Allen Brown, Jr., interview recording, 1995 June 18

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Stacey Scales	Okay, we can start off. You can just tell me your name.	0:00
Allen Brown, Jr.	My name is Allen Brown, Jr. I'm 68 years old. I've been living in Memphis 67 years.	0:05
Stacey Scales	And was that since you were born, sir?	0:17
Allen Brown, Jr.	I was born in Moscow, Tennessee and lived there for 11 months.	0:21
Stacey Scales	What attracted your family to come to this area?	0:30
Allen Brown, Jr.	Well, getting away from the farm, that was the major thing. My father, he came to Memphis first and went into the hotel line of work. He was a polder at the Gayoso Hotel, I guess, for 40 years. But after he got here and got a job he sent for my mother, so they started their life here. She became pregnant with me. And back during those days you went back to your home where your mother and various other people who could look out for you, the midwives. My mother was the baby in her family and I was the baby's baby. I was lucky enough not to be born by a midwife. They had a doctor with me and that type of thing. They thought so highly of my mother that they didn't let her come back home until I was 11 months old. They didn't want her to do anything. That's how that happened.	0:34
Stacey Scales	Did they talk about any rough times for them when they were coming, your parents?	2:05
Allen Brown, Jr.	No. It was during the Depression, but most people lived on farms fared pretty well because they raised their own food and that type of thing. Of course, my mother and father was here during most of the Depression. They were buying their farm and they were considered pretty well off Blacks in that particular area during that time. During the Depression, my grandparents and aunts and uncles, they fed us all during the Depression in that sense. All we had to do was get back out to the country and they would load us up with chickens and hams and eggs and butter and first one thing, preserves. Enough to last for two or three months. When we would use that up, just make another trip and get some more and what have you.	2:16
Allen Brown, Jr.	So we had it made pretty well. But other people, I understand they were catching hell in the true sense. Somebody was talking about it the other day, eating fish head and they was talking about what a terrible thing. I told them that was a regular menu among people back during that time, which it was, but fortunate that I didn't have to eat any fish head.	3:23
Stacey Scales	Do you remember your grandparents?	3:56
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yes. Uh-huh.	4:00
Stacey Scales	Did they ever tell you stories about how it was for them growing up, or did they talk about stories?	4:07
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah, I think my great grandmother was born the day the slaves was freed. She used to talk about the master and the mistress and first one thing or another. But it never bolt too much interest to me. I was too busy trying to learn how they would cultivate. I wanted to learn how to plow and chop the cotton in first one thing or another. I visited a farm every year after I got up some size. When I would got up school age, I would go out there and spend my three months every year on the farm and raise havoc out there, plow up whatever they were cultivating and that type of thing. But they wouldn't let me have my way part of the time. And then they would—	4:07
Stacey Scales	What type of crops did they grow?	5:03
Allen Brown, Jr.	Cotton, corn. The cotton was the major crop. And corn was, I guess you would say more or less, a secondary crop. They used it to feed the stock and take in to get ground for meal. They raised sorghum for molasses, as they call them back in those days. My daddy's father, he was a great molasses maker and everything. I can't think of the name of the thing now. He had a cooker. He got a percentage of the molasses that he made from other people and whatnot. So that was plentiful.	5:06
Stacey Scales	Who did they sell their materials to?	6:03
Allen Brown, Jr.	Huh?	6:06
Stacey Scales	Who did they sell their crops to once they—	6:06
Allen Brown, Jr.	Well, they had buyers in the little old town up in Moscow. They would take them there and get the cotton gin. And once it was gin, they would sell most of the seeds and keep some of them for the next year crop. But it would be a buy. I'm pretty sure I—no, I couldn't say for sure, but Memphis was known have the cotton buyers, the famous Front Street called Cotton Row.	6:09
Stacey Scales	Cotton Royal?	6:47
Allen Brown, Jr.	Cotton Row.	6:47
Stacey Scales	Oh, Cotton Row?	6:54
Allen Brown, Jr.	Uh-huh. They had cotton buyers all up and down Front Street, more or less from Beale up to—I guess you would say up to Madison.	6:54
Stacey Scales	And about what year was that that you're talking about?	7:09
Allen Brown, Jr.	Oh, this went on up to World War II. Even after World War II.	7:14
Stacey Scales	How much did you get for a bail of cotton?	7:23
Allen Brown, Jr.	I can't recall. I really can't. All I know is, I can remember bale was 500 pound after it was bale, average out to be around 500 pound. I don't know what cotton was a pound. It probably was maybe in its 30s, or something like that. But after the war, I'm sure it went up. Like most all other materials, it was quite a demand for all raw materials and that type of thing.	7:27
Stacey Scales	Could you describe your community while you were growing up?	8:12
Allen Brown, Jr.	My what?	8:16
Stacey Scales	Could you describe your neighborhood?	8:17
Allen Brown, Jr.	Well, I lived in a moderate neighborhood. We rented. It was, like I said, a pretty moderate area. The block was real short. And the fella that owned the house, he was a postal carrier and he built him a beautiful home during that time and rented the house to us, so we had a real nice house. All this was still during the Depression. He lost this house that he built, so he had to move back to the house that he was renting to us. Then we had to move into a lesser house. It was three rooms and it was 10 of us. My mother ended up sending, let's see, a brother and a sister of mine's out in the country for her sisters to rear, so that left eight of us here in those three rooms. But we made it some kind of way. We never even thought about it. I mean, things like that was quite common among Blacks.	8:19
Stacey Scales	Yeah.	9:49
Allen Brown, Jr.	Excuse me.	9:51
Stacey Scales	Who made the decisions in all of those processes?	9:52
Allen Brown, Jr.	In those what?	9:56
Stacey Scales	In those processes, those decisions about moving from one place to another, or just family decisions?	9:57
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah. Well, you got put out somebody, you just looked for another house. I guess my mother probably did, because my father stayed on the job 12, 14 hours a day down there at the hotel trying to make a living. His living more or less come from tips. I think his salary was $12 a month. But he made, oh, well, maybe four times that much in tips and things like that. That's where the money was, it was in tips. But they didn't pay any salary amount or anything. I remember the salary would just pay the rent and that was all. I do remember them mentioning the $12 thing.	10:04
Stacey Scales	Did he ever talk about being treated unfair while working?	11:00
Allen Brown, Jr.	No. He was well liked and well thought of, because he was more or less in demand for his service. Back during that time they had—what they call them? I can't think. Well, they were salesman. They were traveling salesmen, but they had another name that they called them. They would come into Memphis and they would stop at the Gayoso Hotel. He would set their rooms up for them, whatever wears that they would sell it they would have, what they say, a sample room where they would display these wears. He would set those up for them. They liked him. Brown was a good nigga in so many words. He knew how to do this to perfection in so many words and that type of thing. They tipped him moderately. Every time they'd come to town Brown would have another baby and that type of thing. They thought that was quite a joke and so forth in that sense. Like I said, they took care of Brown and what have you. Yeah, he was useful. They needed him in a sense.	11:05
Stacey Scales	Did your mother work?	12:48
Allen Brown, Jr.	Hmm?	12:48
Stacey Scales	Did your mother work?	12:48
Allen Brown, Jr.	Uh-uh. No, she didn't work until many, many years after that.	12:49
Stacey Scales	What was your first job?	12:56
Allen Brown, Jr.	My first job? Let me see. My first job, I was a paperboy for the Commercial Appeal. I carried the morning daily paper. I had it in a predominant poverty stricken area, which is known here as the LeMoyne Garden. I had one street and a half that had a fairly well-to-do people on it. One of them was McDowell. You had professional peoples, a couple of teachers and maybe a railroad worker or someone similar. And Walker, you had a postal worker and a couple of teachers from across the street over there at the college, LeMoyne College, and that was type of thing.	13:00
Allen Brown, Jr.	But the other section of that Sunday garden was bad as the devil. I have to catch some people in the morning when I throw the paper to try to collect my money. Paper was 25 cents a week. Stop by there on Sunday morning. You'd have, "Paper boy, I'm sorry. My husband got put in jail." "Paperboy, I'm sorry. My husband broke his leg." They had 1,000 different excuses other than having your money or one of those kind of things. You couldn't cut them off. You could, but if you cut them off then you'd make them mad and they sure enough wouldn't pay. You'd just have the gamble and that type of thing. It was quite a feat.	14:11
Allen Brown, Jr.	The station manager, which was White, and never will forget him, named Shirley, he couldn't believe that they were just like that. He decided to go out with me one day to collect. And boy, they wore him out. He was sweating and had red as a beet when those people got to lie to him about they didn't have this quarter for some reason or the other. Yeah, he just shook his head. I was in debt to the Commercial Appeal I guess from about $100. He felt so sorry for me he gave me an all White route.	15:08
Stacey Scales	Oh yes?	15:54
Allen Brown, Jr.	Mm-hmm.	15:54
Stacey Scales	Was that much different?	15:55
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah. I didn't collect. He wouldn't let me collect it, though. All I did was throw it and he put a White carrier to collect on it. It got me out debt.	15:57
Stacey Scales	Oh yeah.	16:10
Allen Brown, Jr.	Uh-huh. Yeah. I'd imagine those people would've probably resented me being Black being a paper boy when they been had White ones.	16:11
Stacey Scales	Did you ever have any experiences or run-ins with them because you were a Black paperboy?	16:25
Allen Brown, Jr.	No, because I never did come in contact with them. See, I'd be out there in the morning at 4:00 and 5:00 before day break and all I did was just throw the paper. I didn't even come in contact with them, period.	16:31
Stacey Scales	Well, how did you feel about this other man collecting for your work?	16:46
Allen Brown, Jr.	Well, it didn't make any difference with me.	16:49
Stacey Scales	No?	16:49
Allen Brown, Jr.	No. As long as I was getting out of debt, that was the main thing. No, it didn't make any difference with me.	16:54
Stacey Scales	And how much were you getting paid?	17:03
Allen Brown, Jr.	You got a dime out of every quarter. $25 out of, what, every $75 I think. Something like that.	17:05
Stacey Scales	Were you also reading the paper when you would get them?	17:18
Allen Brown, Jr.	The funny paper. Well, I didn't have very much interest in them. You'd be so busy trying to fold them and everything so you could throw them you didn't have time to read them. Yeah, it was a job. Throw them and go back home and try to get a little nod in and get ready for school.	17:28
Stacey Scales	Oh yeah? What other type of ways did people get news back then?	17:51
Allen Brown, Jr.	Well, they had radios. Those that were lucky enough to have electricity, they had radios.	17:55
Stacey Scales	Were there any Black newspapers back then?	18:15
Allen Brown, Jr.	They had a Tri-State Defender. I don't know how far back that it went. They might have had one before it, but I can remember the Tri-State Defender. It was a weekly paper.	18:15
Stacey Scales	You said you went to school. Was your school segregated?	18:33
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah, everything was segregated. Yeah, everything.	18:37
Stacey Scales	What school did you go to?	18:42
Allen Brown, Jr.	My first school I went to was Seven Days Adventist. I went a year up there. My next door neighbor talked my mother into sending me to public school, said she was wasting money for me going up there. They teach me the same thing at the public school, so I started going to public school. I went to Larose Elementary School. And then I graduated from there and went on over to Washington, and that was it. I didn't attend college at all. All of my friends I had was three to five years older than I. I was the hippest youngest guy I guess in the neighborhood.	18:46
Stacey Scales	Oh yeah?	19:37
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah. I knew everything for my age, because I ran around with all older people. I never had no young people for friends, nobody my age.	19:41
Stacey Scales	What type of things would you all do for fun?	19:54
Allen Brown, Jr.	Oh, well, they pitched horse shoes, played baseball, football and things like that during their early ages. After we grew up and started shooting pool when I was 13 years old, I fell in love with the pool room, which was a bad thing. I forged a letter from my parents giving me permission to go in the pool room and that type of thing. I practically spent most of my time in the pool room. Of course I didn't have very much luck until the war started. After the war started then they drafted the people that was older than I, which was the pool shark. And then I was the shark after they got there. Yeah, it paid off for me after they got there. Yeah, it worked out fine.	19:56
Stacey Scales	Did you all go to any of the Malco or any other businesses down—	21:17
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah. Yeah. It was the Orpheum. Back during those days it was segregated. You went upstairs high as you could go up and the Warner Brothers down on Main the highest you could go up there. Well, the Malco is on the southwest corner of Main and Beale. And on the south, not quite east corner, but on the southeast side of Main was called Princess. That was another White movie which rats was running around in there big as a football. It was segregated. You go upstairs and then you go in the side to the Orpheum, and the side to the Warners, and the side to the Princess. You go down Beale Street you had the Palace, the Old Daisy. And then they built the New Daisy. I can't think of the theater they had right in that vicinity where the new Daisy is before they built that. But they wasn't segregated, they were built for Blacks in that sense.	21:18
Stacey Scales	Were there any other Black businesses down there that you remember?	23:02
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah, Beale Street. My next door neighbor when I was living in this community over there, where I said was pretty nice—excuse me. This guy was a shoe builder, a repairman. He had a shoe shop on Beale. Then they had a Black hat maker on Beale. They had one or two Black tailors on Beale. They had several Black businessmen up and down Beale.	23:07
Stacey Scales	So is that where the Black did their shopping, or would they go elsewhere?	23:45
Allen Brown, Jr.	Well, they'd go elsewhere as always. They go where it's the cheapest.	23:50
Stacey Scales	And where was that?	23:56
Allen Brown, Jr.	Main street, the street right above it. A few catered on to Beale Street. A lot of them had race pride and catered to the Black businesses and things like that. But mostly people, if they did any large amount of shopping, like say for the beginning of school or Easter or some special occasion, they would go downtown to Main Street to the department store and just buying—ordinarily, they would more or less stick to the neighborhood. They always had what we call dry good stores, little stores with—	24:00
Stacey Scales	[indistinct 00:24:47]?	24:45
Allen Brown, Jr.	Mm-hmm. With little shirts and those little things like that. Suits you'd to have to go downtown, but shirts and underwear and socks and dresses and maybe slips and little things like that.	24:47
Stacey Scales	Would people get together and help each other out during hard times?	25:09
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah, more so than than ever. Especially in the rural section, they had more of a—what you would call it? Oh, I can't think of the word for it. My mother used to tell me about it all the time. When they finished gathering their crop in the fall they would go over and help their neighbor finish theirs. It would work vice versa. Whoever got through would help the other one until everybody got theirs completed. Not everybody in the community, but a select few and whatnot.	25:13
Allen Brown, Jr.	I know you've probably heard if a house or barn burned down everybody would come over and pitch in and help rebuild it and that type of thing. Commune living, I guess is more appropriate for that type of living and whatnot. I remember they didn't have any ice boxes, refrigeration back in those days out in the rural. You'd kill a beef or something like that. The one that killed it, he would keep what he wanted and take the rest of it and carry it out in the neighborhood and pedal it away, give it away rather than let it spoil or something like that. They would do things like that.	26:05
Stacey Scales	Was there ever a controversy where people had to get together and resolve if something happened within in the neighborhood?	27:03
Allen Brown, Jr.	Well, they had a Masonic Lodge, which was the church where they would meet. I think that they would more or less handle those kind of problems through the church or through the lodge.	27:14
Stacey Scales	Are you talking about here in Memphis?	27:36
Allen Brown, Jr.	No. Uh-huh. In the rural section.	27:36
Stacey Scales	Oh okay, the rural.	27:39
Allen Brown, Jr.	These people in Memphis, I don't know. Well, they had lodges. In Memphis, I don't know. City life it's more or less for each his own. It's not a lot of commune type of things. Of course people directly in your neighborhood, they'll give you a handout or something if you need something like that. My mother, well, she was good at it. She gave away every damn thing. My old man, by him working at the hotel, he got a lot of stuff. Like I told you, these people were salesman and they had some of everything; silk stockings, jewelry or whatever. A lot of stuff they would give him, wares and things. Well, he bring it home for her. Well, she had no use for these type of things. She'd give it to the neighbors. My best friend, he was in high school at the time in mechanical drawing. Kept him supplied with the instruments that you needed for that and what have you. Even what we referred to as notebook paper and stuff and everything. Just give it to him and that type of thing, because it was given to him.	27:41
Stacey Scales	Was church mandatory when you were growing up?	29:16
Allen Brown, Jr.	No, not me. Well, I fell in love with it. It was mandatory for me through me. I fell in love with it when I was about three or four years old. My mother had to get me ready every Sunday morning for Sunday school. I went to three service: Sunday school, regular service, and they had a one in the evening called BYPU. It's another name for it now. I went to three services every Sunday when I was a little small kid. My neighbor, it was two ladies lived next door to me, and they embraced me. They went to church and they carried me to church. I would look forward to going every Sunday.	29:19
Allen Brown, Jr.	I don't know why my mother—I guess she was too busy with them kids. Like I said, she was too busy having babies and washing and keeping trying to keep them clean and cooking and first one thing and another to go to church or try to make an effort to go. Her family was very religious. Her mother was, oh, that's all she did was ate and slept and did everything out of the Bible and everything. She was a staunch believer of the Bible. In fact, all of them old people out there that I come in contact in the country. There are always some exception, but most people I was here in the last 10 years I discovered they'd whoop you if you looked at them cross eyed, as they said. They tell you to do something, you frown at them and roll your eyes they'd whoop your butt just like you stole something. You didn't do people. Whatever they told you did it or you got your butt whipped. You didn't hesitate or nothing. One those kind of things. Everything was sinful and everything.	30:19
Allen Brown, Jr.	And then I got here about 10, or maybe longer. I said, you know what? I discovered my granddaddy had more bastards than anybody in the country. He was the deacon, he was a Masonic and he was on the school board. He was one of the biggest shots out there in the damn country. I said, boy, I said, this is a damn shame. I said, here's a son of a gun here was supposed to been so righteous and everything was the biggest slut that I know of, and that type of thing. And would've killed me if I did something wrong. His wife, she smoked a pipe. If she told you to do something and if you didn't do it, I don't care what it was, she'd pick it up and throw it and try to tear your head off with it. That was my father's people.	31:36
Stacey Scales	Did they have juke joints back then?	32:42
Allen Brown, Jr.	No. Uh-huh. Not in the country. Now, they had them in the city. I forgot when probation come in. I was too young to remember that. They used to have bars and things, sell whiskey and what have you. But they put it all together and everything. They had gin, whiskey and things.	32:45
Stacey Scales	Were there places that you weren't allowed to go when you were growing up?	33:17
Allen Brown, Jr.	Oh yeah. Well, they'd always tell you, "You stay out of beer joints." Down on Beale, other than going to the movie you wasn't supposed—They had houses of prostitution the next block over on Beale, on Gayoso, and those kind of things. It was always a lot of places that you wasn't supposed to be going. Even in the pool room underage and what have you. Yeah.	33:22
Stacey Scales	Who were the leaders in the community here in Memphis [indistinct 00:34:02]? Who would you consider the leaders in the community?	33:57
Allen Brown, Jr.	Well, you had several, but a political leader Black was Lieutenant George Lee. He was a Republican. He was about one of the most influential Blacks.	34:09
Stacey Scales	George Lee?	34:23
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah. And then you had one before him, Church, I think he was a Republican, but he was really bad. He was the first Black millionaire in Memphis. I think he got to be a millionaire in the early 1800s, or in the 1800s and what have you. He was a politician, too. In my day Lee was one of the most powerful Black people. Lieutenant George W. Lee. Yeah. He went in World War I and made a lieutenant and come out. What's this insurance company? Atlanta Life or something, I think. He was affiliated with it. And he was an Elk, which is another lodge, similar to the Mason. He was big man in in. Might have been one of the founders of it in Memphis.	34:23
Stacey Scales	Do you remember Mr. Crump?	35:41
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah.	35:43
Stacey Scales	Could you describe how it was to have him here in the city?	35:44
Allen Brown, Jr.	Well, Crump was the absolute boss in his day. He was a little bitty White fella, gray headed. He was small, but he was one of the most powerful mens that I've heard of in the South. I'm trying to think of this dude down there in Louisiana, Kingfish. What was his name? But Crump ran Tennessee practically.	35:50
Stacey Scales	Yeah.	36:32
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah. E.H. Crump.	36:33
Stacey Scales	How did he get to be such a powerful leader?	36:36
Allen Brown, Jr.	I don't know. He was a mayor once. And even after he became mayor he elected all the officers. He had a machine, a political machine. I don't know how he got his foot in the door like that, but some kind of way he did. He elected every officer in West Tennessee. The judges, everybody.	36:42
Stacey Scales	Did he get his way?	37:17
Allen Brown, Jr.	Hmm?	37:18
Stacey Scales	He got his way when he elected them?	37:18
Allen Brown, Jr.	He got a what?	37:18
Stacey Scales	Did he get his way? I mean, did people just let him do that?	37:19
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah. Well, he had control over the people. See, all these people he elected was influential people. The judge, well, if you did something wrong, he'd put your ass in jail or have you killed. It was just a matter, if he had elected the judge the judge did what he said.	37:21
Stacey Scales	Oh, I see.	37:39
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah.	37:40
Stacey Scales	Right.	37:41
Allen Brown, Jr.	And the police chief did what he said. And the policeman did what the chief said do. So the fire chief marshal, fire chief, the firemans did what he said do. He elected every main that had a office; the school board, the superintendent of the school. Through him mostly all the teachers got hired through him indirectly.	37:42
Stacey Scales	So what would he do if someone decided to speak out against him?	38:22
Allen Brown, Jr.	He'd get rid of them. He'd run them out of town. You had people, one or two of them, to try to contest it. This guy, A Phillip Randolph, I think. What is the Pullman car thing?	38:23
Stacey Scales	Oh yes.	38:38
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah. They brought him here to make a speech down at the First Baptist Church on Beale Street. Hell, Crump ran his butt out of town. The Martins, they were pretty prominent Negro and whatnot, he ran them out of town. If you didn't do what he wanted, he'd run your butt out of town.	38:39
Stacey Scales	What did the Martin people do? What did [indistinct 00:39:08]?	39:07
Allen Brown, Jr.	Well, they was doctors and they had a drugstore and whatnot.	39:08
Stacey Scales	Oh yeah?	39:13
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah. Well, they had a hospital, too, but it was just certain ones that he got rid of, the ones that didn't dance by him. They had a baseball stadium.	39:14
Stacey Scales	Oh yeah?	39:25
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah. They had it together, but they tried to buck his machine, some of them. And the ones that did, he ran them up into Chicago. They had to leave here. Yeah. Now, wealthy White people, business people. I had a friend worked at the Tennessee Club, and these were more or less millionaire White people, members of this club. They said when that man walked in there they all stood up and took their hat off.	39:27
Stacey Scales	Really?	40:03
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah. So he just walked around and look at them like they was something dirty.	40:04
Stacey Scales	How can he be so sure of his vote when it came time for elections?	40:12
Allen Brown, Jr.	Well, he had people in farmers and things all out throughout the city and everything. Back in the beginning of it he paid your poll tax. You used to have to pay taxes to vote called poll tax and what have you. He'd have some of your so-called outstanding Blacks who are supposed to be campaigning on the corners and things, campaigning for whoever he had running and what have you.	40:19
Stacey Scales	Do you remember the first time you voted?	41:00
Allen Brown, Jr.	No, it was after I come out of service, because I wasn't old enough until I come out of service in World War II. It had to be at '47 or '48 somewhere. It most likely was at '48. Might have been at '47.	41:04
Stacey Scales	How'd you go about making the decision as to who you were going to vote?	41:24
Allen Brown, Jr.	Well, you had a few Blacks around here that tried to do what was right and whatnot. They didn't advertise or whatnot. You'd go around and ask their advice. I always told you, I had these older friends. These older friends, most of all of my older friends was exposed to higher education. They all more or less went to LeMoyne and things like that. They were supposed to have been, as we would say in a joking way, smart niggas, and what have you. You would get their advice. People back then, that was a great—I guess it wasn't. Well, you could say a gift to the city. That was a great thing, that school over there. It did a lot for that neighborhood.	41:30
Stacey Scales	LeMoyne?	42:29
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah, it was just LeMoyne back during that time, that was before Owen got involved with it. And these people were very more close knitted in a sense than they are now. Any Black person that knew anything, you could ask them and they would be happy to tell you whatever you ask if they knew it. They wouldn't ridicule you, oh, you dumb son of a bitch. I thought you knew that. And that type of thing like people would do nowadays, a lot of them. But they would be happy to explain anything that they could, which was a beautiful thing. I was more or less like the mascot over there at that school. I used to have so many friends over there and run around over there when they would have bonfires for the football practice and things and what have you. I knew a lot of them that was attending. Most of them was from out of town and things like that.	42:31
Allen Brown, Jr.	And like I say, I was just been lucky with people, even today, even with White people. I have a friend, I guess whether you could call him a friend. I know a fella, one of the 10 best top gunsmiths in the United States that's practicing here. And White don't like him. And Blacks definitely don't like him. He won't take time up with nobody. I can walk up to him and start a conversation, whatever he was doing he'll stop and come over there and start talking to me. If you're White and a customer, you walk up there, he'll just ignore you and keep on talking to me. If I don't get out of the way and say, "Let me get out of the way and let you wait on this man," he'll never wait on you. Don't nobody have a kind word to say about it.	43:49
Stacey Scales	Why?	44:51
Allen Brown, Jr.	Because of his attitude. He got a hell of a nasty attitude with people. He's just that way. But like I say, I can go out there. Anytime I go out to the store, I stop in there and holler at him, he'll stop working and come over there and talk with me. You ask somebody else about him, "No."	44:52
Stacey Scales	Did you know any Blacks that could pass for White and get [indistinct 00:45:31]?	45:21
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah. Yeah.	45:21
Stacey Scales	Could you share some of your experiences with that?	45:37
Allen Brown, Jr.	Well, they were all right. Yeah. They all left here. I understand some of them are passing for Whites even today. Yeah.	45:39
Stacey Scales	So they would get more advantages for just being light skinned?	45:54
Allen Brown, Jr.	Well, these you couldn't tell them.	45:59
Stacey Scales	Oh no?	46:01
Allen Brown, Jr.	They were White, but they had that one whatever percentage of blood. But you couldn't look at them and tell it. They had green eyes and that kind of stuff. They were White. There ain't no way in the world you could look at them or inspect them or nothing and tell that they weren't White like that. We got one, he'll call Warren, his daddy was White. He looks just like a White person. I guess he think he's White. He'd hang out with Negros. He's Black. He'd consider himself Black.	46:01
Stacey Scales	Right.	46:40
Allen Brown, Jr.	And things like that and what have you. Met a Black person got Black kids and that type of thing. But he got his little—he load out little son of a gun. Got his—	46:41

Allen Brown, Jr.	—nothing. I was always lucky. Let's see, I had one incident when I was about 16 years old. I was a elevator operator at Goldsmith and I ran the freight elevator, and so it used to be some young White girls worked during the summer break vacation when school was out, and usually the employees would ride this elevator. Well, this particular girl, she would always get on the elevator and bullshit me, she's "Allen, you ought to come out to the house. See I keep a beautiful house and whatnot." And saying, "And my brother works at night." She had dropped all kind of hints and stuff.	0:01
Allen Brown, Jr.	I ignore her and whatnot. I hadn't bother since she just didn't interest me. She looked fine in one thing. So one day she was on the elevator. She rode all the way down to the basement with me. So there's, I don't know what nationality, his guy name was Dagostino, youngster. He got on the elevator, "Take me up to the eighth floor and you better not stop." So I stopped on every floor up to the eighth floor and grabbed him and beat the shit out of him, she followed us all the way up.	0:55
Stacey Scales	So you got in a fight in the elevator?	1:38
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah. Well, opened the door and fought on the eighth floor. He run down the steps, he had a cousin or something worked down in the basement and told him, he said, "I understand you fighting or hit my cousin or something." I said, "Yeah. I said, I tried to kill that son of a bitch, and if you don't like it, I say, get your ass in here and I'll close this door and beat the shit out of you." Right out in the basement you had the elevator door open and he just stood up there and turned around, walked on off. Well, he went and reported me. Well like everything else, the head man was White over us, had a Black dude named Charlie, I can't think Charlie, but he had this, what kind of, this different color skin. He came over there, said, "What's wrong with you? You losing your mind?"	1:41
Allen Brown, Jr.	Said, "You going to get killed up here, the people going to put your ass on a rope and drop you down this elevator shouting blah, blah, this and whatnot." I said, "Well, I ain't going to let no peckerwood talk to me like that and blah, blah that." So naturally I was crazy. I got away with it. Nobody said no more to me about it. They had sent him over there to talk to me and that type of thing. So I left there and I went to Paula's shoe store, was right up the street. One of these friends of mine, he was going to school over to Lamar and he got drafted. He was from up in Kentucky and so he gave me his job. Well, this was a small lady shoe store and so they treated me just like I was one of the salesman in a sense. They were very fond of him and he had a young brother that was almost a genius going to Lamar.	2:42
Stacey Scales	Oh yeah?	3:46
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah. He was left-handed, you know what I mean?	3:46
Stacey Scales	Yes.	3:51
Allen Brown, Jr.	When they drafted him, they almost cried, said they all not a drafter that boy and blah, blah. But anyway, I got the job over there, and so one of the sales, well one of the lady, the lady that was the head sales lady over there selling stockings and pocketbooks, that's all that they could sell. Every payday she would give me her bank book and her money and her husband money to deposit.	3:56
Stacey Scales	At the bank?	4:31
Allen Brown, Jr.	Uh-huh. And I could take it and keep it two or three days or a week and she would never ask me for her bank book. Sometime I would spend some of it and waiting until payday to put it back and then give her, she never ever said a word of anything to me about it. And even the manager, as I went on, the cash, she was, like I said, she was the head honcho over the lady.	4:33
Allen Brown, Jr.	The cash register was up there. I was porter, clean up every night. Well, they'd have money on the floor all up there behind the cashier and everything, wasn't nothing but a few little coins. I'd pick it up, lay it on the counter or lay it on the cash reg, tell them they getting careless and first one thing or another. "Oh, thank you, Allen. Thank you." So after a while, the manager, which was a Jew fella, young fella, he would give me his keys after he opened the safe in the morning with the combination, give me the keys to the other door and I would go back there and make out the deposit for the store every morning and take down the union planners and deposit for them. He trust me with that. They gave me a job to sell shoes to the Blacks.	5:01
Stacey Scales	Okay. You were the Black shoe salesman?	6:01
Allen Brown, Jr.	Huh?	6:03
Stacey Scales	You were the salesman for the Blacks?	6:05
Allen Brown, Jr.	I'm in a White shoe store.	6:06
Stacey Scales	Okay.	6:06
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah. But Black and White comes in there and so they would let me wait on any Black lady if they asked for me. Or White if they would and whatnot. And so I thought I was White. Whatever they did, every morning we would pitch from here to the wall and whoever got the furthest from the wall would have to buy the Cokes. I'd always be in there with them. If I was the furthest, I'd buy the Cokes. I was right with them. And so they accepted me. They played poker in the back. I tried to play poker with them. They broke me two or three times and they made me stay out the game and that type of thing. The womens would make me go get the Cotex and what have you. Every day I'd go, if I wasn't going to the Peabody to pick up the lunch, I'd go somewhere, they'd pick up the lunch or something, they'd buy my lunch and things like that.	6:11
Allen Brown, Jr.	So it's a, I think it was Cliff who, little old place down here in Mississippi, they was going have a picnic that year. Let's see, I guess, let's see, it was about four women's worked there and maybe five or six men. It'd be more than that on Thursdays and Saturday, Thursday, maybe Friday and Saturday. Because we'd have two White fellas, young White fellas, three of them out of colleges. They were going to southwestern, this Rose College now. And this young Black boy I was telling you about, which was going to Lamar.	7:27
Allen Brown, Jr.	But anyway, they was having this picnic. So they said, "Allen, you be down here Sunday morning at such and such time and we going down here to this picnic and whatnot and everything." Say, "We going swimming and everything." So I went home and everything and I told my mother about it. I got me a new outfit, pair of trousers and a shirt and everything. She said, "You out of your mind." I said, "What you mean I'm out of my mind?" Say, "Them people, you can't go down there in Mississippi and get in the water with them. People said they'll hang your Black ass." I said, "No." I said, "They going to look out." She said, "No, you not going." And she insisted I wasn't going. She wouldn't let me go. We didn't have a phone. So my neighbor had a phone and they had her. They called me for about 30 minutes over next door. They give us some excuse, so next time they ask me what happened, I gave him some kind of big lie that some emergency or something came up.	8:18
Stacey Scales	So you didn't go?	9:24
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah. But anyway, this guy, one of them name was Harris Aripkis. I paid his bills for him. So he gave me the money, go down to Lowenstein pay the bill for it. I walked up there to pay this bill. I said, "I'd like to pay this for Mr. Harris Aripkis." That woman looked at me, she say, "Is he White?" I said, "Yeah." She said, "Well, I just want to let you know that we didn't call Black people mister here." Boy, made me so mad. I couldn't think of nothing.	9:28
Stacey Scales	She was asking you was he White so they could know whether to call him.	10:06
Allen Brown, Jr.	They wasn't going to call me mister if it had have been me or if it had to have been a Black person. Said we don't call Blacks mister and missus here. So I say, "He White." I wasn't even thinking. And when she told me that, it made me so mad I was about to explode. Then I said, no. I said, I sure enough will show my ignorance because I don't know nothing to do but call a bunch of mother fuckers and hoes at first one thing or another. And you know that sure enough would've made matters bad.	10:14
Allen Brown, Jr.	So I kept my cool and took the money on back I wasn't paying and carried it on back down to the store. And when I got out there, I gave it back to him. He said, "What happened?" So I told him and he said, "Well, don't worry about it Allen." Said "I'll take care of it." So he called down there and talked to the manager. They got it straightened out some kind of way. That was those two incidents.	10:52
Stacey Scales	About what year was that?	11:21
Allen Brown, Jr.	This was in the '40s. This had to be, let's see, in '43.	11:26
Stacey Scales	Oh yeah. Did you do much traveling outside of Memphis?	11:32
Allen Brown, Jr.	No, no. No, didn't know it was any other place but Memphis. Yeah. So I had, let's see, oh, before I left Goldsmith, we had a place down here on Hunt and Amber, right off of Bill, right across from Henry Park if you ever been there. Because we used to call it there, oh, I can't think of the name of it, but it eventually became a Flamingo Club. But all the young fellas and the girls used to go up there twice a week and dance at night. It was a place to go and dance.	11:39
Allen Brown, Jr.	And the neighborhoods was broke up, like North Memphis, South Memphis and stuff like that. But even within the South Memphis had two or three areas in it, like Florida and Triggs and such and such an area. Mississippi and Walker and Bellwater and Chauffeurs Town and so forth. And each one of those areas, they wasn't particular about somebody else coming into the area courting our girls. The boys, they didn't want you coming out there messing with their girlfriends and thing or whatever.	12:34
Allen Brown, Jr.	But anyway, I went to one of these dances downtown and I went with the war horses, you would just say. These three or four people I went with, I said five or six of them, they were known to be great street fighters off the corner. We went down there and had a nice time. So on the way back they said, let's go in here and drink some beer. And I'm a [indistinct 00:13:52] head in a sense. So I declined that night. I said, "No, I'm going on home." So I went on home. I didn't run well, no way, I was younger and I wasn't no fighter, no way. That wasn't my thing fighting. If I couldn't talk my way out of it, to hell with it. I wasn't no fighter. So I was walking on home and so when I got out there in front of Washington, Booker T Washington School, some dudes crossed the street about five of them and jumped me and cut me everywhere but under the bottom of my foot.	13:25
Allen Brown, Jr.	And so I went over to my oldest and best friend wife house and knocked on her window and she opened the door and let me in and hollered and jumping up and crying, all that bull shit. But anyway, they called the ambulance and carried me to the hospital and they put me in the prison ward. And so they had two—	14:27
Stacey Scales	Why did they do that?	14:57
Allen Brown, Jr.	Well, I was involved in a fight and I was Black. They had two brothers out there, I don't forgot their name, they were policemen. They stood out there at the back door. This was on a Saturday night, I think, and this when all the fights and stuff is at its peak on Saturday nights. And they be out there standing on the emergency room door, waiting on them Blacks to come in there, all cut up and everything and find out what happened and put you under arrest in the prison ward.	14:59
Allen Brown, Jr.	But anyway, they pushed me on in there and gave me, I guess some form of first aid or something and sent me on upstairs to the prison ward. So here comes about an hour later, here comes some doctor in there half asleep, "God dammit, I'm tired of you niggas coming in here this time of night waking me up." And blah, blah this and everything. Pull off my bandage off and had a cut in the side and stuck them scissors in there and scraped my rib and everything and left the wounds uncovered and went on. So the next morning they sent somebody in there, they cleaned me up and took me downstairs and sewed them up. And so it was about, I think about four of us in there. So they had one fella in there, somebody had busted his head and he worked for Waller Brothers.	15:42
Allen Brown, Jr.	Waller Brothers was repair, they formed the ambulance service here and they had a automobile or some kind of repair service here pertaining to automobiles, ambulances or something. But anyway, this dude worked for him and at that time one of the laundries I think was White Roll. They had a Black woman, Aunt Jemima with the bandana and she was big old sign up there on a washing bowl rubbing and when she bend over her dress would go up and show her slip, one of them kind of thing. So this officer come up there with these two officers interviewing him about what happened. So he told them, he was over there working and his White fella, one of his coworkers, walked over there and asked him about the sign, asked him what he thought about it. He said, "I don't think nothing about it." Said, "Hell anyway." So I think I'm good as the next man.	16:46
Allen Brown, Jr.	And Richard Price said he shouldn't have done that. That White man pulled his pistol out and say, "You a goddamn liar." Said, "If you said again I'll shoot you right here in this damn bed." Say, "Ain't no nigga good as a White man." Boy, he foaming at the mouth and talked about us like I don't know what.	18:02
Allen Brown, Jr.	But anyway, he went on back downstairs after he got through cussing us out the first one thing and another. So the White dude that asked him about that took one of the monkey wrenches, they hit this Negro in the head when he told him that. It fractured his skull.	18:29
Stacey Scales	Over the [indistinct 00:18:56] half?	18:55
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah, over that side. When he told that man, he thought he was good as it, the next man, he took that wrench and busted his skull. And so another was up there, his girlfriend had stabbed him two or three times with a ice pick. And every time a woman would come up there, I'd get up under the bed. Yeah, I made jokes about it and things like that. But I was real young then, I wasn't serious about a [indistinct 00:19:32] thing at that time. But when I came over here, then that's when the manure hit the fan. My friend over there, Reverend, I mean Bishop Mason's son had bought this out next door and he and I were very good friends. So I used to come over there and visit him. So he said, "Well, why don't you buy that house over there next door?" I said, "Is it for sale?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Four spinsters live over there." I said, "They trying they best to get rid of it."	18:58
Stacey Scales	When was this?	20:05
Allen Brown, Jr.	Huh?	20:05
Stacey Scales	When did this take place?	20:08
Allen Brown, Jr.	This was in, I think in '68.	20:09
Stacey Scales	Okay.	20:14
Allen Brown, Jr.	'68 or '58. I don't, I have to ask her. Shoot, it might have been '58. About maybe '58. Wait a minute. '58. Yeah, '58. And I said, "Well, I sure would like to see it." He said, "Well, I'll take you over there and they'll show it to you." So they did. So I went back and talked to her. We were staying out in Castea house. This is one of the, about the third or fourth houses community that they didn't built for GIs, for this thing where they, I don't know how you would say it, but they were inexpensive home. You could get them for $100 down and $40 a month for the GIs, FHA loan and that type of thing. And so, oh, I was happy as a lot with it. It was a long ways from where I come from, that three room house with about six, seven of us in it and everything.	20:20
Allen Brown, Jr.	This was four rooms and hardwood floors and central heat and hot and cold running water and all that type of thing. Man, I was sure enough uptown then. And so the guy next door come over there, I had put up a fence and he had a bunch of little chickens and they come over, get through the thing and come over next door. And I had a couple of hunting dogs, some Beagles. And I had one German Shepherd mixed with Chow. And every evening when I'd come home, I'd find a dead chicken. So I took and beat that German Shepherd with a two by one plank. And boy, after that I didn't find no more dead chickens. He'd kill another dog go in the yard if he even looked at a chicken. But I told her, I said, "You know what, we had a 30 year mortgage, I say in 30 years" I said, "They going to slum this like they did to Lamar Garden." I said, "We better get away from over here cause this thing going rot down in 30 years."	21:36
Allen Brown, Jr.	And so we talked about it. She agreed with me and I told her about this place of, she agreed we'd come over here and buy this place. So we did. We came over here and got together, made down payment on it and everything. And the sisters wanted to stay over here about, I guess three months or something, till they could find them a place. So they rented it for three months. As soon as we moved in here, hell broke loose. They start shooting in the window and every Sunday they park over there across the street, put a rebel flag across the hood of the car and lay one of them old muskets on top of it and have signs that this neighborhood is White. What is it? Not for sale for Blacks or something or Colored or some shit. Was like that.	22:43
Stacey Scales	So what did the Black people in the community do when they would do that?	23:43
Allen Brown, Jr.	Hmm?	23:48
Stacey Scales	What did the Black people in the neighborhood, what would they do?	23:48
Allen Brown, Jr.	What I did there, he was the only one.	23:52
Stacey Scales	Oh, okay.	23:54
Allen Brown, Jr.	I made the second one.	23:56
Stacey Scales	Right.	23:56
Allen Brown, Jr.	See. And so I imagine they was under the impression by him being the only one, he get tired and leave out. But when I come in that upset them. And that's when they start rebelling. And so like I say, they start shooting up there around the front door over there and those two windows and things like that. And I said, "Well, I didn't force myself into this house. I paid my honest money down on it. And those women sold this house to me in good faith and everything. And I'm not going to let them peckerwoods run me away." I said, "I went over there on Okinawa and fought for democracy." I said, "I'm going to dig me a foxhole out there on my lawn and fight for it if necessary right here."	24:00
Allen Brown, Jr.	That what I said to myself, this was a front porch, that right here was a French door that it was screened in from knee high up there. So I got me a card table and set it up out there and put my guns on top of it and got ready for them. I said, "Well, I know I got one set of encyclopedia that any son of a gun in God's world can understand it." Boom, boom.	24:54
Allen Brown, Jr.	So I was sitting up there one night and two youngsters come up there. One of them got come to the end of the driveway and stopped, the other one walked on up. So when he got up there to the steps, I opened the door and throw the 357 on him and said, "What you want?" He said, "Do so and so and so live here?" I said, "You know damn well don't know so and so live here." I said, "Put your hand on top of your head." And I told her, I said, "Go call the police." So he said, no, I just said, "Put your hand up." He said, "Can I put my hand down? I'm getting tired." I said, "Yeah, you can put them down there if you don't mind getting shot." So he kept them. And so the police drove up out there and in the meantime I told her, I said, "Mack," I said, "bring my shotgun."	25:33
Allen Brown, Jr.	She brought my shotgun. I gave her the pistol, told her to take the pistol and put it in there on the table. So when the police got here, the guy shined the light up there in my face and walked on up there. He said, "What's going on here?" I said, "I don't know." I said, "That's why I called you." I said, "I caught this fella here hanging around my house." And I said, "There's another one was over there, hid behind those hedges." I said, "When he saw me get the ups on this fella, he broke and ran." Well the guy over next door, he saw him and he called himself chasing him, but he lost him. So he told the guy, he grabbed him in the back of his pants and carried him on down to the car, had him put his hand on.	26:32
Allen Brown, Jr.	So his partner said, "What kind of gun was that he had?" He said, "Oh, he just had an old shotgun." I say to myself, I did right. See a Black dude, you can associate him with a razor and a shotgun. Now a 357 or any kind of good pistol, uh-huh, you understand what I'm saying?	27:25
Stacey Scales	So what if you can say you had a knife and a 357?	27:49
Allen Brown, Jr.	No, I'd have been a smart nigga. I'd have been wrong or something. Yeah. See, they'll give you a razor or a shotgun. But once you leave them, you out of your field of weaponry.	27:54
Stacey Scales	Oh yeah.	28:09
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah. So that was acceptable. But it was one of the best shotguns that money could buy [indistinct 00:28:22]. It was a Brown and automatic. He just saw it was a shotgun and was satisfied. Which was fine with me and that type of thing. So they put the word out to leave that nigga alone. Say he's crazy. That's the way you are when you speak up for yourself or try to defend yourself, you are crazy. See, somebody get hurt if you go over there. So the FBI came out here a couple of days and they had looked up there. I told them, show them where they were shooting. They looked out the window, said, "I don't know what they were. Could have been out here shooting up here and everything." Said, "Ain't no field or nothing over there." They was standing in there looking out the window.	28:13
Allen Brown, Jr.	I looked out there with them. I said, "No, it sure isn't." I said, "But I'll tell you one thing." I said, "If they come back again," I said, "I'm going to have them out there on that lawn for you." "Now wait a minute, wait a minute." He said, "Now you living out here in this all White area and say you outnumbered and everything." Said, "They'll say you shot him out there in the street and you'll be in a world of trouble." Said, "They'll drag him out there in the street and say you shot him in the street." I said, "Mister, if I shoot him on my lawn," I said, "ain't nobody going to drag him in the street." I said, "I'm going to stack them up there like cordwood for you." See then I shown up was crazy there see. And so I didn't have no more trouble with them.	29:07
Stacey Scales	No. So how would the police respond to you when you would say things like that?	29:53
Allen Brown, Jr.	Well, like I say, I'm a crazy nigga. Leave me alone, I'm crazy. I'll hurt somebody. I'll hurt you. Leave him alone, he crazy. And that type of thing.	29:58
Stacey Scales	So when did the neighborhood start to change into [indistinct 00:30:19]	30:16
Allen Brown, Jr.	Well, it didn't take no time after that. Then right after that. Well during that time, right during that time of Reverend Norris where the right down in the next block, he moved in. Then the house down there on the corner, the house right next to the one, Mason's house next door, Clarence Harris moved there. They burned a cross in his yard time he moved there. But they didn't raise no saying of nothing after that.	30:19
Stacey Scales	So was that the Ku Klux Klan?	30:53
Allen Brown, Jr.	Well, you would say, I never could say whether it was, because I never saw them about that cross business. These youngsters will do things and just to frighten you, you can't say it was who you know or anything.	30:58
Stacey Scales	So back during the '40s, '30s, '40s and '50s, were there places that you wouldn't go?	31:23
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah, you wouldn't go to any of them that you wasn't supposed to go that was for White only.	31:31
Stacey Scales	Or rough side of town that you wouldn't go?	31:37
Allen Brown, Jr.	Huh?	31:39
Stacey Scales	Was there any rough places that you wouldn't go or places your parents suggested you not go?	31:41
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah. Well, I mean they could be Black places. There were places that you had to go in through, in White communities going backwards and forth to schooling. The Whites would chase you and first one thing or another. The youngsters, throw rocks at you. And first one thing, another. That was considered kind of mine in a sense.	31:47
Stacey Scales	At what point did you feel like you went from boyhood to manhood?	32:18
Allen Brown, Jr.	I guess when I moved out here, that really sobered me up about the way people thought in that sense. Because like I say, I never had no problems. I never was around them to amount to anything. Looked like I always was kind of protected from them. See, I had gotten on at the post office and that was a government job. So that was a sort of cloak over me, a protection. It was segregated, you had a segregated restroom. I think we used the same fountain I believe, but we used different restroom and different lockers. But that didn't last no time before they tore those barriers down.	32:25
Stacey Scales	How did you feel when they had things separated like that?	33:28
Allen Brown, Jr.	I never really gave it too much of a thought in that sense. Because I never really wanted to go nowhere where I wasn't wanted. I didn't have any curiosity about it. And usually I couldn't afford it probably no way. Like the Peabody, I've been up there 100 times since it is been desegregated and everything. I laugh about it almost every time I go up there. I say, I know Crump is turning over in his grave or kicking the top off the casket almost about it. But it ain't nothing. The thing is, I guess because they deny you, you can't go here and that, it isn't anything. It was the Black suffered more out of integration than anything else. He got his rights in a sense but all the eateries and things like that, he lost in that issue. Because the White, he couldn't compete against the White eateries. Dinettes and what have you.	33:28
Stacey Scales	Do you know the names of some of those, remember the names of some of those here?	34:46
Allen Brown, Jr.	Hmm?	34:48
Stacey Scales	Do you remember any of the names of some of those businesses that faded out?	34:51
Allen Brown, Jr.	Oh shoot. Oh, I could. But I mean it's—	34:57
Stacey Scales	Or any type of entertainment places that Blacks have been that?	35:13
Allen Brown, Jr.	Well, they had Bessie's, Tony's, Davidson. These were your top Black combination of eateries and I guess you could say bars or something. They served food and beer, they didn't have no alcohol bars, period. Didn't at that time, unless it was a private club. I don't think, I don't know if any Blacks had any private club at that time that was serving over the bar. Harley and Carl Pepper.	35:21
Stacey Scales	How did you get around town?	36:16
Allen Brown, Jr.	Oh boy. Well, after the war, everybody went car crazy.	36:19
Stacey Scales	Did you buy a car?	36:24
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah.	36:24
Stacey Scales	What type of car did you have?	36:24
Allen Brown, Jr.	My wife had a car. She had a, I think it was a '49 Chevy. Yeah, we had a '49 Chevy and I wrecked it and got another one. Then the next car we got was a '51 Chevy. A new '51 Chevy Power Glide.	36:30
Stacey Scales	Power Glide?	36:53
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah. That was on kind of this automatic transmission they had in it. Then after that I bought a '54 88-automobile, which was the best car I had.	36:57
Stacey Scales	Did most people own cars?	37:13
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah. Quite a few. Yeah, quite a few people had cars or started buying cars. These veterans.	37:16
Stacey Scales	Oh yeah. Yeah. Did most people own a home?	37:27
Allen Brown, Jr.	No, they started buying them, yeah. They start building these communities. They started out there with the Walker Homes and I think the next one was, I believe was Eliston, I'm not for sure. And then I can't think of this one right south of Eliston, and seemed like the ones out in Castigo was the next one. And then they built them out there in the mound on Supreme and that other street. But these were just really small homes. I asked the contractor about them, at the time it couldn't even have a place for a deep freezer or something if you wanted, the kitchen would be so small or something.	37:32
Allen Brown, Jr.	So he told me, after running a survey, he found out that that's all the population could afford. Black population, everything said, you didn't have nobody making no money but the people working at International Harvest Firestone and a few teachers and postal workers, other than that wasn't no Blacks make enough money to buy nothing. But they soon dropped that. Then they built a more expensive homes called Lakeview, which were really a nice homes. Three bedrooms and dining room and den and living room and that type of thing. Then they built another ones over here, Orchid Homes.	38:33
Stacey Scales	Did they have any Black construction companies here? People that would build houses?	39:29
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah, I think Sawyer had one. Chew Sawyer, I think he was building this Riverside, the one out in Riverside, this first one that they had.	39:37
Stacey Scales	Was the name of their company, Sawyer Construction?	39:50
Allen Brown, Jr.	He had some kind of realty company, I don't know what it was, but he was a very permanent Black dude. He come from rags to richness. He died fairly, I guess Chew was maybe in his 50s, latter 50s. He might have been 60 years old when he died out. Probably wasn't. But he was doing a zillion, he was really did beautiful from a market man to a big real estate tycoon.	39:55
Stacey Scales	Where was he located?	40:29
Allen Brown, Jr.	His office was down there on Vance. Vance and had one at Vance and Four and then he had one I think in the Tri-State Bank down on Bill. Right east of 4th Street. No, was that? No, no, no. I take that back. No, not Tri-State, he had another one at Vance. They had a, I'm trying to think of this company. It was like a Federal Loan, what would you call it? These Federal Loan—	40:32
Stacey Scales	Credit Union?	41:21
Allen Brown, Jr.	No, it's not a Credit Union. You heard of, well you not a [indistinct 00:41:26] leader federalist is one. It's a federal loan and saving company.	41:22
Stacey Scales	Oh, okay.	41:30
Allen Brown, Jr.	It's a few of them. We got one here that's leading, might have more than one, but one been here a long time. But Sawyer, they opened up a Black one here and it was doing pretty good at the time. But as usual, Black is a peculiar person. Like I say he was, and I'm guilty of it too, he was busy catering to departing this money with Whitey. And the reason I was guilty of it, I had went down to Tri-State once to cash a check or something. They put me through so much of a ritual or something, I fell out with them. And then when I got ready to buy this house, I went down there for them to finance it for me. And they told me if I had 50% of it, they'd be happy to finance the other 50%. So what little $2 we had in Tri-State, we drew it out and said a hell with them, and that's that.	41:35
Allen Brown, Jr.	But this fellow Chew, I forget the name of this company, but he told me that day I went over, ended up going to him. He said, "Well, yeah, you end up coming to me." I had been to every White, the White companies, they had gotten together, they wouldn't finance nothing. This was taboo for them. So he said, "Now you end up coming here." Said, "Well," said "We out of money for home loan." Said "Blacks got $21 million on deposit and White banks, but now you all had all that money in deposit and our thing," said, "that wouldn't be no problem with it." I said, "I guess not." He said, "But I would say, I think I can find somebody to finance your house." He got Mammoth Life Insurance Company. Which headquarters in Louisville of financing.	42:48
Stacey Scales	Was that a Black?	43:46
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah, it's a Black insurance company. And he charged me a lucrative fee to do that. But I didn't—more or less have no choice. So I went on, paid the fee. They wouldn't financed but for 15 years, which was a blessing in disguise. And so that was that.	43:46
Stacey Scales	Did most Blacks try get a loan from that company?	44:06
Allen Brown, Jr.	Oh sure. I'm sure some of them did. It's always, it depends on the education that a Black would have. How well off mentally and financially he is. You have to be in a certain level to think like that. First thing we always think about them ripping you off. They had a Black [indistinct 00:44:48]. What was the—	44:16
Stacey Scales	I need to change my tape.	44:48

Allen Brown, Jr.	Yes, saving bank back in, what was it? In the '20s and it was bank robbed, and so that left a bitter pill in the Black's mind, the old heads. And they passed, they talked about it for years and years and I guess the youngsters around them heard it and they didn't have no confidence. Dr. Walker started this Tri-State up and they've been doing beautiful with it in a sense. Another thing I disliked about it, whatever you had in it, every son of a gun that wanted to know would have access to finding out. All they had to do was ask one of their employees down there, they'd tell them that kind of crap.	0:01
Stacey Scales	So they would tell private business?	1:05
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah, them sisters and whatnot. It's pitiful to say it, but that's the way it was. Jesse Turner was the president, which was a staunch NAACP man and he was a CPA person and everything. And he ran that bank with an iron fist. And the bank did wonders, but he died and he had a son that inherited his position. And I got a chance to meet that boy down to the post office, he was down there when he was on a vacation. I mean, yeah, summer vacation from school. And he was asking me about the bank and I told him, just like I'm telling you about it, I say. He made a few mental notes. And so after he became president of the bank, I say, "I'm going down there and see this dude." So I did, I walked in there and he was busy.	1:06
Allen Brown, Jr.	The lady, his secretary told me he was in a business meeting and he'd be out in a certain time. I told her I'd be back in another hour, so she gave me an appointment. And sure enough, when I went back he received me just beautiful. He's a young person, carried me in his office and we sit down and had a nice conversation pertaining to the bank and everything. He said, "Well, you ready to make your deposit now?" I said, "No, not quite yet." But they have really come a long ways, he's doing a beautiful job. Yeah, they have expanded. Yes, they're doing fine.	2:11
Stacey Scales	Were there other Black banks?	3:00
Allen Brown, Jr.	No.	3:00
Stacey Scales	That was just the one?	3:00
Allen Brown, Jr.	This is the only one, yeah.	3:09
Stacey Scales	So, the Blacks couldn't get loans from White banks and they didn't trust the Black banks. What would they do?	3:09
Allen Brown, Jr.	They did without it. Yeah, they did without it. But usually business is business. If you could afford to get a loan, they would let you have a loan. See, in my particular case, this was what they call a transit neighborhood and they wasn't financing no homes in this neighborhood for Blacks. None of the White real estates or the banks, they wouldn't finance no home. I was doing business with this place, Leader Federal. I was buying that other home from them, eight years of perfect credit with them.	3:17
Allen Brown, Jr.	I called them up to finance this house, they said they'd be happy to do it, I never did hear from them. I called them, say, "Oh, you're living in a transitional area." I didn't even know what he was talking about with my limited education. I said, "What is that?" He said, "Well, it's a neighborhood that they haven't decided what it's going be, Black or White. When it becomes whatever, you let me know and I'll be happy to finance it." I hung up, I said, "The hell with Leader Federal." I didn't do no more business with them in that sense.	4:07
Stacey Scales	What other areas were considered transitional areas or transit areas? Were there other areas that were considered that?	4:47
Allen Brown, Jr.	Well, no. This was the one that was drawing all the attention, because the homeowners were resisting it. But I always said—this was right in the beginning of integration, they were getting ready for it. I said, "Now, they don't know that the White father is really looking out for these dumb pecker woods over here." What they used to do, use the comparison to track system. "All y'all live on that side of the track, y'all go to this school. All you live on this side of the track, you go to that school.	4:55
Allen Brown, Jr.	All on this side of the track wasn't nothing but White, they go to this school. All on this side were Black, they go to this side of school." But the school system was fixed up so where this place was caught in a in-between deal. It wasn't no out for them, they were going to have to go to a Black school. The downtown city fathers was White, they knew what was happening and they actually wanted it to happen that way. That's my personal belief, because if they didn't, I wouldn't be here today. I'm self evidence.	5:38
Allen Brown, Jr.	People, you know can look at that man any way you want to, but that man is absolute power because what? That man has the wealth and wealth is absolute power. And he's going to have it as long as he have wealth. We can holler, we can vote, we can do whatever we want, but until we could control wealth, we are not going to be free. We'll have some form of tokenism. And what I mean, things are so—like I tell it now, Black people and poor White people now, is no need for them. They had nothing but—shit, what would you call it? Nothing but trouble.	6:27
Allen Brown, Jr.	Hell, everything is automation and everything now, they don't need them in the fields, they got rid of them out there. They don't need them in Detroit anymore. They don't need them hardly anywhere. And all they're doing is bitching about wages and things. So he said, "I don't need this shit, let's get rid of it and save face with the rest of the world." He just can't push y'all up in a pile with some bulldozer and mow you down or drop a bomb on you, so he gets rid of your through narcotics. Feature this stuff and let you kill up each other.	7:30
Stacey Scales	Could you describe how holidays were, coming up?	8:21
Allen Brown, Jr.	Holidays?	8:25
Stacey Scales	Yes, and your family.	8:26
Allen Brown, Jr.	Well, the only reason I enjoyed them was the ones that the school recognized and I didn't have to go to school that day. Up until recently when I was working, I enjoyed them because I didn't have to go to work. Yeah, that's about—	8:29
Stacey Scales	Family get together on those days?	8:50
Allen Brown, Jr.	No, my family ain't nothing but a big chaos. Yeah, I told you it was his was ten of us, there's nine of us living. I got seven sisters and I had two brothers, one of the boys died and I'm the oldest of all. And I used to tell all my sisters, I think that's about—let's see, I got one with six, one with five, probably two with five or six or something, three rather. Got one with two, two with two, three with two. And of course there's a lot and they just like anything, they got these grandchildren, no discipline, no nothing. They just growing up like weeds, broken marriages and everything. Married too young and everything. Going to high school, that was it, the hell with it. Come up pregnant every other week, shit. No get together. Hard as I worked and everything to get my shit together and bring them animals over here and let them tear this up.	8:52
Stacey Scales	What was it back during your time that made it different than them?	10:14
Allen Brown, Jr.	Well, kids was disciplined. They don't have any discipline. Any adult could discipline a kid, but now you get put in jail for disciplining a kid. The parents will have you jailed or kill you and that type of thing.	10:21
Stacey Scales	You got disciplined by other people outside of your family.	10:40
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah, any adult in the community could whoop your butt if you did something wrong and tell your parents and you got another whipping. That was the difference. Yes, teachers could whip you and send you a message home and you got another one when you got home. If you was out there in the street, playing over there in some neighbor's yard playing, you did something wrong, she would whip you and then send word down there to your mama or daddy, you got another whipping when you got home.	10:45
Stacey Scales	Do you remember some of your teachers? Do you remember your teachers?	11:22
Allen Brown, Jr.	Some of them, yeah.	11:26
Stacey Scales	Do you remember them doing that to you?	11:27
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah, I remember them whipping me. They didn't have to send no message home because like I said, I wasn't no fool. I didn't get too many of them, I was obedient. Yeah, they take that leather strap and beat your hand until it almost swoll up.	11:30
Stacey Scales	We'd get spanked with a strap.	11:53
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah. Every once in a while somebody used a rule, a foot long rule.	11:54
Stacey Scales	Did you ever go see the Memphis Red Sox play in the Negro League?	12:02
Allen Brown, Jr.	I'm trying to think. I might have once, but sports are not my bag. Football, baseball, basketball.	12:09
Stacey Scales	Did you ever listen to the Joe Lewis fight?	12:21
Allen Brown, Jr.	I listened to it once, that was back in the '30s. We didn't even have electricity and the neighbors next door did. We had a radio but we didn't have electric light, so they let us plug it in over at their house. We set it out between the house and listened to the fight. I don't know why but I never got involved in that type of thing. Like I say, I got there in the pool room. It was good and it was bad, mostly it was bad. Like anything else, you learn mostly the bad parts about it. I learned one of the best things in the world. I come in contact with dope up there at a early age and tried it and disliked it time I tried it and discarded it for life and that type of thing. But I wasn't interested in nothing but pool for that time.	12:22
Allen Brown, Jr.	After I got to the point where I could select a sport, I got involved in fishing. And like anything else, I did it too often in a sense. Then I got introduced into hunting and then I couldn't afford the two hobbies, so I gave up fishing and started hunting. And so I started rabbit hunting, I went over in Arkansas and I hunted rabbits, I guess for 25 years over there. Nothing but swamp rabbit and had a ball every Saturday or Sunday, Christmas, new year, holiday, whatever holiday during rabbit season, I was out there in the woods. And then I got introduced into big game hunting by the late Bishop Joe Patterson. And then I started big game hunting and I did that up until about two years ago.	13:32
Stacey Scales	When did you start?	14:37
Allen Brown, Jr.	I started in '70. I can't think of the exact year in '70, but it was in the '70s. And that's my love, that's something I could do every day if I could afford it, hunt big game.	14:39
Stacey Scales	You kept guns in your house for a while, since the '50s.	14:58
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah, I always believed in, like I say, that's my international set of encyclopedia. Every son of a gun can understand boom, boom. Yeah.	15:04
Stacey Scales	Did most Blacks around here defend themselves like you?	15:17
Allen Brown, Jr.	No. Like I tell them, "All of y'all running around there with your fists balled up and talking about you ain't going to do this, don't even own a decent sling shot." How you going to put ass up or match up against them tanks and planes and helicopters and all that kind of stuff? Yeah, you go out to the rifle range, you might see one Black out there and that type of thing.	15:20
Stacey Scales	That was about the same in the '50s, would you say, '40s?	15:51
Allen Brown, Jr.	Huh?	15:54
Stacey Scales	Was that the same? Would that apply to the '40s and '50s, too?	15:55
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah, apply. Most then, it's the same now. You ain't going to find none of y'all out there now. Yeah, they do talk that talk, but they ain't going to, they couldn't. Like I said, you don't own a decent slingshot.	16:00
Stacey Scales	Did Blacks back then talk about superstitions and things like that and hate?	16:22
Allen Brown, Jr.	Well, hate in a sense, but I didn't come in contact with this group of superstition. Most of the people, I would consider themselves hip, if you are familiar with that terminology, that I was around. Like I say, I had the opportunity to have a lot of friends that went to college and the other group was the ones that hung around in the pool room. So they were the hip group too, in that sense. And the ones that the college had too much sense for that type of thing.	16:27
Stacey Scales	The older people wouldn't talk about it?	17:08
Allen Brown, Jr.	No, I never ran into anybody that was tied up into that. No.	17:11
Stacey Scales	Yeah, I've heard some stories about that.	17:21
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah, I have too, but not to amount to nothing. Not on no kind of major level or nothing like that. I've heard one or two lies about it, but it wouldn't amount to nothing.	17:24
Stacey Scales	Were there any Black leaders in this local community or people that you would consider a leader, or were you that leader?	17:39
Allen Brown, Jr.	Well, I wouldn't consider myself no leader. Like I say, I was too busy trying to take care of Little Willie. He was a very outspoken dude and Reverend Knowles now, I admire him. Now for a minister, he was quite a character.	17:51
Stacey Scales	Oh yeah.	18:09
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah, he didn't let no grass grow under his feet at all.	18:11
Stacey Scales	How did he address the situation?	18:16
Allen Brown, Jr.	By giving them a piece of his mind and just standing up to them. Yeah, he'd let them know he wasn't thinking about them, wasn't scared of them, or wasn't going nowhere or anything.	18:19
Stacey Scales	Would they call him uppity or something like that?	18:41
Allen Brown, Jr.	They probably did. I just didn't, more or less come in contact with them, what that little private opinion was in that sense. Because at that time I was working at night and working six days a week and that type of thing. I didn't have time for nothing in that sense.	18:41
Stacey Scales	Okay. Well, I don't have any more questions. If you have something you'd like to add that you think is important about this, you could share it.	19:15
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah. Both of my problems almost came from my coworkers in a sense. You was a fool for buying out there and all that kind of stuff and everything. Well, there wasn't nowhere else to buy at that time. It wasn't my intentions to be what they would say a blockbuster. That was the furthest thing, I was just an innocent victim. But I sure in the hell wasn't going to mess up my little $1,500 down payment that I had sweated for, give it away. In that sense, that's what would have happened if I had to pull up roots and ran. Oh, I wasn't doing nothing illegal or anything.	19:23
Stacey Scales	Thanks a lot, enjoyed talking to you.	20:11
Allen Brown, Jr.	Yeah, get you a good slingshot now.	20:14

Item Info

Title:

Allen Brown, Jr., interview recording, 1995 June 18

Date:

June 18, 1995

Creator:

Brown, Allen, Jr.

Contributor:

Scales, Mausiki Stacey

Description:

Name: Allen Brown, Jr.; Date of birth: 1926-06-12; Place of birth: Moscoe, TN; Occupation(s): agriculture; sales; day laborer; Residence: Memphis, TN
Informant ID: 829; Interviewed by: Stacey Scales.

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Behind the Veil

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

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

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behindtheveil
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Allen Brown, Jr., interview recording, 1995 June 18

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1. Allen Brown, Jr., administrative file, 1995

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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