Lucy Steele interview recording, 1994 June 15

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Paul Ortiz	And then a copy. It's a long term project, but we're trying to get a sense of what it was like for African American people to live during the Jim Crow years.	0:02
Lucy Steele	Well, you ready?	0:18
Paul Ortiz	Yeah. We got the machine going.	0:21
Lucy Steele	When I was a child growing up times wasn't good for us. The people didn't have anything. I lived on the farm, and what little we did have, they made the best out of what they could. I have worked for 40 cents a day. We had to buy our clothes, shoes, all our clothing and all of our food out of what we made. We worked for the White people. They would take away, because things were cheap at that time. You could get flour, 12 pounds for—Let me see. I done forgot what 12 pounds cost. But anyway, they would give us—They called it ration your food. They would give you a pack of meal. It's been so long I don't how see how much meat was it? Wasn't much. A pack of meal. Now I'm not sure, three pounds of meat, that's for the man and his family now. Some of them had three and four children.	0:25
Paul Ortiz	Wasn't a lot.	3:12
Lucy Steele	Yeah. We had cows and milked the cows and have milk and a bottle. And what you raised that year they called it self advancing you through the year. They give you that pack of meal and the flour and stuff. But when time come for settlement, they always said, "If you just had a made a little bit more, you'd have paid out." You don't ever pay out.	3:17
Paul Ortiz	Right.	4:00
Lucy Steele	They just keep it. And then you had to borrow something to live on through the winter if you didn't raise enough for yourself. You had to borrow money from them. But if your children got anything for Christmas, though, you know that every parents want a child to have something and they would get something. I don't know how much money, but they'd give them a little money for Christmas. They'll sign them up. That's getting them hooked then for the next year.	4:02
Paul Ortiz	Was this the people who owned the land?	4:53
Lucy Steele	Mm-hmm. The people who owned the land. But we made it, the houses. You could look up at the top and see the sun, moon and stars through them. They were just weather boarded up rough planks.	4:55
Paul Ortiz	What county did you grow up in?	5:29
Lucy Steele	Hmm?	5:31
Paul Ortiz	What county did you grow up In?	5:32
Lucy Steele	Dallas.	5:34
Paul Ortiz	In Dallas County?	5:35
Lucy Steele	Mm-hmm. Selma, Alabama was our little town. And then we had another little place we'd go to was little nearer, we called it Barnesville.	5:36
Paul Ortiz	Barnesville?	5:58
Lucy Steele	Uh-huh.	5:59
Paul Ortiz	And what was it like to grow up in Dallas County?	6:08
Lucy Steele	Huh?	6:14
Paul Ortiz	Did your family move around to different farms?	6:21
Lucy Steele	Uh-huh. They moved around. You didn't like the way they lived, they'd go somewhere else where they promised to treat you better, you see. Well, maybe they did. But anyway, if you didn't raise something for yourself you didn't have nothing. Because of that you did have, they'd take it away, say you owed it on your debt.	6:27
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember your grandparents?	7:02
Lucy Steele	I remember my father's mother and my mother's mother. But them only two that I remember of the grandparents. My father's mother was named Catherine Tosh.	7:05
Paul Ortiz	Did you have much contact with them? Did you talk with them when you were growing up?	7:41
Lucy Steele	Oh yeah. We didn't live so far apart. Of course we had to walk. We didn't have nothing to ride, but we got along. You see, it's just like anything else. If you don't pay no to children and pay no attention like children do now. I didn't get but five months schooling a year. See, we didn't get none. Some of the people were well off than others. And some of the people were able to send their children to school and make teachers out of some of them. But my parents wasn't. But my father was a good farmer. He raised what we eat mostly.	7:46
Paul Ortiz	Was there a particular cash crop that he would raise?	9:11
Lucy Steele	Oh yeah. We raised cotton, corn, peas, potatoes. Most anything grow the field. We raised that. And the floors in the house, I meant to tell you, was cracks like that, like my finger between the planks. The floor was just rough planks. But they was smoother, smooth. But now all them holes between that air come from under the house up through there.	9:15
Paul Ortiz	Can you talk maybe about your sisters, brothers?	10:02
Lucy Steele	Well, I'm the only girl that was in my family.	10:07
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	10:10
Lucy Steele	It was seven of us in all, didn't but four of us lived to get grown. But we got along. We didn't have nothing. We wasn't used to nothing. So we made the best out of whatever we had. And we were happy. You see, we didn't know nothing else but to be happy. We thank the Lord for whatever he gave us. Now one thing, they seen that we went to church and Sunday school. Yeah. My father wasn't a learned man. But he was a deacon of one of the churches. He didn't go to Sunday school with us. He would send us, but you need to think he wouldn't be there right after we would to see did we get there. He wasn't going to play hooky. He was going. We didn't have but one pair of shoes we called Sunday shoes and we went bare feet.	10:17
Paul Ortiz	The rest of the week?	12:05
Lucy Steele	The rest of the week. And we carry them shoes until we getting there to the church if we had to walk a long way distance. Cast a little rag or something to wipe our shoes off. We carried them on our back. We wipe our feet off and put on our stockings and shoes going on in church. And they didn't play church. They had service at that time. People played church a whole lot now. People go to church to see what I got on, what you got on. And ain't nothing about what the preacher saying. But you see we were taught to love the Lord. And out of those four boys, I was the last one to confess Christ.	12:07
Paul Ortiz	When did that happen?	13:17
Lucy Steele	1909, I confess Christ. And He been with me all the way. I can have just as good a time here by myself. You see, if you love the Lord, he love you. He love you anyway. He ain't going to forsake you. He never leaves you alone. If any leaving done, you done left Him. He don't leave you alone. You do wrong, you done drift it away from Him, you got to pray hard. But if you ask to be obedience and ask forgiveness, He'll forgive you for that error that you made. Still own you as his child.	13:19
Lucy Steele	Oh, I had a good time this morning. I went to eat my breakfast. Lady brought me my breakfast this morning. I may just graciously give it to me. Not a matter that I don't have food. I tell you, they treat me like I'm a baby. When she come in I was singing, "I Got One More River To Cross." And when I knew anything, both of us were sitting up here crying, happy. You see, you look back over your life and see how good the Lord had been to you. He don't have to do it. He don't have to be that way good to you. So many children go astray. They don't even take heed at what their parents teach you.	14:28
Paul Ortiz	Mrs. Steele, when you were growing up, did your parents—You talked a lot about what your parents taught you, the values they taught you. Did your parents or anybody in the community ever tell stories about slavery time?	15:50
Lucy Steele	Yeah. I hear the people talk about slavery, how they beat up the people and take what they had. They call it owning you. They said that, just like you lived on his plantation and I lived on your plantation, and that just was all the way around. They said they owned them, that they were owned by them people that they were on the plantation. They called them their people. I couldn't go over there unless I get a permit to go. And then they would take those people and they didn't do like they want them to do they'd beat them up, tie them. I used to hear my grandmothers talk about how they did their parents. Now they wasn't born in slavery time, my parents wasn't.	16:08
Paul Ortiz	Right.	17:48
Lucy Steele	And their parents wasn't born in slavery time. But they would hear the other people, their parents' parents.	17:50
Paul Ortiz	Their parents' parents?	18:00
Lucy Steele	Uh-huh. Their grandparents talk about it, just like we heard them talk about it, see. People was hard. Black folks then didn't have no say-so over themself. If that White man want to be a friend with that Colored woman he was a friend with that Colored woman, see? And then that White man have him beat to death. If the White man be friends with that Colored woman, that is all right. But if the Colored man wanted to be a friend with that White woman, he'd beat him to death. See? He didn't have no say-so over his wife. The White man did whatever he wanted with his wife. That's just the way they said it was. I don't know. I wasn't there.	18:02
Paul Ortiz	Oh. Do you remember any other kinds of stories that your grandparents would tell or that you heard other people tell about slavery?	19:41
Lucy Steele	My memory ain't good now. I used to have good memory. But the older I get, I don't remember things like I used to. I don't know. I can't say now. But back then they had a rough time. Yeah.	19:52
Paul Ortiz	When you were growing up you were living in Dallas County.	20:39
Lucy Steele	Uh-huh.	20:42
Paul Ortiz	Were you living there during your entire childhood, or did you move at some point from Dallas County when you were a child with your family?	20:43
Lucy Steele	Oh, I stayed with my family until I got grown.	20:55
Paul Ortiz	And that was all in Dallas County?	20:59
Lucy Steele	Oh yeah. Then after I got grown I went out by myself.	21:02
Paul Ortiz	And where did you go?	21:08
Lucy Steele	Oh, I went to the little town there in Dallas County, still in Dallas County. Got me a job. See, we lived about 10 miles to the little town from where we lived. And the river was about 300—River wasn't nowhere. Papa used to say it's about 300 yards or something like that from the river, Alabama River. And come big rains and things the river would swell, that water just like—Other people that have to move. But as we lived on a hill, we didn't ever have to move. But that water would go all back of our house.	21:10
Paul Ortiz	Now when you say we, is this you or your entire family?	22:42
Lucy Steele	The entire family.	22:47
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	22:48
Lucy Steele	We had to move. I mean we didn't ever have to move. By us being up on a hill, you see, the water be down here, but we couldn't get it. And the little town part of it would be flooded. Oh, it is rough sometime down there. But the Lord brought us out.	22:53
Paul Ortiz	Is that Barnesville?	23:21
Lucy Steele	Huh?	23:24
Paul Ortiz	Which town was that?	23:24
Lucy Steele	That's Selma.	23:25
Paul Ortiz	Selma. Okay.	23:25
Lucy Steele	Barnesville is just a little place where we used to go because it was nearer to get some groceries.	23:33
Paul Ortiz	In Selma, you were still living with your parents?	23:49
Lucy Steele	Huh?	23:52
Paul Ortiz	Were you living with your parents in Selma?	23:53
Lucy Steele	When I was living in Selma I wasn't with my parents then. The water had flooded and practically took all of the farm land, you see. I went there and got a job so I could help my parents. See, they stayed around where they could work and worked there.	23:56
Paul Ortiz	Where did you work when you got the job?	24:25
Lucy Steele	Oh Lord. I worked on Alabama Avenue. I think that's what it was. It's been so long. My memory ain't good, I told you now, like it used to be. But anyways.	24:37
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember what kind of job it was on Alabama?	24:54
Lucy Steele	Yeah. I was working as a house maid. I was working at a boarding house. We'd cook whatever. I'd help to cook. My regular part was to wash dishes, and I ain't never like to wash dishes and I don't want them dirty. I ain't never liked to wash dishes in my life. But they ain't going to stay dirty. I want them clean, but I don't want to wash them. Never did like to wash dishes.	24:56
Paul Ortiz	I can understand that. So you were working on Alabama Avenue in a boarding house. Who were you working for?	25:50
Lucy Steele	What that woman name? Mmm, mmm, mmm. You had to ask me, I could have told you. (laughs) What is her name, sure enough? Oh Lord. If it don't come back it's gone forever. Now it's not a hard name because I can't think of it.	26:10
Paul Ortiz	I just asked the question just in case you might—It's not specifically—I was just curious, on Alabama in the boarding house, what kind of people would come in there?	26:52
Lucy Steele	Well, they were nice people. They took in boarders, roomers. They took them in room and board. They worked and they took care of their food and a place to stay. Give them a place to stay, you see. And then when they got their pay they paid her.	27:13
Paul Ortiz	All the people coming in, were they White?	27:51
Lucy Steele	Oh yeah, they were White. They didn't have no Colored. They just had Black help. But they didn't have no Black boarders or nothing like that. They all was White. But we got along. That funny stuff is they wanted me to wash dishes. One of my cousin was one of the cooks, and another cousin of mine waited table. He said, "I'm the dishwasher." Mm-hmm.	27:55
Paul Ortiz	Almost a family affair.	28:59
Lucy Steele	Well, it's just like you get a job and you find an opening and I done come to town I'm going to try to help you get a job. But if there's an opening where I work, you see, then you tell the people about me, they hire me. That's the way we got all those family folks got together. So when they told me about washing dishes, I said, "Well I just go somewhere else because I ain't going to wash all them dishes." And my cousin was named Hattie. She said, "I tell you what." I said, "What?" She said, "You wait table and I'll wash the dishes." I said, "All right. That's a go." That's the way we did it. We swapped jobs ourselves. That lady's name Miss Wilson.	29:03
Paul Ortiz	Wilson. So during this time, did your parents continue to farm?	30:20
Lucy Steele	Oh yeah. My father did. He farmed until he passed. He never did quit farming. My next oldest brother what lived he farmed until he passed. Now my baby brother, he and me didn't like to farm. We didn't like to work in the field. We worked in the field until—Well, he worked in the field a while after he married. But I didn't matter when I left home, I just left home. I wasn't married, but I didn't try to live all kind of life. That wasn't in me. I tried to live like I was taught to live, right.	30:28
Lucy Steele	We see people go astray. The good book says something that people go astray when they leave their mother's womb. That's what that book there tells me. So some of these things, when we see people doing, they can't help their self. The Lord ain't going to lie. He don't lie. And He said they go astray. You see, a lot of us don't know that the book said it because we never pick it up, read it. Some of us can't read and some of us not interested in reading. So that's just the way it go.	31:44
Paul Ortiz	in Selma, which church did you go to?	33:14
Lucy Steele	A little church called Everdale Baptist Church.	33:19
Paul Ortiz	Everdale?	33:33
Lucy Steele	Everdale.	33:33
Paul Ortiz	Do you know if that's still there, if that church is still on Selma?	33:33
Lucy Steele	Yeah. I was there two years ago, three years ago now.	33:34
Paul Ortiz	What kind of church was it?	33:43
Lucy Steele	It was a Baptist church. We sang and pray and serve God. Just like I'm still a Baptist. I belong to Tabernacle Baptist Church on Center Street and Sixth Avenue. No. I'm going be a Baptist. We have good service there. Like way to go there. I can't go to church now. I can't get in a car. If I go to the doctor, I have to go in an ambulance. But those things right there, up ahead of them plaques, read them before you leave.	33:46
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Do you remember about what time that you were in Selma? About the years, maybe? I'm just trying to think about the year that you moved to Selma. Was it say before World War I or after?	34:55
Lucy Steele	Before World War I.	35:27
Paul Ortiz	When you moved to Selma?	35:29
Lucy Steele	World War I out in the country.	35:34
Paul Ortiz	So it was after?	35:35
Lucy Steele	Uh-huh. Out from Selma.	35:35
Paul Ortiz	I see. So when you were in Selma, how long did you stay there? Did you stay in Selma for a very long time?	35:49
Lucy Steele	Oh, I don't know. I stayed in Selma a while. I don't know how many years now. But anyway, I left Selma and came to Birmingham, come here.	36:01
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	36:15
Lucy Steele	I got a job at a laundry.	36:29
Paul Ortiz	Did you have any relatives that lived up here in Birmingham at that time?	36:36
Lucy Steele	My uncle did at that time.	36:40
Paul Ortiz	Where did you stay when you first came here?	36:47
Lucy Steele	I stayed with my uncle.	36:51
Paul Ortiz	Stayed with your uncle. Do you remember about what time period that was?	36:52
Lucy Steele	Huh?	37:05
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember about what time or what year that was?	37:06
Lucy Steele	No, I don't remember the year, not right off. But anyway, I got a job over at the work. And then I stayed here.	37:09
Paul Ortiz	What kind of laundry service was it? Was it a laundry service that was housed in a big building? Did you go and pick up laundry from folks?	37:34
Lucy Steele	No. I ironed the clothes.	37:43
Paul Ortiz	What part of Birmingham?	37:55
Lucy Steele	On the south side.	38:01
Paul Ortiz	On the south side. What was it like? What was Birmingham like during those years?	38:15
Lucy Steele	Well, Birmingham wasn't like it is now. Birmingham was a nice quiet place. You had some rough parts of town, but it wasn't like it is now it's all over town now rough. You could go anywhere by yourself and wouldn't be afraid. Nobody wasn't going to bother you. The women could go anywhere they wanted to go by themselves and nobody to bother. Men took care of women at that time, they see after them, they'd look out for them, see. Ain't nobody going to bother you. Now instead of men trying to care for women, they treat them like worse than they do the dog.	38:21
Paul Ortiz	Is that about the time that you met your husband?	39:34
Lucy Steele	Huh?	39:37
Paul Ortiz	Is that about the time that you met your husband when you came to Birmingham or when you began—	39:38
Lucy Steele	I married after I got here. We lived together a long while. And then we become disagreeable. And that one died. No, that one left me because I didn't like the way he was living.	39:45
Paul Ortiz	What kind of work did he do?	40:19
Lucy Steele	He farmed.	40:22
Paul Ortiz	In Birmingham?	40:26
Lucy Steele	This one where lived here. Of course both of them farmed a while. But the one that died, he was a drunkard mostly, but I didn't know that at the time because when we were going together before we married, then you see he didn't show me no sign of that. He picked a guitar. Sometimes he'd be gone all night. That's after we married. He picked a guitar before we married. I knew he picked a guitar. But anyway, he went, he stay out all night. He's going to come as a getting drunk and laid out. But I stayed on with him. Then he died.	40:26
Paul Ortiz	Did you remarry after that? Did you remarry after that?	42:04
Lucy Steele	No, I have never married anymore. I done got too young to do that now. (laughs)	42:08
Paul Ortiz	Where did you meet your husband?	42:24
Lucy Steele	Huh?	42:24
Paul Ortiz	Where did you originally meet your husband?	42:26
Lucy Steele	Where I met him? Well, they stayed on one side of the river and we stayed on the other side. You see, we stayed on this side of the river and they stayed on that side of the river. Let me see now. Which way the river flows. They stay on this side of the river and we stayed on that side of the river. You see, we get in a bateau and cross the river, go to parties and things like that. Oh, we'd have a big time. But we had a lot of fun. But it wasn't no fighting and all kind of language and all of that stuff, see, because wherever the party was at they didn't allow it.	42:30
Paul Ortiz	Who was they?	43:52
Lucy Steele	Huh?	43:53
Paul Ortiz	Who was they when you said that they wouldn't allow it?	43:54
Lucy Steele	The one that give the party.	43:58
Paul Ortiz	Who would give the party?	44:01
Lucy Steele	Anybody. If you want give a party, you give it. If I wanted to give one, I'd give it. See, you try to crosstalk me. You know you know what a party is. (laughs)	44:04
Paul Ortiz	I was just curious. I didn't know if it was just a private party or a church party.	44:21
Lucy Steele	Oh no. When the church gave anything, we went to the church, see. Just like one at your place and one at mine or his. Well, we'd go. I'd dance all night long. But it didn't hurt me. I had to go to Sunday school, though, when I was with Papa. He didn't care. You could go out there and dance all night if you wanted to after you got old enough to understand that they didn't know how to take care of yourself.	44:27
Paul Ortiz	Did any of the rest of your family follow you up to Birmingham?	45:14
Lucy Steele	Well, my brothers would be with me. Then my cousins would be with us.	45:20
Paul Ortiz	So they came up with you or after you to Birmingham?	45:28
Lucy Steele	To Birmingham?	45:33
Paul Ortiz	Yeah.	45:36
Lucy Steele	One of my cousins wanted to take care of me, but he's much younger. His parents was not as old as me.	45:36
Paul Ortiz	Right. Now, it must have been quite a change of life to move from Selma to Birmingham.	45:53
Lucy Steele	Well, you make your life of what you wanted. I don't care where you are. You can make your life what you want. You can be rough, you can be kind, you can be mean, you can be anything you want to be. See, that's up to you to what you make out of yourself.	46:08
Paul Ortiz	Right. I guess what I'm trying to get at is, what was different about Birmingham—	46:28

Paul Ortiz	—going from the country to a city like Birmingham?	0:03
Lucy Steele	No, I don't be surprised at nothing. Don't nothing ever bother me. It's just another place. I don't be alarmed at nothing. You get there, you find out the ways. It ain't nothing to worry about it. You know it ain't like out in the country. See?	0:08
Paul Ortiz	Mm-hmm.	0:38
Lucy Steele	And you learn the ways of the town, just like you learn out there in the country.	0:41
Paul Ortiz	How long did it take for you to learn the ways of Birmingham?	0:49
Lucy Steele	I ain't never learned that because there is suddenly so much going on there. No, I never. I don't reckon I ever will that. So much different than it was, used to be.	0:55
Paul Ortiz	Right. You mentioned working. You were working, you were doing laundry. Were you working anywhere by, say, Fairfield?	1:14
Lucy Steele	No.	1:27
Paul Ortiz	Midfield?	1:27
Lucy Steele	Uh-huh.	1:27
Paul Ortiz	Bessemer?	1:28
Lucy Steele	No, I was working here in town.	1:34
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Do you remember the street name?	1:37
Lucy Steele	Oh sure. Where is that laundry at? The Domestic Laundry. Oh. Well, it's in the same place. You have to ask me. I could have told you. I can't think of it now.	1:47
Paul Ortiz	But it was in town?	2:07
Lucy Steele	Yeah. Domestic Laundry.	2:09
Paul Ortiz	What was it like in terms of race relations?	2:23
Lucy Steele	Huh?	2:31
Paul Ortiz	What was it like in terms of race relations?	2:32
Lucy Steele	Race?	2:36
Paul Ortiz	Yes. Was there a lot of racism that you noticed in Birmingham?	2:36
Lucy Steele	Take your fingers out your mouth and talk so I can you understand what you said?	2:48
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Did you notice a lot of racism in Birmingham when you came to Birmingham and you began to—	2:54
Lucy Steele	Well, I knew that before coming to Birmingham, there was different people there. I wasn't quite that ignorant. Different races everywhere.	3:00
Paul Ortiz	What about the system of Jim Crow in Birmingham during those years?	3:21
Lucy Steele	Well, on the buses where we went to ride and go to work, you'd have a board to put in the top of the seat. The White people in the front, the Black people in the back. That's Jim Crow. We didn't sit up there where you sit, but now you could sit back there where we sit. But we couldn't sit where you sit, see? Yeah. That's the way it was. We all paying the same fare. What carried you, the amount of money took to carry you where you was going, the same amount we had to pay.	3:31
Paul Ortiz	You mentioned earlier that you went to parties and you crossed the river to go to parties. Where did you make most of your friends at?	5:25
Lucy Steele	Huh?	5:32
Paul Ortiz	Where did you make most of your friends at or where did you—	5:33
Lucy Steele	You know I don't hear good, I want to tell you that.	5:39
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	5:47
Lucy Steele	That's when I answer. So when you ask them, I don't hear good.	5:47
Paul Ortiz	I guess, where did you meet most of your friends at?	5:54
Lucy Steele	Oh Lord, I don't know. But I had friends most anywhere because I make friends with people. I ain't got no special place for friends. I try to be friendly with everybody and then if I can't get along with you, I know how to leave you alone. See? Just don't go your way. You like things I don't like and I like things you don't like, I ain't going to bother you. I'm a person mostly went by myself and I'm that way today. I sit here in my room, I'm friendly and I'm willing to divide what I have with you.	5:58
Lucy Steele	See, I'm not stingy. I ain't going to give you all of it, but I'll divide with you. But I'm so used to being by myself, out there don't bother me. And then if you serve the Lord, you ain't never alone. He's right there. You going to have some time that you feel like you ain't got nobody. You going to feel like you're thrown away. You see, I don't have a mother, no father, no sister, no brother because I ain't never had a sister. I'm the only girl.	7:21
Lucy Steele	I've been by myself. And after all the separated us cousins, what went together all the time. We got separated. But that just left me, and I'm still separated from them and all of them gone. Well, at least so far as I know, because we never kept in contact all the time with them. And I don't know of anybody living now that was along with me. They could be. But you see getting separated, you're not keeping in contact with them, you never know.	8:50
Paul Ortiz	When you came to Birmingham, did you go to the church on Center Street? Or did you go to a different church?	9:54
Lucy Steele	Oh, I went to a different church then. I went to church at old Rickwood Park place called Shady Grove.	10:07
Paul Ortiz	Shady Grove.	10:21
Lucy Steele	Shady Grove Baptist Church.	10:22
Paul Ortiz	Did you like that church?	10:24
Lucy Steele	Yeah.	10:32
Paul Ortiz	What was the minister like there?	10:43
Lucy Steele	Reverend Baldwin.	10:48
Paul Ortiz	Did you have any other kind of work you were doing? Primarily, you were working the laundry?	11:25
Lucy Steele	Yeah, I worked in the laundry and then I did general housework.	11:35
Paul Ortiz	Now you said earlier that—	12:31
Lucy Steele	Huh?	12:31
Paul Ortiz	You said earlier that you didn't like to wash dishes.	12:31
Lucy Steele	No, I still don't. But I know they got to be washed, so I wash them.	12:31
Paul Ortiz	Did you have to do that kind of work in Birmingham when you did general housework?	12:31
Lucy Steele	Yeah. I cooked. You know if you cook, you got to wash them. I tell you I don't like it, but I do it. I ain't never like to wash them. I turned a job down one day, the lady wanted me to wash dishes, sure. I told her I was sorry. I wouldn't wash them. So I told, "No, go on and get somebody else." I didn't wash dishes and I didn't have nothing to do. Not nothing. I didn't have no job. But I didn't wash them dishes. I just could imagine she had them stacked up like that.	12:36
Paul Ortiz	Just leave them alone.	13:33
Lucy Steele	And then she was depending on me to wash them, I wasn't going to wash all them dishes. I have washed more than that. But I don't like no filthy place. But I just don't like it. I don't say I don't do it. I just don't like it. No. Mm-mm. I'll do it though.	13:44
Paul Ortiz	So if you didn't like the kind of work that they would assign, like washing dishes, you would just say—	14:09
Lucy Steele	I tell her, I'd thank her. Keep going.	14:22
Paul Ortiz	Keep going.	14:25
Lucy Steele	You know you don't know what you got to do. I needed to do that.	14:29
Paul Ortiz	Well, Mrs. Steele, I don't want to keep you too long because—	14:52
Lucy Steele	I see you trying to get the history of my life.	14:57
Paul Ortiz	Yeah. I pull out this form here. A really important part of what we're trying to do is we're trying to get some of your family history as well. And I just have this form, these forms here. If I could ask you these questions and I'll go ahead and fill this out. And this has questions like, if you could tell me your mother's name.	15:00
Lucy Steele	My mother was named Fanny Perkins. P-E-R-K-I-N-S.	15:30
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	15:37
Lucy Steele	My daddy was named James Perkins.	15:43
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Do you know about the time that your mother was born? Just approximately? That's fine. And for your mother's—we have occupation for your father, I should probably put farmer?	15:56
Lucy Steele	Farmers.	16:18
Paul Ortiz	For both parents. Do you know where your parents were born?	16:21
Lucy Steele	Huh?	16:35
Paul Ortiz	Do you know where your parents were born?	16:35
Lucy Steele	No, I wasn't there.	16:37
Paul Ortiz	Okay. That makes sense. How about your date of birth?	16:39
Lucy Steele	My date of birth, 18th of February, 1894.	16:56
Paul Ortiz	And I should put you were born in Dallas County.	17:17
Lucy Steele	You already got that.	17:22
Paul Ortiz	Oh, I didn't write it down. I wrote it on another piece of paper. I'm just making sure that I remember because I have memory lapses myself and I forget. And what was your husband's name?	17:24
Lucy Steele	James Steele.	17:56
Paul Ortiz	Do you know what county he was born in?	18:08
Lucy Steele	Mm-mm.	18:10
Paul Ortiz	What town? Or was he born in Alabama?	18:13
Lucy Steele	Yeah. Oh, he's born in Dallas County.	18:15
Paul Ortiz	Okay. He worked as—his occupation?	18:21
Lucy Steele	Farmer.	18:32
Paul Ortiz	Farmer. And can I get your brothers names?	18:45
Lucy Steele	All of them?	18:55
Paul Ortiz	Yeah.	18:57
Lucy Steele	Thomas Perkins. Joseph Perkins. He named Joseph James.	19:00
Paul Ortiz	Joseph James?	19:16
Lucy Steele	Mm-hmm. William Perkins. That all I know.	19:17
Paul Ortiz	Okay. And you were born—	19:40
Lucy Steele	In Dallas County.	19:45
Paul Ortiz	Yeah. You were born in Dallas County. Were you younger than all of your brothers or were you in between?	19:47
Lucy Steele	I'm the next youngest one.	19:59
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	20:03
Lucy Steele	My baby brother's younger than me.	20:04
Paul Ortiz	Okay. And did you have children?	20:06
Lucy Steele	No.	20:16
Paul Ortiz	Okay. If you have questions, feel free to ask them. For dates, this question is where you lived and I'm going to put you're originally from Dallas County, then you moved to Selma and the date, can I just put approximately, say, after World War I?	20:41
Lucy Steele	Yeah.	21:41
Paul Ortiz	Okay. For about the approximate date that you came to Birmingham?	21:51
Lucy Steele	Oh Lord, I don't know.	21:54
Paul Ortiz	Was it during maybe the Depression or before the Great Depression?	21:59
Lucy Steele	I told you I don't hear good.	22:07
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Was it before the Great Depression? During Hoover times?	22:11
Lucy Steele	Yeah. I was here when Hoover was president. I don't know about the Depression.	22:25
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Okay. And you said that you had a very short period of time in school, that you didn't go to school very much?	22:56
Lucy Steele	No, I didn't go. We didn't have very much schooling.	23:10
Paul Ortiz	By any chance, do you remember the name of that school?	23:15
Lucy Steele	We went to school in the church. We didn't have no schools back there. No, we had to go back there, the people in the rural went to school in the churches.	23:24
Paul Ortiz	And for your work history, the kinds of jobs that you did, I'm just going to put down that when you were growing up, you worked in the fields and farming.	23:59
Lucy Steele	Mm-hmm, because that's what I was doing.	24:12
Paul Ortiz	Let's see, you mentioned just general housekeeping.	24:32
Lucy Steele	Huh?	24:36
Paul Ortiz	General housekeeping for work.	24:37
Lucy Steele	You already got that.	24:44
Paul Ortiz	I'm just making sure.	24:46
Lucy Steele	I didn't know you wanted a history of my life.	24:55
Paul Ortiz	Oh yeah.	24:58
Lucy Steele	Yeah. That's what you ought to been told me. What you going to do with it after you get it?	25:06
Paul Ortiz	Well, we got one copy of this, of your file of the tape. Now this information is going to go in the archives at Duke University, and then the other copy is going to go in the archives in the Civil Rights Institute. It'll be a file with the tape and this information.	25:10
Lucy Steele	I ain't give you none on that yet.	25:47
Paul Ortiz	Oh, on this one?	25:50
Lucy Steele	Mm-hmm.	25:51
Paul Ortiz	Oh yeah. This one's blank so far.	25:52
Lucy Steele	So far.	25:54
Paul Ortiz	Does that answer your question as far as where it's going to?	26:01
Lucy Steele	I just want to know what you're going do with the history of my life. That I ain't talking about. You told me you wanted to put it back yonder. Now I find out you getting the history of my life.	26:07
Paul Ortiz	Right. That's—	26:20
Lucy Steele	Why didn't you just say, I want the history of your life to start with. See, you can't—I ain't as dumb as you think I is.	26:21
Paul Ortiz	Oh, I don't think that you're dumb at all. Not at all.	26:34
Lucy Steele	See, I read between the lines, as old folks used to say, what you write. Now what you going to do with the history of my life?	26:41
Paul Ortiz	Well, I mean one thing that we are going to do with it is that we're going to write history a different way because we're getting your story. So far, we haven't done a very good job with history because we've been—	27:02
Lucy Steele	No, because you were certain about back yonder, you just want to get the history of my life. Now that's what you ought to said when you come in here, "I want to get the history of your life." See, be fair. I don't mind giving you the history because I ain't done nothing that I'm ashamed of.	27:20
Paul Ortiz	Right.	27:44
Lucy Steele	But right is right.	27:45
Paul Ortiz	Right.	27:47
Lucy Steele	See?	27:51
Paul Ortiz	So if you had to write the history of your life, where would you start?	27:58
Lucy Steele	Huh?	28:03
Paul Ortiz	If you had to write—If you—	28:04
Lucy Steele	Just let my life alone. Don't bother with my life. You got it all.	28:10
Paul Ortiz	I don't know. I mean, do we?	28:22
Lucy Steele	I told you all I thought of. But you see, in asking all these questions don't go in the name of one thing and you after another. You don't do that. If you wanted the history of my life, you ought to have just said, "I want to get the history of your life." And if you want the history of there back yonder, what the other folks done, you ought to just said, "I wanted that." And then if you wanted both of them, you ought to said, "I want to get the history of your life and back yonder," see?	28:26
Paul Ortiz	Yeah. I think that's what we're really trying to get at. We're trying to get both. I mean your—	29:19
Lucy Steele	Well, you didn't tell me that. You see, you can be fair with folks.	29:25
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	29:25
Lucy Steele	They be fair with you.	29:25
Paul Ortiz	That's fair. I apologize for not explaining that fully.	29:36
Lucy Steele	Well, that's what you should have done. Now I ain't angry at all, but I just wanted to get you straight.	29:41
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	29:52
Lucy Steele	See?	29:53
Paul Ortiz	All right.	29:53
Lucy Steele	That's the way to treat people. Treat people like you want to be treated. You'll always get along. Do unto other as you would have them do to you. Don't forget that. Yeah.	29:57
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	30:26
Lucy Steele	All right. You see, if you treat people like you want to be treated, you'll always treat them good and kind because that's the way you want people to treat you.	30:43
Paul Ortiz	Right. I know that's the way I want people to treat me.	31:08
Lucy Steele	Well, then treat other people the same way, just like you want them to treat you. Always remember that.	31:12
Paul Ortiz	I will.	31:24
Lucy Steele	You see, in that way you get along in the world. If I treat you mean, I don't want you to treat me mean. See, but I put all I can upon you is mean as I can do it, but when it come my time for you to treat me, I treat you good. In so doing that book that I tells you to read, heaping coals of fire up on his head. You don't throw stone for stone. Sometimes you may have to take it, be hard, but take it.	31:30
Lucy Steele	See, because if you take it and go on, somebody might say, Oh, he coward or she coward or what. It's not cowardliness. You stayed out trouble. You mean and then I go get mean with you, I ain't no better than you aways. See, we all made out of one blood. Christ died for us all. You ain't see where He had no separations. We have different nationalities, but we all made out of one blood. The good Lord will bless you if you do my biddings and keep my commandments.	33:04
Lucy Steele	He didn't tell you and neither me. Don't knock him down. Oh, I wouldn't take that. You could take heap of things you don't want to take. Take and go on. It didn't hurt you to take it. You may have to cry over it sometime. You feel mistreated and you be mistreated. What did Jesus take? He hung, bled, and died on the cross for us. He said, "Whosoever will, let him come and drink of the water of life freely." Whosoever, that's you see. That mean anybody. Whosoever will, let him come.	34:27
Lucy Steele	Lord, if things ain't going your way, neither mine, all the time. It says, "If a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." If you think evil, you're evil. That's what that book tells me. Pick it up and knock the dust off sometime and read. That you don't understand, if you've been born to the spirit of God, ask him to teach you. He'll lead you out. Sometime you get to the fork of the road in life, just like you get to the fork of the road on earth. Yeah. And you don't know which way to go, but you just stand there and whisper a prayer to God and He'll lead you out of it.	35:43
Lucy Steele	See? Your burdens ain't going to be easy if you are a child of God, not all the time. He said, "Take my yoke upon you. My yoke upon you, and learn of me; for meek and lowly in heart; and you'll find rest unto your soul." You see, God don't want this old body. He works for your soul. We all got a soul to save. We all got to go before God and give an account of our deeds done in this old body. One day, this old body going back to the earth from whence it come.	37:02
Lucy Steele	The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of His righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valleys of the shadows of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me. You see, Jesus will go with you. Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.	38:08
Lucy Steele	You see, if you just trust in the Lord. That's the 23rd Psalms in the Bible. You're going to have ups and downs in life. Stop and think. You see. Remember some of that, things I told you. Well, don't forget to do to others as you would have them to do to you. Sometimes you have to walk away from people. Sometimes you just keep your mouth shut and don't say nothing.	39:50
Paul Ortiz	Do you mind if I take a picture of you?	41:53
Lucy Steele	No.	41:54
Paul Ortiz	Thank you.	41:54
Lucy Steele	You're welcome.	42:21
Paul Ortiz	Well, Mrs. Steele, I just want to say that I've really learned a lot.	42:47
Lucy Steele	Well, I'm glad I could tell you something.	42:56
Paul Ortiz	Yeah.	43:07
Lucy Steele	That'll do you good on life's journey.	43:08
Paul Ortiz	Right. Sometimes it seems like it's a long journey.	43:10
Lucy Steele	Oh well sir, you'll see sometimes the mountains get high and the valley seems so low. That's the mountains in your life. Not these mountains and hills here. But the mountains in your life get high. And then sometime your spirit gets so low. You get low, you feel like you're alone. You feel like you're thrown away, but the Lord is still there. Paul wrote to Timothy and told him, "My son, be of good cheer." No wait, now I got that wrong. Who wrote to who? Wait.	43:15
Paul Ortiz	Paul wrote to Timothy, right?	44:23
Lucy Steele	Paul wrote to Timothy and told him.	44:27
Paul Ortiz	Yeah.	44:27
Lucy Steele	My son, endure hardness, as to prove a good soldier for Jesus Christ.	44:40
Paul Ortiz	Oh, you asked us to take a look at these plaques. Can we take a look at these?	44:59
Lucy Steele	Yeah, help yourself.	45:05
Paul Ortiz	Okay. 64 years of service.	45:05
Lucy Steele	Huh?	45:05
Paul Ortiz	64 years at this church?	45:19
Lucy Steele	Mm-hmm.	45:22
Paul Ortiz	Tabernacle.	45:23
Lucy Steele	Yeah.	45:23
Paul Ortiz	That's a long time.	45:23

Item Info

Title:

Lucy Steele interview recording, 1994 June 15

Date:

June 15, 1994

Creator:

Steele, Lucy

Contributor:

Ortiz, Paul

Description:

Name: Lucy Steele; Date of birth: 1894-02-18; Place of birth: Dallas County, AL; Occupation(s): agriculture; domestic; laundress; Residence: Birmingham,AL
Informant ID: 720; Interviewed by: Paul Ortiz.

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

Series:

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.

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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-0379
a335d977-f7be-451b-823f-047a09d5eef9
behindtheveil
85c3b0cd-48d3-4b77-9f15-1183939c83ff
ark:/87924/r49k4j24p
85c3b0cd-48d3-4b77-9f15-1183939c83ff

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Lucy Steele interview recording, 1994 June 15

Transcript

Item Info

1. Lucy Steele administrative file, 1994

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Lucy Steele interview recording, 1994 June 15

Transcript

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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