Lenora Lewis interview recording, 1995 June 14

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Doris Dixon	Okay, could you say something?	0:00
Lenora Benton Lewis	How are you today?	0:05
Doris Dixon	Okay, excuse me, I'm sorry. There's a little monitor— Okay. It should be— Okay. A little monitor on the side, it tells you whether or not it's picking up, so.	0:07
Lenora Benton Lewis	Okay.	0:24
Doris Dixon	I guess it just isn't registering. May I put it, this, on this side?	0:25
Lenora Benton Lewis	It doesn't matter.	0:25
Doris Dixon	Okay. I think it might be able. Thank you. Better able to pick up the sound. Okay?	0:35
Lenora Benton Lewis	Okay.	0:42
Doris Dixon	Ma'am, I'm sorry I was interrupting. You were telling me about your first memories in Rossville, Tennessee.	0:44
Lenora Benton Lewis	Yeah, I remember where the little house we lived in, I remember the school I went to out there. I finished grammar school out there. Then I went to the training school up in Somerville, Tennessee, and I went there for two years. Then I got married.	0:49
Doris Dixon	What year did you get married?	1:25
Lenora Benton Lewis	In 1950.	1:25
Doris Dixon	You said you remember the school you went to. What do you remember about it?	1:25
Lenora Benton Lewis	Well, I remember that back then we didn't have schools like were here now. We had a school, one school I went to was, well, they was like wooden buildings with maybe two rooms and, well, there wasn't but two rooms and all of the grades was in there together. And it would be two teachers. She would be teaching from maybe first down through maybe the third or fourth, and then the other teacher would teach on up.	1:30
Lenora Benton Lewis	And then after that, I went to another school who was behind Philip. That school was named Elby school, grammar school. And then I went to another school which was a building owned by the church, Philadelphia Baptist Church, and this church was named, I mean this school was named Woodlawn. It was just one big building. It didn't have divided building, 'cause back then we had no running water. We had to walk miles to schools, and so forth. And then, after I graduated from Woodlawn, then the closest high school was up in Somerville. We lived a long ways from there. And so my mother, she fought to get the bus to come through there and she did. And then we would have to catch the bus and ride the bus to Somerville to go to high school.	2:13
Doris Dixon	Could you tell me about that fight to get the bus?	3:15
Lenora Benton Lewis	Yeah, my mother had to go up there and go to Somerville, and the first year she didn't get it. The first year she tried to get the bus, she didn't get it. And then the second year she did get the bus and the bus came through and picked all the children up and in that neighborhood in that area, you had a certain area it went, and we would ride the bus to school every day. It wasn't like it is today where the children is close to the school where they can walk down. They have buses for every area.	3:17
Lenora Benton Lewis	But back then, it was difficult 'cause one— That first year when she didn't get the bus, the bus came, the closest to our house was maybe about two miles. And my brother used to carry me on the horse to meet the bus. And I went a half a year that year 'cause the winter come, it gets so bad you couldn't make it.	4:07
Doris Dixon	You called— You said the school— Or you referred to the school Somerville was a training school?	4:32
Lenora Benton Lewis	Yeah, that was the name of it. But that was the name of a Fayette County Training School. But it was a high school.	4:36
Doris Dixon	And what were the sub— like, were there traditional high school subjects?	4:48
Lenora Benton Lewis	Yeah, yeah. They taught all the traditional high school subjects, most everything that is— Pretty nearly everything, I guess, well now they have a lot of computers in school but they didn't then. But they taught History, Math and all that stuff, Shop, and dress-making, homemaking. They had all those different skills.	4:54
Doris Dixon	Do you remember your grandparents? Did you live with, or near, your grandparents? Were you told about your grandparents?	5:25
Lenora Benton Lewis	Yeah, I know my grandparents on my mother's side. My grandfather, he had a lot of share— He had sharecroppers under him. And, of course, they lived on the farm, too. And my grandmother, she died when I was probably about nine or 10 years old. That was on my mother's side. And I never did know my grandfather on my father's side 'cause he had died when my father was a teenager or something like that. But I knew my grandmother on my father's side. She farmed it, too. All of them farmers. They was my grandparents on my father's side was originally from Hollow Spring, Mississippi.	5:37
Doris Dixon	On your father's side?	6:36
Lenora Benton Lewis	On my father's side.	6:37
Doris Dixon	You mentioned that, about your mother's father, that sharecroppers were under him?	6:43
Lenora Benton Lewis	Yeah. Yeah.	6:48
Doris Dixon	I don't know, what do you mean about that?	6:48
Lenora Benton Lewis	Okay, well what do I mean by that, it was like that he had rented all of this land from the ancestors, and then that would be other families working under him, and they would work and the crop that they made, they would pay him so many bales of cotton. Also, as I was growing up, my father, he rented from this man. He had from the ancestors, then they had to pay them so many bales of cotton, and you had to always pay them first. If you didn't get anything, the bales had to come first.	6:52
Doris Dixon	When you say the ancestors?	7:37
Lenora Benton Lewis	That was the White peoples. They was the one who owned the land.	7:39
Doris Dixon	Ma'am, was there a point in your life, or do you remember, when people stopped treating you as a child and started treating you as an adult, or when you thought of yourself as an adult?	7:49
Lenora Benton Lewis	Well, that was like, of course I got married when I was 18, and who are you speaking of? That treat me like adult?	7:59
Doris Dixon	Just, I guess, as far as your position in the family or the community, is there a group— Can you think of— Was there a moment in time where at one point you had been a younger, or a child, and then another point you became one of the adults?	8:15
Lenora Benton Lewis	Well, that was like when I got married. I was 18. 'Cause even until then, you were still a child.	8:32
Doris Dixon	And what was it like to be a child?	8:38
Lenora Benton Lewis	Well, when I look back at the time now, the way it is today, back then were the best times, because even though—of course I was a child that grew up where my parents, they always made a decent living. Once that I was grown, there wasn't things that I wasn't used to. I was always used to clothes or certain foods. I wasn't like a lot of other children that didn't have things. I always had those things.	8:46
Lenora Benton Lewis	But my part as a child, that what I really didn't like about that farming, I'm afraid of snakes, and every Spring my daddy would be cleaning up new ground or else we be out there cutting stalks, the cornstalks, down or else we would be whipping peas. The peas done dried, and you pick the peas and you store 'em up through the winter and when Spring come you have to whip the peas out.	9:25
Lenora Benton Lewis	And I just didn't like it. I said to them, once I get grown I'm not farming anymore. But now when I look back, the way— Or because see, back then, peoples didn't have bars and things on doors. They just pull their doors up. They pull it up in a manner so that the dogs wouldn't go in 'cause no human being was going to go in a normal home. But see, it's so different now. You got to bar it all in, and it's just, like I say, when I think back now that those was the happy days.	9:57
Doris Dixon	And why was it possible for people to not have bars on their doors? Or what was different about then?	10:38
Lenora Benton Lewis	Well it was just different, because back then peoples had more love for each other. If there was a neighbor in the house who was down the street, who was sick, they would say, well so-and-so's sick, I got to carry him— Or, if that person was sick they would carry food to them and go see about them. It was just different.	10:47
Lenora Benton Lewis	But now, today, you can be living next door to somebody and you don't know whether they sick or not. And like I say, back then the children was more obedient because if any grown person saw me doing something, and told my mama, I was going to get punished for it. And now today, people see your children doing something, they don't say anything. But the majority of the kids today, you can't say anything to them. So that's the difference back then. And it is today.	11:14
Doris Dixon	You said you didn't like farming very much?	11:58
Lenora Benton Lewis	No, I didn't like farming period.	12:01
Doris Dixon	What was your first job off the farm?	12:05
Lenora Benton Lewis	Well, the first job that I had off the farm was I was in private home. I was in private home taking care of the ladies' kids, washing, ironing, cleaning up.	12:08
Doris Dixon	Was this back in Rossville?	12:22
Lenora Benton Lewis	No, this was here in the city, because once that I had, well, got married, we still was living in Rossville, but my father had a truck and we was coming out here, I was coming out here to work.	12:26
Doris Dixon	Okay. How far is it?	12:43
Lenora Benton Lewis	How far Rossville? Rossville is somewhere in the neighborhood around 20— about 27 miles. Something like— No, it's just straight up Poplar. It's just straight up Poplar on through 57 on up through Germantown, Carterville, next little town it's Rossville. It might be more than 27 miles, but it's not a real long place. No. It may be about maybe 35— 30 or 35 miles, something like that.	12:45
Doris Dixon	And was it common for people from there to come to Memphis to find jobs?	13:17
Lenora Benton Lewis	Well, yeah, 'cause there wasn't any jobs there. They had no factories there at all. Only thing that they had in the town of Rossville was like the gin, and they had a little town— There were little grocery stores and clothing stores, but it wasn't any Blacks in there. If it was, maybe one Black. It wasn't any jobs there for the peoples that lived out there then.	13:23
Doris Dixon	So all the businesses were owned by Whites?	13:54
Lenora Benton Lewis	Yeah, back then, yeah, all the business was owned by Whites, at that time, because really it was just a very few peoples back at that time that only their own land. So all the business was owned by Whites.	13:57
Doris Dixon	Did you know people who owned Blacks?	14:21
Lenora Benton Lewis	Yeah, the Yancey's, they own land out there, and the Hodges owned their own land.	14:24
Doris Dixon	When you used come to Memphis to do private service in those first years, what were your wages? What was your pay?	14:49
Lenora Benton Lewis	Oh, $3.50. $3.50 a day.	14:57
Doris Dixon	And were there better jobs, or other jobs, that were available to you at that time?	15:04
Lenora Benton Lewis	Well, not really, because I had childrens, and you had— 'cause I only worked maybe about two days a week, and my mama would keep the kids, and she worked maybe two or three days a week or something like that. So, I couldn't go have another job 'cause really, your childrens had to be kept by a relative or somebody, 'cause see it wasn't— Back then, it wasn't any daycares, and we making $3.50 a day, you know, couldn't afford anyway.	15:10
Doris Dixon	That work, could you describe it? What was it like? Did you work— Usually work for the same person in a week?	15:58
Lenora Benton Lewis	Yeah, I worked it for the same person. Whatever person that I was working for, if I worked it for this person two days a week, it would be every week working for the same individual. So I never did wash windows, I never did do that. But it was just like general cleaning up. Most of the time they would do they own washing and you just clean up and iron.	16:03
Doris Dixon	How did you negotiate the things that you would or would not do? Was there a process of negotiation about different tasks?	16:37
Lenora Benton Lewis	How they wanted things done?	16:45
Doris Dixon	Or, what you do? You said you didn't wash windows. Was that standard or you just told them?	16:49
Lenora Benton Lewis	Well, so some of the women's did wash windows, but I never did. I just most— I always cleaned up, cleaned the house up and iron. Well some of the maids did have to wash windows, you would see them washing windows and all this types thing.	16:56
Doris Dixon	Could you tell me about your work in the furniture factory? When did you start and where you worked?	17:20
Lenora Benton Lewis	I started in 1973. That's when I got hired, May the 27, at Sealy Mattress.	17:26
Doris Dixon	And what were you doing between, I guess, the time— Where you worked— The time you moved to Memphis in the early '50s up until that time?	17:44
Lenora Benton Lewis	Yeah. I had worked at this record place called Plastic Products. They made records. I worked there until he went out, and he closed down. So then I was laid off, because I had worked in— For years I worked in private home two days a week. I worked for that lady for 13 years, two days a week, because I had my children. So I worked for her. I just worked the two days a week for her for 13 years. Then after my youngest son was born, then I had left my husband and then I started working at Plastic Product. I worked at Plow for about a month. And when the job went out at Plastic Product, that's when I got hired at Sealy in '73.	17:55
Doris Dixon	Now, when you moved to Memphis and were still working, who kept your kids at that— Who kept your children at that point?	19:03
Lenora Benton Lewis	My mother did.	19:09
Doris Dixon	Okay, did she move here as well?	19:10
Lenora Benton Lewis	No. No, she used to come down. She was living in Germantown at that time, and she would come down and keep them the days, else I would carry them out there.	19:11
Doris Dixon	Have you been living in this neighborhood since you came?	19:21
Lenora Benton Lewis	No, no. I've been living here ever since 1967.	19:27
Doris Dixon	Where were you living before then?	19:36
Lenora Benton Lewis	I was living in the Binghamton area.	19:36
Doris Dixon	Can you describe, or do you remember, what sticks out in your mind about the Binghampton area when you first moved here?	19:45
Lenora Benton Lewis	Well, when I first moved there I lived in the project on Gracewood, which was a fairly decent neighborhood at that time. And well, it was until I left. I moved there in about maybe '55 or something like that. And I stayed there until— Lived there until in '67, well maybe, yeah, '66 maybe. Because I moved here in '67, '66, and it was nice, you had schools there to send the children, children went to Less School. And the neighborhood where I lived at, in the apartments, everybody mind their own business. So it was sort of unique living over there. But I wouldn't want to live there all my life. And I had a feeling that if I'd have never left my husband, I would've still been over there. But I left him in '67 and then I moved here in December of '67. Been here ever since.	20:03
Doris Dixon	And what sticks out in your mind about this neighborhood?	21:24
Lenora Benton Lewis	Well, oh now, this is still a quiet neighborhood, 'cause when I moved here I was the third Black family on the street. This was an all-White neighborhood, it was Black living next door to me, and over there in that White house was Black. We was the only Blacks on this street, and it was real quiet, real quiet and everybody, they just mind their own business, 'cause like I said, it's still quiet over here but back then it was even quiet. Well, I don't guess it was any quieter 'cause you don't hear any noise on the street now. It's quiet now. So I really have enjoyed living here in this neighborhood.	21:32
Doris Dixon	What were your relationships with your White neighbors, those people who lived here when you came?	22:25
Lenora Benton Lewis	Well you know how— They soon start moving out, 'cause I'm a person that I don't do a lot of visiting, and I don't really trust them period. This house next door here, that man is still there. Which he's the son, and he's just letting— I guess you saw how it looked. I've called in on him about the way his house looked. But it's his own house because I remember when his father passed from there and I remember when his mother passed, she was something like about 90, and he's never been married and he's just done let the house just went. But the White people, once the Blacks start moving on this street, they soon start leaving, as they usually do.	22:35
Doris Dixon	Could you tell me something about working at Sealy? Tell about working in the Memphis Furniture work.	23:39
Lenora Benton Lewis	When I went to Sealy in '73, I was very disappointed, because Sealy was a low paying job, and the job back then in '73 when I was working at the Record Factory, I was able to bring a hundred dollars home a week at that time. And when I went to Sealy it was like 50. And I was at home, I was drawing $41 that's all. I said, why would I come here? But anyway, I said I was going to leave and I tried to find other jobs, and I never was hired. And it was a man working there, one of my coworkers, he kept telling me to stay on there because if I stayed there when I got ready to retire, I would have money that the guys didn't have working at [indistinct 00:24:53], 'cause they had profit— have a profit sharing plan now.	23:40
Lenora Benton Lewis	They had a real good one then. So anyway, I tip-toed around and I stayed there. But I tell you it was heartbreaking 'cause I wasn't used to bringing that little money there home 'cause I was on production over there at the Record place and that they just paid no money. And then finally they voted the Union in and once they voted the Union in, then they started negotiation for races. And that's what really helped to get the salary up. Because now, like I say, when I first went there I think I was making $2 an hour, and when I retired first of the year I was making $8.58 and they negotiate a contract in April. So, I think they got a 25-cent raise. So if I was still there, I would've been making somewhere like about $8.80 something at this time now.	24:58
Lenora Benton Lewis	And as being Chief Steward, you have to be real straight with the bosses. In order to be a good Steward you have to go to classes, learn all, learn what your duties are; and I did that. I attend a lot of classes at the other Red Cross building. And once Managements know that you know your contract, and you know about the labor movement, see, you don't really have too much problem. I never had really too much problem out of them because, see, they used to try, you have to learn your contract, you got to know your contract. They would come ask me things about the company, they come ask me about it, I could tell them 'cause I studied it and learned it.	26:21
Lenora Benton Lewis	But see, the bosses they really don't— Just don't want to pay African-American a decent salary. They want you to be barely making it. Barely making it. They don't want you to be able to buy you no fine car, or buy you no house. They don't want that. So that's the way the bosses is. I remember we used to go negotiating sometimes, we'd stay there all night long. Can you imagine staying up all night long? And it didn't even make sense 'cause they know from day one what they was going to do. Why not go on and put it on the table? But you have to negotiate two or three months.	27:16
Lenora Benton Lewis	And then, I enjoy working with the Union 'cause I traveled a lot, and then our peoples is so uneducated on what's going on. They think if you got a Union, hey he can go kick the bosses in the behind. But you can't do that. You can't tell the bosses, the bosses own everything, and you have to respect them, get in and respect them. They are management. And you know have such a rough times trying to get it over to the people, 'cause the average one of them, they will not attend the meetings to learn it. So after nine years I resigned. That was that. I think my daughter's at the door. Can you let me go let her in?	28:09
Doris Dixon	Okay. You talking about the problems of organizing and getting people participation?	29:16
Lenora Benton Lewis	Yeah, I was saying that you can't— it's hard to get the employees to attend the meeting and that make it real— when they don't attend the meetings they don't really know about the organizations and it's hard to make them understand. A lot of them won't even read the contract, see? They don't know what they got in the contract, and the language of the contract, and it's really difficult. But when I were a Chief Steward, I attend a lot of meetings 'cause I would be going to meetings at least four times out of a week. Yeah. I was on the board, I was a Credit Union member and I would go to Stewards meeting, and this would be like every week. So then you have employees begin to think that you for the management. And then I just got tired of it and I resigned.	29:24
Lenora Benton Lewis	But I would tell anybody that wherever you are working, and they have a Union, I would advise them to join, because some reputation is better than none. No matter it might be a weak Union, but they have some reputation and because you see so many things it's happening today on jobs that don't have Unions. One thing about whatever you have in that contract, they have to abide by. If that contract says you going to get a raise April 27th, you going to get that raise. And if you working for someone else that don't have a Union, they'll say, well we'll give you a raise this day, but they might not give it to you. 'Cause I've experienced hearing people say that today. So Union is a great organization to belong to.	30:39
Doris Dixon	You said that the bosses really didn't want to pay African-American's a decent, a living wage. Was there a wage differential between Whites and Blacks at Sealy?	31:44
Lenora Benton Lewis	Well, okay. It wasn't really— it wasn't different, but they had incentive jobs, and hour jobs, and they had the Whites on the highest paid incentive jobs. There was some Blacks almost there. Well the Whites just did, on that side where they were, back when I was Chief Stewart, hey, they was making like $12 an hour then. And I used to always be on the boss about why did they make so much money? He says, well they do my work. I said, well it no one person can do three times much as work as another person. And I used to be on them all the time about that.	31:54
Lenora Benton Lewis	They believed in paying— people's working so hard, sweat running off of them like water been poured on them. That's where they like the same work. And when you're on that incentive, that's the only way you can make money. There was a lot of them that made real good money but they was running all day. Go ahead.	32:51
Doris Dixon	No, I was just going to ask you how did you get on the incentive program?	33:17
Lenora Benton Lewis	Oh, oh, oh okay. You had to be able to do that job, you had to be able to— And then, another thing about that company too, on their incentive, you never was able to point out say, well hey, I know I run so, so, so on. I made so much today, because you never didn't know how they was paying. And they used to take a lot of money from them, too, 'cause they would always be up there on them about their pay.	33:20
Lenora Benton Lewis	It wasn't like that. Like when I was working at this Record Plastic project, record place, I knew that I had to run so many records for the company, then I knew all over that I knew how much I got for making every record over that. But see, it wasn't like that at Sealy. At Sealy, you had to run 480 minutes for them. And all over that was your incentive. But you couldn't figure up where I may, I run so many hours, so much over 480 minutes. Say you run 600 minutes but you still couldn't be able to figure up how much you earned that day. So that was a catch. One time I was on incentive there, and I got off it and I said I never would work no incentive anymore there, because you never— They pay you what they want to pay you.	33:55
Lenora Benton Lewis	But a lot of them they would bid for the job. They had bid in the contract, and they, like the job come available, they would put the bid up on the board and you had three days to put in a writing bid for the job. And if you been there long enough or you had not missed a lot of days, if they decided to give you a job, they would give you— They put on you for a try. But see a lot of guys would lose their job because once they get them, then they find out they couldn't do that work. But then they start putting them on there for a trial base. They would be there for so long, and then they could go back to another job. And they also had that you couldn't go down, you had to always go up. Just like say if you want to own an incentive job and you want to come down to hourly job, they wouldn't let you have that.	35:02
Doris Dixon	Oh really?	36:07
Lenora Benton Lewis	Yeah. So they wanted you to more or less stay wherever you were trained at, they want you to stay there whether you made any money or not. They want you to stay there. That's why I said that it's always great to have a Union, because if you feel that you are not getting paid properly, the Union will send in a timer and at a time, and see how much you are supposed to be making. 'Cause it was a lot of them got back pay. They got back pay back there through the Union. So that's why I say that if you work for any company, and they have a Union, I advise you to join. Always be a member of that Union, because you have someone that will represent you.	36:09
Doris Dixon	What other kinds of complaints are, besides the pay issues, did you field or came to you as Chief— I can't talk— Chief Shop Steward?	37:07
Lenora Benton Lewis	Chief Seward. Okay. Okay. I'll tell you of another complaint that was like when I was Chief Steward, we had White lift drivers and we had about one White lift driver and the rest of them was Black. They would always take this Black lift driver, have him doing something else, certain time have him doing something else besides driving the lift, and his job was to drive the lift. So I had got on the Superintendent, this guy, young guy had came to me. I had got on the Superintendent about it. So then the White guy jumps down the lift and holler about he had more seniority than the Black guy, but the contract doesn't say that. That's auditioned right that stopped them, because I told them, I said, well if— What's that guy's name, Frenchie. I said if Frenchie can go do other things than some lift, Richard can also.	37:18
Lenora Benton Lewis	But see, and like I say, they always respect me as being Chief Steward because you have to demand respect from White peoples. And the point is about them, when you talk to them, always look them dead in the eye. Never be skinning and grinning. They can't stand for you look them dead in the eye, and you can always win. So I always got along with them because I knew my contract, and if I knew it, if that wasn't in the contract, I didn't go there with it. I know what the contracts say, I knew their language, and you have to abide by it. And when they did something, I tell them that the contract doesn't say that, and that's the way you can get along with them. But you have to always be on your Ps and Qs 'cause they always trying to get away with something.	38:46
Doris Dixon	And was it the same way growing up in Rossville?	39:48
Lenora Benton Lewis	Well see, growing up in Rossville there were no Unions then, when I grew up. On the farm, there wasn't any Unions. Then you was, well, I said Rossville I never had contact with no Whites.	39:52
Doris Dixon	Do you remember much about the contact that you did have with them?	40:20
Lenora Benton Lewis	I never had any because, 'cause out in the rule, your mothers and fathers, that if you went in the stores that most time they was with you, 'cause the people could never say that you put your hand on this, and you did that. 'Cause my parents didn't allow us to— Well, especially if we went to Rossville. Now we had another store that was in our neighborhood, 'cause we didn't live right in the Rossville town. We lived out in the rural. We had another store out there that my mother used to send us to, but she always told us, you never put your hands on anything. And that's the way it was back then. You didn't go in the store and pick up things like you— gather things like you do now. Everything you wanted, you asked for it and they gave it to you.	40:24
Doris Dixon	Did your parents ever have any trouble with local Whites? Was there ever trouble in the community?	41:22
Lenora Benton Lewis	No. No. My parents never did have any run-ins with the White. They always got along with them.	41:29
Doris Dixon	Was there ever a time in all this, either coming up, or after you came to Memphis, that you felt like a second class citizen? Did you ever feel like a second class citizen?	41:43
Lenora Benton Lewis	Well, that's been from childhood up that you was second class citizen because the Blacks never was able to be equal with the Whites. Because, like I say, even when I was a child going to school, the Blacks had to walk to school, but the Whites was on buses. So the African-Americans have always been second class citizen. Even 'til today. We are not equal with the Caucasians. And that's what they so afraid of, 'cause they don't want us to be, they so afraid that we might take over. So that's the way it was.	41:53
Doris Dixon	Were you ever involved in any other kind of organizing, that type of activity, besides the Furniture Works?	42:53
Lenora Benton Lewis	No. I never was in any other type of organization? No more than that. I'm a member of A. Phillip Randolph Institution.	43:02
Doris Dixon	Did your family attend church last year?	43:09
Lenora Benton Lewis	I went to Philadelphia— attend Philadelphia Baptist Church and I was a member of that church until a few years back. Well, a member of that church until, I guess, in about maybe '80. Maybe '90. And I joined a church here 'cause I had surgery on both my legs in '85 for varicose veins, and after then it just got too far for me to drive. I would be going by myself, and I just didn't feel like driving it, so I joined church here in the city, but I was a member of that church from a girl on up until a few years back; Philadelphia Baptist Church. That's where we are. My mother, she was a member of Mount Zion Baptist Church out there. Then later she moved to Germantown. She joined New Bethel before she passed.	43:30
Doris Dixon	Do you remember any particular controversies that might have happened back in Rossville? In the community?	44:29
Lenora Benton Lewis	Well no, it never was no— Fayette County, you talking about maybe Emmett Till down in Mississippi? No. Fayette County, they wasn't really, they were different. Well Fayette County was different from Mississippi. You had more rights there than the peoples did in Mississippi. I never lived there but from just hearing about it. The peoples that lived in Fayette County, they had more privilege than the peoples in Mississippi. So there was no controversy ever happen up in Fayette County that I can recall.	44:44
Doris Dixon	When you said they had more rights in Mississippi?	45:37
Lenora Benton Lewis	Well, what I'm saying is, from where— I haven't did a lot of traveling in Mississippi, from what I can hear is, even today, they were more prejudice in Mississippi than they were in Fayette County. And they still prejudice in Mississippi today.	45:41

Lenora Benton Lewis	— Alabama. And after we left there, we went to another home in another part of Alabama and it was a young man there and he asked us, say, "Well, where y'all was?" He said, "Where they are [indistinct 00:00:16]." And we said, "Well—" Because this was a Black and White family reunion that they're organizing now because you know that you are a relative, that you are mixed in with the Whites, you know that, don't you? Okay. So anyway, this was a Black and White family reunion, but then he told us that on up the road, little bit [indistinct 00:00:41], they was really [indistinct 00:00:43] up there. So it's really kind of amazed that family reunion be every two years. I've been there twice and it's amazed to see how— Because the Caucasian mens have always liked the Black womens, you know that. They have always, but then they'll turn around and lynch your brother if they find him dating one of their womens. So up in Fayette County wasn't like it was in Mississippi. It was a different atmosphere.	0:01
Doris Dixon	Well, I don't have any more questions. Is there anything that you would like— I guess, if someone were to come in and view your tape, what would you want them to know about your work experiences or your life?	1:33
Lenora Benton Lewis	Well, if someone was listening to my tape, I would like for them to know that when I first went to [indistinct 00:01:59], I was very disappointed, but by staying there 21 years, almost 22 years to retiring age, that I'm very happy I stayed there, because by me staying there and retiring from there, it gives me a decent living and I'm very proud I stayed there. So you have to take the bitter with the sweet. When I first went there, I wasn't making a lot of money, but I was encouraged by another coworker that if I stayed there and retired there, that I would have money that the guys that retired from the National Harvest wouldn't have and I tells him today that he's the reason that I stayed there, that he told me the truth.	1:48
Doris Dixon	[indistinct 00:02:50].	2:46
Lenora Benton Lewis	You're welcome. I hope I were some—	2:49

Item Info

Title:

Lenora Lewis interview recording, 1995 June 14

Date:

June 14, 1995

Creator:

Lewis, Lenora Benton

Contributor:

Dixon, Doris

Description:

Name: Lenora Benton Lewis; Date of birth: 1933-07-12; Place of birth: Fayette Co., TN; Occupation(s): manufacturer; domestic; agriculture; Residence: Memphis, TN
Informant ID: 845; Interviewed by: Doris Dixon.

Occupation:

Location:

Format:

Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

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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Related Resources:

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Provenance:

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.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

Copyright for content created by the Behind the Veil project is held by Duke University and made available to the public using a Creative Commons Attribution / Non-commercial (CC-BY-NC) license.

Identifier:

RL00170-CS-0885
ae68e4a2-a101-4d88-8c44-abccfe7b421f
behindtheveil
7d16036d-d1d0-4783-bb5b-9ddc963755ec
ark:/87924/r43204b76
7d16036d-d1d0-4783-bb5b-9ddc963755ec

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r43204b76

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Lenora Lewis interview recording, 1995 June 14

Transcript

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1. Lenora Lewis administrative file, 1995

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Transcript

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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