Martha Jones Bradford interview recording, 1994 June 23
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| Sally Graham | It's Thursday, June twenty-third, 1994. I'm Sally Graham, and I'm here at Prophetess Martha Bradford's house, with Pastor Carolyn King. Let's just start with the beginning. When and where were you born? | 0:02 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | This is? | 0:25 |
| Sally Graham | This is, yes, Mrs. Bradford. | 0:25 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | Okay. I'm Martha Jones Bradford. I was born in 1948, October first, 1948. I was an unusual birth, at that time. The doctor pronounced me dead. As he continued to see about my mom, my grandmother said a warm spirit went over her. Now, I know that was the Holy Ghost. The Spirit led her to take me and put me in some cold water, emerging my head in a foot tub of cold water. I screamed out, and I was alive. My father, who was a minister, his name was Reverend G.J. Jones. The initials is George James Jones. He wanted me named after two of his sisters. He has a sister named Bertha Lucile Wilburn, and he has a sister named Martha Lee Jones. That's how I came up with Martha Lucile Jones. That's how I got the name. | 0:30 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | At that time, that name was given to me. As I grew, the first thing they remember me saying was, "Say it again." When the rooster would crow. My grandparents had chickens, and my mother and father lived with them. When the rooster would crow in the morning time, I was say, "Say it again." It was always fun for my father to hear me say that. | 1:57 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | Then as I grew up, my first remembrance of me was I tiptoed. I kind of had to tiptoe to turn a knob on a door. I knew something had happen, unusual, at my home, but I wasn't aware. But my mother and father don't believe that I remember, but I was somewhere between about three years old and a few months. A lot of people was at the house, but I tiptoed to the door. I had to get on my toes to turn the knob of the door. As I turned the knob of the door, the door opened. There was a lot of cars. I couldn't imagine what was going on. | 2:29 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | But the first church I remember was Mount Zion Baptist church in Poulan, Georgia, which my father was a member there, I found out later. We went to the funeral of my aunt. Her name was Louis May Lilly Wilburn, but she had married a Young, and she had died. I remember that. That was some of my first remembrance, and that's the first church that I remember going to. My parents, when I told them, as I grew up, I guess about nine, ten years old, what happened then is, "You can't remember that early." I said, "I did, too." And they say it was all the truth. | 3:13 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | My dad always talked to me because he said whatever I told him was a premonition and would always happen. When he wanted to go to the bank to borrow money, he'd come say, "Baby, should I go to the bank to get some money today or not?" If I told him no, he didn't go. | 4:10 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | Because he found out—he said I was playing one day around the house, and he told my mama—my mother was named Dorothy May Holloway Jones. My father is the late—he's dead, but my mother's still living. She has Alzheimer's. She does not know us. But my father said that he was telling to her and my grandmother, whose name is Ruth Wilburn. | 4:29 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | She was living with us. He said he told her, I believe, I'll go see about borrowing some money for something he need. I said, "Dad, you won't get it today, but if you go tomorrow you'll get it." He went and the man denied it. So he didn't go back tomorrow. He said another time he mentioned about going to the bank to borrow some money. He said that I told him, "You can go today, Dad, and you'll get it." From then on, he would ask me, "Is it okay?" He would ask me sometime about travel time, because he did a lot of travel. I was just a little girl, just playing around, but I saw things. I loved it. We had chores at home. In the wintertime we had a chore for washing the dishes or cutting wood cause we had wooden heaters or coal. We had fireplace and a coal heater later. So I always chose to cut wood. Cause I cut wood, I didn't have to wash dishes. | 4:57 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And plus my sister and another girl that was raised with me, she lives in Flint, Michigan now. Her name was Sandra Reckert. She was raised with me. She was brought to our home and my sister's name is Grace Delores Jones Sturman. And I would cut wood and they would have to bring the wood in. I wouldn't have to bring it in cause I was cutting big piles of wood. And if they threw it away and hid, I'd go back and find it and get them in trouble. | 5:59 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | I was what they call a tomboy. I used love to climb trees and I didn't stop climbing trees 'til I was about ten years old. I jumped out of a Chinaberry tree behind our house and as I hit the ground, my stomach hurt. But right beside me, touching me, was a hoe with the blade turned up. And something told me, said you could have split your stomach open because I knew they sharpened the hoe. | 6:34 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | My Daddy farmed and the first time I saw a tractor was down near the Ty Ty area. We were so afraid we was in a peanut field. He and my mother, and my grandmother had agreed to do some work share cropping with somebody. But my father spent most of his time traveling in the ministry. But then the summer months, he did not raise a lot of cotton. He did more. I found out later it was produce he raised. Cucumbers, tomatoes and bell peppers. | 7:03 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And he would work in other fields. Sometimes he would go and pick cotton for people. But he was a hard working man. He worked at what you call Tiff Cotton Mill, the second division which was in Poulan, Georgia. He worked there til, I'm not sure, but I think I probably about fourth or fifth grade. And he quit work. He said God spoke to him and told him he had to go full-time ministry or things would not be good for him. And as he quit, my father said we was farming and preaching and was barely making ends meet. But as he went into the word of God, he said, and I know, our income increased tremendously and he quit farming. By the time I was about seven years old, he had quit farming. I never worked on a farm. | 7:56 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | The only time I went out and picked some cotton, I think I picked twenty-nine pounds. And I thought I had picked so hard. And I knew I had fifty pounds of cotton, and it was only twenty-nine pounds. Daddy said you don't need to go. So I never went back to the field again. | 8:59 |
| Sally Graham | How old were you when you first went into the field? | 9:14 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | Well I used to go with my father, my grandmother and my mom. But at that time, I guess I must have been somewhere around three, four years old. We rode on the cotton sack while they picked. They babysitted us by riding on the cotton sack, see. And my dad never stayed all day in the field cause he had to go to come home in the evening time, he would come. So he would go to bed around two and he'd get up and go to work at five, five o'clock. Five fifteen he would get up and he would go to work at six. | 9:15 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And he worked from six until two the next morning at the cotton mill. And he would sleep then until about seven or eight. And we'd go to the field and they'd stay in the field four to five hours. And the same routine. My mother washed and ironed for a living for the White people. On Mondays and Tuesdays it was her wash days. So when we'd go to the field, the morning time she came in, she'd boil water in the wash pot. She had a rub board. She'd put the rub board in there and put the clothes behind the rub board and rubbed them out. We went through three tubs of wrenches. So later my Daddy bought her the ringer type washing machine. We still had to boil of water and bring the hot water to the porch and put in there. | 9:56 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | But now that's about the most work that I did was like that. And I fed the hogs for my Daddy. My Daddy had hogs, I fed them for him. I did most, like I said, boy chores. And I used to cut grass. I used to love to cut the grass after he got a lawnmower and we began to lean more to lawn. I cut grass. I was always cutting grass. And at that time I was probably about ten. | 10:55 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | But I could always grow plants. And my mom always had beautiful flowers and I would always have my little flower garden. I had my vegetable garden and I had my potted plants. But then when I would become upset because my sister always mistreated me, I failed. And my mother would believe anything she said. My sister could come and tell me that she was going to do something to me and she would do it. | 11:25 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And then when my mama get on me about it, get on her, she said Martha did it. Well, they call me Ma. Say I did it. And I would always get a lot of whoopings that was due to my sister. And the girl that was raised with me, Sandra, as she grew up, she covered for me. Now she was a very disaster that come to my home because I was the baby and I got a lot of attention. She came to my home when I was four years old. I remember that. And I thought this little bit of raunchy looking baby that came in that you could hold in one hand almost looked like my parents. I could take both my hands at that time and pick her up cause she was not heavy at all. So my mom and my Daddy started giving her a lot of attention and it upset me. | 11:53 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | So one day I was led to believe if I put her under the bed they'll never find her. And I put her under the bed. And when she went to crying and they knew that I did it, I got one of the worst whoopings you ever could get. It was just terrifying. And after that I learned to love her. My mom had problems with her wrists because as she grew older, she had arthritis. My mother was thirty-eight years old when I was born. They had been married thirteen years before they ever had a child. As I grew up and took psychology, I found out why I was never accepted by my mother the way I wanted to be accepted. And because of that I learned how to love her still. But I thought that she never loved me. | 12:43 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | I thought she just loved my sister. And I found out that she had me too quick after she had my sister. Cause two years and nine days later I was born and she had not finished rejoicing over my sister. So this is why she catered more to my sister. My father, my grandmother catered somewhat to me. They were my scapegoats. | 13:42 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | So I grew up with this fear that my sister would always lie on me and I would get in trouble. So it would make me do little devious thing to her. My sister was real scary. Sandra and I would get together and scare her cause she be hurting me. That was my only means of retaliation. Had my parents find out that I was scaring her, I would've got another whooping. But we would always do something, set up a trick for and when she walk in on it, she'd become frightened. | 14:08 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | I was raised with the Field boys. They was the only brothers that I knew of. They lived down the road from me. And their names were Woody Herman Field, Harold Jean Field, and Howard Dean. Howard and Harold were twins. They were not identical twins though. They were my mother's sister, children. I would always beat up on them but I love them. Now they are the only brother figures I have in my life. Even though we don't associate a lot together. But the love is there when we see each other. So during my school time I went to a little two room school in Poulan, Georgia. They built a new school and it was Poulan. It was Mount Zion School of Poulan. It was a church. They had the church schools then. But it was right there beside Mount Zion. | 14:42 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And we used Mount Zion, when we had big to dos that was our auditorium. But we had a stage in the school. If it was just a small affair we could use the school. Which that building still stand where I first went to school, it's still standing. That same frame church still standing. | 15:45 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | Okay. So after I left there they built the new schools in the rural area. So we were— | 16:04 |
| Sally Graham | When was that? | 16:18 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | Let's see. Let me figure now. I was born at '48. I started at '48. So that would be '48, '49, '50. '54. I started school in '54. '55, '56, '57. In '57, we moved to Park Elementary School in some majority, and I went there. | 16:18 |
| Sally Graham | Was that a segregated school? | 16:45 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | Yes. It was a— | 16:48 |
| Sally Graham | For only Black children? | 16:49 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | It was just Black children. Just for Black. It was just for Black. See school did not integrate until the year—okay. My senior year in high school I was at J. Edgar Holly High School. I think it was either my senior year. So that was either '66 or '65. They started, if you wanted to go, you had a choice of school. But it was mandatory start in fall of '67. It became the mandatory that day. I believe it was '67 that they integrated the school. It was either '67 or '68. I just didn't miss it by a hair. | 16:52 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | But I never became involved in any racial disturbance. Cause my Daddy was more or less a prayer warrior and he sort of stayed behind the door. He was not a public person at all. The only announcements that got on the radio that he was going someplace was somebody did it and didn't ask. He very seldom took pictures. He did never have name card about his ministry. He was like a quarter pastor. He went to four churches a month and one his church is down in her area. He used to pass a little old Baptist church in Cartersville. | 17:33 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And I remember going there, the church. | 18:15 |
| Sally Graham | You said he was a prayer lawyer. | 18:22 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | He was like a prayer warrior. He preached, now. He was a very good preacher but he was very powerful in his prayers. But he was not a public person. So because of that he always said he felt better behind the scene. But he prayed for whatever events or situations he needed to pray for. But he never got out and marched. He didn't like the limelight. He did nothing to be public. And I'm a lot like him. I don't care to be known. | 18:22 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And I mean things I do, I don't do it for publicity, I do it from my heart. I do it for person, or for the reason I need to do it at that time. But as I was saying about the schools, I went to Park Elementary School. I sang in the choir there. At that time I did a lot of singing. I sang the choir there at that school. I also finished school there and I went to J. Edgar Holly High. Okay. But my seventh grade year there at Park Elementary School, I was not active at all in anything. But one day they was out, the day before track meet, they were out running. The teacher, Ms. Crutchley, had told us you all stay in the classroom, don't to come out. Some girls and I snuck out the room and was out watching them practice. | 19:04 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And she said, "I'm going to make everyone of y'all [indistinct 00:20:15]." I said, "I can outrun them all anyway." And she said, "You get out here, I'm going to see." And that's when I started running track. I had not practiced to enter that season. But I went and I ran, I think it was 440 relay. They put me in there on the third leg of the 440 relay for girls. And I ran, I think it was in a hundred yard dash. I went to Rochelle, Georgia. I went to Holly High cause I was in the elementary school then they had all the elementary schools are compiled to come together and they had elimination. The teams that I was on won. So we went to Rochelle, Georgia for an elementary competition day. And as a result of that I end up running track 'til I went to the twelfth grade. | 20:11 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | I didn't anymore. Because it was a situation that came up my father did not appreciate, and he wouldn't let me run anymore. But when I was in high school, I ran the fifty meter hurdles for girls. And I ran the two twenty [indistinct 00:21:22]. But I would win everywhere then I get to the state. If I came third place I wouldn't win. But I would always be for a place. But I did go—we went to the Tuskegee Relay three years and I ran fifty meter hurdles there and I came in third or fourth place there. I placed every time. And I always would get a chance to run in the finals. The choir that I sang in at [indistinct 00:21:55] time was one of the greatest choirs. We were a superb choir. We always brought home the baker. And our director of the choir, one whom is deceased, was Jimmy Edward from Tipton, Georgia. | 21:05 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | He was one of our directors of the choir at Holly High School. And Ms. Rosetta Armstrong, whom still live, when she came there she said, "I know her Daddy, she can sing." And I'm saying, "Because you know my dad don't mean I can sing." So I was one of the ones that had to sing whatever voice we had to sing. I'd sing it. If I had to sing first soprano, I sing first soprano. Second, contralto, alto, and tenor. Wherever the weak part was at the time we needed to form. When we did toning up they would start placing us. | 22:14 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And she always had her a belt. I mean not a belt, that before they take had taken a whipping out of school. She had a board that fit her hand and spread it out. And if you sang the wrong tune, you got to lickin'. She would hit you. You knew the sing the right tune. But see, when I was young I sang. I remember one of the first songs I sing was like, Yes Jesus Loves Me. My sister would sing. But I was so stage frightened at that time. So I would just get so nervous and upset to I would just forget words and I would just stand there and cry. | 22:54 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | But as I grew older, I overcame that and I was able to sing. We sang a lot of old Negro history spirituals, as well as gospels in choir. As well as we did the Messiah. Okay, so then these were some of the things that I did when I was in high school. I did enough to get by because I knew I never would get a reward from it because my mother always praised my sister over me. She always would tell me if I did something good and somebody would tell her, "Ms. Jones Martha sings well. Martha made a beautiful dress." She'd go "Well Grace could do it too." | 23:33 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | So it just made me become a very nonchalant person. It made me decide that if I ever have any children, I would treat them all fair. I say if I favor one, I favor all of them. Even if I snuck and gave one something and he thought the other one didn't have, I wanted all that. I would have snuck and give all of them the same thing. Because that really hurt me. That was something that has caused me, I feel like, to miss out on all things in life. Because I did not have the boldness. I taught myself how to be bold. I taught myself how to go forth and become a go getter. | 24:19 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And anything I ever set my minds to, I could bring it to me because I knew I had nobody else to help me. Because my Daddy would be out. But when my Daddy was home, he helped me. And my grandmother died in Atlanta, Georgia. And upon her death, I find her death. She's the one that came and got me from there. And my cousin in Atlanta helped me get a job at Greater Memorial Hospital. That was my first job. And I went to nurse's aid school there. After going to nurse's aid school there, I got married there. I married Charles Edward Bradford. And while I was working there, all this happened. It was in a year's time. And my baby was born, my first child was born August the 22nd of 68. I had him before I went to school I think. '68 or '67. | 25:02 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | It might have been '69 cause he'll be thirty. He twenty-five now, he'll be twenty-five this year. So I think it was '69 he was born. Okay. So it was after that I went to college. But my husband and I, we did not stay together because my Daddy was the type of father that wanted his children with him. My husband wasn't living in Atlanta. I was having a lot of complication being pregnant. So my dad said, "You coming home to have baby." So when I came home to have the baby, my dad wouldn't let me go back. My husband wasn't real good to me anyway. And as a result I end up being without. | 26:02 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And so after that I stayed home, I substitute taught. I got a chance to work at Park Elementary School as a secretary for my girlfriend, the late Lorraine Country McFarland. I worked in her place for Dr. Newkirk, he was a secretary. And I worked there, I guess, about six months while she was out on maternity. So after she came back, I subbed. I substitute taught down there. But then I started college. I went to Albany State. But see I was still having to be around the negativeness, which really kept me down. And I was the type of person felt I could make it. And my Daddy said "You could make it if you didn't have a college education." But I wanted him to know I could make it without it. I was going to be an unusual person. And I never got a degree. | 26:53 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | But I have made it. I've had a lot of things that I wanted in life even though I did not keep it. I know now why I didn't, it was not for me. And then I met Leonard Threadcraft. And I had Leonard Threadcraft and Jennifer Threadcraft. They were my second, my other two kids. And I decided after I had Jennifer, which Leonard is just seventeen months and ten days older than Jennifer is, I decided I didn't want to have any more children anymore. | 27:57 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | So I decided that I needed to do something different with my life. And I never had any more children. I started buying my first house. I think I was about twenty-two or twenty-three years old. That's what I'm saying. I've had new cars, I've had a brand new house, brand new furniture through and through. And this was like twenty-something years ago. So material things don't bother me. And I always wonder why I don't care for material things. All I need is a decent home, a roof over my head, in other words. Found out I don't like brand new furniture. I like more early American furniture. Older furniture. I'm just an unusual person. I'm very unusual. But now I know why I'm unusual, | 28:41 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | Okay, before my father passed, I went to a convention with him in Columbus, Georgia. On my way to that convention in Columbus, Georgia. I have really relived that the last two years or my life because my Daddy said "Martha, the Lord is showing me that you are going to be a great missionary." I said "Dad, I ain't going to be that." Cause we were missionary Baptist. I was raised up in a missionary Baptist. My mother was Methodist but she married my Daddy being a missionary Baptist, she joined the church. Now they had an unusual when marriage cause my mother wrote my dad a letter and told him to come visit her. And when he got out there he asked what she wanted. She said to him, "I want to marry." And he said, "When can we get married?" And she told him "Whenever you want." He said "Let's marry Wednesday." And they lived together forty-eight years without any separation. It was very unusual. So it had to be— | 29:43 |
| Sally Graham | That was meant to be. | 30:48 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | That's what we all said. It had to be meant to be. And they were married thirteen years before either of us was born. And it was just two of us that was born. | 30:51 |
| Sally Graham | And they were married what? Twelve? Is that what you said? Twelve years before? | 31:01 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | Thirteen. Thirteen years before any of us was born. And so that's basically some of my childhood. But now my dad used to kill hogs. I didn't eat fresh hog because I could not eat it. I did not eat chickens on the yard. So when they bought chicken at the store, I didn't even eat it because I wasn't sure was it the chicken they killed or what. Cause sometimes they would kill chicken and slam back, and I didn't want the chicken like that. So I wouldn't eat it. | 31:11 |
| Sally Graham | Do you eat chicken today? | 31:46 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | I eat it now because I know ain't nobody killed my own chicken out in my yard. My grandmama had a big chicken house there and the chicken run around there. They're insane. But then, even though she would put them in his little coop for like four weeks before she killed him, I didn't want them still. | 31:49 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | I wouldn't eat eggs, I wouldn't eat a chicken. I think I was very a very strange person. Very strange. And I remember one day my dad and I had killed hogs and we had— | 32:10 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | I don't know. | 32:21 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And so as a result of that we were singing. We had started school at Park Elementary and we were getting ready for the spring concert choir, concert elimination. We were going to go for a competition, going to compete with other schools. Do you remember when smoke get in your eyes? No, you don't but you didn't hear it. And we sang it. Huh? | 32:38 |
| Sally Graham | Can you sing some of it now? | 33:20 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | Yeah it said— | 33:20 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | [singing] | 33:20 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | I can't sing. I sing horrible sometimes. But we got out that night, my mother knows, finishing up killing the hogs and I got in the smoke and today I can't stand smell smoke, I can't breathe. We just inhale all the smoke singing. Says smoke get in your eyes and we going to stand in smoke. We were acting it out. But today I can't stand to smell smoke. I lose my breath when I smell it. But that's when it started [laughs]. | 33:21 |
| Sally Graham | Oh my gosh. | 33:46 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | But I was a bad little girl, now you don't know [indistinct 00:33:58]. | 33:46 |
| Sally Graham | So what'd you do when you were a little girl? | 33:47 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | I'd sit up and try to figure out how to do little things. And I would nitpick, my mother always would punish me by shutting me up in a room. And that's how I learned how to sew. I fix her. I started taking a hem out my dresses and I'd get me a needle and thread, and I'd see how she had hemmed the others. And I'd put it back and I finally learned how to take a complete dress down. We had the toilets, the outhouse. And if I couldn't get it all put back together, I put it in a sack and I'd go hang it up in the outhouse. Nobody would never see it until I could get it all put back together and I would sew it back on her machine. I tore up one of her machines sewing on it. And it was after I got grown that she found out how, Cause I learned to sew so early. | 34:02 |
| Sally Graham | How old were you? | 34:52 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | I was about eight, nine years old when I first started picking out the hem and putting it back in. By the time I was thirteen I could put a complete garment together. | 34:52 |
| Sally Graham | My goodness. Did she ever teach you anything about sewing? | 34:58 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | I watched her when she sewed, but that's all. I've just watched her. | 35:06 |
| Sally Graham | What about your sister, did she? | 35:12 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | She sewed some but she was more like into books. She was always told that she was smart and I was dumb. That's what my mama always labeled her, as my being dumb. I ain't got a kid that can tell you I called them dumb. But my moms calling dumb all the time. "All right, dummy go on." It would break my heart. I would just go off and just cry to myself. I was labeled dumb so I never tried to study. | 35:14 |
| Sally Graham | What's your relationship with your sister now? | 35:47 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | We don't get along the best. I try to be friends, real close with her. But we can just only get so close because she always have negative things to say to me. And right now, since I've gone into ministry, it has really sort of dropped off. She's never heard me preach. Never. And it would make me very happy to have her hear me. It's something I don't like to think about because it's sad. It's not but just the two of us now. Sand is in Michigan now. But I believe if San was here, she would hear me. | 35:50 |
| Sally Graham | How did Sand come to your family? | 36:29 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | She was my Daddy's sister—the one that I know died, May. May Lizard. That was her daughter's child. And her mother at that time was somewhat in the world and nobody was there to see about the child. So she brought her home cause her grandmother, Ruth Wilburn, had raised baby Ruth. So baby Ruth brought Sandra home and gave her to my grandmother. | 36:31 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | But my grandma was older. So my mother, she related more to my mom and my dad. I never will forget this Sunday, my Daddy had all of us to stand up and he said, "This is my family. This is my wife Dorothy, my mother Ruth, and my daughter Grace and Martha, and so the baby is my niece." She was like about three, four years old. She just screamed out with a crying and she cried and she cried and we got in the car. | 37:08 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | She told Daddy, "You denied me. I'm your daughter." From then on Daddy never showed any difference. And when my dad had died, the word went to Atlanta. This will tell you how detrimental was for her. The word hit Atlanta, she was working at Firestone then in Atlanta from the Firestone plant here in Albany. They had a office there where they did all the paperwork and everything. She was over at the accounting department and she was at work and they called her that morning. I found my Daddy dead about six o'clock in the morning. | 37:42 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | So the word was to her about 7:30 I think she had to be to work at seven. And they said, "Your uncle passed." That was my aunt's call, your uncle passed. She said, "Well okay, let finish this. And I'm going home." Another call came into the office and it said that it was my father. They said "George dead." They said it took three or four people to bring her home. And see she had been wanting to come down to see him, my dad. Cause she had just moved back from Richmond to Atlanta. | 38:16 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | But my aunt wouldn't come with her and she was afraid to drive down by herself and it was just detrimental for her. But I am somewhat close to her. We talk. But I've had to get friends like Carolyn to really be close to. It's like I would take a million dollars to have my sister close. She knew you were going to be here today, but she didn't care to be here. | 39:04 |
| Pastor Carolyn King | I love you. | 39:38 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | Love you too. I don't get a chance to share any my joy with my sister, my family. I just have friends that come. And like Karen Lawrence, she's a close friend of mine. She was the first one I met when I came to Albany. She's like a sister now. If I told her you were going to be here she'd have been here with me. Betty Brown, she's another close friend of mine. I met her when I worked in a plant in Sylvester. And they told me she wasn't nobody's friend, but we are very close. And I just—after my dad had died, I had to create me a family. | 39:38 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And I have another friend that lives here in Albany. Her name is Louis Henry. We are close. But see, after I went into ministry, a lot of my friends don't quite understand me now because I'm nothing like I used to be. | 40:32 |
| Sally Graham | How have you changed? | 40:45 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | I was always—I was never a street person as you notice, I didn't mention anything about going out. Cause had I gone out, my dad would've broke my back. Okay. My dad was very religious, he was very strict. We were not allowed to wear pants. We could not wear makeup. We snuck and wore earrings, but they had to be very tiny. Fingernail polish, we couldn't wear because he was in ministry. He'd say you're a minister's children and you're not going to do these things. And he would beat us. I mean he would beat us unmerciful. | 40:50 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | I appreciate it because when he beat me, it was about something I needed chastising by. But when my mom beat me, it was about something my sister had pushed in her to clear herself. And that's how I got whooped. And what you call the black sheep of the family, that's what I was. And when my Daddy died, the money and all, my sister took it all. I got nothing. Right now. She got land and timber tree. She sold timber just recently. That was my mother's. But I get no money, nothing. And my family needs. | 41:27 |
| Sally Graham | How much land did your father farm and have? | 42:06 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | Oh he didn't. He just share cropped. He did not have that. But he did have a small lot there in Sylvester. It's grown up. He lived in a home house. And I understand my sister's trying to get that. Now you understand. But I'll never get a child share out of it. And these are things that I don't like thinking about. I am more of a—my life is different from most people. And the first family I met that I found that love could really exist was the Jefferson family. Even though they were somewhat illiterate, they were there for me. They made me feel like a person, their son liked me. His name was Henry Jefferson and his mother and father and sisters all, they took to me, very close to me. And that's when I saw how they would get together, have cookouts and do things together. But we don't do that. | 42:10 |
| Sally Graham | How old were you when you met the Jeffersons? | 43:21 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | I had all my children at that time. And at that time I was going through a bad depression. My children's daddy had just left me and I was just staying shut up in the house. And the girl said she had just moved down the streets from me. And I know now she was an angel. I didn't comb my hair, I wouldn't bathe maybe but once a week. And I just stayed and shut up at my house and she was my baby. And so later she started coming to see me. She stopped by then and knocked on the door one day. She said, "I just wanted to see who living here. They told me somebody living here, but the sure don't look like nobody living here. Why you don't stay shut up in the house?" And from there she start bringing me out and later I went to work at Worth County Hospital as a nurse's aid. | 43:23 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | Because see, her daddy left me before I conceived her. And I thought that we were getting back together, but he wouldn't come. My mom told me to put him out and he always throw that in my face. And today he still punish me for it. He punished those kids for. That's right. He punished them for it. | 44:13 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | But I raised them even though she had a baby. Her first baby was born when she was fourteen years old. She is now at Darden College. She'll be finishing next year in June, getting ready to go to another medical college. She's going to be a PA. She's not but twenty. She's not stayed out of school. She went to Job Corps. I worked at Job Corps and she went out the Job Corps because she was mad and her boyfriend. And she went, she told me that she going. I thought she was going to really complete. | 44:37 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | But she went there and she took the placement exam and they put her straight into class. She's a mama. I think it was in July. I'm taking a GED test. She wasn't, but—she wasn't, no, seventeen [indistinct 00:45:35]. I think she was fifteen or sixteen. She was sixteen I believe. And so she went to Job Corp and she got her GED in two and a half months. So at that time she was pregnant with that little boy. She had him. She told the doctor, "I'm going to school in March." The baby was due, I think like the day after she supposed to go to school. She said, "Y'all got to do something." But she prayed and she had him March first and she went to school in March, started college in March. March second. She had him March second. She had him in 1992. | 45:16 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And she went on and started school with him being a little tiny baby. I was working. His uncle stayed home and kept him while I worked at night. He'd come home from school, he'd keep him till she get home. And that's what we did. But she did get married. She married on February the fourteenth. She married his dad and as a result of that, he was here too with us to help with her. But that's why she lived. When she came and told me, said, "Mama, I'm pregnant." She was just a few weeks pregnant. Her dad got mad with me again because I wouldn't let her have an abortion. And she said, "Mama, I won't ever be a doctor. I wanted to be a doctor." I said, "Oh yes you will." I said, "Your mama's name is Martha Bradford." I said, "Whatever we want, we get it." And she said— | 46:23 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | I said that her baby was carried so low that she didn't even jump, run, or anything like that. She played football while she was pregnant with him, with Jessica. She jumped off the floor. She did anything she wanted to do. I mean, she jumped off the porch. She know we go down the steps, she jumped down them. And I would say, "Jennifer, stop." And she said, "This the shortest cut, Mama." | 0:00 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And when she went into labor, her Daddy got mad with me then again, because he said that I stayed on the phone. It was her on the phone. She didn't have a pain. She had no—and they didn't give her any medication for pain. That she said, she'll tell you. She had no pain that they had to do. She did not dilate, so they had to do a caeserean. But she told the doctor, "You got to wait 'til my friend get here." Her friend named Tracy Gardner. We had to call her, her mama had to fly out there that night about eleven o'clock so they could go through the surgery. But she never hurt. But when she had the second one, she said, "Mama, somehow." | 0:31 |
| Pastor Carolyn King | I ain't hurt that bad. I was in there for three days before I went to the doctor. And my doctor fussed at me, "We real close." And they fussed at me because I wouldn't tell them I was hurting. He just happened to check me and said, "You done dilated." He said, "You been in labor [indistinct 00:01:31]?" I said, "Well, I was in labor two days ago." "[indistinct 00:01:34], please, you know, can't have a natural child birth. Don't have the baby at home and lose him." | 1:15 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | But that was where my kids and I have always had a very close relationship. Very close, because I didn't want them to have the pain that I had. And my oldest son, Charles Bradford, had never seen his father. I bet you he ain't missed no dad. He got in some trouble when he thirteen, and they did this test on him, evaluation on him, and his probation officer, and some other people called me in and told me I was too close to him. Said because it showed that he had two parents in the home. | 1:43 |
| Sally Graham | My goodness. They were saying that you were too close to your son? | 2:22 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | I was over too overprotective of him. And said that I need to back off, because it was showing two parents in the home. It was like he came from a two parent family. The lady showed me the slot, and showed me other children, both Blacks and White that had both parents in the home, and this showed that it was one parent in the home. | 2:30 |
| Sally Graham | What would be wrong with that? | 2:54 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And I wouldn't bother about him, because we as Blacks are accused of everything. And I raised my kids that I'm your friend, first of all. I'm your buddy. And I'm your mother. I said, "I'm your play partner." I said, "Last but not least, the fifth thing, I'm your worst enemy." I said, "Because when you don't do what I said to do, I will kill you. Because I brought you in the world, sister, brother, I carry you out." And they knew that. They knew I didn't play game. See my daughter, you don't want to hear what they have to say. Because I don't want to remember and know I did it. But they declared that. They declared that I was the meanest mama you could've ever known then, but now they say it raised them. And I very seldom whopped with a switch. Because whatever they did, what they did, I backhand slapped them, I slapped them, I boxed them. I would but body slam them boys. | 2:55 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And my boys now, I got one that's twenty-five years old, he weighed 197 pounds, I think about 5'7", 5'8", and I got another weigh 250. But he's built like he played football, so he like a football player. That's his picture right there. And he's about 5'7", both of them about the same height. But they know I body slam them in a heartbeat right now. They know I don't play. | 4:01 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | She know I don't play. When I said something, I mean it. But I'm not as hard on him now that I've been saved that I was before I got saved, because I found out that God gave us right and wrong. He never forced us. And I don't want them have to live the life—see, my life was cut out. It was just like you took a piece of paper and drew me and cut it. My dad and my mom, my dad had our life already planned out. And I think that's the worst thing for any parent to do it. It brings a rebellious child. Because my dad wanted good for me, and my mother never saw any good in me, it left me out there hanging. | 4:35 |
| Sally Graham | What did your father expect for you to do? | 5:23 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | He just wanted, he said Black women could not make it without a college education. He said it had to be professional. And he wanted me to teach. And I ain't want to teach, because I find out from substituting, and said I used to work in Herring Memorial Daycare, and I worked at Georgia Southwestern Community Action with them, and Head Start. I was a social worker. Hey, I found out, that's me. When I worked at Herring Memorial Daycare, I was a lead teacher and assistant director. And see, this lady hired me over people with degrees. She said because when she looked at my application, and talked to me and heard how I talked, the ability that I had, she said she felt that she needed me worse than she needed somebody with a degree. | 5:26 |
| Sally Graham | This is [indistinct 00:06:18]? Is that [indistinct 00:06:18]? | 6:16 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | No, no. Herring—Herrings. It's in Tifton, it's a United Methodist church. And she told me how people had worked for her, and money always went missing, Black and White. She said, "I want somebody with honesty." You can go talk to her today, she tell you I never took a penny from her. And I mean, she said she received money that she didn't know she got. Because see, the money would come through the mail, because people used it as a seed sower from the conference, and it would just be money. Sometimes money just come in envelope, just a regular, what, three by five envelope, with the money wrapped in paper. May have the name and address of the person sending it. Sometime it would be like, it'd be money. It would be like maybe 100 dollars, fifty dollars. You understand? But I recorded it. I mean, this was money I could have taken. But my father raised us that only get was yours. He said that that you never had, you can't miss it. He said if you need something and can't get it, he said just wait on time, time will give it to you. | 6:18 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And he always taught us that if money's laying around, you know it's not yours. Don't bother. And my slogan was, I needed a job, I didn't need the money. Because I got a job, I'm going to get money. And why steal the money and lose my job and not be able to work? That's right. And now this job was very strange. My mom told me, she said, "You need to get out of here and go to work." I said, "Yes, ma'am." She said we were taking the Tifton Gazette. She said, "There's an ad in there for a teacher at school, the daycare." And I used to own my own daycare for a short while with two other ladies. She said, "You need to call." And so she kept bugging me. | 7:38 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | So, I called that Thursday, and this White lady answered the phone, and I hung up. I was sitting there. So she said, "Did you call?" I said the line was busy. And I knew I needed the really work, because I was tired of her talking about my Daddy had to take care of me and all this kind of crap. She said, "You just go around, and you living on welfare, that's all you want to do." But I would go work when I wanted to. But then when I didn't, I didn't. But I always took in sewing. I would sew for people to make money. I always made money sewing. | 8:33 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And so, that Friday, I called and I hung up. And someone told me to call back and I didn't. And that Saturday, I was just praying, asking God to lead me. And so that Sunday, I was home with my kids by myself, and my Daddy and mom had gone to church, and somehow, a spirit went over me and said, "You need to call about that job." And looked like the day just stood still at that point, because I was wanting Monday morning to come so fast. And I just had nightmares all that night. And the next morning when I got up, I looked at the clock, and so when it got to be about eight thirty, I called, and the lady answered the phone, and she said, "Good morning, Herring Memorial Daycare. Donna speaking." I hung up the phone. | 9:12 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And then I said, "Now wait a minute, now Martha, get yourself together and call again." So, I called again. But now luckily, that day the right person was answering the phone. The other day, the wrong person had answered the phone. Okay? So, now I can look that was the spirit of God letting me know. Even though I thought it was the fear, but I knew all that came from the fear that I was raised, that I was nobody, that I was dumb. And so, when I called back down there, I ain't got some now will do it this time. When she answered the phone, I said, "Yes," I said, "This is Martha Bradford." I said, "I saw an ad in the paper where you need a teacher. Have you filled the position?" She said, "Well, I was getting ready to start reviewing the applications, but if you can get in down here, you can fill it." | 10:08 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | She asked me where was I from, and she just wanted to ask me a lot of question. And then she asked me about the people I learned [indistinct 00:11:00]. And I told her, I said, "Yeah, I had attended a workshop at the daycare I had worked in. I had to go and learn how to operate the [indistinct 00:11:10] by learning kid. And all to teach the teachers how to use." She said, "Well, you a person, I need you. Come on down and let me interview you." She's like, "Can you come today?" You know I had to get some more nerves. I said, "No ma'am, I sure can't." She said, "When can you come?" I said, "Tomorrow." Then I hung the phone. I just had nightmare, daymare, nightmare. Because I felt I should have gone on, and I didn't. And so I said, "My goodness." | 10:54 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | I told my dad, he said, "Well okay, I'll carry." So he carried, because he was always like, "I am by my kids now." He spent a lot of time with me. My mama'll tell me, "I ain't going around with you, [indistinct 00:11:51]." So, he rolled down there with me, and we carried my babies. | 11:40 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | She went with me. Because [indistinct 00:12:02] was in kindergarten. And so, when we got down there I went in the office, and the lady went to filling out papers, just filling out papers and having me sign a paper, and really wasn't talking. So then I asked her, I said, "Miss [indistinct 00:12:17], what are you doing?" Something told me to ask what was she doing. She said, "Oh, I hired you before you got here." And I said, "Huh." And then she said how she told me she went through a stack of books and gave me a lot of books to read, and some material to rememberize myself with, and she said, "You can come in Monday." I told her, "Okay." So, she talked to me and told me some things, she carried me around the center and everything. | 12:00 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And so, that Monday when I got there, she called me in the office. And I had had this nightmare that I wasn't going to have the job, it was going to be taken away from me. So, she called me in the office, I said, "Oh my God," I said, "she [indistinct 00:13:01] let me go, I guess, because I'm not qualified." So, when I went in the office, she said, "I just had something I wanted to talk to you about. I need to let you know." And my heart was just thumping at that time. And I'm saying, "My God, what is she finna to tell me?" Would you believe she told me, "You're not only going to be lead teacher, you're going to be assistant director, as well as lead teacher." She said, "I prayed about it, I thought about it." She said, "Enis and I, that's the preacher at the church, and we had talked about it. We looked at your application." And she said, "Some of the board members looked, and we can't see why we can't use you." | 12:47 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | She said, instead of making—I think I was going to be making minimum wage, she said, "We're just going to pay you five dollars an hour." Because I think then it was like three something an hour, or two ninety or something. She said, "We just going to pay you five dollars an hour." And she told me, "Because of that, we going to have two other people to work with you. One will be full-time, one will be part-time." And so, that was one of the starting to uplift my life. | 13:38 |
| Sally Graham | And when did you start there? | 14:11 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | I started there, let me see. It was when she was four years old. So, in '78, I think it was. Nineteenth of February of '78. She told me to bring my baby on to school with me every day. But she couldn't stay, I had to take her out. Because my daughter would be with me when I do my lesson plans. So, when the phone rang or someone came up, and I had to go out, and this happened every week, being the assistant director, you stay on the move, during my learning time, somebody would come up, and I would have to go the room. My daughter would change the lesson plan. If it was Friday lesson plan she liked, that's what she would pull up on Mondays. But I had people that we had kindergarten students, so the curriculum director of Tifton County Board of Education came in once a month, but she was at [indistinct 00:15:12] to drop in time. So, I had to stay on target. | 14:12 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | So, I kept telling Dawn, Dawn said we got to do something. So what we did, see, because my lesson plan would be [indistinct 00:15:23], but she be on pulled out Wednesday's lesson plan on Monday. On Tuesday, pull out Thursday's. So, I had to get her out there, and I put her in the daycare that was we were housed in the same building, but we owned by two different firms. So, she had to come out of my room. | 15:16 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | But she was always a very smart girl, very smart. In other words, my kids, I guess because of the way I raised them, they are very good at taking tests. They test very [indistinct 00:16:04]. And my oldest son, when he started, he went to the military first, and come back and went to Albany State. And he called home, he said, "Mama." I said, "What?" He said, "They sent me over this morning, but they done called everybody in the room now. They died." He's a Bradford. He said, "They died," and I was like, "Oh, whatever, Bill." He told me, "They don't pass me, what I'm going to do?" I said, "And you go ask somebody. Wait 'til they finish, go ask somebody." He says they were placing everybody in the remedial classes. He had not got a report, his score back for his SAT test. And when they told him what he had made on his SAT test, he missed the presidential scholar or something like about a hundred points. | 15:47 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | I mean, he just went off. [indistinct 00:16:52], "Mama, they [indistinct 00:16:53] to put me in," what is it? Physics. "I can't take that mama, I need—" I said, "Well [indistinct 00:17:01], you got to do the best you can." And he said when he was at Albany State, he did not have to take any remedial course, any. And see, most of the Blacks especially, have to. And I said, "Well, [indistinct 00:17:17], you just have to do the best you can." I said, "You have to study." But he was always a type of child that the first six weeks, he made all F's. The second six weeks, he might make maybe a D or a C. So most the time, he had B's. The teacher said, Miss Ruth [indistinct 00:17:40], she had taught me in school, this is in Ware County, which at that time had changed Holly High then to Holly Middle School. And she would tell me, she said, "Martha," she said, "If I get that boy to come in here and read over the lesson at the beginning of the class, and give a pop quiz at the end, he makes 100s." She said, "But if he walk in here, and I throw a pop quiz, he make a zero." | 16:50 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And all his teachers all along told me this. He used to come home and beg me, "Mama, let them put me in a different group." Because he's always in the upper ten percent of the class. Because he'd take those tests during school time, those hour tests and all, he scored real high on them. Very high on them. But then he always come beg me to let him go into a lower—I would tell his teachers, and they'd tell me, they say, "Well, he's smart, and all he need to do is study." And he wouldn't do it. And right now, he likes to do things with his hands. And he can do anything, he can put a motor together. Last year in my backyard, he had never, he went and got a book and read how to go in that motor and put it together. And he did it all by himself. It took him about two months. But he reads with very, very good understanding. | 18:07 |
| Sally Graham | How much education did your parents have? | 19:09 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | Okay, my mother had, I think it was six or seventh grade education. My mother was a teacher until she married my dad. But my Daddy had about second, third grade education. But he was able to receive a honorary doctorate degree, but he would [indistinct 00:19:30] at Theologian, but he wouldn't use it. My Daddy used to do [indistinct 00:19:35] sermons and all this kind of thing. My Daddy preached anywhere. He was a very well-known minister. And like I told you on the phone the other day when I talked to you, his funeral was the largest funeral in Sylvester. It was ministers from all over the state of Georgia there. And we got calls at least two weeks after he had died, people upset that they couldn't get there. And then later, we still got calls. They were like every time I pick up the phone for two weeks, it was about my Daddy. | 19:12 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | He was a very, very well-known person. He made the difference in a lot of people's lives. There were a church that he went had up in Terrell County, Crawford Grove Missionary Baptist Church, that it was formally around these White people owned this land, and peanut season, they plowed during church time. After they got to know my dad, do you know they did not let him work until after he got out church? He made a difference in a lot of others' lives. I mean, they would give him these little gift samples of different salamis and jellies. My Daddy [indistinct 00:20:50] were four or five and from different families [indistinct 00:20:52] the White people would give it to him at Christmas time. He didn't only pastor in the community with the Black, he mixed with the White. This is why he said he felt he didn't have to get out when the integration was going on. He said he went directly to the sources and talked to the sources. Because he wasn't a limelighter. | 20:10 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And now, there were several families up there I would not name, because if you say this will be recorded, that husband was totally alcoholic. They end up being deacons. Deacon. I mean, that had fits if you did not live right. He would believe. That's right. And that's the type of person he was. And he was not the type of person that gone scorned nobody. I see myself being a lot like him. You know, because you were a drunkard, he did not turn you away. Even if you wanted him to go with you to get the drink, he went. You understand? Because he said, "My telling you not to go is not going to stop you." He said, "It's going to enhance it." He said, "My being obedient to you to get you close to me, then when I start talking with you, ministering to you, then you going to hear me, because I have gained a friend." You understand? So, this was his technique. He never worried about if a person was saved, because he knew when he finished with them, they wouldn't only be just saved, they'd be delivered. | 21:14 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | That's right. That's the kind of person he was. And my Daddy said he has preached with guns. Deacons would be mad with him. He said before he finished preaching or after he finished preaching, they would come and show him the gun that they had for him. Said, "But I couldn't do it. I was going to pull the trigger on them." | 22:36 |
| Sally Graham | They were going to shoot him? | 22:54 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | He said the Lord would let him know it was in there. He didn't care. [indistinct 00:22:59]. He said God called him to preach. He said the Holy Ghost ordained him. He said and they couldn't stop him. | 22:55 |
| Sally Graham | Did he preach at both Black and White churches, or— | 23:07 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | It was at that time mostly just Blacks, but a lot of White people received the Holy Ghost through him just ministering to them on the streets. That's right. In other words, the morning I found my Daddy dead, and we called the hospital, the doctor don't normally come out. My charge nurse that I had worked with, she and I, her name was Verdice Marlin, we had gotten to be very close friends. She called Dr. Maclean. He was on call, said Reverend Jones is coming out, we don't know the condition. She said, "I think you need to come up." He got up and came out. If it was anyway they could make my dad live, they were going to make him live. But I found him laying at the side of his right side on the side of the bed, but laid back on a rocking chair where he used to sit with one leg propped up. And when I pushed the door open to go in the room, because he had been stopped my mom from sleeping with him, because he let the grandson sleep with him, that particular night, my son Leonard [indistinct 00:24:25] slept with him. | 23:11 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And he said when he got woke up that morning, and I remember very well when Leonard came and got in the bed around six o'cloc with my mom, he said he woke up, and he saw dad on the floor. And he got off of the backside of the bed and come on in the room to keep from stepping on Dad. And now, we had moved to Albany at that time when he finally told us this, and this was like in, oh, about '87, about '86, because we was living on [indistinct 00:25:07]. '85, something like that, and he died in '81, I think it was. It was like four years later. He told me that he got one night and went to talk, and he told me that, he shared that with me, that he saw Daddy, he knew that something was wrong with Daddy, but he was afraid to say anything. And so, when I got up and pushed the door and we go open the door, go in there, I said, "Madea, get up and do see about my Daddy." I said, "He on the floor." And she jumped up out the bed, she said, "You done killed your Daddy." | 24:30 |
| Sally Graham | That's what your mother said? | 25:43 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | Yeah. And she told my kids for a long time I was the one that killed my dad. Said I worried him to death. But I didn't worry him. And that's where my life has been. And after I moved to Albany, my dad used to visit, his spirit used to visit me a lot when I lived in Poulan. But believe you me, he had to visit me but one time after I moved to Albany. What happened is that I was living on [indistinct 00:26:20], I had just been in a car wreck, I had gotten some money, somebody stole most of my money, and I could not rest, I was so upset. And my Daddy came to me that morning, I heard his voice speak so clearly. I was laying there in the bed, and window was right at my bed. I heard a voice come through the window. He told me, he said, "Money's the root of all evil." He said, "I taught you not to cherish money." He said, "Materialistic things don't save your soul." It was something like that that he said. I ain't worry about it no more. I didn't worry about it no more. It was like a burden fell off me. | 25:44 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | But my little thread [indistinct 00:27:07], my son, he was always a timid one. Jessica, Jennifer, and Andy was always the ones that they was the go-getters. In other words, Andy, who was Charles, he broke his foot in the park, and he didn't want a cast on. I came in the hospital and they put a cast on his foot anyway. And school started that Monday. He walked in the rain with the cast, and took the cast off when he got home. The insurance paid for the first cast, I had to pay for the next cast, and they put a fiberglass cast on it. And believe you me, by the time it was coming to take off, he had almost took it off. That's the kind of person he was. He was always a type of person that could do anything. | 27:05 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And see, by me being in all those car wrecks, I had a lot of nerve damages. I been in seven car wrecks. I had a lot of nerve that any nerve wave conduction treatment they do to me is terrible. Dr. Baker, John Baker, who's a doctor in Albany, he's a neurologist, he said that it shows that I'm handicapped. I'm disabled—so, Andy and Leonard had to comb her hair when she was about eight, nine years old. They combed her hair every morning to go to school. | 27:56 |
| Pastor Carolyn King | Andy combed my hair. | 28:36 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | Andy combed to go to school every morning. And they would fix their breakfast. Even though they could get free lunches at school, free breakfast at school, they had to make their breakfast before they left home. So, Andy would come in in the eating time, and I sat in the kitchen, and I would tell them how to fix different meals, because I couldn't use my hands. I couldn't pick up a pencil. Not even this I could pick up. Because anytime my hand went together, it was just like the electric shock I could feel go through all the way up. | 28:37 |
| Sally Graham | When did that leave you? | 29:07 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | I went in the hospital, I went to Dr. Baker, and the first day I went to him, he checked me there in the office, and he did this little tapping on the knees and all. And he just told me, just generally tell him how I felt. And I said, "I don't want to tell you." He said, "Please tell me." Because everybody told me I was crazy. They said well nothing wrong with me. They said I just wanted some money. But I couldn't pick up nothing. I couldn't do nothing. I couldn't even write. My hand hurt so bad. I mean not even to sign my name. | 29:09 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And so, when I finished, he said, "You got a way to the hospital?" I said, "For what?" He said, "You need to be in the hospital right now." He said, "In other words, you're probably a month or two late." He looked back and saw I had had that [indistinct 00:30:02], I think it was like April first, and this was like June, just the day before school getting out. He said, "You should have been in the hospital a month and a half ago." He said, "In other words, you should have never been dismissed." And said I had been going to another doctor that had me walking, jogging. He said all this was detriment. He said he don't know why I did not end up paralyzed with the nerve problems that I had. | 29:44 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | So I told him, I said, "I can't go." He said, "You got go." I said, "My children's last day of school is Friday. They got to have [indistinct 00:30:38], Leonard." I said, "I got to do all—" He said, "Ma'am, you need to go." I said, "I can't come til Sunday. I won't come til Sunday." He said, "Well I tell you what," he had his nurses get everything drawn up for me. He gave me a card, and a little prescription thing, slip, and he told me to keep it with me. He said, "If you get anyways worse," because at that time, I couldn't get out the bed without them holding my head. They had to hold my head real tight. If they weren't there and I decided to lay down, I go lay down, and it's like I lay there about five minutes before all my head got in place. I could just feel it, like a line. And he told me my nerve was so, I had torn nerve damage. It was so bad, he said it was just like a fan with strings. A lot of string cut and put on each little section was just blowing. That's the way it was. | 30:02 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And see, he didn't tell me all that til I got in the hospital, because he was afraid to tell me. So, I went to the hospital that Sunday. Then my kids, they barbecued and everything before I went. My mom came to stay with my kids. She wouldn't bring them to the hospital to see me. Her and my sister wouldn't bring them til like on Sundays to see me. I got a chance to talk to him on the phone every day. But after I got in the hospital that Monday, they started doing tests on me. By that Friday, he got me in a private room, because he said if they had intensive care for a nerve wave problem, nerve problems, physical nerve problem, he said I would've been in intensive care. So, he said in order for me to be healed, I was going to have to go into a private setting. | 30:37 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And I had all counter tests, spinal taps, and all this, and they put that dye. I had nobody come to the hospital and stay with me. They said I needed someone to stay with, I had nobody to come, nobody. I mean, I went through it by myself, because my kids was young. They couldn't come. And so, he did acupuncture on me, he went all up and down. Wherever I hurt, that's where he gave me shots. My right hand, he said he needed surgery on it then. He had a surgeon looking at, and I told him they wasn't cutting my hands. If y'all cut my hand, I'm going to be putting in [indistinct 00:33:21]. Wherever it goes, it's going to be floppy. Y'all ain't going to my hand. I just felt I could be healed without all that. | 32:34 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | Okay, my headache still was bad, and my eyesight is bad now, and I believe a lot of that's from those wrecks. But it was even worse then. I could not even see what my glasses on. It's seven nerves on each side here, and he put needles in all seven of them. I did have pictures of all of this. Then he went back, and he put a needle in the back of my head, four nerves back there. And as he injected the medicine, one time, it was like somebody turned a light on. And when he finished, I could see without my glasses. | 33:30 |
| Sally Graham | Really? | 34:14 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | Yes. And my head, I could feel the pain ease. At that time, he carried me. He put me in the hospital for two to three days just to check me out, and I end up staying in the hospital then twenty-three days. And I got to come home then, because my baby talked to the doctor that Sunday. She said, "When you sending my mama home? My mama been gone so long, I ain't seen my mama in a long time." And he said, "She ain't been here about a couple weeks, have you?" I said, "Dr. Baker, get real." And he said, "My lady, I didn't realize this." He said, "We'll see if we can't start patching you up to get your on out." So, he sent me home that Wednesday from the hospital. But I still had to go back to October and stay about twenty more days to finish up with treatments. That's when he finished rocking off all the nerves. And so, he tried to get me to get disability, but I was working at this company where they made Blue Ridge wrinkle. | 34:14 |
| Sally Graham | What's that? | 35:29 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | It's a fabric where they made the Burlington material. You ever hear of Burlington? | 35:30 |
| Sally Graham | Burlington like coats and socks and stuff like that? | 35:38 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | Uh. We made that fabric, for them. And the jogging suits that we made sold out in California for over 200 dollars. I mean, sharp material. And I was working there, and I wanted to go back to my job, because I was making good money, I didn't want no disability check. I don't want no check no once a month. And I refused to get it. But he was going to work with me to get it at the time. And I did. But still, I had tendonitis in all my arms. And then as time passed, I started hearing voices. And later, I realized that my son left to go to the service, and it really took a hole out of my life. Because I went to church, so [indistinct 00:36:33] growed up, after I growed up, I said, "I ain't going to church unless I just want to." And I would go to church occasionally. | 35:42 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | So, after my oldest son went to the service, I was so hurt, because my sister did some ugly things to me then with my son. And so, I started praying. And at that time, I had started really taking in sewing in my home. And that's where I lived. I was taking sewing in my home, I would go to Atlanta and buy the fabric, and I made outfits to be sold, and people would come in and buy them. I did weddings, I even made wedding dresses. I did complete weddings, and I would go to the wedding, you understand? But I had to back off a few minutes, because I was just so hurt when my child left because I was so close to him. | 36:34 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And so what I did, I started praying and reading my Bible. And I said, "Uh-uh, I can't do this." Because when I prayed and read my Bible, I knew everything. I could see like you a stranger, never seen you, and I could tell you everything was going on in your life. And I said, "Aw," I said, "I don't want [indistinct 00:37:46] like that." And then like I'd be talking to my friends, and I would tell them different things, and they said, "Martha, how you knew? I didn't tell nobody." So, I got to the place, I monitored all my conversations. I monitored them very well. And I quit, I wouldn't read the Bible. I might read the Bible twice a year. | 37:22 |
| Sally Graham | Even today? | 38:06 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | No. Not now. And I wouldn't pray. If I prayed, it was just something I had to pray for I felt like wasn't going to come through, because I was always the type of person I could focus my mind on whatever it was and I got it. It would come. And I said, "Oh." And so, I knew that, and I felt myself at one time drifting. I knew so much. I could tell when people were dealing with witchcraft. I could tell when people were doing things to others. I could feel your hurt, your grief. | 38:06 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And so I started, I even learned, I don't know how I learned how to burn candles, how to go to the store and buy [indistinct 00:39:05] things, that if you have the anointing, and you can extend spirits them and they work. And I started to start seeing people. People started coming back, because I knew so much. And one day, I heard this voice say, "Do you want to go to heaven or Hell?" And I didn't reply. They said, "Keep it up, you going to Hell." I got all my stuff up, and I put in the trash. And people would try to encourage me to go to root workers, and I would go, but they didn't know what they were talking about. I [indistinct 00:39:59] feel crazy. And I wonder. But it worked for everybody else, but it never worked for me. | 38:54 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | So finally, I met a lady that lives here in Albany, and I went to her, and this lady could tell me everything about my house and everything. And it hurts me now. It hurts me now to know that this lady had the same calling I have, but she's been lured into witchcraft. And this is the truth, I've been praying, asking God to give me the spirit of his, the Holy Ghost dwell on me, and lead me to her, to bring her away from that witchcraft. Because the woman does have a calling. And it bothers me. Because this lady, before she got sold into this, she started me to—she told me so many things, she did more for me than anybody else. But then it got to the place I go to her, and it was like she was speaking a foreign language. And she finally told me the last time I went to talk to her, she said, "Don't come back to me anymore." I said, "Why?" She said, "Everything I'm doing for you, you can do it for yourself." She said, "You need to go and get you some office hours." | 39:59 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | I said I'm going crazy. Ain't get no office hours. But then, I wanted to work at Turner Job Corps. This was in, okay, first I went to school in '87. I went and I took tailoring and alterations. Even though I could sew real well, I wanted to become a professional. And I took the course, and I came out with honors. And I mean, I made anything. I could do it already, but I learned how to really detail. I even learned how to go around and make things real fast like this, go around and outline it and all this kind of stuff. Design it, in other words. | 41:06 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And so when I came out, I started working for the state mental health, working in the home as a house parent. And later, I went to work at Job Corps. And so after I got out there, my neighbor went and bought me a Bible, the same Bible I use now. And I worked nights, and I started reading the Bible a lot. And as I read the Bible, I was a residential advisor there at Job Corps, I was working on for 4,800 seat floors. And the girls would come in, and [indistinct 00:42:35], I had to do their passes for the weekend. If they were sixteen and not quite eighteen, until the eighteenth birthday, they couldn't go out without a parent consent form. If they were eighteen and above, they automatically could go out. But they had to do what I said. I told them I was their keeper. | 41:53 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And they would come in, and I would tell them, and this is what I always told them also, I said, "Listen, I'm your mom away from home." I said, "Whatever you do out there in the street, come here and tell me the truth." I said, "I'll go down with you." I said, "I will go down with you." They said, "Well, we not going to do it," but as they find out how I was—they like noodles. I would always buy, you go to Winn-Dixie, you could get them, six for a dollar. I might go get twenty dollars worth, maybe like two boxes and carry them to work with me. And they always come to me to eat. I bought popcorn popper so they could have popcorn, and I would cook a lot of times and carry food out there. And this was for my floor. And other girls from around in the dorm, they got to know that I was doing this, and they would come up and they would eat, they would share in. Wherever I had left, I would give them some of it. | 42:58 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And the kids just grew to me. So, as I continued reading my Bible and beginning to pray, because that's one of the devious places in the world to world, very devious, and the staff is terrible, the students are beautiful. And I knew then I had to pray to stay there, and I would pray. And one of the supervisors there, he would tell me, "Y'all could leave [indistinct 00:44:30] something wrong with bringing their own food." He said, "I feel strange when I go around." Because I said what I had to say, I didn't care. I told him when I came here, I was working. When I leave, I can go back and work. Because I've made very good [indistinct 00:44:42]. I've made like two and 300 dollars a week home, so that don't bother me. And see, I ain't about all that money, no how. All I need is my rent money, my life, and when I get [indistinct 00:44:54]. Okay? So, I don't worry about stuff like that. I tell you, I'm very unusual. | 44:03 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And so as a result of that, the girls would come on the floor, and if they got in trouble, that meant they took points for my floor. But oh, I would started going to awards day. And I couldn't understand how my floor would win all these first place. I didn't even know what you had to do to win, because I was new there, nobody had told me, nobody had briefed me on it. It's a place they said it carried through orientation, but they don't orientate you. You orientate to itself. | 45:01 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | And so, later I found out because I was keeping my dorm, my rooms clean. I didn't clean them, though. I did nothing but my paperwork. I told them, "This is your home, you do it." I even got wrote up because I did not wear something like Carolyn has on today. I wore something like I got on now, and my heels and my stockings. And I got wrote up because they said I didn't dress for GI Day. I told them, "I don't live here, I live at 305 Williams Street." | 45:27 |
| Sally Graham | You didn't trust for what? G-I? | 45:57 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | GI Day. That's general [indistinct 00:46:01]. A Job Corps is somewhere, it's like a training institution. | 45:59 |
| Sally Graham | Okay. And people stay there, they live there? | 46:08 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | They live there. And so, the point I'm trying to get to, they got to the place, the girls would come in, and I had an incident that went down, and it hurt me. And I would feel things, but I would never force [indistinct 00:46:23]. And I have people that come walk past, "You ain't going nowhere." And I tell them where they were going and what they were going to do. And they get mad and go jump on the room, or jump on their butt because they come told me. I said, "Ain't nobody told me nothing." And then they got, after that, later sometimes they would come in the office, or we sit out in the hallway, and I describe [indistinct 00:46:47], I tell them how the house looking all, and some of them lived as far away as New York. And I had never been there. I could tell them what room they slept in, what color that room was. | 46:10 |
| Sally Graham | When did you first start having, I guess, visions? | 46:19 |
| Martha Jones Bradford | Well, I still didn't know what I was, because I was Missionary Baptist. Because Missionary Baptist don't believe in that. They believe in root works. And I know I wasn't no root worker. And I— | 46:56 |
| Pastor Carolyn King | She sees something about me. | 0:03 |
| Martha Bradford | I hadn't really tried. Well you know what, Carolyn, I'll tell you, I don't just go out doing that. You know? No, I don't do that. And I love to be away from them because it takes so much out of me. It takes a lot of the virtue out me. But as I was saying, I would tell the girls what they were going to do and I would tell them about their parents. So they started calling me a witch. | 0:06 |
| Sally Graham | Oh my God. | 0:29 |
| Martha Bradford | They'd say, "Ah, you better let my grandma know because my grandma will stop it." And when they had problems, they would come and talk to me and I would counsel them. And because of that, I ended up on the rape team for counseling for the girls, and I did a lot of counseling with them for that. They had staff members there that would go to the rape crisis training and they would send the girls to you for counseling. And I was one of the ones, most of them would try to come to me. And I always, like I said, the girls when I was there, they would go to class because see, if I'd be back at my bed, someone would tell me somebody ain't in class. These was not my kids either. I'd get up, get in my car and go out there. | 0:39 |
| Martha Bradford | I put my hand on them, "Why aren't you in class?" And I punched them when I got there. So they were scared to cut class. I won most of the awards for cutting class. My ADA was higher than anybody else on seventh and at sixth, at that time, it was sixth. Sixth, seventh. | 1:12 |
| Sally Graham | And ADA would be what? | 1:49 |
| Martha Bradford | Daily attendance. | 1:51 |
| Sally Graham | Oh, I see. | 1:52 |
| Martha Bradford | They went to class. They went to trade. You ave a week to do community services and see, we work in the cafeteria. You had other things. This time you might work the cafeteria. Next time you might be on the garbage truck. Next time you might have to cut grass. You see what I'm saying? And they didn't mind doing the cutting grass or working on a garbage, I mean in the cafeteria, but they didn't want to work on the garbage truck, but I would catch them if they didn't do it or something. So they were afraid. And one girl that came that were so negative, she was a Yankee, she was Black, her name was Iwanna Johnson. She'd never clean up her room, never do nothing. When I got through molding her and making her, this girl left president of the student council. That's right. | 1:54 |
| Sally Graham | What did you see as any difference between as you say, the Yankee Black and like a southern Black? | 2:53 |
| Martha Bradford | They're honestly no different than nobody. But like I said, you can ask me a question because see, I'm different from most people. When God made me, He broke the mold. So there's not a carbon like me. I'm totally different. And my grandmama said that I was going to be very gifted because she said anybody could let that holy breath and not breathe when I was born had to have gifts. And it was just meanness. I used to be very mean, stubborn. I take care now. I have a very bad laid spirit now. | 2:58 |
| Sally Graham | What's that mean? | 3:44 |
| Martha Bradford | I can feel something and let the air off from it tonight or tomorrow or next week because of stubbornness. | 3:45 |
| Sally Graham | The delayed spirit, that's what? | 3:59 |
| Martha Bradford | Yeah. The penetration won't exhalt itself until later, but I've been praying, and it's much better. It's much better. But while working at job code, I know it wasn't good. It was in May of '92, I felt something from move in my stomach, but I knew I weren't ready and you could just feel it in my stomach. And I went down on the C floor that night because I had to pull sixteen hours. When you clocked in, you clocked out when you could because if your floor wasn't covered, you had to stay there. See, that was three to twelve on the floor, midnight. Which is like, just hope you out. You understand? | 4:01 |
| Martha Bradford | But that was their job, but they didn't come, you had to stay. So I had to stay over that Sunday night. And I went down and I told this lady, I said "Something wrong with my stomach." She said, "Well, grab a wheelchair, we told you your stomach is swollen." So I said, "I know." And so she felt my stomach, she said, "Girl, you're pregnant." And you could actually feel something moving in my stomach. I left her that morning my stomach was real. So I went to the emergency room. The doctor told me that I had a fatty tissue. He signed me to another doctor. Later on I started bumping up a little and passing blood through my stool. Okay, I went to the doctor for that. They found I had two small ulcers. | 4:57 |
| Martha Bradford | I went on vacation the fourth weekend of July in '92. I took two weeks vacation. When I went on vacation, I still had to steal this problem. But one of my cousins from Miami came up to visit me, Junior Justin Holloway, and we went out to Howard Fields, I mentioned earlier, went with them to church, Howard and Gray Fields, to church in the Shema, Georgia. And as a result of that, that night somebody came in with something on them, and I developed an allergy. And by the next day I had a real bad cold. | 5:53 |
| Martha Bradford | And I was supposed to go back to work that Tuesday. I went back to work that Tuesday, I was sick. I couldn't stop coughing, my eyes running water. I was sick, very sick. My stomach was hurting. And I stayed at it that Friday. I had a very high fever and I came home, I went to the emergency room and I knew I wasn't well enough then to go back to work. So Tuesday, I went out to let them know that I was going to the doctor, and I went to the doctor. The next week I went to the doctor. The doctor took me off of work for ten days. So I came outside, just went back from vacation. I came back. And he took me off ten days, and he told me to come back to him. He told me I had a touch of pneumonia. | 6:46 |
| Martha Bradford | He told me I had bleeding ulcers. And I was just sick. So he gave me medications for my—and I had sinus real bad also. And he gave me medication for all of this. So I came back the next week, I had to go get an excuse to go back to work. I got it. I had been I that field for about thirty years. So that Friday I had to go to the doctor because I just couldn't make it. And I went to get some more medicine so I could go to work that Friday evening. And my doctor's name is Greg Thompson, Dr. Greg Thompson. And we all went, if I remember well, I remember the same church at that time. He said well he saw my neighbor and he was something wrong with Martha. I feel like I can heal myself. | 7:50 |
| Martha Bradford | And so I got back there and he just went to checking me. And he said, "Martha, you have developed not a touch of pneumonia, you got pneumonia." He said, "You cannot go to work." He said, "I'm fitting to send you to the hospital." I said, "I can't go to the hospital, I got to go to work. I just come off vacation." And they were mad as fire with me. And see, during the time I was off sick like that, they got me fired. When I went back to work, they had fired me. They lied on me and got me fired. But this was something that had to happen to sickness. I went in the hospital, they put me on Q1 hour of breathing treatments. They had me on all kinds of medicines. And I will never forget, I was at Fever Putnam Memorial Hospital in room 811. And that Sunday morning I got so sick I throw up all kind of blood. They called the doctor. | 8:55 |
| Martha Bradford | The nurse came in and said something to me, and the doctor came in, they ran to the left and they knew it was coming from my ulcer. So they carried me. They told me I had to go down for this—what was it? Whatever, the name of it. But they run the light down. And so he told me to make sure I was going to sign a surgical permit. This time he said I had to have a family member. I knew I would have a family member there because I had grown children. So my oldest son told me, "Mama, I'll be there." So he came out early that Monday morning. Prior to him getting there, I always carried my radio to the hospital, listening to the spiritual programs because I learned where I went there to live, you can listen to gospel. You're more prone to listen to spiritual when you ain't feeling good. So I carried my radio and I had set to come on at four o'clock. | 9:58 |
| Martha Bradford | So that morning it came on. So about four thirty I heard a voice say, "Martha, you are sick." It said, "What you can do." But it said, "But if you go and spread my gospel to help me to raise a nation that will obey me, and give messages wherever I send you to people," it say, "You can be healed." It said, "You'll be healed." And I said, "Oh my God, now I know you think I'm crazy." I said, "Now Lord, enough of this." But see it was a strange thing. I was laying flat in the bed somewhat like this, and I felt the pressure that came up between the mattress and the head of the bed. I felt the thing going in my ear like a stethoscope. I felt it in my ears. I actually felt something in my ears. | 11:00 |
| Martha Bradford | And it came out after that, and it said, "You will be healed or you will die." And I said, "Oh my God, I guess I done lost my mind, sure enough." I said, "God that's not talk." And I just wondered. I said, "Well, what's wrong with me?" So I laid there and that's when I said, "I'm not scared, ain't nothing going to happen to me. I'm going to be all right." And so at four forty-five, I won't ever forget it, I felt the pressure of like holding your head like this back here. I could feel the pressure and it was saying, this thing was speaking back here saying, "I'll do your will, Lord, I'll do your will." And I began to calm down, and I just end up sitting on the side of bed just doing that, and I couldn't stop. Tears was running. I couldn't stop. And then my mind was telling me, "Honey, when this pass by, sure enough they'll put you on the seventh floor because you're crazy." | 12:10 |
| Martha Bradford | I said, "Oh my God, what am I going to do?" And I needed about fifteen or twenty minutes more, that's all I was saying, "I'll do your will, Lord. I'll go where you want me to go." And I heard it, I said, "Wherever you send me, Lord, I'll go. Whoever you tell me to lay hands on, I'll lay hands on." I said, "Lord, I'll raise the dead," said, "I'll heal the sick. I'll tell them whatever you tell me to tell." And I just kept saying all this over and over and over, you know what I'm saying, why lay down hands, and I'll heal them? I am crazy because I know I can't do this. I can't do nothing. | 13:02 |
| Martha Bradford | And so I laid there. And of course the doctor had explained to me the seriousness of this test and how bad my ulcers was. He told me, he said, "I'm not sure you might have to go right on to surgery." When I got down there, they told me it was the size of a dime. It was on my stomach. He said it was one over here and one on the top here. He said, "You got to do right." He pointed out, he got his little stick and show it to me on the screen my stomach while they had the light in me. He said, "You got the do right." He said, "You going to have to eat a greaseless diet or this fish diet." I'm saying, "Oh my God." He said, "You going to have to have a plan." I said, "Me?" And so they sent me back up to the room and I was still getting these breathing treatments. So when my daughter came in, he said, "With all the symptoms what we saw and the blood that we sent to the lab, we can't believe the condition of your ulcers." | 13:44 |
| Martha Bradford | I said, "What do you mean? It's that bad?" They said, "It's that good." He said, "We believe Zantac will heal you, but you're going to have to take them." And he said, "I don't know, you might have to take them year or two years. You might have to take them the rest of your life." He said, "Well, I'm subscribing six month supplies at a time of this prescription," he said, "because I feel you, knowing you, Martha," Dr. Thompson told me, he said, "Knowing you, you have to take him to your diet because you ain't going to eat right," because he knew I like fat back. I like crackling bread and I eat what I want to eat. And they would always get at me about the way I eat. And some of them had been to my house for dinner and I cooked collar greens and I would eat fat stuff that a kid would have high blood pressure. | 14:57 |
| Martha Bradford | And he always tell me, he said, "I pray that you never have high blood pressure." He said, "Oh, you know you'll die." He said, "I hate to say it, but you couldn't live." He goes, "You wouldn't obey." He goes, "You got to mind me. I'll tell you my name is Martha Breath. There's not another one like me. There's no other woman like me." And so he said, "I know." And so I came home, I was dismissed from the hospital. I came home and I shared it with a friend of mine named Shirley Morrison. She's said, "God must have a car, I ain't going to lie." I shared it with another lady, her name is Dorothy Shelton. She said, "I told you there was something about you." She worked that job until we worked. One time we worked together. It was strange that we didn't get along as long as we worked together. | 15:49 |
| Martha Bradford | But as time passed we got along real good. In other words, I used to get upset with her. I'd go to watch because we had to go to a little meeting before we go to the dorm. I get upset because she had on something she had made and be looking so pretty. | 16:46 |
| Pastor Carolyn King | Oh my God. | 16:59 |
| Martha Bradford | I said dang, I need to go home and make me something, but we got to be very close. And she said, "Bradford, you better get yourself together." I said, "Girl, I experienced something, God don't want me for nothing." She said, "Alright." She said, "That was a message to you." So I had this friend named Lorraine, countryman [indistinct 00:17:24]. I knew she had cancer. I knew when she had it, when she developed it. Before she even told me, I knew she had it. So when she came and told me she told me, "Don't tell nobody." | 17:06 |
| Martha Bradford | So it was something like, "You come tell me something I never asked—and I'm not the type to care until you don't ask questions. I very seldom. I don't ask questions. And whatever she told me, I heard, but I never repeated, never told nobody she had cancer, never, because she told me, "Don't tell nobody." So that year they had retired her from a job in '92. Okay. In other words, when I went back to the job to go to work and they fired me, she was happy. She said, "Because you need to tell you, that job was about to kill you, Martha." She said, "I prayed and asked God to deliver you from this." I said, "You did?" "She said, "Yeah." She said, "Martha, I prayed so hard for you." She said, I would catch myself a lot of days refusing food, praying for you." "I said, "Why did you pray so much for me?" She said, "Because I just love you." | 17:36 |
| Martha Bradford | So November came, she was supposed to get her first disability check. It was not as much money as she thought that it would be. By that time her eyes had turned about as [indistinct 00:18:48]. So they found the spots was beginning to move around on her liver. You understand? So she went in the hospital and she'd always go in the hospital and stay maybe overnight, two, three days. I would go see her. She called me right [indistinct 00:19:06] and that's it. I might stay overnight with her sometime. So this particular time she went in the hospital that she called me that Monday. She said, "You ain't called." I said, "No." And she said, "Well, I'm in the hospital, girl. I can't keep nothing down." I said, "You can't?" She said, "No." So she said, "You coming down here today?" I said, "Probably so." | 18:35 |
| Martha Bradford | So I went to get ready to go that evening and this voice came back to me and said, "If you go, she's going to die." And I went to crying. I said, "Y'all, I believe she's going to die." And I cried because we were very close. We were like sisters too. And so I said, "Well, my God." So I didn't go. She called me about nine, "I thought you were coming." I said, "I asked you about you." I said, I was scared you wouldn't come home. So I didn't go." Every day I promised her from the first day, from the third of November to Thanksgiving, I promised her and I never went. | 19:25 |
| Martha Bradford | I have a friend in Florida that used to visit me periodically. He was supposed to be a boyfriend. But after I found God, I don't let him come see me no more and I don't go see him. I want that on the record, because I'm accused of coding, but I don't code. I mean, him. And I tell people this is my unsafe boyfriend but he stayed his distance and I stayed mine. I guarantee you that. And so he came up for Thanksgiving. I weren't saved then, okay, but God had his hand on me at that time. | 20:07 |
| Martha Bradford | And so I—we were going by to see her that Thanksgiving day, but God had told me if I saw her, she would die. I didn't see her. So that Sunday night—so that Sunday day she and I talked. She said, "Martha, I thought you'd be there at the apartment Monday." That Sunday night she got a fever shot so high and see she was going in and out of pneumonia stages. She told me they had did a little work on her. She didn't tell me they had put a catheter in her liver. She didn't tell me her liver had quit functioning. You hear me? So I would go and go see her again. I didn't go. Every time I go to get ready, would say "If you go, she'll die." So I wouldn't go and I would just go frantic to tears. So I called out there, I think it was the Monday after second Sunday, maybe some cabbage and some chicken. I never forget that Monday. I had just come in from school. I had worked that day, substituted, and I came in and I took this. | 20:48 |
| Martha Bradford | I said, "Well while I rest, I'll just call Lorraine." I took my chicken down and put it in some water. So when I called, her husband answered the phone. I almost dropped the phone because he never came to see her when she was in the hospital. And that time the Lord said, "You got to be strong." I said, "Well, what you doing there?" He said, "Nothing." He said, "Lorraine ain't doing too good and I just took off to come up to stay with her." And we talked. So I went on and I hung up the phone. So that Wednesday I went just to work at Sylvester and I went by to see this friend of mine down in Sylvester, name was Mary Whistle. | 22:13 |
| Martha Bradford | She said, "Why you didn't tell me Lorraine had cancer and was dying?" My heart skipped ten beats, I know. I just went to crying. I said, "I ain't know it." She said, "I know you been going." I said, "I ain't been out there to see her." She said, "Why?" I said, "Because something told me don't go see her, and I don't go." So I sit there and I talked to her a few minutes and I knew I had to go then. And on my way back to Albany, the Lord spoke to me. He said, "Now you go and see her. Upon whatever you request," He said, "I'm going to grant." He said, "You got lay hands on her." | 22:51 |
| Martha Bradford | I was like, "I know you joking." I said, "I ain't healing nobody with his hands. This hand can't do nothing." I kept looking at my hand. But at that time God told me, he said, "The pain that you used to have in the hands," I used to couldn't use this hand, even after I got up and start working, I did very little writing. The little my writing you have done, now my hand would've been just cramped out. The pain would've been so severe. He said, "The pain that you have in your hand is the anointing." And I ain't know about the anointing because remember, I was blessed in the Baptist. I said, "The anointing?" He said, "When you lay your hands on her, the anointing that's going to come from your hand is going to heal her." He said, "But she won't live forever." He said, "It's going to spare her life." And I said, "Oh my God." I said, "I don't what this voice is doing, but it really needs to leave me alone." | 23:36 |
| Martha Bradford | I go, "No, I don't know what you're talking about." So as I got to the hospital, I felt okay. So I went in the hospital and I went onto her room. I got in there. A friend of mine I hadn't seen in years was there and she's an evangelist. And so she left. She asked Lorraine if she could pray for her. She said "Yeah." I said, "Thank you Jesus, I ain't got to pray because I had never prayed in my life for nobody." So she left and I left with her, but Lorraine at that time just seemed like in deep sleep. She was going in and out, in and out. Nobody had told me anything about what was going on. | 24:36 |
| Martha Bradford | But now back in May that year, she had tried to get me to let her change her will to me. And I said, "No, you got a husband. Get your husband all that." She said, "But my daughter needs to say goodbye." She said, "Even though she's grown," because she and her husband didn't get along with, and her daughter was from a previous marriage. I said, "No, Lorraine, I can't do that." And I would let her do it. But she asked me on three different occasions, and I would let her do it. So her husband said, "Lord, I ain't staying here tonight. I'm so tired." I said, "Well, I'll stay tonight." And he said, "Okay." So I came home and today, I don't know how a Christmas tree got down in my car. This is truthful. | 25:29 |
| Pastor Carolyn King | What Christmas tree? | 26:16 |
| Martha Bradford | I had a Christmas tree that had lights on it that you plug in and lights light up. But this was a little Christmas tree, a small Christmas tree the size of that lamp there. And the bug was in the box. We still don't know how it got there. But I was looking for my Christmas tree with the lights on, but I found this Christmas tree. But being that I'm I am now, I'm not worried about how it got there. You understand? Because the Lord spoke to me, said "Let her have her last Christmas." So I put up a tree. So I decorated the tree. | 26:20 |
| Pastor Carolyn King | The little Christmas tree? | 26:58 |
| Martha Bradford | A little Christmas tree and set it in the corner of the room where she could see it. Her daughter was still there. Her husband left as soon as I got there. So her daughter left about eleven thirty or twelve. She said, "Woo, I thought this would never happen." I said, "What?" "You and I get a chance to talk." She said, "I've been wanting to talk to you ever since I came in the hospital the first time." I said, "About what, Lorraine?" I said, "You could have called me and talked on the phone." She said "No, the Lord told me I had to tell you this in person." I said, "What?" She said, "I'm dying." | 26:59 |
| Martha Bradford | I said, "Oh God, Lorraine, no." And I went to crying. She said, "Hush now. You have no business crying. Cheer up. Be happy. I'm going to be out of my misery." She said, "You knew all the time I had cancer. You the only person I told. So what you crying about? I expected the others to cry, but you know." She said, "If you cry, I'm going to have to cry because you all the strength I got." She said, "Now get yourself together." I got myself together. | 27:36 |
| Martha Bradford | "Go get a pencil and paper and do my obituary." I said, "Lorraine, I can't." She said, "You can." I said, "I can't, Lorraine." And I was almost screaming at that point. "I can't." She said, "Calm yourself down and go get some pencil and paper and come back here." So I went out there, and just as I went to go out the door, this nurse at the hospital that I've known casually for years, she was then I just grabbed her and I hugged her. I said, "Nobody told me Lorraine was dying." And I went to telling her everything Lorraine was telling me. | 28:00 |
| Martha Bradford | She said, "You just got to be strong for her." Would you believe mine you, her son had the same thing because his liver just shut down with no reason at all. She had gone through some of the things. God allowed this angel to be there for me so I could talk with her. And she said, "Do everything you do for her to the fullest." She said, "Because she ain't going live." She said, "She won't even see Christmas." She said, "Because the doctor's given up. So he's allowing her to take any medication she wants. She said, "She's on the highest dosage you can get with." | 28:40 |
| Martha Bradford | She said, "In other words, you go back to the room, she might be dead." She said, "It's just that close." She said, "My son was the same way, but we know a man that you don't have to die now," she said, "because I prayed to get my son back into Georgia. And so he still lived about a month when he got back, and then he died. But I knew he couldn't live without a liver." She said "I was smart enough to know that. She said, "God spared his life because I couldn't accept it." She said, "And I accepted it." She said people I was crazy, but I came back to work after we got his funeral. She said, "But I had accepted it." She said, "I gone through the agony and I was ready to go back on post." And so she got me some paper and pencil and everything. I went back and I did the obituary for her. | 29:24 |
| Martha Bradford | And when I finished during obituary, she told me, she said—and I did the program, she wanted me to sing a solo. I said, "Lorraine, I don't know, I can't sing." She said, "You can sing." She said, "I want you to sing He Touched Me." So when I finished singing it, she said, "Now, lay hands on me right here" and said "it's going to do something to me and for me." God had told me lay hands on her and I laid my hands on her. And as I laid my hands on her and prayed, when I was saying he touched me, she said, "when I said that, something happened and now I know," she said "she felt something go right through there. She said "It was just like a burning, said, "just hit me." She said, it made her jump. And she said she felt the warmth just going over that liver, that whole area. And when I was praying she said out of my hand when my hand touched her, she could feel the heat. | 30:13 |
| Martha Bradford | When I finished, she said, "Girl, your hands, they are hot." And I prayed like I had never prayed before in my life. I prayed until I cried and I'm one of the ones I might get real high in the spirit, but a lot of times I don't cry. I don't cry easy. And I prayed so hard that night for her and that I stayed that Sunday night with her. And I was supposed to go to Florida to spend a week after. We went through Christmas thinking she would die. But that the day after Christmas, I spent the night with her. I had a lady throw the covers back. See, all this just seemed like a dream to me. And then it seemed like a dream. See, I know now I was in the Spirit and I didn't realize it. I throw the covers back on her and the lady went to dress this thing to show me how to dress it. When I saw the thing, God spoke and told me "That's her healing." | 31:24 |
| Martha Bradford | He said, "She's not going to die now. She will go home. She will be able to do what she wants to do," he said, "but she will die in June, mid June." She died the sixteenth of June last year. That was the first prophecy God gave me. I was not Holy Ghost filled. January '93, I was sitting there at that table talking about your kids. And I told him, I said, "Y'all, it's something I got to do and I don't know what it is." He said, "What you going to do, mama?" I said, "I believe I'm to pray for people," I said, "but I don't know how to." I said, "Something is happening to me." And so we talked about that. And so after that, this February, it was right after Valentine's Day, I came home, one of my sons is married and he and his wife don't get along, but the girl he dates, her car was here. And I came in and I was wondering why they both were here one time. | 32:35 |
| Martha Bradford | And so as a result of that, I came in and his wife pulled about there. He went out there, and he loves his wife dearly, but they just can't get along. And this boy just fell. He just went down on the ground crying. My daughter and I got him up and brought him into the house and came through the back door and brought him in the house. I stood back there in that kitchen. I cried out to God and I asked the Lord, I ain't know what I was saying now. I said, "Lord, I don't know what's going on, but I need you. I need you in my life." I said, "Look at my child." I said, "I don't know what to do for him." I said, "The boy's as hard as her." I said, "Help me find my cousin Arnie, she's an evangelist, so she can tell me some of the things, something to do." | 33:44 |
| Martha Bradford | I said, "I need somebody that's anointed." And while I said that, I thought, "What in the world? I don't know what I'm talking about." So it was the last Sunday in February, the fourth Sunday in February, I was in my bed that Sunday morning. I the spirit come upon me again, and I heard this man come in, talking so fast. I said, "My God, I get so tired of folk bringing them silly folks here in the time. They don't know nothing." I said, "Ain't nobody going to tell me nothing I don't know about myself." As I was about to tell them, somebody don't talk to myself, but as a man talked, I felt a warmth went over me. And I had to get out the bed. And this was a private Lord Vincent. Okay? And I got out the bed, I had to sit on the side of the bed and listen at. And he said, "Well, you going to be at Oldham." I said, "Child, I wouldn't get my dead [indistinct 00:35:47]" | 34:43 |
| Sally Graham | Where is this? | 35:47 |
| Martha Bradford | Oh, this is church. He was going to be at Bethany Temple on Oldham. I can't remember the street number but I know it's Oldham Street. I said, "Honey, I wouldn't carry my dead [indistinct 00:36:00] over there, that man can't do nothing." Talking about how he prayed for folk. That man can't do a thing. But my girlfriend, surely that I mentioned, I had told her about what had happened to me. She was a member of that church, but I wasn't thinking about that was her church. I didn't know that. And so she came over to get a dress that I had made her, she had recently gotten a divorce. Another one of my friends was getting a divorce. And so I had told him about her, and so she told me, and she said "I have a meeting, but I have a meeting in church." | 35:49 |
| Martha Bradford | She said, "We got a revival at my church. Y'all come over one night." I said "Okay." So then she told me where the church was on Oldham. I forgot about what I heard on the radio. Okay? I mean wiped completely out my mind. Then I told him that Monday night, that Tuesday night he came back in smoking a cigarette all shaw. And I had took my bath and gone to bed at seven o'clock, and I don't go to bed that early. Okay? | 36:34 |
| Pastor Carolyn King | Uh-huh. | 36:58 |
| Martha Bradford | So my daughter said, she said, "Mama, get on up and go with Sam." She's like, "Because Sam too [indistinct 00:37:14] "No mama, you got to go with Sam Sharp tonight. He was [indistinct 00:37:19]. He had on a beautiful suit. So I got up and I just put on anything, I didn't care. I'm going to a [indistinct 00:37:45] church, they wear anything. And I just put on anything. And I got in the van, I said, "Oh, I forgot to comb my hair. I don't care." And I ain't combed my hair because I wear it curly all the time. | 37:06 |
| Martha Bradford | So I went on over there and when I got there, [indistinct 00:37:50] I said "Buddy is where that man is. I don't want to go in there and see that crazy man." He said, "Surely, this man is a prophet." I said, "I don't believe in him." I said, "I know that right. I ain't fooled about nothing. He ain't no prophet." And so we went to Shirley's house. Shirley don't live that far from the church. We went to her house. And so when we got there, Shirley had gone to bed early. She had given her daughter a bath, and she had gone to bed early. So I said, "My goodness, well, we going on back?" She said, "Uh-huh, this got to be a trick of the enemy. So we must supposed to go to church because somebody going to get saved out this." I said, "Child, I'm glad I'm already saved." | 37:45 |
| Martha Bradford | And Sam said, "Me too." She said, "Well, something going to happen." So we went on church. We sat out there in the van I guess about maybe fifteen minutes. And I saw this van come up and this fancy lady got out the van. That's when his workers was there. And he pulled all off and left. So after a while, another lady came up. I said, "Who is she? That's not the right woman." I said, "Well, honey," I said, "Look at her." She rolled her eyes, she said, "Let's go now." So we went. [Indistinct 00:39:08]. She said, "Look at her getting out there praying. What she pray about? She ain't praying about anything. Those folks make me sick [indistinct 00:39:14] they put on." And this lady in there that was doing a [indistinct 00:39:17], and she left. She was just saying [indistinct 00:39:22] like she does, she would say, "My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my." I said, "These folk crazy." | 38:30 |
| Martha Bradford | And it was maybe like about eight people in the church. So I was on the very back seat. So we sat on the very back seat. She said, "No, let's not sit here." So we came about three pews up. So people started coming in. I was just looking at everyone. I said, "My God, they come to stuff like that?" Other Baptists and stuff. I said, "Well, my gracious." So after a while, Shirley came and she was like, "Y'all just not going to sit back this far." So we came about a little more than little ways of the church up to the front. But I sat there still and I talked. So while the man came in, I'll never forget it, he came in with this white robe and had this little tie thing, trimming [indistinct 00:40:18]. Oh, I said, "Child, look at that crook. That ain't nothing but a gangster." | 39:31 |
| Martha Bradford | And he got up. You couldn't really hear what he's saying. You know? Sam said, "You know what he's saying? That crazy man." [Indistinct 00:40:32] I thought why you get his [indistinct 00:40:34] around, get talking to his folks? I had seen TV. I said, "Child, that man don't know nothing." He said, "I know." So he just calling people, and I was listening. We were standing about here to make sure my ear was wide open. Sam said, "Why don't he call somebody I know?" I said "Wait a minute Sam, I know that lady there now." So I listen what he says. "Now he might be about right about her." So he called. "Oh honey, he don't know." So he called somebody else. So then he called. And just when he went back, he said, "Hey, you right about there," he said, "You back there." I said, "Sam, go" because I knew he was calling him. I said, "Go." He said, "No ma'am, you with the halo over your head." | 40:25 |
| Martha Bradford | And that time something changed in me and I got up being obedient and by the time I got in the aisle, it was like a heat was all over me. But when I got to him, he said "There's nine gifts of the Holy Spirit." He said, "You have almost all nine of them active in you now." He said, "You are very talented woman." He said, "People now don't even make moves to do anything until they talk to you." He said, "Because you give the message from God to them." He said, "They have problems with the information you give solved them for problems." He said, "It brings peace where there was confusion." He said, "The messages where there are storms that rages," he said "When you speak to them, the peace go through them to open their eyes that they know how to solve their problems." And then he said that, "I can see you now traveling all over the country." | 41:10 |
| Martha Bradford | He said "Going far and near preaching the gospel." He said "Prophesying, using the all nine gifts," he said "causing deliverance, raising the dead, healing the lame." And he said, "And then there are other craft gifts that you have in you." He said, "People all around are going to be jealous of you." He said, "It's going to be like you have no friends nowhere," he said, "because the gift that you have is a very, very rare gift." He said "It's not many people have it." He said, "In a way God, going to raise you, going to make other ministers dislike you. They going to shake in their boots," he said, "because they ain't going to believe it." He said, "Because they have people that have been saved, delivered ten, twenty years won't have the power that God is putting in you." | 42:23 |
| Martha Bradford | He said, "You going to be like a babe born grown." He said, "These are the last days." He said, "The prophet said that the Spirit of God would be upon men and he was going to raise a nation that would obey," and said "that it was going to be a quickening." He said, "And you a part of that." He said "You among the first of that quickening." And I just praised God. And so when I come home wasn't nothing the same. In other words, when I got back to my seat, wasn't nothing the same. It was like a burden had been lifted off of me. I have just went back to my missionary baptistry and joined the church and they put me out the church. | 43:21 |
| Sally Graham | Where was this? | 44:24 |
| Martha Bradford | During this time. They didn't want me there. | 44:24 |
| Sally Graham | How does that happen? How do they do that? | 44:24 |
| Martha Bradford | My grandbaby's Daddy is one of the girls there in the church that's not delivered [indistinct 00:44:32] nephew. She used to be a friend of mine, but she's one of the ones that wanted my daughter to have and abortion. She said I let my daughter have that girl so I could get a welfare check. Okay? Do you understand? | 44:25 |
| Sally Graham | Yeah. | 44:47 |
| Martha Bradford | And food stamps. But I didn't. I was too tight a mother. She couldn't go nowhere by herself. You understand? She did not know responsibilities. She did not know how to vouch for herself. And my cry to every parent is don't be overprotective because they will retaliate on you. If you ain't getting none the rope, nothing think you getting some of the rope. You understand? And so I joined the church there and I went to church that Sunday, and Jessica went for me too, my sister. And so she said, "We don't need them back there, no how." She said, "Just get creative." Her sister boss said, I know they just talk about me so bad and the pastor allowed them to talk about me. I said they didn't want me back down there. | 44:47 |
| Martha Bradford | So I called the chairman deacon. He said, "Well, I know it's a problem," he said, "But I don't know what it can be done about it." He never offered to pray. "Let's pray about it or let's come down, be counseled about it and see if we can work the differences out." The differences are still there, but it don't bother me because I know a man and I guess if I ever get tired, all I do is pray to God to straighten it out anyhow. But who needs her? | 45:49 |
| Martha Bradford | I love her. She just don't love me. You understand? So I called private that Wednesday. This was the next week or he stayed till the next week. I called him that Wednesday morning. He's a somewhat laid back person. So I said, I called him about seven thirty or eight o'clock and I told him, I said, "I'm sorry to wake you up," I said, "But I need to know this." And I was just telling him the situation. And I said, "Are you there?" He said, "Yes, I'm listening." He said, "Can you come in noon day today?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "I have a message for you." | 46:17 |
| Martha Bradford | He had already told them that he came into the city for one soul to be saved. He said, "Men would be delivered and saved," he said, "But I came here for one person and one person alone." He said, "Because he was scheduled to go to New Jersey." And he told the lady he couldn't come. And God told him that somebody needed him, to go. He had to come. So he came on the last minute, on the last note, he came. And I had never been to a service like— | 46:59 |
| Martha Bradford | —is that after, I don't know what his text was, but he used, I think about the first seven verses. And he mostly just read and elaborated on, and just told him how evildoers would do. But I knew the message was for me, because he had told me he was going to preach so I could be delivered from this problem. So then he said that anyone that wanted to recommit their life to God, come forward. He said that wanted a total deliverance that had been saved, but needed a total deliverance come forward. So I went forward, and he prayed a prayer of deliverance. That was on the third of March of '93. And that fourth of March at three o'clock in that afternoon of '93, I was washing dishes. The Holy Ghost hit me for the first time the way it hits me, and I made it as far as that door. | 0:01 |
| Martha Bradford | And I mean, I praised God a while, and I've not been the same since then. And the fourth weekend of March that year, last year, '94. I don't remember the date, but it was snow. It was unusual weekend. My cousin came down on JB Hunt truck. And he needed to get a Winnebago out of Blakely. And I drive anything. So we went and got one of those U-Haul trucks, and the only one they had was one of those six ton, and it was [indistinct 00:01:42]. And he said he didn't feel like driving. I drove it down there. And when we got down there, this man said, "Well, you can't get the Winnebago, because you can't get the truck back up in there." And I got out and I looked. I told him, "Man, you just move out of the way." And I backed it up there to the truck, with no guidance because my cousin had walked on down farther. Because he was just going to leave. And I backed it up. | 1:03 |
| Martha Bradford | And so he said, "Woman, I don't know where you come from. You must been raised on in the country." I said, "I wasn't raised in no country." "Well, how you know how to drive something that big?" I taught myself how to drive one, because I've always do what I want to do. And I talking somebody drive [indistinct 00:02:26]. And so I pulled the Winnebago back to my house, and we got it parked out there. I got on JB Hunt truck and went to Macon. Had not planned this. I got there. I mean, it was ice everywhere in Macon. And when we got there, he carried me over to my first cousin's house. We called her a bunch, and we got talking and I told her Lord, I had been Holy Ghost spirit. And so we kept talking. I said, "What was this man I seen?" And I went to prophecy her, and I didn't know I was prophecy. I just talking, and I couldn't stop talking. | 2:04 |
| Martha Bradford | And by that Sunday morning, she had folks by the [indistinct 00:03:10] out there. And I mean, I was laying hands on people, praying and talking, prophesying. And I didn't know what I was doing. So I come back and I told Mother Washington, I was Mother Washington. I said, "I went to Macon. I don't know what happened to me." I said, but I told her post. She said, "Mother, I told you a prophetess." I said, "What is that?" She said, That's a woman prophet." She said, "You're the same thing prophet is." | 3:07 |
| Martha Bradford | I said, "No, I ain't, because I don't know what that is. That can't be real." But I got to the place then the Lord would help me to read scriptures, and then I would pray. I started praying more. I could feel the power filling up in me. And it was in May that year a guy named Frank Parker called me about two o'clock that night, and told me a stone was bothering him, and asked me to pray for him. But at that time it was knowledgeable that I was praying for him. So I prayed for him, and on that Thursday he passed something like a snake from him. And I told him a message about all of that. | 3:39 |
| Martha Bradford | And at that, before he did that, he used to have to keep a pack of cookies to eat by every hour, or he would be real sick and nervous. But this was something that somebody had done through him through witchcraft that caused him, I saw the thing in his stomach ball up like a little white ball. He said it was a little white thing with red it's on it that he passed through his bowels. He says about eighteen inches long. He told another girl in Sylvester about it. Her name was Joanne Neethy. And she started calling me, and I started praying for her. And she began to see better, do better and began to pick up more Spirit of God. | 4:27 |
| Martha Bradford | And she called her sister. Her sister, Alma, called her that lives in Valdosta, Georgia. And she called me a Saturday in June, one Saturday in June last year. And told me that she had been divorced, I think twelve years or something, her husband. And never left home from the divorce. Matter of fact, she had had a baby, he still did what he want but he still lived with her. But they had a divorce, and she had a baby that was a little girl about four years old, fatherhood. She said, "But Mother, I'm tired, I'm tired. My sister said she believed you could help me." I sat right here in this corner, and this chair here, and prayed for her on the phone. The man hadn't been back to her house since then. And from that, I became known. | 5:15 |
| Sally Graham | So when people come to you, do they come to you about a specific problem or do you— | 6:10 |
| Martha Bradford | I pray for them. | 6:20 |
| Sally Graham | Can you pray for them— | 6:20 |
| Martha Bradford | I pray for them— | 6:20 |
| Sally Graham | —when they don't have a specific thing? | 6:20 |
| Martha Bradford | When they don't have a specific, oh, I still can pray for them. And when I pray for them, I know when somebody coming. These fingers hurt. The pain I used to have in my hand all the time. It intrigues right. | 6:34 |
| Sally Graham | Cutting you, what does that mean? | 6:41 |
| Martha Bradford | That the pain that hurt it. It just penetrates right in that pain. It just run down these fingers and locks right there. And I know then somebody's coming for me, or going to call. | 6:42 |
| Sally Graham | Oh, coming. Oh okay, okay. | 6:55 |
| Martha Bradford | Coming, are going to call. And from that, I started. And God had showed me that I needed to do my first sermon. I would be doing my first sermon in October, but it was put on the back burner. And I didn't do it until, I think it was the fourth Sunday in, well, the first Sunday in April. First Sunday in April at Noah's Ark, holding this church, in the Damascus story. But it was late. I was late with it, but I didn't have another choice then. God spoke to me. He had told me he didn't play. A lot of things I needed was just began to become dumbfounded. Things were not moving like they should. He said, "Until you deliver my message like I told you, and stay in my will, not no man's will." He said, "These things will be." | 6:57 |
| Sally Graham | What was your message on that day at Noah's Ark? | 7:53 |
| Martha Bradford | I preached on the spirit. Is the spirit alive in you, coming from Roman, I think the eighth Chapter, first to the fifth verse. And I preached against my overseer's will. But God has spoke to me then and told me that he was not my father, the Lord was my father. | 7:56 |
| Sally Graham | What overseer? | 8:27 |
| Martha Bradford | Vincent. Because I went in the ministry. Now I signed up going, I finally end up going in the ministry on the [indistinct 00:08:35]. | 8:29 |
| Sally Graham | Why did he want you to preach? | 8:36 |
| Martha Bradford | I don't know. | 8:37 |
| Sally Graham | Are you still with Vincent? | 8:40 |
| Martha Bradford | No, I'm not with Vincent anymore. I'm with Aspostle E.J. Tate out of Alachua, Florida. | 8:41 |
| Pastor Carolyn King | She's a woman. Right? | 8:52 |
| Martha Bradford | It's a woman apostle. And she's here in town, too. | 8:53 |
| Pastor Carolyn King | She came. I saw her- | 9:01 |
| Sally Graham | Why wouldn't she come? | 9:02 |
| Martha Bradford | She's going to be here the whole— | 9:03 |
| Pastor Carolyn King | Oh, okay. | 9:03 |
| Martha Bradford | Oh sure. Her church and everything going to be here Sunday. | 9:08 |
| Pastor Carolyn King | Really? | 9:09 |
| Sally Graham | Pastor King was telling me that I guess it's this woman who says there's scripture that talks about a woman apostle. | 9:12 |
| Pastor Carolyn King | Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was telling about your [indistinct 00:09:26] was apostle. | 9:23 |
| Martha Bradford | Yeah, she's an apostle. | 9:25 |
| Pastor Carolyn King | You never heard talking about woman. | 9:28 |
| Martha Bradford | Woman apostle. But when you go back and really read the scripture, have you gone back and really read? See, the Bible said that on his disciples in oversee, apostle saw him. And the first person saw him was who? | 9:28 |
| Pastor Carolyn King | Mary Magdalene. | 9:46 |
| Martha Bradford | Mary Magdalene was the first person saw him. But see, the Lord told me, and a lot of problems that I have now, well, not with me, with others. And Carolyn can vouch for this, is that most people with the gift I have, they've been saved for years. And see, I started out in a prophet stage, and the prophets and apostles are the ones that start up churches. Am I right? | 9:47 |
| Pastor Carolyn King | Right. | 10:18 |
| Martha Bradford | And see, I started in a very high state. I was never elder, never a teacher, never a pastor. But most people start out a elder or teacher or a pastor, and they work up. But I started out in a prophet. And I feel that eventually, I probably have that apostolic calling too. I know I have, I know this. | 10:19 |
| Sally Graham | How will you know when it's time to— | 10:53 |
| Martha Bradford | Believe me, you know. You know when everything had going away from you and things, how many you and God get to talking to you. You'll know. See, I made, I have mixed my own oils, also. I have my own oils. Yes. I have my own prayer cloth that God came to me to do my oils. He came, made three visits to tell me what to do. On three different occasions. He came to me on three different occasions to tell me how to do my prayer cloths. That's right. My first Sunday, I had my first service here in my house the first Sunday in May. And I preach from the twenty-seventh Psalm, the Lord's the light of my life. | 10:56 |
| Martha Bradford | Okay. And I had fifteen people present, but not coming up to that time. I was so heavy labor, I didn't know. Do I need to tell Caroline I was doing this? Because God told me no share with nobody, and I didn't tell nobody. But at Thursday night, I had gone to bed and the Lord spoke to me. I was so sleepy. Boy, I just burned out and sleeping. And I went to sleep. I got in bed at about twelve, and I was sleep. But I woke up at one fifty. And I was just so relaxed and all, and I went to the bathroom. And as I went in the bathroom, I heard this quiet singing. "We are standing on holy grounds, these hands are holy hands and we wishing up the king. We are standing on holy ground." | 11:48 |
| Martha Bradford | And I heard it all day that day. Then later that day, I could just see the choir dressed in white, and the auditorium was half-moon style. Now this is how God let you know He moved. Half-moon style. And it was so many chairs, it was like a theater auditorium, should I say. There was just chairs everywhere. But I was the only guest there, and I was down on the front row, in the middle of the front row, and I just had my hands up. And tears were just running everywhere. That's where I saw. | 12:47 |
| Martha Bradford | And I was just crying out. And later that evening, another song came, I can't think of the name of that one that came to me. But then another one came to me that, "I go, I'll go Lord. If you need somebody, send me, Lord. Here I am, I'll go." And then the Lord told me, he said, "You got to go forth for me." He said, "This is not your will. This is my will being done." He said, "Can't no man come before me in your life." See, in May of '93, the Lord spoke to me. He said, "I'm moving the angel away from you, that I had watching over you that gave you messages." He said, "Seem sometimes those messages don't always be true. See, my angels don't always do everything like I said. They'll change things sometimes." | 13:31 |
| Martha Bradford | He said, "Because that's secondhand information. But you won't get no more secondhand information. All the information you'll get will be firsthand." He goes, "I'll be giving you information myself." So I went to Talladega, Alabama Mother's Day last year with my cousin, and I didn't want to go. I went against my will. The last minute, Spirit just came on me. And it stayed on me till sometime that Tuesday. From that Saturday to that Tuesday. And while I was there, they had this appreciation program for this pastor who was a lady. I laid hands on people, I laid people that they passed out asleep. I prophesied people I never seen before in my life. People were healed in there. And delivered. A lot of them called me. But I never got a chance to go back up in that area, because people don't like you to go around area, doing a better work than they can. They're jealous. But see, I don't care. Anybody go behind me anymore. They don't matter. Carolyn know stuff like that don't bother me. But most ministers there, they become upset. | 14:42 |
| Sally Graham | So now that you're pastoring your own church— | 15:57 |
| Martha Bradford | I don't have my church. I just have a group. | 16:01 |
| Sally Graham | Here, in your house. | 16:01 |
| Martha Bradford | I just have a group here in my house at this point. | 16:05 |
| Sally Graham | Here in your house, where you're preaching. | 16:07 |
| Martha Bradford | I'm preaching. | 16:08 |
| Sally Graham | I guess since you came out from under Prophet Vincent, because you still guest preach at Pastor King's church. That still be— | 16:13 |
| Martha Bradford | It would be love unto her, because what she does at her church, that's her church. He just her overseer. | 16:29 |
| Sally Graham | Okay, so it wouldn't be his decision. | 16:29 |
| Martha Bradford | No, but see, with me I was like going into the ministry. I was delivered under him. I went the ministry under him. See, because I called him in August, and actually joined with him, and he sent my license through the mail. I got him by the third of October. And we went up, and he verbally ordained me in his office and gave me the realizes. Because he said he couldn't hold me. He said I had to go forward, she already tell me that. But then somewhere down the line, that came in flaw, and we had to do something different. So I am going on the apostate for now, but I know and she's told me also, that I won't be under no one for forever. She said, for long. She said, "I just need somebody more or less for coaching, for just leadership." | 16:30 |
| Martha Bradford | She said because the call that I have on me, she's done the same thing she is. And she said most men are not going to admit that a woman had the same calling they had. They don't get along. But see, in September last year, the Lord told me that He admit in his hand, he said, "I have few placed in my heart. But woe to your vessel." He said, "I placing you in my heart." And I mean, that put me in another purity stage. Because if I let my body, my flesh begin to control me, I can come out the will of God. And I'm sure that I either get sick or I die. So I don't partake on any world of things knowledgeable, that I'm knowledgeable. No man is perfect. | 17:32 |
| Martha Bradford | But the things I know that's wrong, I don't do. I know a lot to happen. But I try on the same token, I still try that my children live a normal life. But now that first sermon that I preach here, the Lord showed me that a young lady named Maryanne Jones was here. She comes here regular. I've been counseling with her since January. And she came that Sunday. And as I was praying for her, the Lord told me to anoint her throat with the oil that I made. | 18:29 |
| Martha Bradford | And He spoke through me and told me she had a malignant growth in her throat, and that it would come up in the next three days. She spit it up in my bathroom in there, and about five minutes after that. She just became nauseous. So she told me our throat felt fine. I said, "Go to the doctor." Now I'm one of the ones that believe in the doctor being my, even though of my, what you call it, confirmation. Put that in the trash. Put it in the trash. And so she came, went to the doctor and she called me. She said the doctor said it seemed like something had been lifted out of her throat. | 19:10 |
| Martha Bradford | And he wanted to know what kind of problems she had. She told him something crossed her throat. He said it seemed like something had been taken out. He said, but it was just redness in there. He asked her to treat it as if she had had some work done in her throat. Not eating mints, pepper, out-of-season foods and things of this nature, until she come back to him. And he gave her antibiotic. But the surgery was done right here. And last Sunday that was a girl, I won't give her name, the Lord spoke and told me that there was suicide demon in the house. And said I had called this girl that morning, because she just fell in my spirit so deep. And I prayed. I mean, I called her and they said she was asleep. I said, "Wake her up." I called, hung up and I called back. It was young [indistinct 00:20:58] girl. "Wake up, let me speak to her." So they got her up, she came to the phone. | 19:59 |
| Martha Bradford | I said, "What are you doing, sleeping so late? Why aren't you getting ready to come to church?" Because we started at eleven thirty, this was eleven fifteen. She said, "I'm not coming today, because I don't feel good." I said, "You come, you got to come." So I kept talking to her and she said, "Okay, I'll come." Then the Lord showed me it was a suicide thing in her. When I called Him up for prayer, she came up. As I laid hands on her, the Lord told me, "Don't minister her. Let her tell you what she was fixing to do for herself." And she said she was feeling, "I'm tired." She said, "I'm tired. I'll just hurt myself and won't be here anymore, once and for all." And that's how I know she was one that had suicide demon, whatever. I have a tape. I don't tape all this. Always on tape. I just have to find it. | 21:03 |
| Sally Graham | Do you tape all of your services? | 21:58 |
| Martha Bradford | And so I don't know why, but they say I tape them because I'm going to be able to use them for the market one day. It what people tell me. I say, "I don't know." But anyway, so the group is somewhat growing, pretty good. And I have another girl, Betty, my best friend. She had a goiter, and you could see the swelling of it. And she had been on medicine maybe two or three years. | 22:02 |
| Martha Bradford | She don't know when she quit taking the medicine. I don't know when it go and left. I have many people that have been healed. I ran to a girl in Lago that had spirits in her. She had a baby spirit, that of dead baby spirit. And she had spirit with a woman that was just a outlaw, rowdy woman. And I prayed for her. She was delivered. I ran into a lady in Thomasville last, well, two weeks ago now. This lady was a witch. The Lord told me she was a witch. She does not practice witchcraft. But she has the curse upon her. She claimed she [indistinct 00:23:23] mama do it. But her mama actually did witchcraft. God showed it to me. | 22:32 |
| Sally Graham | When you say God showed it to you, do you see a portrait of something, of shadows? | 23:31 |
| Martha Bradford | I just see what she be doing. I see shadows like she be doing. And she wheeled her to the devil. And this lady said she had gone many places to be delivered. I mean, when I touched her, she couldn't be still. She was standing up, just jerking. She couldn't be still, and she was just crying. I have people that have been saved through my ministry. And one of my members now, we're talking about one of my fathers now. Ann Mitchell, when I met her, you know like you planned to go out of town, she would get real sick and couldn't go. Or if she went, when she came back she would have to stay in bed maybe a week, two weeks. But she had a curse on her, and God allowed me to pray. And she received deliverance. I have a couple down in the, let me see, beach area of Decatur, of Grady County, Cairo, Georgia area near Florida line. | 23:38 |
| Martha Bradford | The lady is eightly years old, man is seventy-four. And they had never been baptized. And they both were converted under my ministry. I got to get them baptized. So even though I go out doing private consultations, I do this. But my method is the ministry that God has implanted in me. See anything wrong with you, you can pray for the deliverance yourself. But you cannot do it if you are partaking of worldly things. And it's to raise the nation. See, God will not be out known again. And if you are being steadfast and acting in Jesus and living for Christ, when your trials and tribulations come up, you can pray yourself for the deliverance. You won't have to come to me or go to other. You're taught. You're taught how to do this yourself. And I teach people how to bind spirits. | 24:46 |
| Martha Bradford | It's in Matthew the eighteenth Chapter, the nineteenth verse, I think it is about binding the spirits. And it speaks about it in other areas, other about telling you how to bind. But that one precisely tell you what you bind here on Earth. God binds it. And that what you loose here on Earth, God loosen you have. But see, God don't want us to live in bondage. God don't want me to live to the point I got to depend on Carol. He made us all individual. And see, but we have not. See, a lot of the church has people in bondage. And most people, most of these churches now, the minister preach the Bible, telling me, see. | 25:55 |
| Martha Bradford | The things that would deliver the members, minister, they don't touch it. They preach. They not going to go back there and preach like I preach Sunday from when my text was. Can you believe it? And it was dealing with Christ going away after resurrection. But see, he couldn't just go, because he had some last-minute thing he had to do. He had to lead some promises here. He breathed up on the disciples and the apostles, the breath of life. Why he did this? He breathed that breath of life, wanted to let them know, "I am living. I'm not just a vessel, something going around, speaking. You understand, or just talking." | 26:38 |
| Martha Bradford | "This is not somebody else in me. This is me." He showed them the wounds in his hand where he was nailed to the cross. The scratches on his back where he was beat. Where they pierced him in the side. Just the [indistinct 00:27:43] on his feet. He let him say, He constantly brought him back to it to remind them, "This is me now. This is me. That's not somebody imitating me. This is me. I'm for real." They sat, they ate, they drank together. They enjoyed each other. They're together. You see? See, most people not going to go back and preach it. Because, see, what he's getting him ready for is that main promise that he left. That comforter. See, He said, "I'm leaving a spirit. And see the spirit has to be a good spirit. Because in order for God to dwell, because he don't dwell in unclean places. The spirit has to be good." | 27:26 |
| Martha Bradford | So the spirit is good. It's a good spirit that he leaves. But on the second hand, other hand, he said, "I'm going to leave a Spirit of the Holy Ghost there." That's the second one he left. But the last one is the spirit. Okay, you got to have this good spirit. This next spirit is inviting the Holy Ghosts in. It begins to come in. But the third spirit is the Holy Ghost. And see, when it attacks you, you been well attacked. | 28:25 |
| Martha Bradford | In other words, God let Christ come to the earth to live down here. Because see, we being as educated as we are, because, see we got, see how this tape here. You can play it years to come. You got the computer. See? And had he not let Christ come to the earth to live, see what he would've said, what we could've said then, "Well, see. No, we can't be. We can't have the Holy Ghost. We can't live right. You ain't never lived down here. How can He tell us how He live?" So what He did, He alive, married to become pregnant by the Holy Ghost, and let this child live a normal life. | 28:54 |
| Martha Bradford | A good life. Let Him live like He want us to live. Not partaking with sin, you see. As He then there again back, see, He showed us then in those times when Christ was being raised obedience. See, had the angel not came to Joseph and told Joseph in a dream, see, we want to do everything that everybody know what we're doing. But he came secretly in a dream and told him, "Listen, you marry. This is my term putting. This is why I teach it. You marry her. You understand? Yes, she's pregnant, but what she's pregnant with is not by being. No man could do that. That's the power of Holy Ghost." And see, I feel Joseph should have felt good at that time. Because see, this was giving Joseph honor. See? And as so he went on and married her, because he was getting ready to get a divorce. | 29:35 |
| Martha Bradford | To give her some paper, you see? And going, because he had promised her, "I'm going to marry," not knowing that the Holy Ghost would impregnate her. So then the wise man coming in, and they went to King Herod. Okay. He went and grabbed all his city councilmen together and had a meeting. "We got do something." Because they said, "The Savior is born." But see there again, the point I'm trying to get to you then is that as the wise men left, he met with him. They said, "Come back through here." But then what happened is that the wise men went to Christ, obedience was made then, that they came to a dream. And then you go back to your country, but you go in a different way. So they came, he creates something else up. He killed all the babies. Two years and under, the oldest son. See? And so what happened then? See, obedience was done again. He went to Joseph himself. "Look, you got to move now." | 30:36 |
| Martha Bradford | "You got to leave, you got to go." And so he was going to come back, and so what happened? He said, "No, go into Nazarene." And this is how God became a Nazarene. Because he was obeying that quiet spirit, that dream, see. And see, God said, "Pray to me in secrecy, and I will award you openly." That's what I've been teaching in Bible class. I've even taught the twenty-three elements of the Lord Prayer. Beautiful. I mean, if you can gain this relationship with this prayer, it's not a necessity that you go and pray the prayers that we pray. You can pray that our Father, which art in heaven, because this is the prayer that God left for us. We adopted the other prayer, I said. And I enjoy the mess. I don't be sick anymore. I've been healed. I took the Zantac for one month. I eat anything I want to eat, anything I want to eat. I eat as much as I want to eat. And that's it. That's my life. | 31:35 |
| Sally Graham | Well, I sure appreciate it. Yeah. | 33:02 |
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