | 38:18 |
| Walter Grace | And my helper and I had an understanding that I thought I'd get a dollar and a half a load, and 65 cents an hour. But that was well and good with me driving the truck. I said, "Well this truck 65 cents an hour is— For the hour is a dollar and a half, according to how many loads you haul." So we come on back that evening, I had carried 4,000 bricks across that mountain. Then you had to drive that truck because you couldn't shake it, because it wasn't tied down and you had to go up there. | 39:00 |
| Walter Grace | I come on back, we got another load. Me and this boy coming on back, we stopped over here on the side. All of a sudden, he said, "Look here, ain't no need of us going back now, it's after 3:00. We might as well just wait and start tomorrow." He said, "Because I have made $2 and a half, and you have made $3." I said, "What?" He said, "I've ate three pork chop sandwiches, drank two RC's, and smoked five cigars, but I figure, I've got a job." | 39:32 |
| Walter Grace | I said, "What you said?" He said, "Ain't no use in going back now. We might as well just wait and go in and clock out." I said, "Clock out?" I said, "Oh, okay." He said, "Because you have made $3 and I've made $2 and a half." I said, "What you mean?" He said, "You get a quarter more. You get a dollar and a half for driving the truck and unloading, and I get a dollar and a quarter for just riding and unloading." I said, "Man, you mean to tell me a chance on this damn raggedy truck, driving around here with all these bricks on here and my hand just tore up with those bricks." | 39:59 |
| Walter Grace | Blocks and bricks will ruin your hands. You can take it from anybody. By him working, he had a pair of rubber things he got him. So I couldn't wait to get back up there. "No, ain't no need in us waiting here." I said, "I ain't going to carry no more out no how." He said, "Well, you going over there now?" I said, "Yeah." We get over there, and I couldn't get to the boss man quick enough. I said, "Harold, look here. What about that job out there?" I said, "What about that 65 cents and that?" He said, "Oh." He said, "Sixty five cents is for any plant. You make 65 cents in the plant, but on the road, you just get a dollar and a half a load." | 40:37 |
| Walter Grace | The first load was 4,000 bricks. The next load was only, it had those big old blocks. You know those blocks? It had a load of blocks, I don't know if it was two or 300. But anyways, it was a truckload. And I had made $3, and needed $50 to get my hand back straightened out. So I quit. He told me, he said, "You can— Tomorrow, I'm going to give you some shorter trips." I told him, "No, you ain't going to give me no shorter trips." I said, "Don't hold your truck up, because I won't be coming back." | 41:09 |
| Walter Grace | And I went on back on the strike. They kept talking about you— They wasn't giving us but $7 a week, and they were giving you a doogaloose then. | 41:43 |
| Paul Ortiz | For strike benefits, or? | 41:49 |
| Walter Grace | Huh? | 41:49 |
| Paul Ortiz | Seven dollars a week for? | 41:49 |
| Walter Grace | It was like you're on strike. Compensation, what they call it. They give you a little something to tide you over. But they were giving away $7 a week. I went out there, and I was so tired. They going to tell me about— I already walked my duty. They said, "Well since you're working, we don't have to give you no $7." I said, "Man, don't you start that." I said, "I ain't working nowhere." "Yeah, but look here, you were." I said, "I ain't working no more. I quit. You go out there and get it. It's $7." I said, "I can be back down at the plant making more than this." I said, "What are we out here for anyway?" | 41:55 |
| Walter Grace | All right, they had another negotiation with the company and negotiating, I didn't know nothing about all that. They kept us out six months. And see, at McWane, they're going to pay you by years. They're doing away. They pay 2% a year, up to 10%. All 25 and over, you still don't get but 10%. But you first start off with $2, a hundred. Then to $4, $6, up to you get to 10%. But $10, a hundred. But if you ain't worked none, you don't get nothing. We've laid off for six months, so when check time come for us to get our vacation, they were glad to pay us because we didn't have nothing coming. So we got— | 42:22 |
| Paul Ortiz | How did that strike turn out? | 43:09 |
| Walter Grace | We lost. I mean, I'm telling you now, I sold all the furniture out my house and— Everything is gone. I'll tell anyone, if they don't know about a strike or being in an organization— Not only a union, anything you get into to, you be in it. Don't be a member asking, "What happened?" Don't ask nobody what happened, you be there to see. You have to be there and be making decisions yourself, because I like lost— I like lost my mind out there. Them folks talking about taking my house? There was nothing I could do about it. And you can not get any money when you ain't got no money. I don't care how good of credit you got, you can not get any money if you ain't got no money. | 43:12 |
| Paul Ortiz | So that strike led you to become more involved? | 43:49 |
| Walter Grace | Oh, yeah. More active and I went to school. Soon as I see— Every time they open up, I'm sitting on the front row, right in front, so I can hear. It won't be nothing. I don't ever sit in the back. | 43:52 |
| Paul Ortiz | At the labor education classes at UAB? | 44:02 |
| Walter Grace | Oh, yeah. I got out there because of, they wanted to know who all wanted go to UAB to be a steward. I wanted to be steward, and I signed up. The president came up there and got me and said, "You know where you were going?" I told him, "Yeah." "Yeah, you're going to UAB." Then I said, "Yeah." I said, "I'm not worried about where I'm going." I said, "Because they know I'm coming to learn." I said, "Ain't no educated person going to school." I said, "You going to get some money out of it." I said, "But you take a person that don't know nothing— " Everybody you see going to school, going to graft, or get something. But the person that's teaching, he already have it. See? So I be up there at the front. | 44:05 |
| Paul Ortiz | So you went to steward school shop? | 44:43 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. | 44:50 |
| Paul Ortiz | Union shop steward. | 44:50 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah, shop steward, up there at McWane. That was in the '70s. | 44:50 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 44:51 |
| Walter Grace | Yeah. I was the only one finished at McWane. They still like that still. I mean, they sent two White and two Black. Didn't neither one— When graduation time come, because they'd be sitting in the back, they couldn't even pass the test. Because they didn't know what was going on, and I'd be up there listening. Because by the time the news get across, out there where your car at, and it's 40 people between you and that car, you ain't going to get the same understanding that I'm going to get here. Because I'm getting it as you say it. But by the time they get through saying something between them, they could— We'll— So I always sat at the front. | 44:51 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. One more question about the strike. Did other Black workers become more involved in the union after the strike? Or would you say you were an exception? | 45:27 |
| Walter Grace | I was. I was, but I'll tell you now, when I got involved, more of the people that were associating with me, they were like a carrier crowd. Everybody else— Because if I did it, they were here, "It must is going to work because Jeff already did it. It's definitely going to do this if Jeff going to do it." Because I was one of the— They can tell you now, that it was unheard of a youngster out there buying a home with the little money I was making. And the house didn't cost but $6,000, but at the time, and the— They was— | 45:39 |
| Walter Grace | Oh, I told them I had bought a home and they come out to my house just in droves. Every Sunday after church, they'd come by here. And then they wives wanted to know why I could get a house and they had to live in them little houses with the things. You know, inconvenient. So they had to go buy a house. Then they were telling me I messed them up. "You have messed me up, man. Now I got to try to get me a house. My wife want me to get a home. My wife want me to do this here. Talk to my wife. Get me out of this." | 46:14 |
| Walter Grace | Well, I had been with somebody that inspired me, and they'd tell me what they had. I don't know if they had it or not, but I do. And when I went to the union hall, I could care a lot— "Man, y'all better be at the union hall, because when I get through messing up things, I don't know whether your condition is like mine or whatever." I said, "But you better be there to help vote against it or vote for it." And that started filling the hall up, and bringing them, because— | 46:41 |
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