Ruth Boyd interview recording, 1996 October 22

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Serena Rhodie	How did your family come to live in Durham?	0:08
Ruth Spalding Boyd	My father worked for North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, and he was the district manager at Savannah, Georgia. And the company moved him to Durham in 1925, and my mother and my brother from Savannah, Georgia. And the next year I was born.	0:11
Serena Rhodie	Okay. Okay, when were you born?	0:35
Ruth Spalding Boyd	October the twenty-ninth, 1926.	0:37
Serena Rhodie	Okay. And where were you born?	0:38
Ruth Spalding Boyd	1003 Federal Street.	0:38
Serena Rhodie	Okay.	0:47
Ruth Spalding Boyd	And now they call it Old Federal, where I was born.	0:48
Serena Rhodie	What's your educational background?	0:59
Ruth Spalding Boyd	I went to elementary school. In fact, all of my education was right in Durham, North Carolina. College for Negroes. And I graduated, North Carolina College at Durham. And I got a master's degree in education in 1964. That was my latest, last degree.	1:01
Serena Rhodie	What was your focus of study?	1:30
Ruth Spalding Boyd	My major in college was home economics and I taught five years in home economics. And then I changed to elementary education in 1950—well, 1953, I began teaching elementary education and I taught that second and third grade for twenty-four years in Durham.	1:32
Serena Rhodie	What made you decide to change, study that?	2:06
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Well, when I was in home economics, there were very few home economic teachers and I figured that none of them would be retiring soon. So I had better change my major so I could get a job because I was not going to leave Durham. I had made up my mind to that, and that's why I changed to elementary ed. And I like the children much better. Where I taught home economics was in the country and the children would love me, but in Durham and high school, they were not the same as the children in the rural area where I was teaching. And I did not want to cope with that age group. And I enjoyed my experience with the little children, much better. I changed.	2:09
Serena Rhodie	Were you active singing in any groups in high school?	3:01
Ruth Spalding Boyd	In high school, I worked with the school newspaper for—we didn't have but a little one, but I worked with that. And the chorals, I sang in the chorals.	3:09
Serena Rhodie	Were you active in groups in college?	3:27
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Well, the YWCA and the Sunday school on campus, and the home economics club.	3:35
Serena Rhodie	What did you do at Sunday school?	3:44
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Well now, the Sunday school, we had an instructor who lived in the city, math instructor who had Sunday school. And I started going to that, although I went to my own church, but I started going on campus and enjoyed the fellowship, I think with the other students campus. There was—and then the home economics group, I don't remember much of anything they did except meet. Really, they discussed problems that we might encounter in working when we graduated. And the YWCA, I guess, was more or less a service oriented group there on campus. And I wasn't that active because I lived in the city and there was quite a difference made of students on campus and the city students, we had more privileges because we lived at home.	3:46
Ruth Spalding Boyd	At that time, the kids had to be on the campus at six o'clock in the evening, they couldn't stay out and go anywhere. And lots of places were off limits to them. And very few of them took to the city schools because we had more privileges and then the dean made quite a difference in restricting us to certain areas, when we had no child, had go to a certain room and it brought about quite a bit of friction to us city students, compared to ones campus. So I guess that's one reason I wasn't too involved in a whole lot on campus.	4:54
Serena Rhodie	What were some of the female groups that were at your college?	5:54
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Female groups? Well, they had sororities. Deltas. The AKAs. I guess they had—let's say this, I'm not sure. And mostly Deltas and AKAs is all I heard of. And of course the physical ed, the cheerleaders and all those things. It's normal college activities. I wasn't active in any of those, I've never been a physical person.	5:55
Serena Rhodie	What were some of their purposes or goals?	6:36
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Well, the cheerleaders of course, for to cheer the teams on. And I try—we might have had—I can't even remember too much of a band in our college days. One thing it was during the war, and the fellows had gone to war. We didn't have many guys on campus, that could have been attributed to the fact that we didn't have much of a band, if we had a band. I went to college in '43, graduated in '47, of course before then—but we didn't have a yearbook for the first few years we were there—would have been '46 or '47.	6:40
Serena Rhodie	Do you know, did they do community service?	7:30
Ruth Spalding Boyd	No, not then, nothing like that then.	7:44
Serena Rhodie	Were they involved in politics at all?	7:49
Ruth Spalding Boyd	No. No, they really weren't.	7:51
Serena Rhodie	What was your first job?	7:56
Ruth Spalding Boyd	My first job was cleaning a man's apartment. My brother had a job when he finished college. He left home to go to work and I got the job and I think I got two dollars and fifty cents for cleaning his—it was a two bedroom—two room, apartment, bedroom room, and a living room area. This man didn't even have a kitchen in his apartment, but he was the man who was a friend of the family. And my mother and father knew him well trusted him and they would—that's why they let me take the job. But two dollars and fifty cents, every two weeks was a whole lot of money to me then.	7:58
Serena Rhodie	How old were you?	8:51
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Let's see. My brother is six years old, or six years older than me. And he was four years ahead of me in school, no he was six years ahead of me in school. Oh, so I must have been about fourteen, maybe fourteen and I could buy my own silk. I bought my own fresh pair silk stockings. And at that time, they were knee highs and I was so proud that I could buy my own things with my little two dollars and fifty cents.	8:55
Serena Rhodie	How long did you keep that job?	9:29
Ruth Spalding Boyd	I kept it until I graduated from college. It was every two weeks and this man loved Life magazine, and he had everyone from the first issue in his apartment. And you couldn't touch any of those magazines. You may dust around them, but don't move one. And when he died, he still had all those Life magazines and he willed them to someone in his family.	9:35
Ruth Spalding Boyd	My next job was working in a cut-rate grocery store, which was right on the corner from my house. And I did that for a little while on the weekends, mostly when they would need me maybe. But after I graduated from college, I started working with a Junior Mother's Club with a play school. We were the first play school in the state of North Carolina and in the Eastern part of the United States. Three hours a day, I would walk, pick up the children on the way to [indistinct 00:10:56] recreation center and we would play and do activities. But that was in the summer of '47 when I graduated in June. And then in the last of July, I got my job teaching home economics and I gave it up. That was, the children were paying fifty cents a week, their parents were paying fifty cents, and I had about ten children. And one of the mothers, little boy that had a big red wagon, his mother would get somebody to pull him down the street in the red wagon and then we'd stop.	10:07
Ruth Spalding Boyd	They'd stop along the way and pick up some of the others. Then when I left that job, the lady that took over, drove around and picked up children, and that play school lasted up until this lady retired, and that was in the seventies. But it was—we did—and as I became a mother, I became a member of that same mother's club. And we are still Junior mothers.	11:45
Ruth Spalding Boyd	I thought you'd laugh at that. Yeah. Everybody said, yo, change your name. I said, well, we were formed from our mothers that were in the club as Junior mothers. So we still the junior mothers to them. And we still meet, we don't do community work like we used to—well, we had a man to build the first zoo mobile, when we first got a museum in Durham and we had this mobile unit built and someone would go bring an animal or two or three animals on that zoo mobile, to the recreation center. And they would carry them around to the different recreation centers so that children could see the animals first hand, and play with them if they were tame and so forth.	12:21
Ruth Spalding Boyd	And we sponsored forums for the youth so that they could discuss problems with each other and we honored our mothers. And we honored another lady who had been quite instrumental in helping teenagers into adulthood, teaching us the social graces and manners and so forth. And we honored her with a program called This is Your Night. And we had Althea Gibson who was a great tennis player and had been Durham, Arthur Ashe—	13:26
Ruth Spalding Boyd	So this—Althea Gibson or Arthur Ashe, and there were quite a few people that came from around the country because they had been helped by Mrs. Whitted in some way, because she sponsored tennis tours, helped sponsor tennis tour events and their activities throughout. She did quite a bit for Durham. So that was—then that was my first little job, the play schools, then I went on to teaching and didn't stop till I retired in 1977.	14:08
Serena Rhodie	Where did you teach?	15:03
Ruth Spalding Boyd	I taught here at Burton school for fifteen years when—and R.N. Harris opened was right around the corner, I taught there two years and then I retired from Y.E. Smith school, I taught there seven years. And the reason I moved from R.N. Harris to Y.E. Smith was because of integration. And they transferred all the Black teachers from—some of the Black teachers from R.N. Harris over to Y.E. Smith and moved White teachers over here. And that was how the integration was done in 1970.	15:05
Serena Rhodie	I guess, which job did you like the most?	15:36
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Which school?	15:36
Serena Rhodie	Mm-hmm.	15:36
Ruth Spalding Boyd	I guess I would say R.N. Harris just two years I was there, but the principal was new and he did so many things to help us and to encourage us as teachers making it home. And then I was near home. I could walk over there and I'd go over there on Sunday evening, sometimes on Saturday, because my room had an outside door and I could go in my room directly and work, fix my bulletin board and make things. And whenever I got with it, I could really go over there. And I think that's why I enjoyed it so much, being close to home and being able to go in and out. Now I couldn't do it because burglar alarms and all these things. And it was small. We had about six or eight teachers, first through sixth grade.	15:55
Serena Rhodie	How was the average size of a class?	16:58
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Oh, thirty-two. Very seldom, less than thirty-two. And every year Ms. Lincoln said, "We're going to cut down on the size." It would end up—it would be right back where it was, just like the salaries. I had taught twenty-nine years you know, and my salary when I retired was like ten-thousand eighty dollars, something like that. So you can see teachers did not make any money. And even with a master's degree.	16:58
Serena Rhodie	How did you feel when you were transferred to that different school?	17:54
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Well, we were apprehensive. I was apprehensive at first, but that principal was White. He went out of his way to make it happy for us, the Black teachers. In fact, he was so overly nice to us until some of the White teachers resented it and retired that year, that same year. And I saw him not too long ago in the grocery store and I thanked him for making it so pleasant for us. Anything we wanted almost, we could get. Well, we weren't used to that because everything was limited when it was well Black school. We couldn't get so many books, and it was just poor funding even. And then we got used books, used this, everything we got was from what the White people had already had, and got rid of. But the opportunity to mingle with other people, I did not mind at all. In fact, I made some very lasting friendships.	18:00
Ruth Spalding Boyd	I had known and interacted with White people before. As a child, I played with a little White girl, whose father ran the store in my community. And her daddy would bring her to work, and he would let my daddy bring her around to our house and play with me. And so she was just another child. And so the integration and all, and the children were nice. We found that our children, were just children.	19:30
Serena Rhodie	How was it with the parents who were there?	20:10
Ruth Spalding Boyd	The parents, some of them were very nice, some of them,	20:12
Speaker 3	Okay, I'll see you.	20:16
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Okay. Have a good day. Some of them we're—well, I think they were apprehensive about what we would do for their children at first, but when they got to know us, they found out we were no different and very cooperative. Of course, some of our children, we had to be very careful in handling them with kid gloves, so that they would not feel inferior or that we were treating the Whites different from them.	20:18
Serena Rhodie	Yeah. I guess, are kind of up to date with what's going on with the busing going on now?	21:09
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Well, not a whole lot, but only thing I can see that they're doing a whole lot of excess busing. And the children are having to leave home so early because they got so far to travel. This is the main thing that I've been hearing, which to me, well, I don't see where it's doing any good. I really think schools were just as good when they were separated. If not better, because I think the Black teacher had more interest and dedicated to the Black children. We had children who were poor, who very poor, and they would come to school dirty.	21:16
Ruth Spalding Boyd	We would get a bucket from the cafeteria. The dress they came in, wash it out, heat the water and take them in the bathroom and give them a little wash out. We didn't get sued or cursed out by the parents. I know we would now, we couldn't do that now, but they were very appreciative. We carried clothes, we would carry clothes and give to the children. And when we would wash them off at school, we would put on clean clothes and they of course they'd go home with these clothes. And we have even given soap powder to families. And at that time we had to visit the homes. We can't do—we were required to do it. And we had to make a report before schools started, what homes you visited and any other comments about that family maybe. For example, if little Susie had a record of being absent a lot, we would try to talk to those parents before school started, to try to keep them in school and make them attend regularly.	22:16
Ruth Spalding Boyd	But, I don't think a lot of White teachers knew how to deal with Black children and did not try to encourage the little things like cleanliness that we did. They had to be taught, the parents didn't know any better. I remember a little family that we had in McDougald Terrace when it first started. Low income people from this section of town, East Durham, thought it was awful. All these people going move in that project. And when those children came, they were just as clean and new, and nice as they could be. And the children they were already in East Durham, were the dirty ones and the houses were dirty and poor, not kept up well. And the McDougald Terrace to me, helped the community and it helped those other children from East Durham to improve themselves. Because the parents, I think, saw the difference in their children, and what was coming from all over Durham to move in.	23:33
Ruth Spalding Boyd	As they said that low income housing project, it helped quite a bit. And some of the nicest children we had were from the low income. But I started to say about this family, I'll never forget. This lady had four little girls. And the smallest one was just the—I mean, she was so little, she was in the first grade and her mama said, "All of them work. All of them are taught how to take care of everything." I said, "You mean that one right there in the first grade?" She said, "Yeah. I got a stool. She stands on that stool and learn how to wash dishes and dry them, and make up her bed."	25:01
Ruth Spalding Boyd	She said, "They are counting on [indistinct 00:25:02], they need to learn." And I learned from her, whatever the age or size, they still need to learn how to care for themselves, because you never know when you're going to have to—and I often—and this family migrated to the North somewhere. And I often wondered what has happened to those girls because the parents were so aggressive and progressive in training the children. Their last name was People and I wondered what has happened to those girls, they were very nice. You wonder a lot of times what happens to the children you teach. I saw a young man in the store. I would say he's in his forties.	25:48
Ruth Spalding Boyd	And I'm looking at him. I said, "What was your third grade—"I said, "Hello, how are you?" "Fine," I said, "What was your third grade teacher's name?" "Miss Boyd, that you? That's you that's you." I said, "I just wondered if you remember." I said, "Now I can't call your name, but I know I taught you. I can, I remember the face." And he was glad to see me. And his wife said, "I knew it was somebody that knew me, because the way you spoke, when you spoke to me, you sound like you knew me." I said, "Sure. I remember you." And I said, "Because see, I knew your daddy, and we were in school along at the same time." It was quite an experience, but I don't think I could do it now.	26:49
Serena Rhodie	Why not?	27:44
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Not the way things are. We didn't have guns and knives in the school. I don't think I could deal with that. I couldn't work with that, I don't think at all. You might have children cursing. And my last years, I had a little girl that brought a marijuana cigarette to school and I didn't even know what it was. And the chair told me what it was. "Ms. Boyd, she got a marijuana cigarette." "Let me see it." But nowadays uh-uh, I couldn't wouldn't want to risk my life around guns and knives.	27:45
Serena Rhodie	Do you know what precautions the schools are taking for that?	28:39
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Some of them I understand have metal detectors. I don't know about all of them. Do you?	28:44
Serena Rhodie	Well, I went to school in New York.	28:52
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Yeah. What'd you do?	28:53
Serena Rhodie	They had ID cards. You had to push them into the machine and make sure you belong in the building.	28:56
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Oh, to get in.	29:00
Serena Rhodie	And then we have—now it's even worse. They have walk-through metal detectors by high school now and they have scanning, you put your bag through some machine. Got to get used to that. Did you get married?	29:00
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Yes. I met my husband when we were in college and we courted for six years and we married. After six years, we worked two years after we graduated. And he stayed on his job. He was in South Carolina and I was here in North Carolina. He stayed on his job and until our son was about three, and then he came home. 1949.	29:26
Serena Rhodie	How did courting or dating take place?	30:05
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Well, the way we met, we were in a place called a College Inn, for lunch. And he was a campus student. He stayed—yeah, he stayed on campus then, but he was up there and just hanging around and he said something to me and I ignored him. But then the next time he saw me, he said something else. And so then I think he told a girl that he liked me and she came back and told me he wants to talk to you. So, that's how we got started. And then I was invited to a dance on campus and it was the Scroller Club.	30:16
Ruth Spalding Boyd	I think it was a Scroller Club for the Kappas. And he was going to escort me, but he was a trainer for the basketball team. So, he couldn't be there to take me to the dance, but he could come later. So he got a friend of his to take me to the dance. And then he told him, he'd bring me back home. And we would meet at this place, College Inn, everybody's in there eating lunch and that's where we courted for a long time, just sitting there at lunch time. And then he finally started coming to my house. And my daddy, "That boy ain't got no shoes. He's got on tennis shoes as cold as it is." When I then wear the kind of tennis shoes they wearing now, that I was with then tennis shoes.	31:13
Ruth Spalding Boyd	And my daddy thought it was over. "That boy ain't got no shoe." I said, "Well, I like him. He's nice." And he let him come to see me on Sunday evening. And of course he kept coming until when we graduated. Of course he would come home some weekends when he could. He was a football coach and basketball coach in the other state. And of course he couldn't come home as often. He finally decided, he'd asked me to marry him.	32:06
Ruth Spalding Boyd	And I went to the basketball games when we were in college and I would always wait until he got through with the team to walk me home. And I'd be the last one out of the gym with him. His team of course, be downstairs, getting dressed. But have you heard of the game that Duke and North Carolina central played in 1944? Well, they had a secret game. Some of the Duke players played North Carolina Central in the woman's—they call it the woman's gym. It's an old gym now. And it was kept a secret until this year, 50 years, it was a secret. My husband never told me about it. And we were courting at that time. It was more or less a challenge that one of the students had made.	32:54
Ruth Spalding Boyd	North Carolina College can beat you all. And so the coach McLendon, who had trained under the basketball originator Naismith, he arranged to have these teams meet at Central and play on Sunday morning while everybody's going to church. And he knew that if it got back to Dr. Sheppard, the president at Central, that the money might be cut off from the state that we were getting at college. So that's why he never told him. They locked the doors of the gym and nobody was in there, but the two teams. This guy Scott Ellsworth, was working on his doctorate at Duke, and somebody mentioned it and he went into the archives and found this information. And one other guy—and he couldn't remember when the game was played. And one of the guys named Hubble had a letter from his mother or—	34:05
Ruth Spalding Boyd	He had written his mother about this game, and that's the only way we found out the date that this game was played. And it was fifty years ago. Duke, of course the coach was there, and it seemingly they decided they would play it at Central because it would be less obvious for the Duke team to come on Central's campus, than it would be for Central to go over there. It would be quite obvious for Blacks to be on Duke's campus those days. But it has made history. And the Duke magazine. Have you seen the Duke magazine on campus?	35:28
Serena Rhodie	I think—	36:13
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Okay. There's the one that was put out September, October issue this year, has them featured in it, one of the articles on them. And it has a picture of the one player from Central that was here in February, and my husband and coach McLendon, and two of the Duke players, Hubble was one of them staying— But the five of them met at the old gym where they played that game this year. And New York Times magazine came and made pictures and did the story in the magazine section in March. But the Duke magazine guy sent him a copy that last week.	36:14
Serena Rhodie	And who won it?	37:04
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Central won it. Yeah, and seemingly I've forgotten the score now, but they really beat them. And the guys just after they finished playing that game, they continued to just play and just to see what would happen. And they just said that they found out that they were just playing—they were just boys like they were. There was no difference. But one of the guys—there are only two of the players on Central's team living. And the other guy we finally got in touch with him, he's in Los Angeles, California, and I'd been trying to get his address for this guy and couldn't.	37:15
Ruth Spalding Boyd	We finally found him, but it was after they had made the picture here, and now they want to do a get together again, just—well they're too old to play. Guess some of them are, but this guy in California, he talks like he's not too old, but he sent his picture. I said, "He too fat now," but that was the integration that was kept a secret.	37:59
Serena Rhodie	Where did your husband's coach in South Carolina?	38:39
Ruth Spalding Boyd	He was at Florence, South Carolina at Wilson High School. I believe the name was Wilson High School. And he was there three years. Then he coached at Plymouth, North Carolina, three years. And he was at Burlington at Jordan Sellars High School for two years. And he gave up the coaching to come to Durham and take a job with the recreation department, and at quite a reduction in salary. But he needed to be here with his family. So he took the cut and it ended up when he retired, he was the assistant director. He was the acting director for the city of Durham recreation department.	38:42
Ruth Spalding Boyd	He had become assistance manager for the recreation department and the guy that was manager decided to try something else. And he went into another field just to try, and they asked my husband to serve as acting and he did. And he decided that it was time for him to come home. He had been there twenty-nine years and he had a year's sick leave, so that gave him enough to retire. They wanted him to stay on, but knew he wasn't going to stay. He didn't. And the guy who had been the director went back to the job and finished it out until he retired.	39:36
Serena Rhodie	Do you have any children?	40:34
Ruth Spalding Boyd	I have one son he's fourty-four years old, and I don't even—oh, there's a picture of him with his two little children, when they were little. This is his son now, and his son's wife.	40:35
Serena Rhodie	Neither one of your children at Duke for the grand—	40:59
Ruth Spalding Boyd	No, no, no cousin. I'm sitting by the cousins, but my son has two children, little girl and this one. And his wife finished Meredith College last June. Last May, rather. And the daughter is in tenth grade in Virginia. My son and his wife are divorced. She's remarried and she lives with them. And he lives here. He's a television videographer for WTVD.	41:04
Serena Rhodie	How did he get started in that field?	41:51
Ruth Spalding Boyd	You know, he came out of the service and he heard about that job. From a baby he's always loved television. First TV we had, we got it when he was born. And he used to, when he started talking, he wanted that peacock. NBC, he wanted to get that peacock and I never did try to get it for him. But when he got out of service, he heard about this job and he applied and he got it. And at that time he was carrying a little box. I guess it was the voice box maybe, behind the photographer. And this photographer decided to go to another job. And my son learned the photography work that he was doing from following him. And he worked in the news department. Well, after 1979, November third, I think it was, there was a shootout in Greensboro, and he was doing the story, and he saw how dangerous it was with the news.	41:53
Ruth Spalding Boyd	So he transferred to the production department, and that's what he works in now, production. And they do promos for TV station. You might see Miriam Thomas talking about something that's coming up in the TV station, but he'll deal with things like that. And he loves his job. And he's been there about twenty years now, or more. Nineteen or twenty.	43:16
Serena Rhodie	When was he born?	43:58
Ruth Spalding Boyd	1952 October.	43:58
Serena Rhodie	And did he go to college or?	43:58
Ruth Spalding Boyd	He went to college, but he did not stay. He decided he wanted to get married and go into service, in that order.	44:04
Serena Rhodie	So he voluntarily went—	44:13
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Voluntarily, went into air force and he was—after he did his basic training, he went to Denver, Colorado specialized training. And he came back and he was stationed at the Pentagon for two weeks. And then his time was up and he just came on out.	44:25
Serena Rhodie	So, how long have you been living in Durham?	44:48
Ruth Spalding Boyd	I was born here, born here. Soon, be seventy years ago I've been living here.	44:51
Serena Rhodie	Have you ever traveled outside of Durham?	45:00
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Oh, yes. I've traveled outside of Durham. Haven't been that many places, but I used to go to New York quite a bit because I had an aunt and uncle there. And when I was in college, I went to Philadelphia and stayed three weeks to get a job. My brother was living there, and I found a job on one day and I worked four days on that job, and the war ended, and the job ended. So I left there and went to New York to visit my aunt, stayed up there about two weeks and came on back to Durham and got ready to go back to school.	45:05
Ruth Spalding Boyd	That was my senior year. And then we've been to Mexico and Bahamas vacations. But we had a terrible experience when we went to Mexico. We went on Air Mexico from Acapulco to Mexico City. And we looked up on that plane on our way back on Mexico City, back to Acapulco, and we saw smoke at the top and everybody started "Oh, oh, ooh, ooh, there's smoke, there's smoke!" I said never again, will I get on an Air Mexico plane, but we got there safe. Yeah—	45:47

Ruth Spalding Boyd	And I had just never thought of living anywhere else. And my mother and father, of course were, living at that time. Once my husband got a job offer to go to Raleigh to work with the recreation department and I said, "Well, whatever you want to do." He said, "You know what? I think I better stay here because you need to be near your mom and dad." I said, "I sure do." And I was so glad he didn't take that job. Because I didn't want to go to Raleigh to live. And I stayed here because my father was sick for seven years bedridden. And my mother of course was taking care of him and I did what I could. And he died at age eighty-six.	0:02
Ruth Spalding Boyd	My mother lived to be ninety-two and I looked after her after that. She was not sick but two months, and at the time she took sick, I could not handle her. So she had to go in a nursing home. But I did everything else for her. What I could. And I don't regret not having left Durham. I'm very active in my church, always have been. I think my daddy carried me to church when I was about six weeks old. My momma said, "She too young to go to church." But when I did start going, I liked it and I'm still active. I taught Sunday school for twenty-five years and I've better. And I'm still active. I don't teach Sunday school, but I still attend Sunday school at church every Sunday if I can. That's it.	0:50
Ruth Spalding Boyd	And speaking of sickness, I retired because of my illness. I have rheumatoid and osteoarthritis and I was having so many problems until my doctor suggested that I stopped work. And when I did, said he was so glad that I did stop so I could move as I felt like moving. And I'm still able to move, which I'm very grateful for.	2:09
Serena Rhodie	What was that first church, your father—	2:54
Ruth Spalding Boyd	White Rock Baptist Church where I'm still a member.	2:57
Serena Rhodie	Okay. Yeah. Were you active in any other organizations besides Sunday school?	3:00
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Oh yes. Board of Christian Education. I was vice president for a number of years. And I sang in the choir for a little while. As a child I sang in the junior choir and when I got grown I stopped singing in the junior choir but I didn't join senior choir until late years. Then when I joined and got arthritis, I had problems with my throat and I had to get out of the choir. People tell me now when they hear me, "You ought to be in the choir." I say, "Why yes, I used to be in the choir." And right now I chairman of the scholarship committee by the church. Chairman of nominate committee of the church officers of the church, and a trustee and these are officers.	3:09
Serena Rhodie	Can you describe Durham during the height of Hayti?	4:22
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Ooh that was it. Well, they had so many businesses. We could get a printing done. And of course, got a lot of times the location was near the other printing office. There were restaurants, theaters. We had two Black theaters within two blocks of each other. The Wonderland Theater, the Regal Theater. The donut shop was a very lovely place you could go for meals. They had a hotel I couldn't go to. Well, I just wasn't allowed to go to the hotel unless it was certain people that were having something there.	4:27
Ruth Spalding Boyd	For example, the pharmacist lived there in the hotel for a while before he found a house to live in. And he had a birthday party for their daughter. I went there then. But there were some places I just wasn't allowed to go. We had drug stores and we two was in my walking from home to church. Where I could stop and spend my pennies from Sunday school if I so chose to do so. And a lot of times I would save my Sunday school money. When I got Sunday school, I'd save a few pennies so I could go back to the grocery store in between Sunday school and church and buy something.	5:26
Ruth Spalding Boyd	We had a cleaners, the grocery stores. But there were two grocery stores within one block of each other. And Hayti was just home. My father paired me with him everywhere he went. Always. I was the little girl, and I followed my daddy. And if he was going to the pool room to play pool, he would say, "Stand right here until I come out." And I'd stand right outside the pool room. Nobody would bother me. And they used to say people were so bad in in Hayti, but they were not that bad.	6:15
Ruth Spalding Boyd	And they knew you. They protected you. And I felt that because my father was very friendly to people and people knew him, and nobody ever bothered me. They did bother some girls that would be found in Hayti. But I think because of my father, they didn't bother me. It was just a closeness to me. Doctor's offices, barbershops, there were so many businesses that were displaced and misplaced and went out of business because of the big guys. Turned down. We lived in Hayti and my family, mother and father, had to move.	7:00
Ruth Spalding Boyd	They moved in '64 because they were getting ready to tear down that house. And my daddy had always said he wasn't going anywhere, when they started talking about urban renewal. "I ain't going nowhere but the Beechwood Cemetery." And I said, "Don't say that daddy." So I saw this house and I said to the lady, I said, "I heard you thinking about buying another house?" She said, "I'm thinking about it." I said, "Well tell me something. I want you to do me a favor. When you decide that you are going to get another house, let me know so I can think about getting this house for my mom and daddy." So I guess it wasn't three months after that and she called me, she said, "Boyd, I think we are going build a house and sell this one." I said, "well, honey, tell me how much you want for it."	7:56
Ruth Spalding Boyd	And she told me. And we worked it out. Urban renewal paid my mother and daddy about five-hundred dollars more than she charged for house that she was selling. So that five-hundred dollars took care of the moving expenses. And of course we had lived in a nine room house. So there were a lot of things that they had to get rid of because this was just a four room house. And that was all they needed, just the two of them. My mother and father had had roomers and boarders all my life. And I guess that's one thing that helped me to know a lot of people. People that lived with us were mostly North Carolina Mutual. And the boarders were mostly North Carolina Mutual company boarders. They lived in a what they call a clerk's home. A big, big, big house. And I guess there were twenty of them were women. And those that didn't want to cook would come and eat with my mom regularly.	8:59
Ruth Spalding Boyd	And when my daddy found out they were going to have to move, "But what about my roomers and boarders?" I said, "You won't have anymore. You will be just you and Mama." I said, "It's time for Mama to stop work anyway." So that's what happened. And when he got over there in that little four room house, he said, "I should have been here ten years ago." He was crazy about this small house with just the two of them. Because I never lived in a house with just the family until I moved to Durham. I was born in about at 1003 Fayetteville Street and we had roomers there. We moved to 605 Fowler Avenue when I was eight years old. A bigger house than we had. We had roomers and boarders, and most of the time I had a roommate. And then when I moved here, for the first time I was ever in the house with just three of us family.	10:21
Serena Rhodie	During that time what was your extent of contact with other—	11:43
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Other what?	11:47
Serena Rhodie	Other races?	11:47
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Races?	11:47
Serena Rhodie	Mm-hmm.	11:47
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Well as I say, as a child, the only White girl that I played with was this—the man in the meat department at this grocery store, he would bring his little girl down and she would come around and we would play. And we just played just like anybody else. Just the two of us. And I don't know whatever happened to her. As they, of course, closed that store, and I never heard anything about the family anymore after that. But now there's one man in Durham, White man, who still knows me from those days. He worked at this store and every time I see him, "Hey, there Ru." "Hi you, Mr. Burton." He's still very friendly. What happened to the other man—	11:49
Serena Rhodie	How did people in the Black community relate to one another?	13:02
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Well I think they did very well. If you lived next door to me and you needed an egg and you come over to borrow one, we'd lend it to you and vice versa. A cup sugar. I don't think people do that anymore. I don't know that they do. But very close I think. Now we lived across the street from a cousin of his and I didn't know until I was grown that they were first cousins. There was brother and sister children. They were just cousins and we were close to them but I didn't know we were kin, the closeness in the kinship, until I was grown. But we were still, and until I was grown now. In my father's family there were 14 children. And this particular cousin of his who lived across the street was born in Durham, lived in Durham.	13:08
Ruth Spalding Boyd	And my father had a child, Alanzo. He had three brothers and sisters here in Durham and we were very close to them. Oh I was the youngest grandchild in the family that lived in Durham and I was the baby. We all were just very close as a family as well as neighborly. If you lived across the street and you saw me doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing, then you told mama and mama took care of it. And then mama told daddy, daddy really took care of it. And we had a lot of teachers that ate with us, and they would come home from school and tell what I did at school and I knew I was going to get it then. So I didn't do too much at school just because I didn't want a whipping when they told it at home. But I call that really close knit.	14:31
Serena Rhodie	And what was some of the repercussions of the tension between the campus students and the city students?	16:00
Ruth Spalding Boyd	They just acted so different to us. As if to say, "You can do something that I can't do and I don't like you." There were, as I say, a few that I became very close with. And one of the girls invited me to go home with her one weekend. And so to my surprise, my mother let me go. She didn't know her parents, anything. And we are still friends. And this other girl that I was real friendly with, was very friendly with my husband. And she's the one that would tell me messages from him, send friendly messages from him. And we are still friendly. But they just felt like, we thought we were more because we could do more than they could.	16:08
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Because the dean was hard on us as well as them. And I thought, "Well really, there's not a closeness, I don't think now, of the children who stayed in there." Durham and on campus is not a close feeling for the city students. I know with me it's not, as to contributing to the college. Because there was such a difference that they made with us. As an Alumni, I feel I should. And I should contribute more but I don't feel that close to it because the dean made us. And speaking of the dean, the dean's niece and I were roommates, when I stayed on campus for one semester. In home economics you had to live on the campus in the practice cottage and learn to keep house. And her niece and I were roomates. We were roommates. And that didn't damage but it didn't help that much.	17:08
Serena Rhodie	What were the social activities that went on? What could they do?	18:30
Ruth Spalding Boyd	They could do anything on the campus, but it had to be done before six o'clock. I mean, the doors locked. And if they went to ball game, of course they had permission to do that. That was right there on campus. But they were so restrictive. They couldn't go to this place called College Inn or College Grill. They weren't allowed to go. They weren't allowed to. I think the movies, there was some restriction even with the movies. And at that time we had to go upstairs. Have you ever been to Carolina Theater since you've been here? Well, they had three stories and we were up in the top. The Blacks had to sit up there.	18:37
Ruth Spalding Boyd	And the campus girls, if they could go to the movies, there was a certain time that they still had you back on that camp at a certain time. And they just felt we could go anytime we wanted to. And I guess they were jealous of us. And then we were hurt because, since they restricted us a certain part of the campus. In other words, if you are from the city, you go in that room right there in that building. And you all can eat your lunch in there. You couldn't go in the cafeteria.	19:34
Serena Rhodie	So they had to have parties during the day?	20:22
Ruth Spalding Boyd	I don't know if they had any party. We didn't. Not in day time. We would play Pinochle. We go in that room and play cards at our lunch hour sometimes. But there weren't many parties going on.	20:24
Serena Rhodie	You mentioned that the cattle had a ball?	20:48
Ruth Spalding Boyd	They had a dance, yeah. Yeah. Well now that was once a year and that was on campus. Well chaperoned. In the gym. In one of the gym, old camp—they didn't have more than one a year.	20:49
Serena Rhodie	What issue do you think was most important to the community?	21:30
Ruth Spalding Boyd	What issue now?	21:32
Serena Rhodie	Back then.	21:34
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Back then? I guess we thought that integration was going to help us. And I guess that's why we tried to push for integration. I can't see where it has done that much, although it has made us aware that people are people, whatever race you are. And I've sort of always felt that I got the same kind of blood in my body that you got in yours, whatever color you are, I've got 'em. And it doesn't matter. The schools were unequal. Because it really hurt you to see you sitting up in an old desk that came from a White school, and dirty books that they had used, sent to us. It really hurt then, and it wasn't right. Segregation is the biggest issue.	21:42
Serena Rhodie	How did Hayti feel with the idea of urban renewal?	23:13
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Terrible, terrible. And the thing about it, since urban renewal, we had found out that there were certain people who reaped some of the benefits from that. That they got money out of it. Now how? I don't know. But everybody didn't. And then there were some areas that were left out that supposed to have been rehabilitated and they were not. I've got a friend who fought to get her neighborhood rehabilitated because they promised it to start with. And she led the fight in her neighborhood and finally won and they were able to relocate and tear down those little shacks they were living in. And one of those people in that area was the famous Ernie Barnes, who was an artist. He was a football player, at Central, and he went on to play professional football, and now he's an artist. A lot of fame [INTERRUPTION].	23:16
Serena Rhodie	You were talking about urban renewal and that—	24:49
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Oh and this what I was going to say, this neighborhood, finally this girl got the city to go through with what they promised, and they were able to relocate. See, now people were real upset at first, real upset. And I think some of them were still upset more, when they found out that some of the people got money from this change. And these are people like city council members. I have no proof, but this is the only thing I've heard since [indistinct 00:25:42]. And some people got more than others when they bought the houses. And well, it's something I understand that happens in communities. That they go through and do this urban renewal and some people come out on the short end. I guess that's part of life too.	24:51
Serena Rhodie	Were the councilmen, they were from Hayti?	26:15
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Well they were, yes. Yeah, they were Black.	26:20
Serena Rhodie	How did the community value education?	26:32
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Very much so. Very much so. A lot of people in Durham went to North Carolina College and I went there because I couldn't have gone anywhere else. My daddy said, "You either go walk down the street or you don't go anywhere." And my mama said, "But they're going to college." And she insisted and we went where we could go. He could not afford to send us away. And at that time, there were no such things as grants and scholarships available. But we were always encouraged in my family, that we got to have a college education.	26:43
Ruth Spalding Boyd	And when it came to my son I said, "Well he's got to live his own life." And he decided. And there's no point in me breaking up and crying because he's not going to college. And as long as the ultimate goal in life is to have a job, make a living. And that was what I was concerned with him, which is what he's doing. He stayed away from here nine years. And he and his wife separated. And he had two children and I said, "You better come on back home and stay." And that's what he did. But you have to support your children.	27:31
Serena Rhodie	Was the community very politically active?	28:26
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Some were. My father was not active politically but he always voted. My uncle who was CC's father, he was the founder of the Durham Committee on the Advancement of Black people in Durham. And naturally, very political. My uncle was not that active in the Durham committee, although he went sometimes. But he didn't play a big part. Another uncle wasn't active at all in politics of Durham. In fact he was more or less to himself. Then another uncle that was here moved away in the 1940 to New York hoping for better opportunities. He worked at North Carolina Mutual and they are very low paying company, very low paying. And he wanted to do a little bit better.	28:30
Ruth Spalding Boyd	And his youngest son had finished college so they decided they would move to New York. He went there, and put his age back ten years. And when he got to seventy-five he was just retiring. Because he had put his age back ten years. But he was able to do well up there. Yeah. His son, oldest son, operators a laundromat, dry cleaners. I'm sure. You know anything about Brooklyn?	29:53
Serena Rhodie	A little.	30:30
Ruth Spalding Boyd	What is it? Bedford-Stuyvesant area. Did they tear down and build?	30:31
Serena Rhodie	I'm not sure.	30:43
Ruth Spalding Boyd	You don't know about that. Okay. Well, it was something that happened in that area and that's when their business closed up. And they lived in one of those brownstone in Brooklyn and they moved out of that into—they don't call them condominiums in New York. What they call them?	30:44
Serena Rhodie	Co-op?	31:00
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Co-op.	31:04
Serena Rhodie	Oh.	31:05
Ruth Spalding Boyd	They call it a co-op.	31:05
Serena Rhodie	How active was the NAACP? In Durham?	31:16
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Say very active. Very active in Durham. But I've always thought they didn't recruit enough to get new members. They have representatives. They did have representatives in all the churches. And a person in our church would always get me to join in the NAACP. But I never attended the meetings. I joined. And then when this man died, nobody bothers to recruit you to join. As I told you previously, that I'm active in the church and my energy is at a low level and I can't do so much. So that is not my priority, to be active physically. But they have done some good, in fact they've done a lot.	31:23
Ruth Spalding Boyd	And I know the George Frazier who was president at one time, they did quite a bit under his administration. And I'm not sure what they're doing now too much, but the general committee is the political group that sees to it that we choose the right candidates to vote for. For two weeks now they having meetings to meet the candidates, and last night there was a meeting in my church and the candidates were there to give interviews and questions. And they make their decision and they issue the little slip of paper to tell you who to vote for when you get to the poll.	32:31
Ruth Spalding Boyd	And I use my own judgment, nobody tells me who to vote for. I look at the slip and see what they suggest, but I know who I'm going vote for, whether what they say or not. Because it's a free country. And my mother was one of the first women to vote when women had the privilege to vote. And she used to love to tell that she was one of the first ones to vote. She was living in Savannah, Georgia, at that time and she was so proud of it. And we always felt proud that we could vote and did vote. A lot of people nowadays don't think it does any good. I said, "Well if you stay home it doesn't do any good either."	33:22
Serena Rhodie	What were some of the things that the NAACP did?	34:23
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Well they encourage people to do the right thing. I'll put it like that. Whatever it was. And I think the biggest thing has been integration. Because a lot of people now wondering if it was the right thing because it's put us back a lot. Some of the things.	34:27
Serena Rhodie	Right. How do you feel?	34:50
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Well I feel like we Black teachers, did a better job of educating our Black children than the White teachers were doing educating them. Some of them, I should say. I taught next to a White teacher. She didn't have any discipline at all and was afraid to discipline children. And this little boy, one day I passed the room, he was sitting there on top of the desk, turned around looking out the window. Class was going out for physical ed, and I came back, it wasn't that long. I said to her, "Excuse me. May I see Gary?" "Gary, what are you sitting that window looking out the window for?" "She told me not to just say." I said, "But you're not learning anything. Why?" "She told me to turn around." I said, "Listen, I'm going to tell your mom." I said, "You came to school and learn, not to sit here and look out that window and do nothing."	34:55
Ruth Spalding Boyd	So I went to the office that afternoon and called his mother and told her. She wanted to know why did I call? I said, "Well, I'll tell you. I called because I'm Black and he's Black and you Black and I'm interested in Gary." "Why didn't his teacher call?" I said, "I can't tell you why his teacher didn't call." I wasn't going to say she's White. I didn't know. So that next day, the teacher came to me, she said, "What am I going to do?" I said, "You're going to have to learn to be firm with Gary and the rest of them and let them know you mean business. You're not going to sit there and let them cut up and then let them look out the window. That's not teaching them anything."	36:22
Ruth Spalding Boyd	I said, "." She learned though. She was nice to them all, but she wasn't firm and to let them know she meant to do what she told them to do. And I don't know if it helped her or not, but I hope it did. She stayed right there in that same classroom until she retired. And Gary right now, if I see him, "Hey Ms. Boyd. Hey Ms. Boyd." I think he appreciated it as he got older. And I knew, I didn't know his mother, but I knew the lady who was a neighbor of his that would carry him to different scouting events, and I had seen her with him and I knew she would appreciate it.	37:21
Ruth Spalding Boyd	And in fact I called her and got Gary's mama's number from her to tell her. And Gary, seemingly, has turned out to be a nice young fellow. But that's one of the things I guess NAACP has done to try to create an independence upon yourself. Get people off welfare, encourage them to do for themselves. Then first it start committed and telling you who to vote for. I've never gone along with it, but it does help [INTERRUPTION].	38:24
Serena Rhodie	Okay. What was another function of the Durham committee? Did they only do the voting?	39:26
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Mainly the voting. And I guess maybe with the businesses, they might have given advice or something because there was the Black businesses involved in that. I never attended but two meetings. But that's the main thing, they keep you abreast of the voting and the candidates.	39:32
Serena Rhodie	What were other kind of where integration kind of failed in the school system? Where else did you see the—	40:08
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Well, I can't say that anywhere else. It opened up until we've got Black people that go to White churches. Members of White churches that their prerogative. We've got Whites that have joined the Black churches. Because we had a couple that joined our church. They moved here from—where I went somewhere. And we didn't know why they wanted to join with us. And everybody said, "They writing a book. They writing a book." But I couldn't say why they joined. And it so happened though, I found out later, that there had been a mental breakdown. One of the parents, he had a mental breakdown. And I don't know if there was a weakness there or just what, but eventually that couple divorced. And eventually they went back together. They remarried and then they divorced. Separated and divorced again. Okay.	40:22
Serena Rhodie	How has the community changed during your lifetime? Regards to the physical appearance?	41:56
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Well, I think there are some sections that are much more beautiful. And the homes, certainly some of them are larger, more spacious. I don't know that there is as much closeness as neighbors because people are in such a busy world. We don't have time to visit like we used to. I know when I was a child, my father used to carry me to visit the sick all the time [INTERRUPTION].	42:03
Serena Rhodie	You were talking about how Durham changed—	42:54
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Yeah. There isn't as much in-home visitation I'm sure because of the change in times. I don't think there's any less caring, as far as looking after people and remembering people. Now in our community, we have a organization we started shortly after we moved over here. And each family pays so much dues per year. And if there is a death in the family or illness, we do something for the members. Carry food, the usual things that people do when there's a need in the home. Carry food to the home and serve dinner as a gift, unless they going to the church. But it's just a change in time, that people just don't have time to do what they used to do or don't take time. And it's something that we really need to remember. That people are people and they need people.	42:58
Serena Rhodie	How do you think its change? In regards to wisdom?	44:32
Ruth Spalding Boyd	I think it's a little more acceptance of each other. That fellow that just called, he said this White fellow that works with him was talking about going get some club. And he says, "You better let me check that. Because you might not be accepted going to that night club because you White." He said, "You let me check with some Black folks. Let's see if it's all right for you to go." So he was trying to locate somebody who knew something about this club. I don't know anything about it either. But I guess you just have to know how to deal with people and remember that people are people.	44:38
Serena Rhodie	Okay. Is there anything in particular that you'd just like to talk about that you feel is important, that we haven't so far?	45:07
Ruth Spalding Boyd	Well, I can't think of anything special. But it's important to remember, I think, that we are all here for a purpose. And we need to try to do something in life to make someone happy. For us to be happy. Well, I know that's what makes me happy. When I can do something to make somebody else happy. And I've been that way, because I started off, as I say, with my daddy visiting people all my life, where there was sickness and death. And I'm not afraid of people. I like people and I just enjoy doing it. My life is not my own because if someone were to call and say, "Right now, I need you to do so and so," I would—	45:13

Speaker 1	[indistinct 00:00:02]?	0:05
Speaker 1	Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Okay.	0:05
Speaker 1	How does that sound? [indistinct 00:00:09]	0:05
Speaker 1	Exactly, exactly. Yeah, all right. Perfect, right. Exactly, okay, okay.	0:05
Speaker 1	[indistinct 00:00:18]	0:08
Speaker 1	Exactly, perfect.	0:08
Speaker 1	[indistinct 00:00:27]	0:08
Speaker 1	Okay. Perfect, thanks.	0:08
Speaker 1	[indistinct 00:00:36]	0:33

Item Info

Title:

Ruth Boyd interview recording, 1996 October 22

Date:

October 22, 1996

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Boyd, Ruth Spalding

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Rhodie, Serena

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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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Ruth Boyd interview recording, 1996 October 22

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1. Ruth Boyd administrative file, 1996

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Ruth Boyd interview recording, 1996 October 22

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