George Thomas, Jr. interview recording, 1994 July 11
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| Kate Ellis | Would you state your name, and when you were born, and where you were born for this sound check? | 0:02 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, I was born in Fitzgerald, Georgia in 1916, September 24th. And what else was for the recording? | 0:09 |
| Kate Ellis | Your full name. | 0:20 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | 0:21 |
| Kate Ellis | This is Kate Ellis interviewing Dr. Thomas on July 11th, and I've just read a letter that he sent to the mayor and city councilman of New Orleans in 1963 in November, expressing outrage at—Was there a specific incident? | 0:29 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yes. Well, it was at the time when there were a lot of sit-ins for places that were segregated, and he was a prominent minister and one of the officers in the long showman's organization, Reverend Alexander was. And he was sitting in the cafeteria in the city hall where everybody paid his taxes, including all of us, and because he was Black, he was literally manually dragged up or down the steps, I don't remember which one, because of his being there. | 0:52 |
| Kate Ellis | And what was the response to this letter? | 1:38 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, he didn't answer the letter. And I sent a copy to the Times Tribune, which was the official, a White newspaper, and also the Louisiana Weekly, I don't know where you're familiar with that or run across it or not, that was a Black paper. And of course, the Black paper published it, wrote the editorial, but the White paper did not. But you asked me about his response and I was going to tell you, when Mayor Schiro, who was a mayor at that time, ran for reelection, he was one of his principal supporters. | 1:40 |
| Kate Ellis | Wait, who was one of the— | 2:14 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Reverend Alexander. | 2:14 |
| Kate Ellis | Reverend Alexander was one of his supporters? | 2:14 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah, so it just shows you how politics work. So that disillusioned me in so far as the political approach is concerned. | 2:17 |
| Kate Ellis | Yeah, are you looking for something? | 2:29 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah, I was looking for something, it had something about my family, but I don't see that, I don't have to have it. | 2:31 |
| Kate Ellis | All right, very good. So if we can go way back to, you were born, you said a minute ago, in Georgia? | 2:43 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yes. | 2:49 |
| Kate Ellis | Where in Georgia? | 2:50 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Fitzgerald. | 2:50 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. | 2:50 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I don't know anything about it. | 2:50 |
| Kate Ellis | All right, did you tell me earlier that you were from—That you grew up— | 2:56 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, my father was a minister, he finished Talladega College like I did. And my first remembrance is in Atlanta, Georgia, where he was pastor of the Rush Memorial Congregational Church, that was the other assistance church to the first congregation of church, which was a lot more prominent and lots bigger, that was my first recollection of being around. And then we moved to Raleigh, where he became superintendent of the Southern Association, these were all Black churches, of course. And we stayed there three years, and then we moved to Winston-Salem, where he became pastor of Winston Memorial Congregational Church, and that's where I was raised for the most part and where he spent most of his life, his career, as pastor of Winston Memorial Congregational Church. | 3:02 |
| Kate Ellis | So was it from Winston-Salem? It looks like we went to Talladega? | 4:05 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yes. | 4:08 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay, and then from Talladega, you went to Howard? | 4:10 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yes. | 4:11 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay, you were born in 1916, so you graduated from Talladega, when did you graduate? | 4:15 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | 1935. | 4:19 |
| Kate Ellis | And then when did you graduate from Howard? | 4:23 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | 1941, I stayed out a couple of years, worked between college and medical school. I had to serve an internship after I finished med school, from '41 to '42, and then I went to a officer training school at Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania, and then I went into the army, the 93rd division, 25th infantry as a battalion search. And I stayed in army in four years, two years in the United States and two years in the South Pacific. | 4:25 |
| Kate Ellis | During the war? | 5:06 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. | 5:07 |
| Kate Ellis | All right, I'll come back to that as far as asking about your experiences there, but I just want to get a general chronology. And then from there? | 5:09 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, I had been mostly in the field dealing with the infantry, so I called myself a sanitary officer, first aid doctor, and treating the wounded, who were in the South Pacific, [indistinct 00:05:41] strategy was not to win any territory, but he always established a little peninsula, a little sector out on the island enough to build an airplane base from which the planes bombed the different targets in southwest Pacific. So that was principally our mission. | 5:20 |
| Kate Ellis | Your mission [indistinct 00:06:05] to help the— | 6:04 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | To hold the perimeter that they had established on the island so that the planes could leave, and come back, and stay there, all we had to do was just hold that perimeter, protect them. But of course, to do that, you have to send out scouts, which meant that the infantry units had to go out every morning or every afternoon to see if anybody was approaching the base. And of course, they ran in the ambushes from time to time, but we had no hospital there, it was to give first aid to them and then send them back to hospitals that were further behind the lines than we were. | 6:06 |
| Kate Ellis | So temporary treatment until they get to the hospital? | 6:44 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. | 6:49 |
| Kate Ellis | And that was pretty much your position there? | 6:49 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. | 6:51 |
| Kate Ellis | Mm-hmm. So you came back, what? In '45? | 6:51 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I came back in 1945, but I was really formally discharged from the army in 1946, so I realized the need to get back in touch with medicine because I hadn't been practicing that much in the army. And I was trying to get a residence in urology, and a friend of mine in Winston-Salem had a brother here who was a neurologist. And after traveling around the principal places that I wanted to go like New York, and Philadelphia, and Chicago, and those places unsuccessfully, because then, as now, as I'm sure whenever you leave a position to go to the forces, when you come back, they have to give you a position, so the residents who already held those positions came back, plus the ones who were coming out [indistinct 00:07:48] things. | 7:03 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | So I came down here to do a residency at Flint-Goodridge Hospital. And at the time, Dr. Fuller, who has just been recently become a diplomat of the American Board of Urology, the second Black one to become a diplomat, told me he would help me all could. And Dr. Vicary, who was head of department at one of the leading hospitals, a Jewish hospital, [indistinct 00:08:20] hospital, had done his residency training at John Hopkins Hospital and was working with one of the most prominent urologists, he had said he would help me. | 7:49 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And I stayed down here thinking I probably go back to Winston-Salem, but at the time, Dr. Fuller went to some little town in Mississippi to make a speech, and coming back home—This was after I'd been in training for about a couple years, he stopped by the roadside to eat his lunch, because he couldn't go to any White place. After he finished, he had his canteen, pour some water out that was left out, he got to drinking on the side and he was arrested in Mississippi and taken to jail. | 8:30 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And they brought him before the magistrate, and he was trying to get back to New Orleans, and he told the judge that he was Dr. Fuller, diplomat of the American Board of Urologists, and he was trying to get back. So the judge told him that he didn't give a goddamn who he was, to him, he was just another nigger. So when he did get back to New Orleans, he told me he couldn't take it anymore, so he offered me his practice and I knew if I went back to Winston-Salem, I'd have to build a practice. And Dr. Vicary, who is, as I said, was the head of the department, said that he would help me all he could, so I knew I couldn't get any training here in other hospitals because they were all segregated. | 9:07 |
| Kate Ellis | So Flint-Goodridge? | 9:53 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yes. | 9:54 |
| Kate Ellis | What? That was around 1950, '40? | 9:56 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I came down here in 1946. | 9:56 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay, so where did Dr. Fuller go? | 10:02 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Dr. Fuller went to Newark, New Jersey. | 10:04 |
| Kate Ellis | Really? | 10:05 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Uh-huh. | 10:05 |
| Kate Ellis | How was it for you then down here? | 10:11 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, it was not easy because I had just come out of the army, and I didn't know that many people down here, and I was married, and I had a couple of kids, [indistinct 00:10:24], one on the way, and I had been promised aid from the Veterans Administration under there set up. So I came down here July the first and they were supposed to have paid me during my residency and bought all my books and equipment, but unfortunately, I stayed down here from July to that following January without anything from the government. So the only thing that I could depend on was what I would pick up in the emergency room, I think they paid me $25 a month [indistinct 00:10:57]. | 10:13 |
| Kate Ellis | Why didn't the government give you support? | 11:02 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, I guess it's the same red tape that you run into everywhere, you right here and you right there, and I don't think they ever did that much, but I think they did finally buy some equipment from me, but beyond that, I was more or less on my own. | 11:03 |
| Kate Ellis | So essentially, you started from that point and Dr. Fuller left and gave you his practice? | 11:25 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yes. | 11:32 |
| Kate Ellis | Did things start to change after that as far as— | 11:33 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, it wasn't that easy because at that time, I don't think there were—He probably was about the only Black specialist here, because everybody else was in general practice, they had some that were doing surgery, of course, but they were not specialized in terms of certification. So it wasn't easy because you read animosity from all sides, you couldn't get in the White hospitals, they wouldn't let you train, they wouldn't let you come to any meetings. | 11:37 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And this Dr. Vicary, who was very prominent in all circles on a national basis, he tried to get me in some of the meetings when they had American Urological Association meetings here, but they would always say that they couldn't let me in because it was against the law, so then I couldn't go to the sessions. And then the Black doctors, they asked, "Well, who does he think he is that he can just practice in a certain thing? He got to do like all the rest of us, treat everything." | 12:09 |
| Kate Ellis | Oh, really? | 12:49 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Uh-huh. | 12:49 |
| Kate Ellis | You can't specialize if you're [indistinct 00:12:54], saying you can't specialize? | 12:49 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, I guess it just was new to them to have somebody who was Black to say that he was a specialist and not treating anything. And at that time, we had to do a lot of free work at the hospital too because we had all kinds of clinics and we had to cover all kinds of services, OB-GYN and everything else. And if you on the staff, you were expected to take your turnout, thinking that we would try to preserve the hospital for the younger fellows who would soon be getting their certifications and training, and come back here and make something out of the hospital, so that was the theoretical basis of it. | 12:56 |
| Kate Ellis | Mm-hmm. Can you tell me more about that? As far as what kind of expectations there were of you at— | 13:43 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, you see at that time, there was full segregation, whether you wanted to go to Flint-Goodridge or not, there was nowhere else you could go. And the same was true with the White doctors, if they wanted to treat a Black patient, they had to bring them to Flint, they couldn't take them to their hospitals. So they had to come in, and do the surgery, and do those things until integration, of course. When integration came, then at one time, we had a lot more courtesy staff doctors than we had active staff doctors, I think about two or 300 maybe more doctors on the courtesy staff who were White and at one time, there were only 18 Black doctors in the city of New Orleans. | 13:50 |
| Kate Ellis | Uh-huh, they must have all worked at? | 14:38 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Those that worked in the hospitals somehow didn't work in hospitals at all when they got [indistinct 00:14:46], the hospitals they was supposed to give them, somebody that was on the staff. | 14:41 |
| Kate Ellis | So it just sounds like there was an extraordinary burden as far as the services you were expected to cover. | 14:49 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, that's true. And then we had to depend on ourselves for our own continued medical education because we couldn't to go to their meetings, we had to have our own Black societies and we had to get doctors who, if you could find a friendly doctor from another hospital or medical school, there was Tulane and LSU universities. | 15:08 |
| Kate Ellis | White doctors? | 15:26 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah, who would come and lecture to us. And if we had seminars, we might get doctors who were from other parts of the country who had a chance to get training and to be on the staff at the bigger hospitals in the east and other sections to come to lecture. | 15:28 |
| Kate Ellis | Was it hard to get them to come? | 15:44 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | No, we got pretty good cooperation, there weren't a whole lot of them to get, but those that there were, they seemed to enjoy coming and we enjoyed having them. But we depended mostly on the medical schools, places like Howard and Meharry, who were only two Black medical schools, they were our principal source of getting lecturers to come. | 15:46 |
| Kate Ellis | They'd come on down? | 16:11 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. | 16:11 |
| Kate Ellis | Uh-huh. I noticed that you sent in the letter that you were denied affiliation in the American Medical Association because you couldn't join the local Jim Crow medical society, what was the name of that medical society? | 16:14 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | The one that was here that was Black? The Orleans Parish Medical Society is the White one, and we were the New Orleans Medical Association, NOMA, New Orleans Medical Association, and they were Orleans Parish Medical Society, OPMS. | 16:29 |
| Kate Ellis | And why were you denied affiliation in the American Medical Association? | 16:57 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, you had to be a member of the local society and the state society to get into the American Medical Association, we couldn't join the local society, so we couldn't get to the state. | 17:01 |
| Kate Ellis | But the association that you had, the Black association, wasn't considered— | 17:11 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, we were members of the National Medical Association, which is the Black counterpart of the American Medical Association. So we had the NMA and they had the AMA, but now of course, it's opened doors, and still is a double burden to those who belong to both as they had to pay double, they paid both organizations. | 17:17 |
| Kate Ellis | Did you eventually join both? | 17:50 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, I did for a long time, after I had practiced for 50 years, then they give you honorary memberships in the White societies, I still paid the Black, but in the White, they sent me my membership and they gave me a pen [indistinct 00:18:06] 50 years of being a member in the society, certificates, and they had a big luncheon, both the local Orleans Parish Medical Society and the Louisiana State Medical Association. | 17:51 |
| Kate Ellis | [indistinct 00:18:27] service? | 18:24 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. | 18:24 |
| Kate Ellis | Mm-hmm. I want to eventually get back and learn more about your childhood years, but this is a really interesting aspect of your life. Can you tell me more about the way that the Jim Crow laws and Morris in this city shaped your medical practice and what you could and couldn't do? | 18:40 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. Well, when I came up out the service, I was one of seven children and I was the only boy for about 10 years before I got a brother who recently died. And at the time he died, he was the deputy commissioner of the [indistinct 00:19:31] of the state of Georgia, which is the same as the Civil Service Commission here. But my father was a very [indistinct 00:19:39] guy and he did a good job of putting us all through school. And of course, he [indistinct 00:19:47] the fact that I was always ahead of my time, because I had two sisters in front of me and my mother and father were educated, which was very unusual at that time, there were very few Black people who were. | 19:09 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And my sisters would come home and they would talk about all that, and my mother would read to us all the time, so I always scored high on these tests, which measure it, not as much your intelligence as what you've been exposed to, so most of these things that they ask, I skipped a lot of things I probably shouldn't have. And I think I was about 14 when I went to college and I was around about 17 or 18 when I came out, which I shouldn't have finished that early, I was not emotionally ready for it. And I felt like I couldn't do anything because I had a bachelor of arts degree, which prepared you, give you a good, broader background. | 20:00 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | So I was sergeant, I didn't go get a BS in something at one of these state schools or something, but I don't feel that way now, I'm glad I did because it's given me quite a new perspective. But I ran into segregation and it hurt me, and I guess it hurt me more in med school than it did any other time because I came home from medical school one Christmas to visit my folks, and when I was there, I was riding the bus, and when I got on the bus, there was only one seat left and that was on some little uncomfortable position where I was, so I told the guy I wasn't moving. So they called the law, and they took me off the bus, and put me in this car between the driver and one police, and I was sitting between two. | 20:41 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | So they kept were talking to me and they asked me where was I going, I told them I was going back to med school, so they asked me if I was going back out there and get on the bus, I told them no, I was not going to sit on the bus, I was not going back on the bus if I had to sit back there, I'd just take my things and get on the train. So one of the guys said, "Sit beside me," he said, "What this goddamn nigger—" So they took me down to the end, sat me down a little room and made some calls, and I guess when they called, they found out my father, he was pretty influential at the time, they knew that he [indistinct 00:22:14] about my being there. | 21:40 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | So they let me go and told me that if I wanted to go back on the bus, I was going to have to sit in the back, so I told them no, I went on back to school and I didn't say anything to my father about it because I knew he'd say probably and I'd have to stay around and hang around, and I want to go on back to school, primary interest was getting out of med school, hard enough then, because I didn't have that much support and I had to work and skivvy me any way I could to try to get through. So that was a very hard experience too, then when I got into the army, I was one of the first Black officers because there weren't that many Black officers, and most of the people who were officers at that time were Southerners, these poorly trained Southern Whites had a good chance to make a lot of money and by being—Most of them had some hard feelings toward Black officers, they gave me a hard way to go too. | 22:17 |
| Kate Ellis | What'd they do? | 23:20 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. Well, anything they could do to criticize, make it worse for you, or deny your promotions if they felt like you weren't all that. So one or two times, I think once they had me up for a court marshal, said that I had neglected to do something for some soldier, I don't know what it was, some kind of cooked up charge, but it was just that kind of thing, it was a constant harassment. And it was not only to me, but it was to other people as well. | 23:21 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | There was a guy there by the name of Leighton at the time, who taught me how to pay chess in Chicago, who was a lawyer at the time and who later became a federal judge there in Chicago, who was also court marshaled because of that general attitude towards most of the soldiers who were illiterate, there were soldiers who had no business in the army, a lot of them came in who had all kinds of physical defects, some of them with plates in the head, some of them with deformities that you wonder how they'd ever get in the army but they got in there anyway. | 23:53 |
| Kate Ellis | These are White soldiers? | 24:36 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | No, these are Black soldiers mostly. Well, it was a segregated army at that time, we didn't have any White soldiers. | 24:36 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay, I see. | 24:41 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Uh-huh. So they were all back, you had some White officers who were over there, but staff sergeants and even platoon, and you had one or two captains, and you might see a major every now and then who was—But they were far few between, when you got above a level of French lieutenant, you almost reached the summit, at least it was when I went in the 93rd, 92nd. | 24:41 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | So I came down here with some feelings, but I always felt like that we could do what was necessary on our own, my whole philosophy, and that's why I brought all these things down there because my whole philosophy built that we can do what we need to do if we can work together. I tried to get the doctors to buy some property around there, and build their own clinics, and do one thing, which didn't work out. Then finally, there was a friend of mine who was a great surgeon by name of Dr. Joseph Epps who wanted to form a group, so he asked me and another fellow, who's OB-GYN, come with him and enter general practice, and we formed a group of four that finally grew into a group of 18 [indistinct 00:26:11] specialists, covering all fields, and board certified people who came down here. | 25:12 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | But the great tragedy of the thing was that we had to promise them a certain guaranteed income, and I guess the average when they came at that time was around about $40,000, but we bought all the equipment and some of it was pretty expensive, especially in fields like gastroenterology, we bought about $30,000 because they were using all this sophisticated endoscopic things where you can look into the gastrointestinal tract, catheter eyes, the gallbladder ducts, and the pancreatic ducts, and that type of thing. | 26:16 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And they had the option at the end of two years of either joining us or getting out of the group, but the guy comes out and they say, "Well, why should I assume an obligation when I can go into practice scot-free, I've got a handmade practice because of everybody in the group. If I was in surgery, if I was in OB-GYN, or if I was in internal medicine, or if I was in eye and nose and throat, or any other field, everything that I got that I could send to another specialist, I would." | 26:50 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | So when he got ready to pull out, all he did was sit down and write a letter, "After such and such a date, I would be located at such and such a place." And that means that not only were you left with the debt since you had to borrow to pay the salaries and buy the equipment, give them all the benefits that you could possibly think of, vacations, so many hours of credits to go to that they could take a trip to, and all these life insurance, every benefit you could think of. | 27:28 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | So after you've done that a few times, it really gets to you, so we ran into difficulties, management was a very important thing and we just didn't get the kind of management that we should have had. And when we finally did break up, we had about $3 million or so in accounts receivable, which was a lot of money at that time, it's not that much now, but then, 3 million. But when you put them in accounts receivable, they collect the money but you don't get it, they charge high, anywhere from 30 to 50% of what they collect goes to them. | 28:02 |
| Kate Ellis | Uh-huh. You mean the people basically helping run the practice or the— | 28:39 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, in other words, if I go to you and say—You accounts receivable person, and I say, "Well, we had this money, can you collect it for us?" See, they would— | 28:45 |
| Kate Ellis | [indistinct 00:28:57]. | 28:56 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Oh, yeah, they would write and tell them, "Well, you owe so much if you don't pay it by such and such a time, we take you to court," they get the lawyers around and scare them up or do anything, they harass them on their jobs, or they do things that they have time to do and will do. Well, while we were paying people who were more or less killing all, having coffee breaks, and talking, gossiping, and we told them— | 28:56 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Man, then when things start getting tightened, interest rates were going up, they went up as high as 22% at that time, the manager would tell us, "Well, we can, we can—we got to cut the payrolls—" We can't because if we cut the payrolls, then the income tax people were going to come up for lack of having not paid employment insurance. Well, they finally came on against us anyway, which I'm still paying some of the debts that we incurred on a monthly basis, but you just couldn't get them to do it. But I don't regret it because I feel this way, I say, well, at one time, and I wish I had had the time to look up those pictures, because we had a first class facility and it was a first class building, we had laboratory work, and it was just something you could be proud of, Black or White. | 29:22 |
| Kate Ellis | What was it called? | 30:25 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Medical Associates. | 30:26 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay, and what were the years that it was in existence? | 30:32 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, we came into assistance about 1960 and we finally folded around 1984 when Dr. Epps died, he was a principal and this is a picture of some of the original group of people that formed the association. | 30:36 |
| Kate Ellis | I wonder what year this is. Am I right that this is you right there? | 30:48 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah, it was about the time that a patient painted that thing. | 30:59 |
| Kate Ellis | So that is you, that portrait? | 31:04 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. | 31:05 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. | 31:23 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Patient of mine did that. | 31:23 |
| Kate Ellis | Can I look at this? | 31:23 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yes, sure. That was when we first moved. | 31:23 |
| Kate Ellis | When you first moved? | 31:23 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Moved up there too, that was when we were doing. | 31:23 |
| Kate Ellis | So this was the sixties? | 31:23 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. | 31:23 |
| Kate Ellis | So you have lots of photos? | 31:23 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Huh? | 31:23 |
| Kate Ellis | You have lots of photographs? | 31:23 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah, so like I said, we brought a lot of physicians in it now, you can count the numbers. | 31:35 |
| Kate Ellis | Sorry, you did what? | 31:40 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | We brought a lot of specialists, Black specialists in the town, that never would've been here if we hadn't paved a way from them. | 31:41 |
| Kate Ellis | And they would set up their own practice once they— | 31:51 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah, that's right. Cardiologists, we paid, bought seats, we guaranteed loans for some of them to get seats in cardiology, we bought all the equipment that they needed. | 31:53 |
| Kate Ellis | Did they come from all over? | 32:05 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, some of them were natives, some that were born in, some that came from neighboring places like across the lake and Biloxi and the Gulf Coast. But some of them were never here before, so I don't think it was exactly fair. And it wasn't just a matter of my feeling that way about medicine, it was also a way that I felt about things from an economic standpoint, and it was in that light that I became a part of a group that formed the savings and loan association here, that we were in existence for about 25 years, | 32:06 |
| Kate Ellis | Starting when? | 32:51 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Around about 1962 or '64, somewhere along there, I think we've been stayed in business for about 25 years, and we must have been taken over by a [indistinct 00:33:06] agency about '89 or so. | 32:54 |
| Kate Ellis | What was the name of the savings and loan? | 33:11 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | United Federal Savings and Loan. | 33:15 |
| Kate Ellis | That's what you [indistinct 00:33:18]? | 33:17 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | This is one of the Black groups, that was the Black hospital, that was not the final place it was located, it was finally located uptown then. But I had a wealth of information and I was injured in 1989, I was knocked unconscious about a month and stayed in the hospital two months, and was disabled for about a year, and had planned to get all this stuff organized, but I never did. And I had such an astounding hospital bill and other hospital and doctor bill that I had to go back to work. So I still hadn't gotten it, but I was bringing some down here, but I didn't get it organized. | 33:21 |
| Kate Ellis | Are you still in practice now? Are you still working? | 34:06 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, I work in the mornings from 09:00 to 02:00 in a plasma center where I examine patients donating plasma. In the afternoons, I work at the Parish [indistinct 00:34:23], I go back there about two o'clock and I work till about six o'clock. | 34:09 |
| Kate Ellis | I had no idea that your— | 34:27 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Five days a week. | 34:28 |
| Kate Ellis | —schedule is so busy. | 34:28 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Uh-huh. | 34:28 |
| Kate Ellis | Wow. | 34:28 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | So I feel about that the same way, we're a great institution, the year before we were taken over by [indistinct 00:34:42], we were—we started out with $1,000,000, we ended up worth $50 million. And the year before we were taken over, we were the best yielding savings in the country that size for 50 million, which was a small institution, and a lot of Black [indistinct 00:35:10] that they never would've had if it had been for us. But here again, when the things started getting tough around that time that we did have and all of them started folding, I don't think it was anything crooked that went on [indistinct 00:35:25], but at the time we made loans, we were making sound loans for people who had good jobs, and good collateral, and good credit records, but if you don't have a job, no matter what your intents are, you can't do it. | 34:33 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And then that was the other thing here again, was our fault, because when they would come to make a loan and you'd ask them all the financial questions, you're supposed to ask them, "How much money do you have saved and where do you have it saved?" They had big accounts, "Well, I got 100,000, 200,000," but they were all taking them to White institutions, but they would come to us to borrow. So of course, we asked them, "Well, how you expect us to loan you money if you're taking your money—" But that's just the way it was. So that was another aspect of something that I guess you would consider a failure along with this multi-specialty group, but here I think it did some good. And we had the same experience with a recreational facility, we bought about 42 acres of land across the lake there and we built a nice resort, little country club. We had an artificial lake, a clubhouse, and a swimming pool. | 35:39 |
| Kate Ellis | Who did this? | 36:39 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | A group of doctors started out with it. | 36:41 |
| Kate Ellis | When? In the sixties again or? | 36:43 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | All this was around about the same time. | 36:43 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay, go ahead. | 36:43 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | But people had nice homes, very few people had pools, most of them had small kids, so they all needed something like this. But now everybody has a big house and a big pool, the children are grown up so they say, "[indistinct 00:37:10]," so we had that up for sale, but we finally did not exclude anybody who had the money and wanted to get in there. | 36:43 |
| Kate Ellis | So you would allow Whites as well? | 37:21 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, we had no Whites in that. When we started the savings and loan association, we did have one or two Whites on the board, but we ran into resistance there, because to start a savings and loan, you had to get permission from the regional office, which was in Little Rock at the time. And I think there were 32 savings and loan institutions in New Orleans at the time, and I don't think any of them Black, if there were, couldn't have been on one. So when we went to Little Rock to apply, we were denied the right to do it, and then we had to go to Washington, so when we won in Washington, they said that we could do it, but we had to raise $1,000,000 in capital. Now, that means you got to go out and get people to pledge if you open your loan so as to not put so much in there, so that's how we got started with them. | 37:22 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | But I don't regret it, I'm sorry that we didn't succeed as we should have. We started out at about the same time as Liberty Bank, that's one of the Black institutions and they've done very well, but they've had much better management. And some people claim that it is not really a Black institution. All of our money was practically Black, whether they claimed a lot of it as White, but it had Black [indistinct 00:38:17] and Black representation, so whether that's true or not, I don't know. | 38:17 |
| Kate Ellis | Can I take you back to something that you said earlier, which I think I didn't follow up on properly? When you were talking about—And then again, we're jumping around here, but when you're talking about in World War II and the Black soldiers, so you said you didn't understand why they were there or how they got there, they had plates in their head, what were you trying to tell me about that? | 38:48 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, I think that it was more or less designed for faith, I just don't think that they intended for Blacks to be successful in the army. And I used to shudder to think how it would be actually winning the combat, and here, the average education of a soldier, I guess was fourth or fifth grade and probably that's poor, fourth or fifth, because at the time I came home, when I was a kid, and you had a fourth or fifth education, you could add and subtract, and read and write, and do a whole lot of things that a whole lot of kids coming out of high school can't do now. | 39:14 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | But if you are out in the field and you got a mortar, you have your rifleman in front, and you have your mortar squad, platoon, and they got to shoot over your head, it's not that way now because you got all these computers and all they got to do is hit the right buttons. But then they had to sit down mathematically and describe what angle they would use to shoot over your head. So these were the kind of things, and you got to air some intelligence in some sense. And you can't blame the soldiers, they just did not have this, man, most of them were from Texas, the backwoods of Texas and the backwoods of Louisiana, they had very little education and they had very little intelligence, and I would guess the average IQ might have been around about 50, 60, or 70 at the most. | 39:56 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | So I think that it is just everything else at that time, that they didn't care who went into the army as long as it was Black, they should be in the army, [indistinct 00:41:01], if they had been White soldiers, I don't think they ever would've been put into it, they would not have passed the examination. | 40:50 |
| Kate Ellis | But you feel like their sense was these bodies were expendable? | 41:10 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah, I think so. | 41:15 |
| Kate Ellis | Mm-hmm. So it's okay if they're not trained, it's okay if they're going shoot each other in the head instead of shooting each other over? | 41:16 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah, it's okay if they have all these physical defects and you crippled, you have metals in your head, and you have this, that, and the other hard murmurs and obvious defects, physical defects you don't have any business in the army— | 41:21 |
| Kate Ellis | Right, mm-hmm. You're endangering your own life, you're endangering other people's lives. | 41:37 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Sure. | 41:41 |
| Kate Ellis | Mm-hmm. | 41:44 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | So that's what I meant by that. | 41:45 |
| Kate Ellis | Uh-huh, I just wanted to— | 41:48 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | But it was not only that area, when I came out here, I joined the Boy Scouts, I was the physician for the Boy Scouts, I was with the chairman of the health and whatever committee to take care of health. But this was the John Albert division of the Boy Scouts, which was black, I belonged to the Y, I got on the board of directors of YMCA, but it was a segregated YMCA, we were not a part of the YMCA at that time, the Black division and the White division. The same thing was, see the Boy Scouts, the YMCA, I'm not sure about the Red Cross, I don't think [indistinct 00:42:44], but that was the kind of thing that [indistinct 00:42:49]. | 41:56 |
| Kate Ellis | Everything was always segregated. | 42:49 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. And same thing with parks. When we first got the opportunity to play golf, first for a long time, we were denied, we could not play golf in city parks, [indistinct 00:43:04] here again, paying taxes. When we finally did decide, they let us play golf. At one time, we was going to play on Thursdays, and I know the superintendent at the hospital and I used to go out there in the rain on Thursday just to get— | 42:52 |
| Kate Ellis | [indistinct 00:43:22]. | 43:21 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And we didn't play it that serious, to shame us, we just didn't get a chance to play. So all these things make [indistinct 00:43:31], but I don't hold up an excuse, I think that we are just as guilty as anybody else. I think that segregation too really did us more harm. When I first came to New Orleans, you had some very successful business, you had some large insurance companies, had franchises and grocery stores, and areas where it is big business, property owners. | 43:23 |
| Kate Ellis | Black-owned, right? You're saying? | 43:56 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yes, but when segregation came, everybody can't go where they want to, and we got the same disappointment and the people that we had been making sacrifices to try to keep the hospital open— Flint-Goodridge was owned by Dillard University and they wanted to sell the hospital, and we asked them not to sell. Dr. Fredrick, who was one of the pioneers down here, [indistinct 00:44:22], and they finally decided to— Well, we got a group of doctors together at one time, we had met all the demands, but every time we needed demand and go back to them, they want something else. | 43:58 |
| Kate Ellis | Like what? | 44:36 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And for 25 years, I was medical director of the hospital. So I came to the conclusion that the doctors didn't want it because they weren't really make the sacrifice, the community didn't want it because nobody came out and said, "Well, let's save this hospital, we need it," so I just signed and said, "Well, let it go," because I felt like I— | 44:38 |
| Kate Ellis | Were you disillusioned by that? | 45:03 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, sure, I was disillusioned, but I had seen it happen in so many cities, not just New Orleans, it happened in Philadelphia, it happened in Chicago, it happened in a lot of big cities where the doctors who were Black let the Black hospitals go, but they regretted it once they—Because they realized that they ran into the same type of segregation. For instance, when [indistinct 00:45:26] went to Newark, I used to go visit him fairly often and they let him move up on the stair fairly rapidly, but when he got to a certain point, that was it. | 45:06 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | But he again, even though he ran into prejudice, not like he did north as he did south, he realized that wherever you go, you're going to run into it, if it's not on that basis, it wasn't so much Black against White as it was Irish against Catholics or Jews, against Gentiles, that's the kind of segregation you had fighting one another, just like here until recently, you had your Black hospital, where you did have it before Flint closed, but you have your Jewish hospitals, you got the Catholic hospital, you got your Baptist hospital, you got your Memphis hospital, but now they, they're forced with this new Clinton plan and training toward social medicine to be a— | 45:38 |
| Kate Ellis | So, a minute ago you were saying that you said something like, "We are as responsible as well." | 0:03 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. | 0:12 |
| Kate Ellis | What do you mean by that? | 0:12 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, I mean— | 0:13 |
| Kate Ellis | When you say, "We" like that. | 0:14 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I'm talking about Blacks. | 0:16 |
| Kate Ellis | Responsible for what? | 0:18 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, I mean for instance, in the field of economics. When I first came down here, I belonged, I joined the social and pleasure club. The name of the one that I joined was the Beau Brummell's. I belonged— | 0:20 |
| Kate Ellis | What was it called? The what? | 0:33 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | The Beau Brummels. | 0:33 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. | 0:33 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | It was a carnival club. Formed just to be able to dance once a year. That was a big ball too, once a year during the Mardi Gras season. And I also joined one of two other clubs and still belong one fraternity. I'm not active in all the fraternities here. The Boulés supposedly represent the cream of the Black crop here in the state of Louisiana. I mean, the presidents of universities and lawyers and deans and law, you name it. I mean, they all are very knowledgeable people and all have good resources. | 0:39 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | But every year we take millions of dollars downtown to have a ball and get nothing back from it. So I said to them, "Well, let's take this money, just do it without having a ball one year, and get the other comedy clubs to do that and take this money and buy a place of our own so we can have some place to go. And we won't have to pay these fantastic prices like 40 or 50 or $60 a ball for a fifth of whiskey." And we— | 1:13 |
| Kate Ellis | To a White establishment. | 1:46 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's right. Then sooner or later you can be as good as they are. You're not going to start out having all the facilities. They got a building around here now on The Bayou, St. John's Bayou, right there. You know that Catholic cathedral? | 1:47 |
| Kate Ellis | I haven't. | 2:01 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And you seen that down at St. Bernard, there's a very beautiful place for next to it. This is empty, but we just cannot get together and because the usual answer is, "Well, I don't want to go to the same place every year." If it's a national institution, if you live in Chicago or New York and we meet once a year, whether it's a church conference or medical conference or something, we don't want to just have one place we can go, we want to go everywhere, you see? | 2:01 |
| Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 2:30 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | So that's why I say this, that we as much to blame on this than they are. I mean, we make the money. I mean, Negroes have made as much money. If you take it, they buy better clothes and more clothes. My average patient came in there with the best clothes on, dude drove the best cars, ate the best food and throw away the most money, like the Saints or anything that comes up with sports or whatever. We always big spenders but we don't learn to use it properly, I think. | 2:32 |
| Kate Ellis | In other words, really like patronizing White, I mean, Black establishment. | 3:01 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's right, and I say, well, until you get to the place where you have Black franchises and foods and clothes and automobiles and then housing or whatever, that you always going to be on the tail end of it. And I don't blame him, I call him Mr. Charlie, for kicking you in your behind like that. And is it necessarily kicking you behind? It's just a human tendency. In other words, I say, if I have a Black employee and a White employee, and times get hard and I got to let one go, who do you think I'd let go? I'd look out for my own person. So I don't blame them for it, and I try not to. | 3:06 |
| Kate Ellis | Yeah. So you're saying, because you can understand if you were in that position, you would let the White person go first, and so you're saying you can understand the Whites that do that. | 3:51 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And I don't say I don't have my phases, because I've been as mad with Whites as anybody can be, I'm sure. But I cannot blame him for my dilemma totally, and I just feel like that. I try to judge people on the basis of their character rather than their skin. And I know I have things, and I'm sure that all the prejudices I've had, just like anybody else has prejudices, they have learned, because I've seen too many instances where you turn these kids loose. If they are two, three, one, four, five, whether they Black, White, Japanese, yellow, or what. You turn them loose out there, they pay no attention. They get out there and they have a ball and have a good time. | 4:02 |
| Kate Ellis | Right. | 4:57 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | But well, when we first moved into a White neighborhood, of course it was worse when we moved over here, about 24 years we moved over here, and the Five Gentlemen Association over here had raised $120,000 to buy this house, which was I guess a pretty good sum of money at that time, to keep me from getting it. | 4:57 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | It just happened that the active sale was passed the day before they bought it to them, but if they were left up to them, and that was the kind of thing that the savings and loans had done for years. I almost lost $10,000 on this house because I thought that the realtor had written it up that if I get financing, but he had written up that I would pay $10,000 on the same day, which I couldn't do because I couldn't. Every same loan I went to, they said, "No, we can't. Sorry but—" They wouldn't say it's because you're Black, but they would find some reason not to. | 5:18 |
| Kate Ellis | They would find some reason, and this is you're saying 24 years ago? | 5:55 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Uh-huh. | 5:57 |
| Kate Ellis | So you're saying that property, a White property association, raised money to try to keep you from—? | 5:57 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah, but these were the people in the neighborhood. It's the same organization I'm in now that I paid dues to as a property owner in this section, you see? This is Lake Terrace. | 6:03 |
| Kate Ellis | Right, but this was a White—? Yeah. | 6:14 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Oh, yeah. Okay. So they say, "Well—" | 6:15 |
| Kate Ellis | But now you belong in here? | 6:17 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Oh, yeah. And I pay for protection just like they do everything else and I'm accepted. I mean, I was surprised when I got hurt, how nice everybody was. But when I wasn't, they used to throw Coca-Cola in the pool and make it Black and eggs all over the place and— | 6:18 |
| Kate Ellis | That's what people did? | 6:35 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | In this neighborhood. | 6:35 |
| Kate Ellis | When you moved in here? | 6:36 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yes. | 6:37 |
| Kate Ellis | That's what they did to you? | 6:38 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | 24 years ago, yeah. | 6:39 |
| Kate Ellis | 24 years ago, I'm just trying to get this straight, they would throw coke and eggs at your house in your pool because you were Black? | 6:40 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Oh, yeah. Yes, yes. And I was wasn't particularly interested in—So, there was a very good friend of mine, and I had some good White friends, some of them had been just as nice to me as they could have been nice if they were related to me. This guy next door, not the one that lives there now, but who was living there, told one of the prominent surgeons, and this time he said, "I don't know what I had done to deserve the kind of luck I have." Because the Chinese that lives on the other side and I moved on this side, "You see, I find myself living between—" I don't know what he called him, "A Chinaman and a nigger", he said. | 6:47 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | So the surgeon say, "Well, what you should do is go buy you a White cook." But I try to understand why people are like that because I realize that we are all victims of our ways. We've come up on our past experiences and I know I'm just as guilty I guess, as prejudice as anybody else, but I try not to let that be my criteria. And I think I got some good friends who are White and some are Black. | 7:29 |
| Kate Ellis | One of the things we want to do in this project is we're really looking at memories of prejudice and especially in the period of the legalized segregation. What I want to ask you is, can you think of other times when you clearly weren't being judged by your character, but obviously—? I'm being careful. I mean— | 8:07 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah, any experience where I was not being judged by—That I was judged by my race? | 8:36 |
| Kate Ellis | I mean, that's a long-winded way of saying—You know. | 8:42 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I mean, after so long you just accept that. I mean, you know it's just the way you're going to be judging, and nine times out of 10 you are. I mean, the hardest part of it, this is when I came out of the army, when we came back out the army, we got on a hospital ship. I was in the Helmet Heroes at the time and they send you on base and your point. So I flew from maritimes, the Dutch East Indies, up to the Philippines and we had what we call a waiting camp. It was almost Christmastime. Yes, every new year, "I'll be home for Christmas" is only in my mind. So finally, we got on the ship, the hospital ship, which is a slow ship, I was hoping we fly back across. There was Joe's, privates, sergeants, everybody was just returning happy as they could be. We got back and pulling in the San Pedro harbor in the West Coast, still with everybody. | 8:46 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Got on this troop train. We started back, everybody was stopped and everybody get off and buy something. So finally we got over in Texas, and here is the little White sergeant or little private. Anything can get off and run to the front and sit down and eat, and I walk up to the window and then I got my tracks on, as they called it, a captain's ball at that time, "I'm sorry, you have to go back around to the eat out the window." And that's the kind of thing, it really, really makes your blood boil. Not only that, but when we came back we got on troop trains, and you see anything that comes on there—But the very people you've been fighting over there, supposed to be fighting to save your country, they can come in and enjoy privileges and do things that you cannot do when you've been over there at the time. So I mean, it's bound to affect you in some way, yeah. | 9:43 |
| Kate Ellis | So how did it affect you? How did you respond to those? Did it matter? | 10:39 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, I guess my basic Christianity is that God gives you faculties to do things with. And when I wake up in the mornings, like I do now, a lot of mornings I wake up, I don't feel like going because I mean, I got all these things, all these injuries, something is wrong. But I start out and somewhere God gives me the energy and I think that's all is expected of it and that's what I try to respond to everything. And I'm not saying that plenty of times I don't go to bed where I feel like I could kill somebody, I don't mean it literally. | 10:44 |
| Kate Ellis | I know. | 11:19 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I wouldn't want to take anybody's life, but the next morning when I wake up and I had a good night's sleep, and I just ask for grace and strength and health to do what you expect me to do. Because like I said, in 1989, I was semi-retired, I told you about all these battles I had fought and I had the same clothes in the church because I had been awesome in church. And just about any good pastor, I was a layman. So I was channeling the deacon board, the trustee board, this, that, and the other, all that kind of stuff, moderator. And I said, "I feel like I've done my duty and I'm just a steward. I'm just going to enjoy it. I'm going to work two or three hours a day." I'd go to work around about two or three to five, I think I did. | 11:19 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I was on a few committees with the Orleans Parish Medical Society, and this guy who was a public health director guy, named [indistinct 00:12:12], asked me to work in the homeless clinic two or three times a week, which I did in the mornings for two or three hours, about three times a week. But in the afternoon I'd go to work two or three hours in there, and that was it. I mean, I just said there, "I done it." | 12:05 |
| Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 12:26 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | So I thank God for trying to tell and I listen, "I'll let you know when I'm ready for you to stop." So I'm out here working hard and trying to do more than I ever did before. And I can understand patience better. I mean, I can understand life better. I'm not afraid of death. | 12:26 |
| Kate Ellis | Like kind of what happened to you? | 12:44 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yes. | 12:47 |
| Kate Ellis | What happened to you? It was just— | 12:47 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, I started to cross the street, I was crossing the street in front of my house, and they say that the car hit me. I don't remember any of that. | 12:48 |
| Kate Ellis | I see. So you were hit by—? | 12:54 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | So I was unconscious for a whole—I had scuffs, actually subdural hemorrhages, internal injuries, broken bones, compounds, fractures, all this was knocked out. All this had to be reconstructed. | 12:54 |
| Kate Ellis | Whoa. | 13:10 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | So— | 13:13 |
| Kate Ellis | So, I want to just get back for a minute again to the experience when you came back from the war. So the ship that you came back on, I mean, I know that you said everything was segregated, but it sounds like the ship that you came back on was integrated. | 13:16 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah, it was integrated in the sense that Blacks and White are the same rank now, but everybody mingled. | 13:31 |
| Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 13:39 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | But I mean I didn't sleep down in the hole. I mean, I had the officer's— | 13:39 |
| Kate Ellis | You had— | 13:44 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Accommodations until we got to the place where— | 13:44 |
| Kate Ellis | Until you got to Texas? | 13:49 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah, until where it got where the public had to take over. I mean, they made no— | 13:49 |
| Kate Ellis | The public? | 13:55 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. | 13:55 |
| Kate Ellis | So in a sense, it was the public that sort of reminded you were? | 13:56 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. Well, they say that it's against the law and it was. I mean, and you don't know who's lying and who's not. I mean, it's just like when we used to have to travel. Anyway you traveled, you had to travel so you could go to somebody's house, if you knew somebody in Atlanta or else you could sleep in your car, you could drive all night, you see? | 14:00 |
| Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 14:21 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | But there was no place else for you to do it. And then I look at it, when I tried to look at things comparatively, I said, "Well, look at us and look at the poor Indians." I mean, this was their country. I mean, they fished and they swam and they hunted and they cultivated and they had their cattle. | 14:21 |
| Kate Ellis | Right. | 14:42 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And we came over here, I said, we, because I'm being gentle, and took all the land, puts them back, when we put them somewhere where they find gold, you push them over there to somewhere else. Put them there and find oil, you push them somewhere else. So I said, well, we have very little to fuss about in view of what they did, but I guess they would not be our salvation. We decided we would be using it. They decided, "Well, you not going to make no fool out me. I'm not going to plow your land and wash your clothes and cook for you." | 14:43 |
| Kate Ellis | Right. | 15:22 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | But they did enough for them. I'm sure they learned a lot from the Indians. As matter of fact, the basic constitution of the United States was based on one of the Indian tribes, I think. | 15:23 |
| Kate Ellis | How about when you were growing up, what do you remember? It sounds like you traveled from place to place for a while with your family. And so it was you and a member of sisters and your father was a minister and your mother, what did she do? I'm assuming she was pretty much being a wife. | 15:33 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, she had nothing to do with raising a family, and we always had somebody extra, either a cousin or a sister or somebody that was all there. But in spite of all that, she was very active in the church. She sang very well. She's a talented woman, and she was very learning so far as literature, like I said, she used to read us all the time, but she worked in the day school. She would take these kids, there's kindergartens, we were one of the pioneers in Winston-Salem, and one of these, we would take these kids out the neighborhood and some of them grew up to be very great people. So that was her major thing, in the family, in the church, and in the church school, basically in the class. | 15:51 |
| Kate Ellis | What do you remember about segregation in that period? What was your community like kind of? | 16:44 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, like I said, you just accept. At that stage when I was that small, I just accepted it as a way of life. You just couldn't do it, and sometimes I had to be taught that or told that I couldn't do it. But I mean, you didn't think too much about it until you really got up that's when you start getting slapped in the face when you— | 16:56 |
| Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 17:14 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Simply because you were Black, you couldn't go here and go there, and do other things. | 17:15 |
| Kate Ellis | Do you remember when you started to become more aware of it or more vexed? | 17:19 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Right. Well, and I suppose it's usually when you become adolescents and you would've went to college and realized that this was—I had to go to Talladega because that was one of the few Black schools you could go to unless you wanted to be a brick mason or wanted to go somewhere like Tuskegee where you were interested only in manual labor. Of course, that was his vision, even among us at that time, because you had people like Booker T. Washington whose philosophy was that you need to let out your buckets where you are, and people like Du Bois who said that you didn't need to do that, that you were better than that and you could be able to do whatever you wanted to do according to— | 17:24 |
| Kate Ellis | What did you think about that debate? | 18:13 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, I think what Du Bois said, a lot of it is true. That the unfortunate thing was that we wanted to be White because we thought it was right and the thing to do. But most of the time we took on all the bad things from the White. | 18:14 |
| Kate Ellis | Like what? | 18:38 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, when he talks about the Mis-Education of the Negro, he's talking about people whose kids would go to college who were often there or when to have a good time. They were going to these fraternities and learned how to live a wild kind of life rather than becoming basically interested in classics and arts and science and the kind of things that would make for a better life. I guess your concept of what really brings you true happiness in life is what I'm talking about. What constitutes real happiness in life? Is it having a lot of things? | 18:40 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | But you see, when I was coming up, I worked in enough places to know that there's a lot of misery where there's a lot of money, and a lot of happiness where there is little or no money. I seen people that barely survived, that really enjoyed life. They knew how to have fun and had a good time and it didn't take a lot of money to do it. And people who had all kinds of money to spend to do it with, but they don't know what to do with it. They end up in worse shape because they end up in alcohol or drugs or some form of what they think is happiness. That only makes the condition worse instead of better. Instead of making you better prepared to fight your battles, it makes you more susceptible to whatever the problems are. | 19:20 |
| Kate Ellis | What do you remember about your early schooling, about your teachers? What kind of things they taught you? | 20:11 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, the atmosphere in the school was a lot different than it is now. Teachers made a very big impression. It was just like a lot of other adults. I mean, when I was going to school, when I first started school, we'd walk in, go into school by military or something, by John Philip's The Stars and Stripes Forever. You get in school and the teacher gets up, "All right, we're going sing a song", it would be a hymn. | 20:20 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Then everybody in the classroom had to give a bible a verse and she would pray that kind of thing. And so this kind of thing, it became just a way of life and it was in a matter of making the livelihood. It was true that there were very few limited things that people in that kind of education, most of them didn't even go to college, I guess not in the true sense of word. They were normal school graduates, I think. | 20:51 |
| Kate Ellis | The teachers, the right teachers? | 21:23 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah, they went to normal schools that maybe went two years beyond high school. But they were dedicated people who were interested in the individual, and they tried to tell a child what he could do, make something out of a child. It felt like everybody had some potential. | 21:24 |
| Kate Ellis | Had some potential? | 21:46 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's right. | 21:46 |
| Kate Ellis | And they really tried to instill that earnestly. | 21:46 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah, I think so. But you had some that was not that way, but those that stand out in my mind, man, they really wanted to see you succeed and they wanted to instill in you qualities that maybe you didn't realize at the time, but they were trying to do. And sometimes they had a little rigid methods of making you understand them. And sometimes that had the opposite effect too. But that was what school meant to me and the way I had to work, I mean, school was always a rest to me. I was glad to see school open because when I wasn't in school, I mean, I used to get up in the morning two or three o'clock and go throw papers, come back home, get in coal and wood, walk a mile or two. Well, I'd look at my kids and I'd tell them something like that, say, "Well, my dad must have been crazy because they didn't—" | 21:47 |
| Kate Ellis | You don't have to do any of that anymore? | 22:43 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Oh, no. | 22:45 |
| Kate Ellis | Well, tell me more about what you had. You delivered papers. What was it with the coal? You delivered coal and wood? | 22:45 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, sometimes I would work on Saturdays hauling coal for people during the wintertime, but at home I had to get up and make the fires in the morning and I had to chop wood, bring in the coals. So it'd be that, I'd get up, make the fires in the morning, take them sometimes in deep snow and come back home and getting coal wood, make the fires again, go to walk to school and come back home and throw papers in the afternoon, all that stuff. Then when I was there, I started selling magazines. Liberty and Saturday Evening Post and all those old magazines. So that was a job within itself too. | 22:51 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And in those days, I mean, around my first job, I think when I was about nine or 10 years old, on a regular basis was working in the summertime. You start at six in the morning, you work till six at night. You might get half an hour off at lunch, you might get an evening or an hour off and you might get one afternoon, a week off, and you might get a half a day off on Sunday. Alternate, work one Sunday and off. Saving $5 a week, it was a— | 23:38 |
| Kate Ellis | For what kind of work? For—? | 24:07 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, I was working around hotels where I'd be mopping, washing dishes, pantry boy. | 24:09 |
| Kate Ellis | White hotels? | 24:15 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. Yeah, I didn't know, I didn't—well, I guess I should have known it. White hotels if you want to call them that? Boy (laughs), houses of fascination or people just went to use for about an hour if anything else. | 24:16 |
| Kate Ellis | Oh, so— | 24:31 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | These were real hotels, they were tall buildings and they'd serve their dinners and breakfast and stuff. So it was first class stuff and you couldn't argue with anybody. I mean, if you say or speak and talk back to the man then, he didn't mind tell you to go and, "Get out of here." That was when management had everything. There were no social benefits. I seen the many guys who've been working in the tobacco factories, that's where I worked most of the time when I was in Winston-Salem. That's where they make Camel cigarettes. | 24:32 |
| Kate Ellis | And so you were also working at the tobacco factory? | 25:09 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Oh, yeah. I worked in practically every division they had from the time they came in, when they'd come in on these big barrels, they used to take it, do what you call, hanging tobacco too, and they were cured. They used to shake it and work with it. They used to classify it. Work where they used to put it in the packages and worked on the constructions' gangs. And then you started work where you couldn't see. First thing in the morning, working until you couldn't see at night, and then the hot sun, carrying those big beans on your neck and shoulders and get home sunburned and skin off your arm and all these kinds of things. | 25:11 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | But like I said, there was some nice people too. A guy used to call me Big Red, these two people were Irishman, and then in these construction jobs, they had these big old cranes and those days they didn't have the ability that they do know, so when you got ready to move the crane around, you had to get up on something tall like on top of a railroad track. You'd get up on top of a box car and pull it. So they would holler at these guys, and I got up on top of one of those things one day and the guy, "Oh, no!" This guy hit me and knocked me off. | 25:47 |
| Kate Ellis | What? He did? | 26:23 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | He didn't mean to hit me, but it's just the way they were trained. | 26:26 |
| Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 26:30 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I mean, it just like a mule. You hit a mule and then, "Get up!" And he'd holler and knock you over. You have to do what you try to do. If you were standing behind him and then hollered and he'd pull on the rope and you had to do that. And I seen guys get up there with these what we call, Georgia buggies and wheelbarrows, in those days they didn't have ready mixed concrete. They put the sand out there, put the cement out there, put the gravel out there and then they'd have these little pullers that you got to turn the thing to get them up in the air. When you got up to the floor, you only had these little tracks, little boards, you got to get that thing. And I guess if you hadn't an experience, when you got a liquid in there, like you said, go over one, and and sooner or later if you weren't careful, it would carry you. I used to see them going with the wheelbarrow. I said, "Now, I ain't rode with somebody who would've led instead of letting the wheelbarrow—" | 26:30 |
| Kate Ellis | Huh. So, this is all in Winston-Salem that you worked in? | 27:27 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah, this was all in Winston, but I worked in Shocco Springs. When I was in college, I worked in a little—I guess it was a country club or camp where these little boys would come out and they'd have conferences and meetings. It was not too far from college. And we'd go out there and cut the grass and do first one thing then do some waiting tables and everything. And when I was in college in med school, the only way I got through. | 27:35 |
| Kate Ellis | Was to work at this place, or a place like that? | 28:02 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. I worked at the Army Navy Country Club more than anywhere else in Washington. That's across Potomac over there in Virginia, and I used to work weddings at all the big hotels there. And in the summertime, sometimes even in the evening, I had a job with some these, what they call them? Hot shop or something like that, somewhere kind of like fast food. Something like that. Worked around playgrounds and all that kind of stuff. It's the only way I got through med school. I know plenty of days, I used to live off of Mr. Goodbar in that time. They're about that long. | 28:06 |
| Kate Ellis | One of those chocolate bars? | 28:48 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah, but they were about that long and it didn't cost but a nickel and— | 28:49 |
| Kate Ellis | And that's what you got through for breakfast, lunch and dinner? | 28:51 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Uh-huh, and then we were working these weddings. We'd always come home with cake or ham. Something you can stick in your pocket. | 28:55 |
| Kate Ellis | What do you remember about your interactions with Whites in those kinds of jobs? How were you treated? I mean, a few minutes ago, you were saying that in those times you couldn't say anything to the man or— | 29:03 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, they were a little more tolerant at the time. I guess the nicest job I had was being a chauffeur and a porter or a butler up in the Poconos, about 60 miles above New York City. This guy was an engineer at the—I guess you can call it a hotel in New York City, and he had a country home up there in Buck Hill Falls. | 29:16 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And he would come up on Thursdays and stay till Monday and leave Monday morning early and go back to New York. So it was a learning experience in that you learned how people live who really have money, of course he was that wealthy because he was supposed to be worth about $200,000, it's no money now, but then? I mean, I can't think of any—He had a big Crown Imperial Chrysler, right here. He had one of these airflow Chryslers. One of them he had in New York and the other one they had was some kind of Windsor I believe was the name of the thing. But we lived the life too because we ate the same food they ate. We had our little hunk of chunk in the afternoon, our own little church and good times too. So it was a learning experience. | 29:46 |
| Kate Ellis | And they treated you well? | 30:38 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah, I guess. I'm sure that if I had a different attitude I could have found somebody who said, "All right, we're going to send you to school." But I was never very—Nobody could come to me and say, "Well, I don't know all about you" and all that, they wouldn't. | 30:40 |
| Kate Ellis | What do you mean? I'm not sure I understand. | 31:02 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, I mean it's more or less what they used call White folks as nigger. If you go down, "Oh, Mr. Child like this?" And, "Mr. Child, like that?" I do my work, but I would not ever act like I was a slave or a servant. Now for instance, to further illustrate the point, these girls, this guy had a couple of girls and they, because they always bringing somebody, their boyfriend or somebody in town, and I'd be there, "George, fix me a drink." I said, "Okay, I'll give him and fix it." "Have you heard that about this man? This little boy asked and his mama say, 'Mama, can I have some lasses?' She said, 'Don't say lasses say molasses.' And his mother told him, 'How you going to say it?' And he told his mother, 'How you going to say more lasses when I ain't had no lasses?'" And he'd just fall out and he'd be laughing. I'd be there just only because if I said anything, I could never be, "Oh!" | 31:07 |
| Kate Ellis | Right. | 32:11 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | "Yes, sir." And, "This, that and another." I tried to do my work and I could always go back and get a job anyway. I had a job, but in so far as liking me as a person? They'd say, "Well, we like you so we going to send you to school" or, "We'll pay your tuition." | 32:12 |
| Kate Ellis | They didn't do that, correct? | 32:26 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Nobody ever did that for me. | 32:26 |
| Kate Ellis | And it sounds like you're saying you wouldn't ask and you wouldn't act subservient. | 32:32 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's what I say, uh-huh. | 32:34 |
| Kate Ellis | You would do your job but you were not going to act subservient. | 32:34 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And they'd try to pick you about, "Well, what you going to do? How you do this stuff? What you got?" And all that. I didn't feel that frankly it was their business, so— | 32:39 |
| Kate Ellis | They never really knew you. | 32:49 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's right, and I never was disrespectful. I mean, that guy sits down, "Well, are you going? When you going back to school?" I said, "I don't know. Back soon before—" "Well, you got to know when to do this", and I would be respectful, but I'd never just say, "Well, I would like to do this, but if I had this, I could do that and all that." | 32:49 |
| Kate Ellis | You never asked. You'd never ask. | 33:09 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | No, I never would've said it. | 33:09 |
| Kate Ellis | I see. | 33:09 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | So I used to think those were hard days, but when I look back at them now, we were in the time of our life. We enjoyed it, yeah. | 33:21 |
| Kate Ellis | You mean those days when you were in school and you were working and stuff? | 33:30 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. I'd be glad when I get out school and I can do this. So when we were doing this thing, there was a guy, Dr. Burns, who was with Ochsner, and Ochsner was one of the biggest hospitals now and one of the most renowned hospitals. He was a urologist and he helped me a lot. As a matter of fact, he's the one that got me in the charity hospital to go to the CME conferences, they'd have all conferences— | 33:31 |
| Kate Ellis | Into the charity hospital for the what conferences? | 33:56 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, I'd say continued education. They didn't call them in there, but they were all conference, all hospital conferences, they'd have all the hospitals that bring their most interesting cases over there and show them and have all these heads of departments and different bases to get their ideas about it. They used the one there. | 34:00 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | So I used to come over there and they had just started organizing Ochsner Clinic. They had about four of NIMHANS and Ochsner and Burns and some other fellow, I forget his name. So we were having our problems trying to get started. So I came and I said, "Dr. Burns" I said, "I wish we were in the shape you in." I said, "It's kind of rough trying to get started." I said, "I know you passed all this." And he said, "Well, let me tell you something, Thomas." He said, "The only difference is when we were little we had a little trouble. But now that we are big, we big—" | 34:18 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | So he was one of the few guys, and all of them who were in head of the department. And this is nothing, he was always impressing me. Those guys that write the books and who know everything and who have really—You never know it. I mean, they are the most humbling people. But the residents or the interns or somebody in the closet, you think they knew everything? "Oh, you don't know the answer to that?" But these guys that sit down there and they're the ones who write the book but, "I don't know. I have to ask you about that", [indistinct 00:35:42] never sure. They're never sure. So you don't have to advertise yourself. I mean, people know when you have it or when you don't have. I read, I think it was in [indistinct 00:35:58], one of those columns this morning, something I was talking about. If you a PhD and you have to write it behind your name, it is something that was kind of shameful, but I wasn't— | 35:06 |
| Kate Ellis | You didn't have to—? | 36:12 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Unless you're an MD, you're not supposed to. I don't know why they would want an MD to put that name behind that name. I guess it's just ordinary. I've done it so long until I do it on the back then but— | 36:17 |
| Kate Ellis | So it's like a part of your name? | 36:25 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah, but the implication is that if you put PhD behind your name, you got it somewhere. Whether it be the honorary or some little school or some little correspondence school. | 36:27 |
| Kate Ellis | The real ones don't need it. Something else I wanted to ask you about, what do you remember about your early years? It had to do with your school more. I mean it sounds like you had some really dedicated teachers. Maybe not all of them, but a lot, it sounds like standing in mind. Did they teach you about Black leaders? Did they teach you about things that you didn't necessarily read about in your textbooks because they weren't writing about—? | 36:44 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, I guess I was fortunate and unfortunate in one way or the other, I was always in a small class in high school. I don't know why, I guess maybe because I knew I was going to be a doctor. I majored in Latin, so very few people took that. | 37:24 |
| Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 37:46 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And in United States, you say Roman Latin is a dead language. It's as dead as dead can be. They killed all the Romans, and by God it scared me. So it was a small class when I went to Talladega College. There were times that were kind of hard during these times too, back then. | 37:46 |
| Kate Ellis | Yeah. It's always better than—Right. | 38:05 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | It was a small school and I majored it in chemistry, which was at that time difficult, but I was fortunate in that I had a guy. Yeah, this was a Black guy who was a PhD in chemistry from MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, entered by Beta Kappa. And I was far enough to become chemistry's scholar. And I guess that's because there were very few people there too. | 38:08 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | So this guy, the piece he was talking about, he was president of his class and he was made the highest model and all that, and he was the only one. But I mean, it wasn't that bad, but I guess it was a small college. But he was very interested in student citizens, and he directed me. He used to tell me a whole lot of literature to read, and like I said, I came from a family, my aunts, everybody was educated. And I had people affiliated with Tuskegee Institute and other people who—So he would not only interest me in reading these Black articles and people like Du Bois and James Roland Johnson, who at that time was chaplain, I think at [indistinct 00:39:26] who he had recently been at then. But he would tell me about things to read. Let's see, I guess the best illustration would be of Toilers of the Sea. I don't know if you're familiar with that or not. It's one of Victor Hugo's books. | 38:42 |
| Kate Ellis | Really? Wow. | 39:44 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | But the whole philosophy thing was he was a guy who fell in love with some girl that her father, uncle or somebody had that sunk a ship. They had a ship that was sunken with the treasure and he offered his daughters, his nieces or whatever she was, to the man that would bring the treasure up. So he was a fine, handsome little scholar, he got out there and the whole book was just with his struggles out there on the sea. The rains would come, the storms would come, the heat would bam down. He'd come down with some kind of affliction or something, and he just had all kinds of problems. But finally he got the treasure up and he went to claim his treasure, which was this man's daughter's hand and she was a beautiful woman. So when she came into the room to be given to him, she fainted because it had taken its toll. | 39:45 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I mean, I guess he aged 10 years, probably Black and probably half sick and lost weight and all that, and he fought all these battles. So the end of the book was that here he was standing out in the middle of the—Not in the middle I'm sure, but on the bank when the tide was coming in, and this woman, he told her that he wouldn't take the money, to let her marry some guy she wanted to, I think, I don't know. I started saying he was a priest, but I guess he couldn't have been a priest and getting married. But anyway, the book in it where the ship was going further and further out to sea, the water was coming up higher and higher to his nose, and I guess it ended where it got above his nose and he drowned, and the man went on. So that's that, and it says a whole lot about how life is too. | 40:52 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I mean, you work hard and try to prepare yourself for these things, but in the process of doing it, you become so worn out. It's like I went in the pool Sunday for the third time this year when we first came over here. I just start in April and swim all the way out to October. But when I get to cleaning the pool, I'm too tired. All my energy's gone, and I say, "Well, you prepare yourself for all these things, and when you get to it—" I used to dream about the times if I could just get this, that, and the either then I finally got to the place where I could afford it. | 41:50 |
| Kate Ellis | But you didn't want it anymore. (Thomas laughs) Too tired to buy it. | 42:31 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's right. I mean, it was. And in med school it's the same way, I'm here again. Believe it or not, when I went into med school, I think that we started out in 1941 with 32 students in the class, the whole class. | 42:39 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And I think there were 18 that finished in my class. So I mean, in a setting like that, you are bound to get a lot of individual attention from teachers that you would not get. | 42:51 |
| Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 43:04 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Now when I was put out of med school, when I went to med school, I was very fortunate. I'd been out school a couple of years, but my people that usually had a lot of people now, there was nobody there but me and my younger sister and mother who were twins. | 43:05 |
| Kate Ellis | Where at that home? | 43:25 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah, in Winston-Salem. This was the two years I stayed out of school. | 43:25 |
| Kate Ellis | And you lived at home at that time? | 43:27 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. | 43:28 |
| Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 43:28 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | So my mother could not get accustomed to cooking for that small number of people. She just been accustomed to doing—We got plenty milk at the church for the kids, so they always have their milk, they always fed, and somebody's always been carrying pounds of all this kind of stuff. | 43:28 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I borrowed all the clothes I wanted to. My father had a nice car. He let me use it like if I wanted to get off in the afternoon. I'd work eight hours, go over on the campus, and there were all these beautiful girls over there. I used to get up there and all the guys that used to own the cars, they'd get so jealous in there of me, because I was always dressed up, I always had it, for sure. But I was just enjoying life. | 43:48 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | So it finally got to a place where I stay out. I said I was going to stay out one year and save some money. Well, I did pretty good the first year, but the longer I stayed out, the more I found out that sooner later I wouldn't be saving any, you assume more and more obligations. So with the promises of my relatives, which I had the most sense to believe, I said, "Well, I'm going on back to school then." | 44:16 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And when I got back to school, I was pretty sure I had all these good clothes, I had all this—I bought all the best equipment, I bought all my books. And this was a handicap, I thought it was a brilliant gift that God had given me to remember things, because my roommate used to stay up all night reading and stuff, and I'd sit down there and read for an hour or two. I'd go in the examination, I'd look at the examination and in about 30, 40 minutes I was gone. He'd sit up there two or three hours and he come back, he'd make [indistinct 00:45:17], I'd make a bill, but two or three weeks later, he'd asked me, "What?" | 44:42 |
| Kate Ellis | He wouldn't remember? | 45:24 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | But he would because he learned it and he learned it from the way he should. When I was in college, I was with juniors and seniors in trigonometry and I made all A's in trigonometry. But I wasn't learning what the stuff was all about, I just looked at the thing and— | 45:24 |
| Kate Ellis | So you had a photographic memory. | 45:43 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's right. And the funny thing is, now all those poems and all this stuff that my mother used to teach, all these things we hadn't learned in college, we had to learn Annabel Lee and all this long stuff. All these Shakespearean things, that I could almost quote verbatim now, but I can't remember my telephone number. | 45:47 |
| Kate Ellis | Really? | 46:04 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I got to go look it up. Yeah. | 46:04 |
| Kate Ellis | You know it's funny that you say—Oh, go ahead. I interrupted you. | 46:08 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | But yeah, so you have this memory for things way back there, but no. But anyway, that's the kind of situation I always found myself in where there were small numbers of people. | 46:08 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | When I was put out of school, there were a lot of girls up there whose parents, I'm sure, just send them to the school. Just say, "Now I want you to go up there and I want you to marry a doctor or a minister or a lawyer." You know? | 0:01 |
| Kate Ellis | Mm-hmm. | 0:16 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | So we didn't have any problems. And I had friends, and they said, "We'll help you out to go to school." I said, "Listen, I don't mind going out, spending your money to have a good time, but I don't want you to be invested." Because I didn't want nobody waiting at me when I got my degree, saying now I owe you this. | 0:17 |
| Kate Ellis | So you didn't want anybody to give you money for school? | 0:33 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's right. So I would not accept that, and I thought my people would promise me, but when I wrote them, they didn't even accept, but one sister in Chicago. She used to send me enough to eat with. Finally. | 0:35 |
| Kate Ellis | I see. So your friends, you wouldn't let them give you money, but you would have let your family members, but they didn't— | 0:46 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's right. Because I figured that they didn't have any designs on me. You know? | 0:53 |
| Kate Ellis | Mm-hmm. | 0:55 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | So the chemistry guy that was in charge of chemistry, he gave me a job working in the lab after school. And this guy that was a little BN/GYN, he gave me a job operating on rabbits, because at that time, to tell whether a woman was pregnant or not, you had to open up the abdomen and look at the ovaries— | 0:56 |
| Kate Ellis | Wow. | 1:17 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | —to see if there was follicular cysts being formed. If they were ripe or not. So that's the way I got into med school. | 1:17 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I guess this is interesting about my life, I never done anything great in it, but I've always been around people who have been great and who have done great things. One of the guys in my class in college, became president of the university. And this guy, this was an ambassador to the United Nations. Andrew Young, he was in the United Nations, he was a good friend of mine. His father and I, we were very good friends. We were singing in the same group together. | 1:28 |
| Kate Ellis | What group was that? | 2:06 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | The Osceola 5. That was a group that this director of the music of the church was in charge of. And this—One of the guys that I finished college with, was—Well, several of them became very prominent physicians. One of them is the head of—One of the greatest honors bestowed on him, is at internal medicine. He's at Howard. He's not on the teaching. He's retired, but he still takes great interest in it. And then one was in OB/GYN, was in—this first one was in that too. So I've always been around great people, and like I said, now I'm in this Boulé with all these people that's running the city and running these universities and things. So I said, at least I've had the opportunity of being around them. Even though I didn't get— | 2:07 |
| Kate Ellis | It sounds awfully humble to me. | 3:12 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Uh-huh. | 3:12 |
| Kate Ellis | What is—Boulé is B-U— | 3:12 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | B-O-U-L-E. | 3:12 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. | 3:12 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I think I have one of the books up in there. I'm not—I want to show you one of the guys that's in there. | 3:12 |
| Kate Ellis | Do I need to unhook you? | 3:13 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | No, not necessarily. I guess I can reach over there. | 3:14 |
| Kate Ellis | All right. | 3:14 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | He's a federal judge. No, he's not a federal judge, but the guy is in there that's a federal judge. But he is a state supreme court judge. He is the—The other guy that died recently was the joint administrator officer of the city. So I just said, been around so many greats. But— | 3:19 |
| Kate Ellis | I see, Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity. | 3:45 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I have some very talented people in my family. My brother, who died last year was a—a year or two ago, was very talented. And I had in a sister in Chicago who is— | 3:54 |
| Kate Ellis | What did they do? | 4:03 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I told you, he was a commission— | 4:03 |
| Kate Ellis | Oh, right. | 4:03 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Deputy commissioner. | 4:03 |
| Kate Ellis | Uh-huh. Your sister was— | 4:03 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | But he was—He's also an excellent musician too. He did a lot of playing piano. | 4:03 |
| Kate Ellis | Do you play piano? | 4:14 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | To my own amazement, but I wouldn't get out and try to play for anybody else. | 4:16 |
| Kate Ellis | Uh-huh. | 4:19 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | But this is the guy. This Tee Keys. He's chairman of the— | 4:22 |
| Kate Ellis | Which is— | 4:30 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | This one. | 4:30 |
| Kate Ellis | Uh-huh. Chairman of Social Services. | 4:30 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | But I'm going to show you—I would want to show you his resume. It's in here somewhere, if not, it's in that book. Yeah, here it is. But it's just an example of the kind of people that I was telling you about. | 4:34 |
| Kate Ellis | Mm-hmm. | 4:54 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Candidates for—He's a candidate. He was trying to get me to go up there, but I can't make it. Yeah, this would more or less—describes his activities there. But that's the kind of people that have been— | 4:58 |
| Kate Ellis | That were in this. | 5:07 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. Norman Francis is President of Xavier. That's a big university out there. They accept more— | 5:11 |
| Kate Ellis | And this is the first African American elected to the Supreme Court of Louisiana. | 5:17 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Sam Cook is the president of Dillard. | 5:17 |
| Kate Ellis | Mm-hmm. | 5:17 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Roshawn, the president of the dart board team, vice president of the dart. | 5:17 |
| Kate Ellis | So you're inducted into this Boulé [indistinct 00:05:44]— | 5:41 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I'm the senior member in there now. | 5:43 |
| Kate Ellis | Are you? Really? | 5:44 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I've been in there more than anybody. And I don't know how I got in there, because I got in there a year—not too many years after I came in here. | 5:52 |
| Kate Ellis | You mean into New Orleans? | 5:55 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. | 6:00 |
| Kate Ellis | Uh-huh. We should probably move to these—your family history soon. | 6:01 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. | 6:06 |
| Kate Ellis | I want to ask you, before we move actually, on to these questions here on these forms. | 6:07 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. | 6:14 |
| Kate Ellis | You mentioned that most of them, really well educated. | 6:16 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. | 6:19 |
| Kate Ellis | Where are they educated? Why—What do you know about your family background? Your ancestors and what your—What father's [indistinct 00:06:27]— | 6:19 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I can give you it. | 6:25 |
| Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 6:25 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I have a paper out there with all that on there, if you want me to get it. | 6:25 |
| Kate Ellis | Do you? Yeah, I'd love to see it. | 6:25 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | All right. | 6:25 |
| Kate Ellis | Is this [indistinct 00:06:39]? | 6:25 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Medical Associates. | 6:25 |
| Kate Ellis | What street is this on? | 6:46 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's Freret and Louisiana. | 6:46 |
| Kate Ellis | What and Louisi—Oh, Freret and Louisiana. | 6:46 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And this is a picture of the club that I was telling you about, where we used to dance once a year. | 6:57 |
| Kate Ellis | Will you tell me the name of that one again? | 7:00 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | The Beau Brummell's. | 7:02 |
| Kate Ellis | Beau Brummell's. | 7:03 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. This is the inside of the building. | 7:03 |
| Kate Ellis | Of the Medical Associates? | 7:03 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. That's the picture of— | 7:03 |
| Kate Ellis | Do you also have photographs of when you were growing up? | 7:18 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I doubt it. I might have one somewhere, but I doubt it. | 7:20 |
| Kate Ellis | I was about to say, around the time that you were in the war or at Howard, or when you got [indistinct 00:07:37]— | 7:26 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I'm pretty sure I have some of that. But they're probably in the room in there, in that room in the den. | 7:36 |
| Kate Ellis | Uh-huh. | 7:36 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And see, this was Flint-Goodridge Hospital. That's the hospital that I was talking to you about. | 7:56 |
| Kate Ellis | Right. Which I passed by that. No, there's a housing project right by that. | 8:00 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. They made a nursing home—Not a nursing home, but a home for senior citizens, out of it. | 8:06 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | This is my wife and some of her family. | 8:11 |
| Kate Ellis | Uh-huh. | 8:11 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's in Atlanta, there. And grandkids. | 8:11 |
| Kate Ellis | I would love to get—to photocopy all photographs. Well not photocopy— | 8:47 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. The first question is, what is your zip code? | 8:48 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | 70122. | 9:14 |
| Kate Ellis | Tell me—I remember you said 1916, I don't remember the actual date of your birth. | 9:16 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | 1916. | 9:19 |
| Kate Ellis | I know, but what year? Not what year, what month and day? | 9:20 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | September the 24th. | 9:23 |
| Kate Ellis | Tell me the town you grew up in again? | 9:24 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Fitzgerald. | 9:24 |
| Kate Ellis | Fitzgerald. | 9:24 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. | 9:24 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. And I'm going to list your principal occupation as? | 9:40 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Physician of surgeons. I was a urologist during my active days. | 9:43 |
| Kate Ellis | Mm-hmm. | 9:53 |
| Kate Ellis | It's George— | 10:14 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yes. | 10:16 |
| Kate Ellis | —Jefferson Thomas— | 10:16 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Junior. | 10:18 |
| Kate Ellis | —Junior? | 10:18 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's right. | 10:45 |
| Kate Ellis | How would you like your name to appear in written materials? | 10:45 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I don't have a preference. | 10:55 |
| Kate Ellis | I'm kind to say, "Dr. George Jefferson Thomas, Jr." | 10:55 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's all right. | 10:57 |
| Kate Ellis | What's your wife's name? | 11:24 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Thelma. | 11:26 |
| Kate Ellis | Thelma? | 11:26 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Thelma Evangeline. | 11:26 |
| Kate Ellis | Thelma Evangeline? | 11:28 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yes. | 11:32 |
| Kate Ellis | What was her date of birth? | 11:40 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I think it's September the 22nd, 1922. | 11:47 |
| Kate Ellis | '22. | 11:49 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. | 11:51 |
| Kate Ellis | Where was she born? | 11:54 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | In Gadsden, South Carolina. | 11:54 |
| Kate Ellis | Gadsden? | 11:54 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yes. Uh-huh. | 11:54 |
| Kate Ellis | G-A-D-S-D-E-N? | 12:05 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I'm pretty sure that's it. | 12:06 |
| Kate Ellis | You said South Carolina, right? | 12:11 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yes. Uh-huh. | 12:13 |
| Kate Ellis | All right. And did she—What was her occupation? | 12:16 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Housewife. | 12:18 |
| Kate Ellis | What was your mother's name? | 12:25 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Winnie Cornelia Whittaker, before she married. | 12:26 |
| Kate Ellis | Her maiden name was Whittaker? | 12:31 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yes. Uh-huh. | 12:32 |
| Kate Ellis | W-H-I-T-T-A-K-E-R? | 12:32 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I'm not sure about that. It's either W-H-I-T— | 12:42 |
| Kate Ellis | Oh, it's on that thing right there. | 12:44 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | —or W-H-I-T-T. I don't know which. | 12:44 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. Would you tell me, was it Winnie? | 12:44 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yes. Uh-huh. Winnie Cornelia. | 12:44 |
| Kate Ellis | What was that middle one? | 12:44 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Cornelia, C-O-R-N-E-L-I-A. | 12:54 |
| Kate Ellis | Cornelia. | 12:56 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. | 13:00 |
| Kate Ellis | When was she born? | 13:03 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | When was my mother born? | 13:07 |
| Kate Ellis | Yeah. But I asked you that. | 13:07 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | It's in that thing there. | 13:07 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. | 13:07 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | But I really don't remember. | 13:07 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. One second. I'm wondering, did I not—I'm seeing a—am I looking at a—This right here, does that say, "Vinie"? | 13:24 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | It should be Winnie, but it says Vinie. | 13:25 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. But it should be Winnie? | 13:36 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I'm not sure about that, I— | 13:39 |
| Kate Ellis | That looks like a V-I-N-I-E. | 13:41 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I believe that's what it is. | 13:42 |
| Kate Ellis | So I'm spelling her name wrong on this stuff. | 13:43 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, no. Her name is Winnie. I know her name is Winnie. | 13:48 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. Actually, that was her father's mother. | 13:49 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. I know her name was Winnie. | 13:50 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. And she was November 11th— | 13:53 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | November 11, 1911. She was born 11th day of the 11th hour. | 14:12 |
| Kate Ellis | No, wait. 1883. Wait a second. Winnie Cornelia, November 11, 1883. So this is weird. This says, "to June 28, 1911." | 14:17 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | June the 20th? That's what it says on there? | 14:20 |
| Kate Ellis | Look at. Tell me—Explain what this is about, what she's doing here. It says here, "Winnie Cornelia Whittaker," which is your mother— | 14:22 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Uh-huh. | 14:29 |
| Kate Ellis | —November 11, 1883. | 14:30 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Uh-huh. | 14:33 |
| Kate Ellis | And then there's this dash. Oh, maybe that's when she got married. Did she get married in June, 28th June '11, to George? That makes sense. Thomas. Okay. Okay. | 14:33 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That must be. | 14:40 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. | 14:40 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Because I know— | 14:40 |
| Kate Ellis | Otherwise that would—Okay. | 14:43 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | —I know she was born— | 14:43 |
| Kate Ellis | When did she pass away? Was that— | 14:47 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I'm not sure. I think that was around 1967, but I'm not positive about that. | 14:48 |
| Kate Ellis | All right. Well I'll say, "around 1967." I didn't ask you something about this. It says here, "These families were greatly mixed by marriage," does she mean racially mixed? What does she mean by "mixed"? | 15:07 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I imagine that's what she meant, but I'm not sure. But I don't know of any interracial marriages at that time. Now it's been plenty since then. | 15:17 |
| Kate Ellis | There were plenty since your time, interracial marriages in your family? | 15:23 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well in my immediate family, you mean my children? Not—My daughter is married to an Iranian, and my grandson is married to a White girl. | 15:27 |
| Kate Ellis | Uh-huh. I wonder what she meant by "greatly mixed by marriage". | 15:41 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Now she could—if she meant Indians. Now she may mean Indians. There are a lot of Indians in that country, I know. | 15:47 |
| Kate Ellis | Uh-huh. | 15:53 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | So maybe that's what she meant. I'm not sure. | 15:55 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. | 15:55 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And it could have been—She could have been talking about the ancestors, because my grandmother was White. I mean, my grandmother's father was White. | 15:59 |
| Kate Ellis | Oh, really? | 16:09 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And her—My grandmother's father was the—I mean, her mother was Black. I think that's the way it was. | 16:09 |
| Kate Ellis | What? That's weird. | 16:29 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | But I know my grandmother looked like she was pure White, but she— | 16:29 |
| Kate Ellis | Your grandmother did? You said her father was White and your grandmother looked like she was White? | 16:31 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Her father was White. | 16:39 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. | 16:40 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And one of them was Black, so the other one must have been Black, or whatever it was. | 16:40 |
| Kate Ellis | Right. But the point is, your grandmother also looked like she was— | 16:46 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Oh, yeah. She looked like—She had gray eyes and white hair, and all that kind of stuff. | 16:48 |
| Kate Ellis | You don't have any pictures of her? | 16:54 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I don't think so. I may have them, but where at to look for them, I— | 16:56 |
| Kate Ellis | Maybe Mrs. Thomas would know. | 17:03 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I can ask her. | 17:06 |
| Kate Ellis | All right. | 17:06 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | But this is a picture of the original group in that— | 17:09 |
| Kate Ellis | Oh, yeah. Now this was in the early '60s. | 17:20 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. This is another picture of the building there. | 17:28 |
| Kate Ellis | Mm-hmm. All right. | 17:28 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And this is— | 17:28 |
| Kate Ellis | You had a wide mustache. | 17:30 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | —This is a picture of one of the functions over there at the place. | 17:33 |
| Kate Ellis | What place? Your country club? | 17:35 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. | 17:38 |
| Kate Ellis | That spread looks incredible. | 17:38 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. Now my mother and my father died about three or four days apart. That was in 1963. | 17:48 |
| Kate Ellis | Oh, look. Then I can write it from this. | 17:50 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. | 17:52 |
| Kate Ellis | Jay Tanner Stanley. That's not the man that married— | 18:09 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Bea— | 18:14 |
| Kate Ellis | It is. | 18:16 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Bea Perry. | 18:16 |
| Kate Ellis | Is it? Yeah. | 18:16 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. | 18:17 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. | 18:17 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | But he's divorced, and he married Andrew Young's— | 18:18 |
| Kate Ellis | Daughter? | 18:23 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Uh-huh. | 18:23 |
| Kate Ellis | Is that? Yeah. | 18:27 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | This is that same picture of my son and his family. And this was a picture of us, shortly after we came down here, at one of the cocktail parties. | 18:33 |
| Kate Ellis | Can I photo—I want a copy of this. This was—When you say shortly after, this means—Oh, it says right here, "Week of January 25, 1958." | 18:40 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. | 18:50 |
| Kate Ellis | Well you said shortly after you come down here, but you came down here in the '40s. | 18:51 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | '46. | 18:53 |
| Kate Ellis | So when you say shortly after you came down here— | 18:53 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I guess I was wrong then. But this is a picture that was taken back there in the back, at one of the reunions we had down there. | 18:59 |
| Kate Ellis | Back of what? | 19:07 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Back of the house. | 19:09 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. | 19:11 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Backyard. | 19:11 |
| Kate Ellis | That's [indistinct 00:19:13]. | 19:13 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | This is the—That's just a picture of the church. | 19:14 |
| Kate Ellis | But what is—When is this? | 19:31 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | You know I don't remember. I can't remember, but it must have been a mighty long time ago. I had hair on my head, so you know. | 19:31 |
| Kate Ellis | So you know that was a while ago. | 19:33 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And this is a picture of the Beau Brummell club. | 19:34 |
| Kate Ellis | Oh. Will you spell that for me? | 19:48 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | B-E-A-U, beau. | 19:49 |
| Kate Ellis | B-E-A-U? | 19:52 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | BRUMMELL. | 19:52 |
| Kate Ellis | Beau, Beau Brummell. | 19:52 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Now you know that was taken a long time ago. | 20:10 |
| Kate Ellis | This was your car? Okay. | 20:10 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | This when I first came down here. | 20:10 |
| Kate Ellis | But say now, you keep saying when you first came down here, but—So this was the Ford. Did you have kids when you came down here? | 20:11 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. I said I had two. | 20:16 |
| Kate Ellis | When were your—Well, I'll ask this— | 20:18 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Three, really. | 20:19 |
| Kate Ellis | Yeah. Okay. That's right. One on the way. | 20:20 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's a picture of my father and of the church that he was— | 20:23 |
| Kate Ellis | Uh-huh. | 20:23 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Now don't ask me when that was taken. | 20:24 |
| Kate Ellis | But that was more recent. For how long did you sport a mustache? | 20:49 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Until I got hurt, I guess. | 20:55 |
| Kate Ellis | Really? | 20:56 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Uh-huh. | 20:57 |
| Kate Ellis | Then what, you couldn't keep up with it? | 20:58 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's my brother that died two years ago, in the middle. But this, I saved this check, just to show you how they waste money in the government. Now why would they— | 20:59 |
| Kate Ellis | Oh, for 32 cents? | 21:11 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Uh-huh. | 21:12 |
| Kate Ellis | A Medicare payment. Now Louisiana Avenue, right? That's where your office was? | 21:13 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. | 21:29 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. | 21:29 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | This is a picture of the singing groups, in front of the church, since we went every Sunday. | 21:47 |
| Kate Ellis | There you are. Uh-huh. | 21:51 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | You didn't meet Mrs. Dent, since you've been down here, did you? | 22:00 |
| Kate Ellis | No. I actually—We asked to do an interview with her, and she was unable. | 22:03 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. | 22:10 |
| Kate Ellis | I'm disappointed about that. | 22:10 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well this is a picture. I don't know when it's from. That's [indistinct 00:22:15]— | 22:13 |
| Kate Ellis | [indistinct 00:22:15]. | 22:13 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | She was quite a concert pianist. A very talented— | 22:13 |
| Kate Ellis | She looks so nice. | 22:13 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. Very lovely person. | 22:14 |
| Kate Ellis | I guess I could guess from the clothes, what era, what decade we're in here. | 22:29 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | These are some pictures of the Boulé, when I first got in it. This when I was living over on—before I moved over here. | 22:38 |
| Kate Ellis | So is Boulé, is it a mixed raced club? I mean, is it a mixed race— | 22:53 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | No, it's sole Blacks. | 22:59 |
| Kate Ellis | This gentleman here, who is— | 22:59 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Who is that? Caruso? | 22:59 |
| Kate Ellis | There's a man here who looks White. | 22:59 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Where your finger and thumb is? | 22:59 |
| Kate Ellis | Yep. | 22:59 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | No, he's a minister out in California. That's Reverend Hill. | 22:59 |
| Kate Ellis | Really? | 22:59 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. He is not that bright either. | 22:59 |
| Kate Ellis | He's not that bright? | 22:59 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Uh-huh. I mean, in color. | 22:59 |
| Kate Ellis | Oh. I thought you meant— | 22:59 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Now you see, all these guys are dead, that's what makes me feel like the last leaf on the tree. We were the original four in that group. | 23:25 |
| Kate Ellis | Look at their faces though, it looks like it's burning down or something. | 23:34 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. | 23:35 |
| Kate Ellis | The way it is there, don't they look kind of surprised or something? | 23:36 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah, I guess so. | 23:38 |
| Kate Ellis | Because this is right the opening, right? | 23:41 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. | 23:42 |
| Kate Ellis | And they've got flowers on their suits. That's you. | 23:43 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yes. | 23:50 |
| Kate Ellis | C King. | 23:50 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's when he was leaving. He's—I was the master of ceremony. | 23:52 |
| Kate Ellis | Who was leaving? | 23:56 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Reverend Hood, the minister. The former minister. This is him on the end with that watermelon in his hand. Towards your right, where your thumb is. | 23:57 |
| Kate Ellis | Wait a minute. Oh. I thought you had—It looks like a young guy. | 24:09 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well he was then, but he's up in age now. | 24:20 |
| Kate Ellis | I wish you could tell me what era this was. Around—Would this be '50s or '60s? | 24:20 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's got to be in the '50s. | 24:21 |
| Kate Ellis | The '50s? | 24:24 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I'm sure it is. | 24:24 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. Good. | 24:24 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And this one has to be in the '50s or '60s too. | 24:24 |
| Kate Ellis | The cast. The Fellowship of the Fellows. | 24:47 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. | 24:49 |
| Kate Ellis | What's that? | 24:51 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's just the men's group. That's when I was in the Army. | 24:53 |
| Kate Ellis | Oh, R. Perry. Robert Perry? | 24:56 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's when I was in— | 24:56 |
| Kate Ellis | Robert Perry? | 24:56 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. | 24:56 |
| Kate Ellis | Was he a friend of yours? | 25:00 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. That's— | 25:01 |
| Kate Ellis | He must have been. | 25:05 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | —That's Bea's father. | 25:05 |
| Kate Ellis | I know. | 25:05 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Uh-huh. | 25:05 |
| Kate Ellis | So he must have been a friend of yours, huh? Because you were in the same [indistinct 00:25:08]. | 25:05 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. | 25:07 |
| Kate Ellis | What's this? Where is this taken? | 25:09 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | It was in the 1970s, I think. | 25:12 |
| Kate Ellis | In the—Oh. | 25:14 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I know I was in the Army, overseas. And this is when we first moved in that building, the clinic. | 25:19 |
| Kate Ellis | Yeah. Okay. | 25:28 |
| Kate Ellis | So do you think this is '50s or '60s, or later? | 25:28 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I think it was probably in the '50s. I'm not sure, but I would guess it was in the '50s. I had hair on my head in this. | 25:28 |
| Kate Ellis | Oh, I see this is the opening. This is the opening. | 25:28 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yes. Uh-huh. Let me see who—Everybody on there almost, is dead. | 25:28 |
| Kate Ellis | Is dead? That, I don't know. It's hard for me to imagine what that would be like. | 25:28 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I think I overstayed my time. | 25:28 |
| Kate Ellis | No. Uh-uh. All right, I should ask you more questions. | 26:42 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Okay. | 26:53 |
| Kate Ellis | I know—here's—Right, you told me this. It's down here. It doesn't say it right here. Where was your mother born? | 26:53 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I would guess Rockford, Alabama. That's where I first knew her, and that's the only place I'd ever known. | 26:58 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. Did she—She was a housewife, right? Amazing, your mom. | 27:03 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. | 27:18 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. And your father's name, I know your father's name. | 27:23 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | George. | 27:26 |
| Kate Ellis | George Jefferson Thomas— | 27:28 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Senior. | 27:29 |
| Kate Ellis | And his date of birth? | 27:38 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | You're asking me? | 27:44 |
| Kate Ellis | No. I'm going to look, but do you happen to remember it off the top of your head? | 27:45 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | No, I sure don't. | 27:52 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. Wait a minute, you handed me something earlier. | 27:52 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah, I was about to say, I gave you that— | 27:52 |
| Kate Ellis | Not this. | 27:52 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | —the funeral— | 27:52 |
| Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 27:52 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | It should be on there. | 27:52 |
| Kate Ellis | I put it in one of these piles. | 27:52 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's another picture that was taken, that she sent me. | 27:52 |
| Kate Ellis | This is great. Wow. Okay. | 28:58 |
| Kate Ellis | Oh, it doesn't say. This is the back. It only says when he passed. It doesn't say when he was born. | 28:58 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I thought it did. | 29:04 |
| Kate Ellis | You would think it would. There's no obituary on there. I mean, it doesn't say— | 29:12 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I don't know how he was when he died, but I was for sure it said on there when he was— | 29:15 |
| Kate Ellis | But he was probably born in the 1880's as well. | 29:43 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Let me see, he must have been. It wasn't in that article then. | 29:44 |
| Kate Ellis | What? | 29:44 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | It wasn't in that newspaper article, huh? | 29:44 |
| Kate Ellis | I'll look again. | 30:00 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | This is my daughter's wedding, and her husband's on there. He's the Iranian. | 30:01 |
| Kate Ellis | Oh. Let me see this. | 30:06 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's the paper? I'll look it up. | 30:06 |
| Kate Ellis | Now tell us more about what he did with this chart I'm checking off. What about where he was born? | 30:06 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I think he was born in Hawkinsville, Georgia. | 30:06 |
| Kate Ellis | Hawkinsville? | 30:06 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yes. H-A-W-K-I-N-S-V-I-L-L-E, Hawkinsville. | 30:06 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. Moving right along, can you tell me the—I need the names of your brothers and sisters, and when they were born. | 31:07 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | It's not in—It's in that thing, I'm pretty sure that I gave you it. | 31:13 |
| Kate Ellis | Oh, this thing. | 31:23 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | His date of birth should be in there. | 31:23 |
| Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 31:25 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I thought she put everything in there. | 31:28 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. She writes about their marriage. | 31:46 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | You want me to see if I can find it? | 32:08 |
| Kate Ellis | Oh, I see. Okay, she writes it out. | 32:08 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I thought she had everybody's— | 32:08 |
| Kate Ellis | So Portia? | 32:08 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. | 32:08 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. Well then—Oh, Edwina? | 32:10 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's my sister. | 32:18 |
| Kate Ellis | Lottie? | 32:18 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | They're my sisters. | 32:18 |
| Kate Ellis | Franklin [indistinct 00:32:20]. | 32:18 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's my brother. | 32:20 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. She wrote it all up here; Portia, [indistinct 00:32:24]. | 32:21 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I thought she wrote everybody's— | 32:23 |
| Kate Ellis | All right. I won't even write it all out. I'll just take this to make a copy. | 32:26 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Good. | 32:27 |
| Kate Ellis | Then I'll write it. Okay. But tell me this, what—Actually, [indistinct 00:32:44], you were third. | 32:28 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Uh-huh. I'm the second. I'm junior. | 33:07 |
| Kate Ellis | No, but I mean you were the third born. | 33:07 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Oh, yeah. | 33:07 |
| Kate Ellis | You're the third child. | 33:07 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's right. | 33:07 |
| Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 33:07 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I was the third, Portia's the middle one. | 33:07 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. Well this won't have this, can you tell me the names of your children and when they were born? | 33:07 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Okay. I don't know. Let me see, my oldest son is George III, and he was born—I'm not sure about that. I think he was—Thelma? She's probably sleep. | 33:12 |
| Kate Ellis | Do you have a general year, about when? | 33:39 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I know—What year? | 33:41 |
| Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 33:46 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. He was born in 1942. | 34:19 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. Where was he born? | 34:19 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Here in Winston-Salem, and then I'm pretty sure it was in January. I think it was in January. I'm not sure, but you— | 34:19 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. That's all right. Winston-Salem. Okay. And then who was the—What about after? | 34:19 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | The next one? | 34:19 |
| Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 34:19 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | He was born— | 34:19 |
| Kate Ellis | What's his name? | 34:24 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | John Charles. | 34:25 |
| Kate Ellis | John Charles. | 34:26 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Charles Thomas. | 34:26 |
| Kate Ellis | Thomas. | 34:30 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | You want to know where he was born, or you just— | 34:30 |
| Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 34:30 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | He was born August the—born in August, but I'm not sure about— | 34:39 |
| Kate Ellis | The date? That's okay, but do you remember the year? | 34:49 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I think he's two years younger than my older one, but I'm not sure about that. I— | 34:56 |
| Kate Ellis | So I'll say 1944. And then was he born in Winston-Salem? | 35:01 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yes. Uh-huh. | 35:08 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. | 35:13 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | All of them were born in Winston-Salem. | 35:13 |
| Kate Ellis | And then— | 35:13 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And all my granddaughters. | 35:13 |
| Kate Ellis | Some are your grandchildren. So she's got the same name as your wife? | 35:17 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I'm pretty sure it is. | 35:19 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. Does she have a different name now? | 35:25 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | You mean her last name? | 35:27 |
| Kate Ellis | The last name? Or the married name? | 35:28 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. Yeah. Kelghati, K-E-L-G-H-A-T-I, I believe. | 35:28 |
| Kate Ellis | Say it again. | 35:28 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I think it's K-E-G-L-G-H-A-T-I, I think. | 35:32 |
| Kate Ellis | That's an Iranian name, isn't it? | 35:36 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. | 35:36 |
| Kate Ellis | K-E-G-L-H-E-T-I? | 35:47 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | K-E-G-L-G-H-E-T-I, I believe. | 35:47 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. And when was she born? In '46? | 35:47 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I think she's two years younger than the next one too, but I'm not sure about that either. | 35:55 |
| Kate Ellis | But she was also born in Winston-Salem? | 36:13 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yes. | 36:15 |
| Kate Ellis | How many grandchildren do you have? | 36:17 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Ten. | 36:19 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. I need to list places where you have lived, and the dates. Now it sounds like you moved around a lot when you were young. | 36:26 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. Unfortunately, I don't remember too much about it. | 36:36 |
| Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 36:39 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I know I was born in Fitzgerald, and lived in Talladega, when my father was in school, before we went to be a minister in Atlanta. And then we moved to Raleigh. And from Raleigh to Winston-Salem. | 36:41 |
| Kate Ellis | And then from Winston-Salem— | 37:16 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well, that's when I went to college, to Talladega for four years, and stayed there two years in between, to work. And then I moved to Washington for the next four years. | 37:18 |
| Kate Ellis | So it was Talladega for college and then back to Winston-Salem? | 37:30 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Uh-huh. | 37:33 |
| Kate Ellis | And then to Washington? | 37:40 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Uh-huh. | 37:40 |
| Kate Ellis | Four years, you said? | 37:41 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Uh-huh. | 37:42 |
| Kate Ellis | What year did you graduate from Talladega? | 37:46 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | 1935. | 37:48 |
| Kate Ellis | And you were at Talladega for four years? | 37:48 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's right. Four years. | 37:54 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. | 37:54 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | '31 to 35. | 37:54 |
| Kate Ellis | So this I can do, the last years. And then from 1937 to 1941, you were at Howard? | 37:59 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | That's right. | 38:06 |
| Kate Ellis | And then you were in the service for four years. | 38:07 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Uh-huh. Well I did an internship first. | 38:27 |
| Kate Ellis | Oh. | 38:28 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | From '45 to '46. | 38:28 |
| Kate Ellis | You mean after the war? After— | 38:28 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | No. Uh-huh, that's wrong. I finished in '41. From '41 to '42, I was doing an internship in Winston-Salem. Then I went in the Army, from '42 to '46. | 38:29 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. And then— | 38:48 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I came down here in '46. | 38:51 |
| Kate Ellis | —And you've been here since? | 38:53 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. | 38:55 |
| Kate Ellis | Well that wasn't so bad. I'm just going to say that—Great. Well that was—And I'll just—It's okay if you don't know that one. And then I need your—The names of the schools you attended. Now since you moved around a lot when you were young, did you have a—What about your high school? Was it one high school that you went to all the time? You weren't [indistinct 00:39:31]— | 38:56 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | It was called Columbian Heights High School at that time, but— | 39:30 |
| Kate Ellis | And that was in Winston-Salem? | 39:34 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Uh-huh. | 39:35 |
| Kate Ellis | So that's when I am going to start. I'm going to start with where you went in high school. | 39:36 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Okay. | 39:39 |
| Kate Ellis | Was that a private school or public? | 39:40 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Public. | 39:41 |
| Kate Ellis | But you—as opposed to parochial school. | 39:43 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Uh-huh. | 39:46 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. It was called—What was it called? | 39:47 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Columbian Heights. | 39:48 |
| Kate Ellis | Columbian Heights, with an N at the end? | 39:49 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Uh-huh. | 39:51 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. And that was in Winston-Salem. | 39:56 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. | 39:57 |
| Kate Ellis | And that would have been—Now you skipped years, so— | 40:02 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. And I finished in midterm too. I finished in January of four— | 40:05 |
| Kate Ellis | Of 30— | 40:09 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | —of— | 40:09 |
| Kate Ellis | —'31. | 40:09 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Yeah. Uh-huh. I just worked until September, and then I went to— | 40:09 |
| Kate Ellis | Well I was going to say, you've [indistinct 00:40:20]. And then Columbian Heights, and then there was Talladega— | 40:25 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. | 40:28 |
| Kate Ellis | —College. | 40:28 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | See I told you, you should have sat up here. You could have been writing much easier. | 40:40 |
| Kate Ellis | What? | 40:45 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I told you, you should have sat up here. You could have been writing much easier. | 40:46 |
| Kate Ellis | Well I have my clipboard, that's all right. | 40:46 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Okay. | 40:47 |
| Kate Ellis | My handwriting is bad, no matter where I write. | 40:48 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | You write with the wrong hand, that's the problem. | 40:51 |
| Kate Ellis | Well, you'd think so. Okay. And your BA, you got in 1935? | 40:57 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Uh-huh. | 41:00 |
| Kate Ellis | And then it was Howard. Howard University Medical School. | 41:03 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Mm-hmm. | 41:09 |
| Kate Ellis | And Washington. I should have been a doctor, because my handwriting is so illegible. MD in 1945. Did you have any schooling after that? | 41:18 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | No. I was in training after that, internship and residency. | 41:29 |
| Kate Ellis | Okay. And then— | 41:41 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | And all kinds of— | 41:41 |
| Kate Ellis | —And this is, I need to list your current and most important previous jobs. So basically, it's the job, the employer and the place, and the date. | 41:41 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | Well let me see if I can give you a print out on that. | 41:53 |
| Kate Ellis | Really? You've got a—What do you have, like a— | 41:56 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I should have— | 41:58 |
| Kate Ellis | —a video kind of? | 41:58 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | No. I have it on the computer. [indistinct 00:42:04]. | 41:58 |
| Kate Ellis | All right. Okay. | 41:58 |
| George Jefferson Thomas, Jr. | I hope this is acting right. The printer's acting right. | 42:04 |
| Kate Ellis | Uh-huh. | 42:18 |
Item Info
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