Mary Davis interview recording, 1994 July 07

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Felix Armfield	Today is July seventh, 1994. My name is Felix Armfield and I'm the interviewer. I'm about to begin interviewing Ms. Mary Davis here at the Ambrose Park Senior Center in New Orleans, Louisiana. Ms. Davis, would you state your name for the record, please, your full name?	0:06
Mary Hitchens Davis	Mary H. Davis.	0:27
Felix Armfield	Mary H. Davis?	0:28
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yes. My maiden name. I just put that. You can put it in there for the record.	0:31
Felix Armfield	Okay. Where were you born, Ms. Davis?	0:34
Mary Hitchens Davis	Felixville, Louisiana.	0:36
Felix Armfield	That's just like my name, F-E-L-I-X-V-I-L-L-E.	0:39
Mary Hitchens Davis	Mm-hmm.	0:43
Felix Armfield	And that's in Louisiana?	0:44
Mary Hitchens Davis	Right. You can just put it on it there if you write.	0:44
Felix Armfield	Okay. Now when were you born in Louisiana?	0:47
Mary Hitchens Davis	November the fifth, 1931.	0:47
Felix Armfield	November the fifth, 1931. How many children were in the family?	0:55
Mary Hitchens Davis	Only two.	1:02
Felix Armfield	Just two?	1:02
Mary Hitchens Davis	I and my brother. I am the oldest.	1:04
Felix Armfield	You're oldest and you have a younger brother?	1:06
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	1:09
Felix Armfield	Now, did you grow up there in Felixville all your life?	1:10
Mary Hitchens Davis	No, between the two states, partial Louisiana and partial Mississippi.	1:15
Felix Armfield	Parts of Louisiana, parts of Mississippi. Okay. How long did the family stay in Felixville? Or did you go and come back?	1:20
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, I was a kid and I wouldn't know then. I could remember when we left there, that is my native home, I born there.	1:28
Felix Armfield	In Felixville?	1:36
Mary Hitchens Davis	Mm-hmm. But then we moved away when I was a little, small kid and we lived in Mississippi, I can remember that.	1:36
Felix Armfield	Now, where in Mississippi did you live?	1:43
Mary Hitchens Davis	Around Liberty, Mississippi.	1:56
Felix Armfield	Liberty?	1:56
Mary Hitchens Davis	Mm-hmm.	1:56
Felix Armfield	Okay.	1:56
Mary Hitchens Davis	Right at the state line.	1:56
Felix Armfield	Now, why did the family leave from Felixville and go to Liberty, Mississippi? Do you know?	1:57
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah. Well, we were farming. They were farming and it was like the house, it would start raining and stuff and they didn't repair stuff like they did now. So it was like a country house and in the wintertime, it would get cold. It was a lot of cracks in the woods and the floors and stuff. They couldn't make fire right, so they moved to a better place.	1:58
Felix Armfield	So to move from Felix to Liberty was basically for better living conditions?	2:24
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah. For a better place to live.	2:28
Felix Armfield	Okay. Now what kind of work did your family find once they got to Liberty?	2:30
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, farming as usual.	2:34
Felix Armfield	Okay.	2:36
Mary Hitchens Davis	Potatoes, corn, cotton, stuff like that.	2:37
Felix Armfield	So they found there and continued with the tradition of farming for the most part?	2:40
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	2:45
Felix Armfield	Were both your parents farmers, your mother and your father?	2:48
Mary Hitchens Davis	No, only my grandmother. She raised me with my brother.	2:50
Felix Armfield	Okay. So you grew up with your grandmother?	2:55
Mary Hitchens Davis	Grandmother. Mm-hmm.	2:56
Felix Armfield	Okay. And it was your grandmother who was moving from Felixville?	2:58
Mary Hitchens Davis	To Mississippi. Mm-hmm.	2:59
Felix Armfield	Oh, okay. Now where were your parents at the time?	3:03
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, my mother had left home and she had come here to New Orleans.	3:06
Felix Armfield	To New Orleans?	3:08
Mary Hitchens Davis	Mm-hmm.	3:08
Felix Armfield	Your mother had come to the big city and your grandmother kept you and your brother to raise you.	3:11
Mary Hitchens Davis	Mm-hmm.	3:15
Felix Armfield	Did you ever know your father?	3:16
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, recently I met him a couple of years back, but he's dead now.	3:18
Felix Armfield	But basically as a child, you really didn't—	3:24
Mary Hitchens Davis	You really didn't, I didn't know him.	3:27
Felix Armfield	—have any contact with your father?	3:27
Mary Hitchens Davis	No, I didn't.	3:28
Felix Armfield	Okay. How much schooling do you recall your grandmother having had?	3:34
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, I don't think she had much of any, about first grade. She had knowledge, good understanding, but I don't think she went to school any.	3:38
Felix Armfield	Okay. Okay. Do you recall your grandmother doing anything else for a living, other than farming?	3:49
Mary Hitchens Davis	Like washing for these White people. They have they houses and stuff and you go wash or go clean, chickens or stuff like that. That's what she did.	3:56
Felix Armfield	So she did some domestic work for the White people there in the community—	4:06
Mary Hitchens Davis	In the country? Yeah.	4:10
Felix Armfield	—of Felixville and Liberty?	4:11
Mary Hitchens Davis	Mm-hmm.	4:11
Felix Armfield	Now were was Felixville, Louisiana and Liberty, Michigan—sorry, Liberty, Mississippi, were they both rural, country towns?	4:13
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	4:23
Felix Armfield	Okay.	4:23
Mary Hitchens Davis	They had a mailman sometimes in a old car or truck. They had the mailboxes on the side of the road. That's where they would get the mail. And when they wanted them to pick up a letter or something, they had a little flag, they would lift it up.	4:24
Felix Armfield	To let him know that there was something there for them to pick up.	4:43
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, something in the box. Yeah.	4:46
Felix Armfield	Okay. When did you start receiving your schooling?	4:50
Mary Hitchens Davis	I was about seven, I think.	4:51
Felix Armfield	Where were you at the time?	4:51
Mary Hitchens Davis	That was in Quentin, Louisiana. I used to go to a little school, they call—Let me see—What wait now—Don's school, I've gone there.	4:59
Felix Armfield	Don' School?	5:10
Mary Hitchens Davis	And Antioch School. Don's was in Louisiana and Antioch School was in Mississippi.	5:14
Felix Armfield	Now is that where you got your elementary education or you got all of it between Don and Antioch?	5:23
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	5:30
Felix Armfield	And what grade did you complete?	5:31
Mary Hitchens Davis	Eight.	5:34
Felix Armfield	You completed 8th grade and you completed that at Antioch in Mississippi?	5:35
Mary Hitchens Davis	Mm-hmm.	5:39
Felix Armfield	Now that was in Liberty, Mississippi.	5:39
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, Antioch, yeah.	5:44
Felix Armfield	Now what year did you finish the 8th grade?	5:45
Mary Hitchens Davis	I don't really know, but I know I was about 15 or 16 but I could not—	5:49
Felix Armfield	You were born in 1931?	5:53
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	5:56
Felix Armfield	So we can just add that up. But you finished eighth grade about fifteen or so.	5:57
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	6:00
Felix Armfield	Now why didn't you go on to high school, Ms. Davis?	6:01
Mary Hitchens Davis	Because my grandmother wasn't able to give me support that I needed and she wasn't able to give me the money. So then I just stopped out of school.	6:03
Felix Armfield	Which a lot of Black people did at that time.	6:14
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah. Now—	6:16
Felix Armfield	They couldn't go beyond 8th grade.	6:16
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah. She had neighbors, they would've got together and sent me to Clinton High School for three months. But what were I going to do with the other months that they couldn't pay and I couldn't go. So I just [indistinct 00:06:33].	6:19
Felix Armfield	But why were they only going to send you for three months to Clinton School?	6:32
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, that's the only the money they had and they was only going to share that with my grandmother, say, well, I would be learning some of the high school rules.	6:35
Felix Armfield	Okay. Okay. Okay. Now, where was Clinton High School located? Was that in Mississippi?	6:44
Mary Hitchens Davis	That's in Louisiana?	6:52
Felix Armfield	Okay.	6:52
Mary Hitchens Davis	That's in Louisiana.	6:52
Felix Armfield	Okay. So you would come back to Louisiana to go to high school?	6:54
Mary Hitchens Davis	Mm-hmm.	6:55
Felix Armfield	If you could have afforded high school in Liberty, Mississippi, was there a high school available for you?	6:59
Mary Hitchens Davis	It probably was a high school there, but it was more or less for White people. And it was more or less expensive there than it would be.	7:04
Felix Armfield	Back in Louisiana?	7:15
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	7:17
Felix Armfield	And that would've been in Felixville?	7:19
Mary Hitchens Davis	That would've been in Clinton. Clinton it would've been.	7:19
Felix Armfield	You would've come to Clinton, Louisiana?	7:23
Mary Hitchens Davis	Mm-hmm, yeah.	7:24
Felix Armfield	And Clinton, Louisiana, there was a Black high school there?	7:25
Mary Hitchens Davis	That's right. Mm-hmm.	7:26
Felix Armfield	Okay. Well, what did you start doing once you had completed 8th grade? Did you begin working?	7:28
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, I used to help my grandmother. It was only—I had my brother. Then we would go out after she learned us and we would pick cotton or help pull corn or dig sweet potatoes.	7:34
Felix Armfield	Now where are you all living at this time?	7:48
Mary Hitchens Davis	We'd live in Clinton, around between the line of Mississippi and Louisiana.	7:49
Felix Armfield	And Louisiana.	7:56
Mary Hitchens Davis	Mm-hmm.	7:59
Felix Armfield	Now, about what time was this? What year was it? Can you recall approximately?	7:59
Mary Hitchens Davis	That had to be around—Let me see—'40 because my kids born '52. That had to be around '40— '39, '40, one two, three around and during that time.	8:02
Felix Armfield	Okay.	8:15
Mary Hitchens Davis	My grandmother died at fifty-four. Yeah. But then when I got—	8:16
Felix Armfield	So probably somewhere in the mid '40s?	8:25
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	8:27
Felix Armfield	After World War II or during the Second—	8:28
Mary Hitchens Davis	During that time it was.	8:32
Felix Armfield	During World War II is—	8:33
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	8:34
Felix Armfield	—when the family is there at that Louisiana-Mississippi line—	8:35
Mary Hitchens Davis	Line, yeah.	8:38
Felix Armfield	—between Clinton, working.	8:39
Mary Hitchens Davis	Mm-hmm. And Mississippi.	8:42
Felix Armfield	So you started doing farm labor with your grandmother.	8:42
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah. She learned us stuff where we grew up at on the farm, until I left away.	8:45
Felix Armfield	Okay. Now when did you leave?	8:49
Mary Hitchens Davis	I got married in '50 in December the twenty-fourth, I think, 1950. And I stayed there that year. Me and my husband, I stayed with his mama. After my son was born, he was born in '51. I left there in '51 and I stayed down here about a month and I went back home—	8:52
Felix Armfield	You mean you came here to New Orleans?	9:20
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, I stayed here a month and then I went back home and got my clothes together and I came back here to live.	9:22
Felix Armfield	Okay. Okay. Then you came back. What year was it that you came here to live permanently?	9:28
Mary Hitchens Davis	In '52.	9:32
Felix Armfield	In '52. What kinds of things did you start doing in 1952? Did you work outside the home?	9:34
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, no. I'd usually just be a housewife and older people, if they needed help I would go to grocery, cook, wash, iron to make ends meet.	9:40
Felix Armfield	Okay. What did your husband do for living?	9:52
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, he could hardly read or write but he worked at a chemical company. That's the first job he had when he came here, because I was gone about six months or so before he came here and he started working at Thompson Haywood Chemical Company.	9:55
Felix Armfield	Thompson?	10:09
Mary Hitchens Davis	Haywood.	10:10
Felix Armfield	Now, why was it that you came six months before and he came down to New Orleans?	10:19
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, I just couldn't take the country no more. There was nothing there. And all that hard work and you probably raised your cotton and your corn and you end up with nothing. See, my grandmother and them, they had to eat. They wouldn't hardly have enough to buy clothes and things that we really needed. So then I just decided that I would try to make a better life for me.	10:23
Felix Armfield	And he stayed on there and continued farming?	10:52
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah. Well, he came here after, like I say, six months and that's how he got the job right there, Thompson Haywood.	10:54
Felix Armfield	Thompson Haywood.	11:01
Mary Hitchens Davis	Mm-hmm.	11:01
Felix Armfield	Okay. Now what kind of work was he doing there at that time?	11:01
Mary Hitchens Davis	Oh, no, it was a chemical plant.	11:07
Felix Armfield	Oh, okay. He was doing something that had to do with chemicals.	11:08
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	11:10
Felix Armfield	What did you recall, what were your first impressions of—Where did you live when you moved to New Orleans? When you first moved to New Orleans?	11:11
Mary Hitchens Davis	I lived at 422 Cherokee Street.	11:17
Felix Armfield	Cherokee Street. Now what ward is that in?	11:21
Mary Hitchens Davis	I don't know what ward, you probably have to look that up, find out what ward it is.	11:25
Felix Armfield	Who would have been—	11:29
Mary Hitchens Davis	That's across St. Charles.	11:29
Felix Armfield	Okay. Cross over St. Charles.	11:31
Mary Hitchens Davis	Mm-hmm.	11:33
Felix Armfield	Now, who were some of your neighbors? Were they Black, White, Hispanics?	11:34
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, they was Black.	11:38
Felix Armfield	Okay. Mostly all your neighbors?	11:39
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, all of them was Black, yeah.	11:41
Felix Armfield	So Cherokee definitely was in a Black neighborhood?	11:43
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah. Well they had one White family in a big family house across the street from 422, like 422 here and the house set across, on the corner.	11:45
Felix Armfield	Was—	11:58
Mary Hitchens Davis	They were all White.	11:59
Felix Armfield	Were the White family. Okay.	11:59
Mary Hitchens Davis	I was light and their little children used to come downstairs and they'd look at me and I'd be holding my baby. This was my oldest son. They'd said, "We don't really know. They Colored, but they bright." And they used to stand outside and just watch us.	12:02
Felix Armfield	Okay. So they would actually watch you as it was a mystery—	12:21
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	12:24
Felix Armfield	—to see Black people in the neighborhood—	12:24
Mary Hitchens Davis	With light skin.	12:24
Felix Armfield	That's interesting. Now what were your first impressions of New Orleans when you got here?	12:25
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, I didn't know anything. They had a lot of lights, I weren't used to that. So I usually just stay home and do cleaning and stuff like that. Then when I came here, my mother were pregnant with my sister. She didn't know she was pregnant, I didn't either until she went to the doctor. When she went to the doctor, doctor told her she was pregnant. So my oldest son is six months older than my next sister.	12:39
Felix Armfield	You sister? That's me, kind of like that. So when you came to New Orleans, did you move in with your mother, initially?	13:10
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah. Well I stayed there with her until we could find a house to live in.	13:14
Felix Armfield	Okay. So there again, you came here because you had already had a family member that was here and they could help you get settled in?	13:18
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	13:27
Felix Armfield	What kinds of things did you do socially when you first got here to New Orleans?	13:32
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, they would always have parties. Like here, if one person is not having a party, well, you was invited next door, they got their sandwiches and crawfish or— I never had that until I came here. I didn't know anything about crawfish, crabs, and stuff like that. And—	13:37
Felix Armfield	Oh, really? Now why is that, that you didn't know anything about crawfish?	13:55
Mary Hitchens Davis	Because they didn't have that out there. The only thing I knew about is fish and they had to go fish and catch that.	13:58
Felix Armfield	Okay. Okay. So New Orleans introduced you to crawfish?	14:03
Mary Hitchens Davis	And crabs and oysters and all like that. I didn't know anything about that.	14:10
Felix Armfield	Really? Was there any place you could not go because you were Black when you first got here?	14:12
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, I didn't even try it for a long time. Then I'd say when I got about twenty, twenty-five, I would start going to restaurants and go to the bars to have a couple of drinks maybe at that time it was full staff.	14:20
Felix Armfield	Fall staff?	14:39
Mary Hitchens Davis	I was and one— Full staff.	14:39
Felix Armfield	False staff?	14:40
Mary Hitchens Davis	Full staff beer.	14:41
Felix Armfield	Oh, okay, okay.	14:42
Mary Hitchens Davis	Mm-hmm. I would drink one or two and that was enough for me, I was ready to go home.	14:44
Felix Armfield	Okay. Okay, I see, I see. Now where did you go to have this drink, what end of town where you in?	14:52
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, they had a bar on the corner of Danielle Street. I done forgot the name of it. But I used to go there at Full and Danielle and sit there some. Yeah. Then I would go ahead home. Some of my friends would bring me. I was very friendly and I'd pick up a lot of friends like being fun and I just could go like that.	14:56
Felix Armfield	Yeah. Any of those bars that you ever went to, where the Whites there?	15:23
Mary Hitchens Davis	No, not then.	15:32
Felix Armfield	Okay.	15:34
Mary Hitchens Davis	Back then, long while back, then.	15:34
Felix Armfield	When are you talking about when you say back then? In the '40s and '50s?	15:36
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, '50s. '52 and '53. The only White person would be in there is the one that would be running it. Or maybe they'd had music, you might go in a bar and they got White people running it. Well, that was it. They never mingle like they are now.	15:37
Felix Armfield	So usually even the bars that were for Black people were owned and run by White people?	15:56
Mary Hitchens Davis	No. Sometime they would own a bar, but the Blacks couldn't go in it. But just to see White people hanging out in the Black bar? No, they didn't have it then.	16:02
Felix Armfield	So sometimes they did own the bars?	16:13
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, they would own a bar and they would not—	16:17
Felix Armfield	They would own it in a Black neighborhood—	16:20
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, but—	16:21
Felix Armfield	—so that Black people could come.	16:21
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, that's right.	16:24
Felix Armfield	Usually, the White people did not come to those bars.	16:25
Mary Hitchens Davis	That's right.	16:27
Felix Armfield	What do you remember about the close of the war with soldiers returning? Do you recall, were there any family members that were in World War II of yours that you remember coming back home from the war?	16:30
Mary Hitchens Davis	I can't remember, but I'm sure there was. Can't remember.	16:43
Felix Armfield	Did you participate in the carnivals that went on here?	16:51
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, recently.	16:55
Felix Armfield	But back then?	16:57
Mary Hitchens Davis	Nah. Back then, I didn't even know what carnival was when I came here.	16:58
Felix Armfield	And no one—Excuse me. And no one introduced you to the carnival?	17:04
Mary Hitchens Davis	My mother used to tell me about it. But by me coming from the country here, you have to get yourself into the different situations and stuff. It's quiet and everybody's to themselves out in the country. So I mean, I had to get out of that. Then when I got used to place that I was living in, got used to the people and learning some of the people, well, I felt free and safe to roam around. Other than that, I was—	17:09
Felix Armfield	So pretty much kept over there on Cherokee Street?	17:42
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, still.	17:45
Felix Armfield	Now when is it that you move out from Cherokee Street into your own place?	17:47
Mary Hitchens Davis	'53.	17:51
Felix Armfield	'53. Is your husband here then?	17:53
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, he was still here.	17:55
Felix Armfield	He had already come in '53?	17:57
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	17:58
Felix Armfield	Now, where did you move to when you moved?	17:58
Mary Hitchens Davis	7725 Olive Street.	17:59
Felix Armfield	Olive Street. Okay. Now who were your neighbors on Olive Street?	18:01
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, there was my land lady, Ms. Lina Wheeler, Delphine Vils, and Lord, can't even think of Miss—There was a neighbor that I called Miss Honey.	18:07
Felix Armfield	Miss Honey?	18:18
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	18:18
Felix Armfield	So were all your neighbors Black on that street?	18:21
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah. They all were Black.	18:25
Felix Armfield	Okay. You didn't have any White neighbors at that time?	18:27
Mary Hitchens Davis	No White neighbors at all.	18:29
Felix Armfield	Okay. Now did you attend church when you got here to New Orleans?	18:31
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	18:32
Felix Armfield	Now what kind of religion were you?	18:35
Mary Hitchens Davis	Baptist.	18:37
Felix Armfield	You were Baptist, came from the country of Baptist, and you remained Baptist when you got here?	18:40
Mary Hitchens Davis	Mm-hmm.	18:42
Felix Armfield	You didn't get involved with the Catholics?	18:43
Mary Hitchens Davis	No, I didn't.	18:44
Felix Armfield	You didn't get involved. Now where did you start attending church?	18:45
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, first, it was right by my house where there is St. Joseph Baptist Church. That was right just a couple block doors from my house.	18:51
Felix Armfield	Okay. What do you remember about—When did you have your first job?	19:00
Mary Hitchens Davis	In '51.	19:07
Felix Armfield	In '51. And your child starts school in '57 or so?	19:12
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	19:16
Felix Armfield	What do you remember about sending that child off to school? Where did he go to school?	19:16
Mary Hitchens Davis	He went to Danelle.	19:21
Felix Armfield	Now was that an integrated school or was it segregated?	19:22
Mary Hitchens Davis	No, it was all Black kids there then.	19:22
Felix Armfield	Okay.. Well, what were your impressions of that segregated school? How did you feel about sending your child to that segregated school? Was it the closest school, too?	19:23
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, yeah. There were all Black schools. This just started too, desegregation and all of this. Like in the country, it was, I had read here recently, I'd say about right in '70, I think they started—	19:39
Felix Armfield	Busing people?	19:59
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	20:02
Felix Armfield	[indistinct 00:20:03] in New Orleans.	20:03
Mary Hitchens Davis	And going to different—Yeah. It's things like that.	20:03
Felix Armfield	But prior to that, it was still pretty much segregated, the city wasn't it?	20:05
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	20:07
Felix Armfield	Were there places that you can recall—Any incidents that you were recall when the children were small that may have happened simply because they were Black children?	20:10
Mary Hitchens Davis	No. Well, they never did—See, when they growed up, they just went on off the school and I never had no problem because they was the type of kids that could get along with anybody. And if there was something there, well, they would just stay away from that but they would still go on about their duties.	20:17
Felix Armfield	Okay. Okay. Did your children participate in carnival and all the festivities of Mardi Gras and things of that nature?	20:42
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, they used to go, they would go and catch beads and holler and jump with the rest of the crowd. Other than that, they would, they didn't just get on a floats and ride and stuff.	20:48
Felix Armfield	Why didn't you get on the float?	21:00
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, because we—wasn't belonged to any organization.	21:02
Felix Armfield	Okay. Didn't belonged to any of the organization.	21:08
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yes.	21:11
Felix Armfield	Were there organizations that were available for Black people?	21:11
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, they had them. They had the Zulus and other groups, some of those different clubs that you could go and join, but the money problem.	21:14
Felix Armfield	Oh, so money did play a part—	21:27
Mary Hitchens Davis	That's right.	21:30
Felix Armfield	—in whether you belong to or not these clubs—	21:31
Mary Hitchens Davis	Or not.	21:34
Felix Armfield	—or not. That's interesting, Ms. Davis. Is there anything else you'd like to tell me about life in particular? Any particular incident? Do you recall riding the streetcars and the buses, when you got to New Orleans?	21:34
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah. When I came here they had a sign on the bus. You got on the bus—If you were Colored you had to take the sign and move it and you sat behind that sign.	21:46
Felix Armfield	Okay. Now when you got on the bus, did you pay your money and walk straight into the back?	21:59
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah. You'd pay like—I think when I came here it was seven cents to ride the business.	22:00
Felix Armfield	And that was in '51?	22:04
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah. That was in, yeah, '51 I think it was seven cents.	22:08
Felix Armfield	So I mean, did you pay your money and walk straight on back to where your seat was?	22:10
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	22:13
Felix Armfield	Or did you pay your money and get off and go around to the back?	22:14
Mary Hitchens Davis	No. You would pay your money, get on the bus and pay your money. But they had a screen on there. When you'd sit down, if the screen was behind you, you had to move it. You have to sit behind that screen.	22:16
Felix Armfield	Had to be behind the screen.	22:29
Mary Hitchens Davis	That's right.	22:30
Felix Armfield	And what was the screen? What was on that screen.	22:32
Mary Hitchens Davis	Like the White and the Black, they would get on the bus but they would not sit with you. They would stand up before they'd sit down beside a Black person.	22:34
Felix Armfield	And this is White people?	22:41
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	22:41
Felix Armfield	And that sign, what did that sign read?	22:43
Mary Hitchens Davis	Colored.	22:48
Felix Armfield	It said, "Colored." You had to sit behind the Colored screen?	22:50
Mary Hitchens Davis	That's right.	22:50
Felix Armfield	Do you remember any incidents on those buses?	22:53
Mary Hitchens Davis	Not on the bus when I would ride it, but I didn't go that often. But there weren't any on there, but I had heard about them.	22:58
Felix Armfield	Oh, really?	23:05
Mary Hitchens Davis	Mm-hmm.	23:07
Felix Armfield	But none in particular that you—	23:07
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	23:11
Felix Armfield	Now, when you did start to work, did you ever work outside the home?	23:12
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	23:13
Felix Armfield	Okay. What would you do outside?	23:13
Mary Hitchens Davis	First thing I started doing was domestic work.	23:15
Felix Armfield	Okay. And when was that Ms. Davis?	23:18
Mary Hitchens Davis	That was in '53.	23:18
Felix Armfield	Okay. You began domestic work?	23:21
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah. It'd be like two days a week or three days	23:23
Felix Armfield	Work. Were you working for?	23:26
Mary Hitchens Davis	I worked for Ms. Estelle Wilson and I worked for Dr. Robinson.	23:27
Felix Armfield	Now are these White families?	23:32
Mary Hitchens Davis	They're Black families.	23:32
Felix Armfield	They were Black families?	23:33
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	23:33
Felix Armfield	You were doing domestic work for Black families.	23:34
Mary Hitchens Davis	Mm-hmm.	23:37
Felix Armfield	How did that make you feel doing domestic work for Black families?	23:38
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, I felt all right as long as I was getting paid. It didn't make a different who I worked for.	23:41
Felix Armfield	No, no, no. I guess my thing is that were you glad to know that you could working for Black people, rather than White people?	23:45
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah. Yeah. It was good to know that I could work any place as long as I did it right or had the skills to perform the job that they wanted me to do.	23:53
Felix Armfield	Okay. Now when you say you did the best of work, what did that include? What did you do?	24:04
Mary Hitchens Davis	You do that's washing, ironing, cleaning, mopping, waxing.	24:06
Felix Armfield	Basically, taking care of the house.	24:10
Mary Hitchens Davis	Right.	24:12
Felix Armfield	Did you prepare meals?	24:12
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah. Sometimes.	24:12
Felix Armfield	Sometimes you were doing meals.	24:14
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah. And iron—	24:14
Felix Armfield	I bet you're a pretty good cook.	24:14
Mary Hitchens Davis	That's what they say. Then Dr. Robinson, well, I go in and clean his office, clean it up, get his papers—	24:21
Felix Armfield	Now this Dr. Robinson, is this a physician, a medical doctor?	24:28
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, he's a medical doctor. Old medical doctor.	24:36
Felix Armfield	And where did he live?	24:37
Mary Hitchens Davis	He's between Jackson and Baronne. I can't recall his number, but I don't have it now. He's there yet. He's real old but he's	24:39
Felix Armfield	Is that the Uptown area?	24:48
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, that's around St. Charles.	24:50
Felix Armfield	Okay, still Uptown.	24:54
Mary Hitchens Davis	It's about a block off of St. Charles.	24:54
Felix Armfield	Okay. Still in the Uptown area?	24:55
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah. Right next to it.	24:57
Felix Armfield	So there were some Black families living in the Uptown area?	24:58
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	25:00
Felix Armfield	Who was the other person that you taking care, that you worked for?	25:02
Mary Hitchens Davis	Estelle Wilson.	25:05
Felix Armfield	Ms. Wilson. Where did Ms. Wilson live?	25:06
Mary Hitchens Davis	She lived on General Taylor.	25:08
Felix Armfield	General Taylor. Now where is that, is that located in the Uptown area, near St. Charles, in and around it?	25:10
Mary Hitchens Davis	That would be going back—Yeah, it would be going back. But it's around St. Charles area.	25:15
Felix Armfield	Okay. What did Ms. Taylor do? I'm—	25:23
Mary Hitchens Davis	She's a mortician.	25:27
Felix Armfield	What was her name again?	25:28
Mary Hitchens Davis	Estelle Wilson.	25:29
Felix Armfield	Ms. Wilson. What did she do?	25:30
Mary Hitchens Davis	She's a mortician.	25:35
Felix Armfield	She's a mortician?	25:35
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, she runs a funeral home.	25:35
Felix Armfield	So these people that you worked for, these Black families that you worked for, were people who had some money, clearly.	25:37
Mary Hitchens Davis	Right, right.	25:43
Felix Armfield	They weren't just poor, Black people. But you were cleaning for some big shots here in town, as they like to say.	25:44
Mary Hitchens Davis	Right.	25:50
Felix Armfield	Really. Now, do they still run the funeral here?	25:51
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yes, she does.	25:53
Felix Armfield	Oh, really? Do you still know her? I mean, she's still alive?	25:54
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yes. I went to see her about three months ago.	25:58
Felix Armfield	Really? Did she remember you?	26:03
Mary Hitchens Davis	Sure, she—	26:03
Felix Armfield	How long did you work for her?	26:04
Mary Hitchens Davis	Oh, for some years.	26:06
Felix Armfield	Oh, did you?	26:09
Mary Hitchens Davis	Mm-hmm. Some years. And she wanted me to come back then but I told her, I said, "No, I got old now. I can't clean like I used to."	26:10
Felix Armfield	I know.	26:15
Mary Hitchens Davis	I said, "You forgot I'm sixty-two, huh?" She said, "What? You still get around, yeah?" I said, "But yeah, but I can't clean like I used to."	26:15
Felix Armfield	You can't clown like you used to?	26:16
Mary Hitchens Davis	I can't clean like I used to.	26:25
Felix Armfield	Oh, clean. Okay.	26:26
Mary Hitchens Davis	She used to leave the house up to me and she would go on about her duties and when she comes back, everything done. She do—right now, I'm running away from her now to tell you the truth. Look, she always wanted me to do work for her because she don't have to bother about nothing going out of her house. See, like I say, I'm binded.	26:28
Felix Armfield	I bet you've [indistinct 00:26:53]. Now how long did you work for Dr.—what was his name?	26:55
Mary Hitchens Davis	Robinson.	26:59
Felix Armfield	Dr. Robinson?	26:59
Mary Hitchens Davis	I worked for him about three years.	27:02
Felix Armfield	Now did you just clean his office or did you clean his home, also?	27:04
Mary Hitchens Davis	I cleaned his office and I would write the people name and tell them when they come in and what their appointment was and stuff like that.	27:07
Felix Armfield	Oh, so you did—Okay.	27:18
Mary Hitchens Davis	I learned. Self experiencing life is how I learned. When I came here I could hardly write, now you see my writing now.	27:23
Felix Armfield	I see, I see. You did a wonderful job. Your signature, it's beautiful Mary Davis. You don't look like nobody who can't write to me.	27:26
Mary Hitchens Davis	But I couldn't. I went to a nursing home. It was St. Ann's nursing home.	27:36
Felix Armfield	When did you go to the nursing home?	27:54
Mary Hitchens Davis	Oh, I don't—'67? Around '65, '66, '67—Around '67, '68 I went and I start learning there, taking care of the elderly there. I worked there for about a year. Then the lady, she couldn't get out, she was back in old time. If you were eating your lunch, you stopped. If she came along and tell you get up and go move her chair, well, you had to do that or you didn't have a job.	27:57
Felix Armfield	Hard labor, her.	28:23
Mary Hitchens Davis	I worked for some good, I worked for bad.	28:24
Felix Armfield	How many children did you have altogether?	28:30
Mary Hitchens Davis	Eight.	28:30
Felix Armfield	You have eight children. All eight of them with your husband together?	28:35
Mary Hitchens Davis	No, me and my husband separated back in '66—'65, '66. My Fred was almost a year old, it had to be '67 when we separated and divorced in '67. So I raised those two twins without him.	28:38
Felix Armfield	Okay. The last two children were twins?	28:57
Mary Hitchens Davis	Mm-hmm.	28:57
Felix Armfield	Oh. Is there anything else you'd like to tell me about? I mean, do you recall any ever going to the movies and things like that to—	29:08
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, going to the shows.	29:12
Felix Armfield	I mean back in the days of segregation.	29:14
Mary Hitchens Davis	Oh, yeah. But it was no problem then way back then, I was—	29:17
Felix Armfield	Why wasn't there a problem?	29:21
Mary Hitchens Davis	Because I was still in the Black places.	29:23
Felix Armfield	And where were the Black places at?	29:29
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, Clinton, Louisiana, we would go to the shore there or they had these little country towns, where you could go and go there, where people didn't bother you then.	29:34
Felix Armfield	Now there were Black theaters there in Clinton?	29:40
Mary Hitchens Davis	No, it was run by Whites.	29:44
Felix Armfield	Okay. Did you go in and sit with everybody else when you went to the theater?	29:44
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	29:44
Felix Armfield	Black and White sat together?	29:44
Mary Hitchens Davis	No, not then. I didn't sit with them.	29:51
Felix Armfield	Where did you sit?	29:54
Mary Hitchens Davis	Just go in the show and sit down. They would be on one side and we would be on the other. Either they would be in one place or we'd be in the other. I'm not saying the people didn't sit down with them.	29:56
Felix Armfield	But for the most part, Whites would sit on one side of the theater—	30:08
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	30:10
Felix Armfield	—Blacks would sit on the other side?	30:11
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah. Or they would sit around in there. Like, okay, if you sitting there, I'd come in, I'm going to sit here. Okay, you was over there and I'm over here.	30:14
Felix Armfield	Okay.	30:21
Mary Hitchens Davis	But we still not—	30:21
Felix Armfield	Sitting right next to each other?	30:23
Mary Hitchens Davis	That's what I'm saying.	30:26
Felix Armfield	I get it. That was something, you didn't sit next to.	30:26
Mary Hitchens Davis	That's right.	30:29
Felix Armfield	I see.	30:30
Mary Hitchens Davis	Because when we were coming up way back there, when my grandmother used to tell me how they would do it and if they would go inside to eat, you couldn't go in and sit down and eat with them. Your food had to be handed to you out of the door. But either if they let you in, you was going to wait until they finish eating, then they might let you come into their kitchen and sit down at the table, and that wasn't often.	30:33
Felix Armfield	I can imagine that you wouldn't make to the table.	31:06
Mary Hitchens Davis	They would hand your food out of the door.	31:11
Felix Armfield	Did you ever recall experiencing anything like that?	31:13
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, my grandmother used to clean their chickens and clean around the house, do their washing and do their cooking and stuff, but she couldn't buy their food.	31:16
Felix Armfield	She couldn't buy for them?	31:29
Mary Hitchens Davis	No. After they eat, then she could. Then sometimes she used to bring me and my brother and they would reach us a sandwich or something out of the door. We couldn't come in at that time.	31:30
Felix Armfield	Yeah. So what did you all do, just stand outside and wait?	31:44
Mary Hitchens Davis	Just stand outside or either sit outside on a bench or something they had around the yard there. Right.	31:47
Felix Armfield	But you never did go inside their house to eat?	31:55
Mary Hitchens Davis	No, they didn't allow you in their house to eat. Even if it was raining, they didn't let you come in. They might let you stand on their porch. If they had a shed, you could stand under that.	31:58
Felix Armfield	And when you were talking about, "They," you're talking about White people?	32:10
Mary Hitchens Davis	White people.	32:13
Felix Armfield	How did that make you feel, Ms. Davis?	32:14
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, I just wondered why. I didn't have the understanding because I was a kid.	32:16
Felix Armfield	Yeah. But you certainly obviously wondered why things were as they were.	32:21
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	32:26
Felix Armfield	Did you ever say anything to your grandmother?	32:26
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, she used to tell me.	32:26
Felix Armfield	And what was her response?	32:26
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, they were White and you just had to do like they told you to do it.	32:36
Felix Armfield	So your grandma did do some domestic work for [indistinct 00:32:46]?	32:42
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, that's how we had to survive because we lived on a farm.	32:46
Felix Armfield	What kind of pay did she receive for that kind of work. Do you know?	32:51
Mary Hitchens Davis	Sometime he would give fifty cents, sometime a dollar.	32:55
Felix Armfield	For a day? You went and cleaned that whole house, washed, and ironed, you got a dollar?	32:57
Mary Hitchens Davis	A dollar or fifty cent. Sometime as time went on, I can remember mama used to bring home four or five dollars a week.	33:05
Felix Armfield	When was this?	33:15
Mary Hitchens Davis	I called my grandmother mom when I was the kid coming up and I was born in '30s.	33:15
Felix Armfield	Oh, in 1930.	33:18
Mary Hitchens Davis	That's right.	33:20
Felix Armfield	Was that big money, fifty cents or a dollar back then?	33:20
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, at that time it was big because you could go to the store and get ten cents of sugar, you could get fifteen cents of red beans or twenty-five cents of rice, just according to how big your family was and to the money that she had. But at the time, they wasn't earning nothing. And the ones that was on the farm at the last of the year when they might come out with maybe 400 or 200 out of all that work. The White man gave them what they wanted him to have. You didn't have anything of your own.	33:25
Felix Armfield	Now when you all lived on the farm, did you live in your own house or were you—	34:08
Mary Hitchens Davis	No.	34:11
Felix Armfield	You were living in—	34:11
Mary Hitchens Davis	They let us stay there because we lived on the farm. We would just live in the house.	34:14
Felix Armfield	You lived in the house?	34:19
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, we would—	34:22
Felix Armfield	And what did you do in return for living in the house?	34:24
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, farm.	34:25
Felix Armfield	You farmed. Now were you paid for any of your labor?	34:28
Mary Hitchens Davis	When you raise your crop like corn, cotton, stuff like that, when you raise your crop and you take the cotton to the gin or corn and you put that in the crib, you'd make your own cornmeal and stuff like that.	34:30
Felix Armfield	So you were allowed to attempt some of your own crop yielding?	34:42
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, it was like for the White man, if that's what my grandmother told me. When at the end of the year, you've got to get money from him to run that farm. You're using his horses, you're using whatever he had, so he going to take his money out.	34:46
Felix Armfield	And what usually would you have left by the time—	35:01
Mary Hitchens Davis	That's just what I'm telling you. By the time you get through, well, you ain't hardly got nothing left. You starting on the next year and half the time they come out in debt.	35:08
Felix Armfield	Now that was sharecropping.	35:18
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	35:20
Felix Armfield	Now you all down in where, Clinton, Louisiana?	35:21
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, Louisiana and Mississippi. That's all I remember from it.	35:24
Felix Armfield	And at the end of the year—	35:29
Mary Hitchens Davis	You would end up with hardly nothing. If you got 400 dollars, you'd be doing good. Because my grandmother used to tell me about that, about work—	35:31
Felix Armfield	Did she ever get anything from the garden?	35:37
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, I don't know. I was small but I know she used to work and we didn't have anything. She worked there. We didn't have anything too much. And like I say, she'd go do washing and ironing, she might come back with a dollar, a dollar fifty. And I can remember when she would get five dollars a week for a week work. I was small but she told me a lot and I would absorb that. So I never wanted to live in the country. When I got old enough, I left.	35:44
Felix Armfield	And that's why you packed your bags and got out.	36:19
Mary Hitchens Davis	I got out of there.	36:21
Felix Armfield	And came to New Orleans [indistinct 00:36:27] children.	36:22
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	36:22
Felix Armfield	Okay, that's interesting. That there that you gave me about sharecropping, it's interesting that you said that you hardly had anything left over at the end of the year if you had that.	36:32
Mary Hitchens Davis	If you had—That's right. I can remember when my grandmother and they used to grow peanuts and sweet potatoes. Well, they would grow their own food because they wouldn't have much money to go. They'd raise their own chickens and stuff like that. So it wasn't too much they would buy except sugar, red beans and stuff like that. I can remember her buying that. But other than that, it was rough.	36:46
Felix Armfield	Got it. Now if at the end of the year you didn't have any money left, that was yours doing all this farmed labor, how then did you—What was—	37:18
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, they would go back to the boss, the old—	37:27
Felix Armfield	The White land owner?	37:30
Mary Hitchens Davis	The White land owner who they farmed for and get money and that would be on the next year.	37:32
Felix Armfield	Starting next year's debt, right back there.	37:40
Mary Hitchens Davis	That's right. Mm-hmm.	37:44
Felix Armfield	And that was the nature of sharecropping.	37:46
Mary Hitchens Davis	That's right. And they would raise peanuts and stuff like that. Sometimes they would take half of it to keep the holes and the birds and things from eating it. Like you was saying Jim Crow, they would go out in the field and they would make something like, I would say a Jim Crow put a coat on—	37:47
Felix Armfield	Oh, a scarecrow?	38:03
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, and then stand it up so that they could get some of their harvest.	38:03
Felix Armfield	Yeah, yeah. Keep the birds in the garden—	38:18
Mary Hitchens Davis	From eating it up, yeah. I can [indistinct 00:38:19].	38:18
Felix Armfield	Right.	38:18
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	38:18
Felix Armfield	Now when did you go to school when you could go? What month of the year did you attend to school?	38:18
Mary Hitchens Davis	Well, whatever months it was, I don't know. I was small then. But I would go.	38:25
Felix Armfield	Did you go a full year?	38:30
Mary Hitchens Davis	No, sometime I wouldn't be able to go, like it'd be raining and stuff like that, I didn't go. Then sometime I would have to stay home and help mama because she was old. Yeah, she was old.	38:31
Felix Armfield	Now you say you couldn't go because it was raining. How far did you have to go to school? How did you get to school?	38:42
Mary Hitchens Davis	Had to walk.	38:51
Felix Armfield	You walked to school?	38:51
Mary Hitchens Davis	Mm-hmm.	38:51
Felix Armfield	And how far did you walk to school?	38:51
Mary Hitchens Davis	Like two, three miles from where we used to live to a school, set off.	38:52
Felix Armfield	You would walk that, three miles there?	38:57
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, to school.	38:59
Felix Armfield	And then walk it back?	39:00
Mary Hitchens Davis	Back, yeah.	39:01
Felix Armfield	Did the other kids from the neighborhood walk [indistinct 00:39:04]?	39:02
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah. Yeah. They had a couple kids in the neighborhood. They talked to us, they used to go. But now I don't know where they was. That's been so far back. I find not even think of that time.	39:03
Felix Armfield	Why don't you want think of that time?	39:17
Mary Hitchens Davis	I just don't. Don't value none of that.	39:18
Felix Armfield	No value none of it.	39:18
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah. Don't value anything to me. At that time you didn't have nothing and you work hard, you have to walk everywhere you go.	39:20
Felix Armfield	So some things you just sort of want to forget?	39:31
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah. Yeah.	39:33
Felix Armfield	Now did the White kids in the neighborhood, were they waling to school?	39:38
Mary Hitchens Davis	They didn't have no White kids back then, not where we lived. They had—	39:42
Felix Armfield	Out in the country?	39:44
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, they had their, what you call the bosses and his wife and children, but they stayed to themselves. I mean, you was just somebody on the place that worked.	39:47
Felix Armfield	Did the children go to school.	39:58
Mary Hitchens Davis	I guess they did, but we didn't know anything about that, how they run their business then.	39:59
Felix Armfield	You don't recall seeing them going to school?	40:06
Mary Hitchens Davis	I said I guess they did. By me being a young kid, I guess my grandmother could tell you that, my mama could tell you that. But then they was usually to themselves. Only thing you did is go do what you had to do there and go about your business.	40:09
Felix Armfield	Didn;'t even see them? Do you know if they had daughters and sons your age?	40:27
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, sure. Some of them had children.	40:28
Felix Armfield	Your age?	40:29
Mary Hitchens Davis	I don't know if they was my age or not, I know they were small. They had small children because I was raised up on them plantations.	40:30
Felix Armfield	Plantations. They still got some of the plantations down here in Mississippi and Louisiana.	40:42
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, they do. But a lot of them had faded away.	40:47
Felix Armfield	Yeah. Yeah.	40:51
Mary Hitchens Davis	Because people no longer do those kind of things.	40:52
Felix Armfield	Yeah. Some hard labor but for little or no pay at all.	40:59
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	41:02
Felix Armfield	Just wasn't paying.	41:02
Mary Hitchens Davis	As they say, people would be going for more understanding, more learning, went to going up and leaving the country, leaving and going where they could get an education or get paid for the job that they do. So then it's nobody out there to do that kind of work anymore. Very few places you find.	41:07
Felix Armfield	Once they start getting education, they were ready to leave those rural areas?	41:30
Mary Hitchens Davis	That's right.	41:32
Felix Armfield	Doing that hard labor.	41:32
Mary Hitchens Davis	That's right.	41:32
Felix Armfield	Okay. Well, there anything else you want to tell me about your experiences?	41:32
Mary Hitchens Davis	No, that's good enough.	41:43
Felix Armfield	That's good enough. You've done wonderful, Ms. Davis. I really appreciate you telling me all this stuff because I didn't know all about that sharecropping business.	41:45
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah.	41:53
Felix Armfield	I didn't know all about domestic work and all that.	41:54
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yes.	41:57
Felix Armfield	So you certainly have given us wealth of information.	41:57
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, they kept up with the records. You didn't know anything. They would tell you about your fertilizer, whatever it was that had to be put down around the corner, the cotton to make it grow up there. Well, they kept a record. We didn't know anything. So at the end of the year you would haul the cotton, you'd get it to the gin, you'd get the corn—	42:01
Felix Armfield	This is sharecroppers?	42:22
Mary Hitchens Davis	Yeah, you'd get the corn, you'd put that in and you don't know what you done spent.	42:22
Felix Armfield	As a sharecropper, you didn't know was spent.	42:27
Mary Hitchens Davis	They—What was what.	42:29
Felix Armfield	Because they were keeping it secret.	42:31
Mary Hitchens Davis	They was keeping a record.	42:32
Felix Armfield	When you say, "They," you're talking about these White people who kept the records?	42:34
Mary Hitchens Davis	That's right.	42:36
Felix Armfield	White families?	42:36
Mary Hitchens Davis	And you didn't know anything. They wouldn't show you and tell you, "And this is what you get."	42:36
Felix Armfield	And you didn't know to question nothing.	42:41
Mary Hitchens Davis	No, I didn't know because I wasn't old enough to understand.	42:46
Felix Armfield	But I'm saying your grandmother still didn't know.	42:48
Mary Hitchens Davis	No, she didn't.	42:48
Felix Armfield	She just went along with it.	42:52
Mary Hitchens Davis	Went along with it, just to have a place to live. She didn't have any money and she had me and my brother to raise. Mm-hmm. Yeah.	42:53
Felix Armfield	Okay. Well I thank you for this interview, Ms. Davis. I want to now wrap up with your interview and get some quick paperwork done with you and then we'll be done.	43:02
Mary Hitchens Davis	Okay. Because they— Yeah—	43:15

Item Info

Title:

Mary Davis interview recording, 1994 July 07

Date:

July 7, 1994

Creator:

Davis, Mary Hitchens

Contributor:

Armfield, Felix

Description:

Name: Mary Hitchens Davis; Date of birth: 1931-11-05; Place of birth: Felixville, LA; Occupation(s): domestic; Residence: New Orleans, LA
Informant ID: 530; Interviewed by: Felix Armfield.

Occupation:

Domestic worker

Location:

Format:

Language:

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

Series:

Related Resources:

See below

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

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-1202
50ba4ec1-63cd-43e4-8cd9-82a1d9eebf25
behindtheveil
7ee88323-3cc3-4800-9a39-28906c566bbc
ark:/87924/r4rf5xq77
7ee88323-3cc3-4800-9a39-28906c566bbc

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4rf5xq77

Sponsor:

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