Johnnie Williams (primary interviewee), Mildred McKinney, and James Story interview recording, 1995 July 21

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Carlina Turner	Carlina Turner.	0:04
James Story	James Story.	0:06
Mildred Debbie McKinney	Mildred Debbie McKinney.	0:09
Stacey Scales	How long have you lived in the Magnolia area?	0:13
Johnnie Williams	All my life except seven years. I spent seven years in California. But I've been here ever since the '20s.	0:15
Stacey Scales	The '20s? And what were your earliest memories growing up in Magnolia?	0:16
Johnnie Williams	Growing up, I noticed, I remember in my day, you had to be six years old to start school. I never rode a school bus to school. It was three miles and a quarter there, and three miles and a quarter back. And in just the three months school, and about half of the time when the weather was too bad to go.	0:37
Stacey Scales	Was it an all Black school?	1:11
Johnnie Williams	All Black school, yes, that is for sure. It was an all Black school. And we lit the old coal oil lamp when night come. We didn't know anything about electric light at that time. Our old teacher did a pretty good job for what they had to do with. I appreciate what I learned from them. But mostly, in that day, in my coming up, most of the parents thought a kid was born to work, a Black kid especially.	1:12
Stacey Scales	Born to work?	2:02
Johnnie Williams	Just born to work. After I got grown, I found out that they just didn't know any better. No man can do any better than he knows. So I didn't hold it against them. I heard them say so many times, when a boy baby was born, that another plow boy.	2:02
Stacey Scales	Yes.	2:29
Johnnie Williams	A girl baby was born, I got a cook. So it was just in their mind, there wasn't no schooling. The White folk taught them that way, not to be no, learn nothing. But my kids were learning all the time. Rode the school bus, it pass by. They'd wave his hand and call us name.	2:29
Johnnie Williams	And so all of that we had to swallow. And on and on there was a time that I got to be about, I think it was 13 years old. My grandparents raised me. They'd hire me out by the month. The man gave me $12 a month, and my boy, another Black man, they hire me out to. This Black man got to where he couldn't pay the $12 a month. He just wasn't able. It wasn't nothing fancy, but you went to the dinner table. There's cornbread and milk. Labor the next morning, you done got a bit of butter, you get a little butter pat in the morning. But he finally had to turn it around. That meal wasn't a problem. I got something on the road, you know.	2:51
Stacey Scales	Yes sir, most definitely.	3:49
Johnnie Williams	I had to turn into a sharecropper. I was working then on hay. I worked that year on hay. I made the five bales of cotton.	3:52
Stacey Scales	How much would you get for that cotton?	4:03
Johnnie Williams	Three cents.	4:07
Stacey Scales	Three cents?	4:07
Johnnie Williams	Three and three-and-a-half cents a pound. The cotton seed didn't pay for the ginning. Some years it would, and some years it wouldn't. Some years it would pay a little more, and you would have maybe $3 coming out of your gin and your cotton. But I ain't mad, bless her soul. I got a lot of kick out of her because she cooked lots of tea cake. I loved tea cake.	4:12
Johnnie Williams	I would go there, and she would feed me a lot of tea cakes. She said, "Now, I want you to run and spin the spinning wheel this morning." I'd spin it, and she'd have the cotton. She was making her thread.	4:43
Stacey Scales	So you were spinning the cotton?	4:58
Johnnie Williams	Yeah, I'm spinning it. It had a handle on it. You had to turn that wheel. And she had something, just making thread. She'd hold that cotton a certain way, and she was making up some threads. She was making her threads. I was just spinning, I just loved the spinning. So she got her great big bowl of thread, and then she'd come and start knitting. She's going to make me a pair of gloves for spinning the wheel. And she did. The old glove had one finger on it, that was the tongue. Every now and then I see them now, I can think about any evening.	5:01
Johnnie Williams	And also, she'd make a little jacket knit. It looked, oh man, I was somebody. When I wore that jacket. She'd make my socks out of that cotton thread that I done spin for her. On and on, she'd done it all through the country. And I got a lot out of her, talking about her remembering back about when they sold her grandpa and grandma. They were on a big block, bidding them off. How much? How much? How much? How much? And y'all go the baby one way, and y'all go the wife one way. That's the way it was in her day.	5:39
Stacey Scales	I wanted to ask, Miss Turner, did you have similar experiences as to Mr. Williams growing up?	6:31
Carlina Turner	Mine was a little bit different. This is my older sister. Maybe she can relate to some of the things that he was talking about, but I kind of came along on the end.	6:37
Stacey Scales	Oh, okay.	6:45
Carlina Turner	And things were a little bit different, so maybe if you want to talk to her first, you can.	6:45
Johnnie Williams	She came look behind me. Got to keep us in place.	6:48
Mildred Debbie McKinney	Okay, I think I'll begin. He said he was in and around Magnolia most of his life. From the time that I was born in 1919 until about 1927, I lived in Columbia County. Then my father, being a sawmill worker, moved to Bethany, Louisiana. That was the point where we wouldn't go back to [indistinct 00:07:24]. He said that he went to school until he was six years old. Well, we were way back in the upper section on the northeast section of Columbia County. I started school at four because I could follow other people. When I was five years old, I was in the third grade.	6:57
Mildred Debbie McKinney	I have always had a visual problem and a very strong memory. That probably accounted for that. With moving from Arkansas to Louisiana, my mother became ill, and I was kept out of school for three years which means I made up. I mean I caught up with myself, so to speak, in that length of time.	7:40
Mildred Debbie McKinney	We had the one teacher at school. One teacher would teach grades one through eight, and how they did it all, I'll tell you what. There were people who came along then who can diagram sentences. They can do all these things, and these folks don't know what they're talking about now with this one teacher school. We walked two and a half, three miles to school, the Black kids. The White kids would pass you in a bus, throw things at you, spit on you.	8:03
Johnnie Williams	Yeah. "Nigger."	8:27
Mildred Debbie McKinney	Get all soaked in mud and what not. The part that was most interesting was I came from a family who had no education but a desire for education. My mother said that her mother passed away when she was six years old, went as far as the fifth grade. My father went as far as the second grade. But the height of their ambition was to have some educated children.	8:37
Mildred Debbie McKinney	Books was scarce. Whenever mama ran across a book that had a good story, she'd always call the family together and read the story to us. From these stories, we'd get incentives, the ideas that we'd wanted to do. I shall never forget, when I was about 10 or 11, bologna was a scarce thing for us Black folk. So we had some bologna once there at the night, and I said, "When I get to college, this is what I'm going to eat." And they all laughed at me. We were living in a little community when we came back to Arkansas called College Hill. If you get over there at College Hill, you really someone. To make a long story short, and there's a lot between this, going back to the White bus, we were living here, I'll say about half a block there's a White family living over there.	9:00
Mildred Debbie McKinney	We would walk through the pasture to school. The bus would come along and pick these folks up and take them to Magnolia. We never knew what a library was. Every once in a while we'd get a hold of an extra book. If we ran across a question or something we wanted, mama had the nerve to ask these White people things, if they could find books and kind of help us out that way.	9:51
Mildred Debbie McKinney	We had no cows or things of that sort, but it so happened that we lived on a farm [indistinct 00:10:23] with sharecroppers. One morning, we'd buy milk, 10 cents a gallon. And one morning, I went up to the White lady's house to buy some milk, and she asked me how old I was. At that time, I was 10. She said, "If you all are having hard times like we are," and we knew they were having hard times, "If your mother would let you come up and help me about 30 minutes in the morning, I can give you all milk every day and I can give you butter twice a week."	10:15
Mildred Debbie McKinney	So every morning, after we had our little breakfast of sugar syrup and what have you, I would go up there and churn, wash dishes, sweep the kitchen, and do things for her. Every day, I got a gallon of milk, and two or three times a week we'd get a little butter to go along with it.	10:54
Mildred Debbie McKinney	One of the unusual things about these people, there were certain things that you couldn't do. We know we was Black and they were White. That was an understandable thing. If they had something unusual, they would always share it with us. For example, the man would go to town, and he would buy a lot of fish, bucket of fish. They'd fry the fish. They would eat first now, then after they eat, they come to the back. They'd call my daddy Yeah. "Yeah. Come up here, I got something for the kids." There was fish. We ate what they ate get away. But we couldn't eat it with them.	11:13
Johnnie Williams	Oh, no, that's right.	11:51
Mildred Debbie McKinney	I may be skipping a lot. One year, after I had grown and went to California, it was kind of amazing that while you were there, you could step on a bus and sit where you want to, go anyplace. When I came back, I asked one of the ladies on the place where we lived to take me to Magnolia. There was going to be four of us in the car, in a two seat car. Three of them rode in the front because I was Black. I had to ride in the back.	11:52
Stacey Scales	And one of them wouldn't sit in the back with you?	12:20
Mildred Debbie McKinney	Not one of them.	12:20
Johnnie Williams	No, no.	12:20
Mildred Debbie McKinney	And that was so unusual. I tell you, this made a difference. Just three or four months that I stayed in San Francisco, how things worked, come back now. I got the total back seat, but it was pretty damned crowded on the front seat, people riding in there.	12:27
Mildred Debbie McKinney	Had the experience one day on a bus. It was a lady riding the bus, and she just had a baby. So far the Negroes didn't sit, I'd say from midways up front. It's part of the still you had to stay in. So this lady was standing there with a baby. There was a White soldier on the bus. Finally, a White person got off. When this person got off, this soldier said to the lady with the baby, pointed towards the seat. And the lady walked over there to sit, and that man raised so much cane. He said, "She's Colored. She can't sit here." It made that man so angry he wanted to get on the bus, just being White. They would not let her sit with that baby in that seat because they said she was Colored.	12:33
Mildred Debbie McKinney	The experience until then I wish I could just— They've been very, very vague— for instance, I did at Union College. And my father said to the man in the place where we were working, "My daughter is studying. She's doing college every year." She told him, "You ought to give her a graduation present." They gave me a lot.	13:20
Stacey Scales	And what year was that?	13:41
Mildred Debbie McKinney	That was in 1941. Now, let's go back to this teaching. I started teaching in November of 1941. There was a White — Well, it was the Magnolia School District. It's in Columbia County. All the White people rode the bus throughout the county down to Magnolia School where they had a little Black, I mean not all of Columbia, that district, had a Black school called College Hill. There were people who favor what we say if you are the man with the bomb or the man with this, that health you should outrun these other folks over the hill. My dad was a poor man. Someone else wanted that school.	13:55
Mildred Debbie McKinney	And the only reason she didn't get to school that year was I was qualified and she wasn't, another Black lady. So they gave me the job. But the statement was made before my daddy was standing [indistinct 00:14:57]. I taught in that building six weeks, they went down and [indistinct 00:15:06].	14:43
Mildred Debbie McKinney	Then to complete the school term they went over across a field down to a vacant house, and they cut pine stumps and laid planks across them for seats, and they elevated the one for the teacher there. There were two teachers there, and that's where you spent the school term. But they had me understand, when school closed, and the one lady [indistinct 00:15:31], that I was no longer employed in that district. Not because I had done anything but because he was of a certain class, and we favor certain people. The other man had a little money or had funds.	15:05
Mildred Debbie McKinney	My father worked as a sharecropper. Let me go back a little bit. I told you about us going to Louisiana. When we moved down in Louisiana, something happened. It didn't decline. My mother became very, very ill. We lived there from 1927 to 1930. In the latter part of the year 1929 we came back to Arkansas but again, I'm talking too long. Mama had been down, but she got up. She was able to cook. She did a lot of things. And she said we'd stay here six weeks.	15:47
Mildred Debbie McKinney	And my father came to pick her up. And when we got back to the Louisiana line going back to Shreveport Bethany because [indistinct 00:16:27], Mama had a [indistinct 00:16:30] she'd been up cooking. She'd been picking cotton. She'd been doing all the same little things that they're doing, and she took the [indistinct 00:16:37] there. When we got to the house in Bethany we had to lift her from the car and place her on the bed. There's where she stayed until the 15th of December go back to Arkansas. We moved back here in 1939.	16:19
Mildred Debbie McKinney	One of the things I wanted to stay about the Jim Crow [indistinct 00:16:53], there was one owner of Donner Brothers Lumber Company had a wife, her condition was not the same as my mother, but she was ill. And every time they got a good doctor for this White lady after they felt that she was good they said, "We've got a nigger over there on the floor, and we want you to go over and examine her [indistinct 00:17:18]." They did that perpetually until they decided that it's just not good for Mama to live there. And then this family had a farm, that's what I was talking about sharecroppers. They moved my father to [indistinct 00:17:31] from the Donner Brothers Lumber Company to Donner Brothers Farm, and we stayed on the Donner Brother's Farm from 1930 through 1942.	16:51
Mildred Debbie McKinney	My father worked sharecropping, which would have been, he probably would've been there because people who are illiterate they don't think about, they think all these good things are for other people, not me. But my father had a very, very good crop the fall of 1942. And it was obvious that he was supposed to have cleared quite a bit of money. And when the man got through figuring he was still in debt.	17:47
Stacey Scales	So they would cheat him out of his debt?	18:14
Mildred Debbie McKinney	Yeah, they cheated him out of his debt. I really think, though, that was an error on their part, and they did not want to correct. I don't think they intentionally meant to because they had been too good to us as far at they were to us in those days. But this year we just knew we were going to come out on top and go buy us a car. And when my father went to them and told him, "Well, if that's what I did is worth, that's what it is." And we had to take that.	18:16
Stacey Scales	You can question?	18:43
Mildred Debbie McKinney	Uh-uh, no, no, no. Couldn't question. That's when I said that was it. That family had known down through the years. People said, "Don't bother the Donners, they killed one or two Black men." But then my father had dealt with them practically all his life, and they had been good. But he said, "Now, this is the time to go." So then he got on this government deal where they let you have money, and they moved out. He bought him some horses and what not. That worked well for a while.	18:45
Mildred Debbie McKinney	We still had to go in certain places in the back door. If these White people had company, I could still work my teeth, but I couldn't [indistinct 00:19:32] all that kind of stuff. I was teaching school about 20 miles from where we lived. Came home one time in January, snow. I heard my skis all night that night. And nobody ever said anything. We were just satisfied living in these other folks' place. We had to live in the White folks' house there. And I got up that next morning, so I asked about man and what not. And they told me where that's a possibility.	19:15
Mildred Debbie McKinney	I'll never forget, my mother and I paid a man $3 to go to Magnolia. We were there all afternoon. We sat on the ladies, and we had boys in the lane. And when I got [indistinct 00:20:15] I wanted to buy one acre of land for my parents, her brother looked at her and said, "We got three places. Let her have one." And he asked me, "Well, I didn't want to." So I sat there, and I said, "Will you take $100 an acre for one of those acres up there [indistinct 00:20:32]?" My dad didn't [indistinct 00:20:35], but anyway to make a long story short, I'm saying this is when [indistinct 00:20:41] for what I did. I bought the land. Through a lot of struggles and what not, we built a house.	20:05
Mildred Debbie McKinney	But somewhere down the line after I got married, that was from my parents, some way some White people got tangled in there. I can't say what really happened, but apparently— When I knew anything the place was Molly's. It had been Molly's for some time. And for what, it was Molly's car, but less than $500. The man who had the money passed away, and that's how White folks would use us, so to speak. The son realized at that point that four of my father's daughters had a college degree, and he might get in trouble if I took things then. They'd move it in such a way. And he sent word to me by my brother that he understood that the property belonged to me, and is dad had Molly's son to come down and see. And when I went in there to see him with less than $500 that my father had bought in with, and they got through, I owed them over $3,000.	20:48
Mildred Debbie McKinney	But in a point he kept saying, "Is this your property?" But see, I didn't do that. They took this thing and prepared them a deed in that way, but then I think he became afraid to go through with it, and they laid it aside. After I was— I was running crazy, then the man told exactly what I'm going to do. I'm going to take off $1,000. You pay me $2,000. Here's the place. I bought the land for $100, built the house, about $1,400. They lived there, and I'm going to cut it so I pay $2,000 because they had been misled and misused.	22:00
Mildred Debbie McKinney	He said, "I'm going to do this if you pay $2,000." And I said, " Now you done that. I'm going to ask you another place. Will you stop the interest as of now? How soon can you pay it, this instead where [indistinct 00:22:56] I'll have every dime paid." Stop the interest, and we paid. But that man could never really — He couldn't face it because number one, it was a disgrace on his father, and he had taken advantage of people. I'll let somebody else talk.	22:31
Stacey Scales	Mr. Story, do you have any similar experiences you'd like to share? How were times growing up for you?	23:13
James Story	Completely different than either one of theirs. I grew up in a community about 12 miles from here, [indistinct 00:23:26] community. And in this community, most Black people, well all of them, owned their own land. And most of those people came out of Louisiana, Homer area, and they migrated to Arkansas because they wouldn't sell land and resent the Blacks, so they came to Arkansas. And most of the people in that community, their roots was from Louisiana where [indistinct 00:23:56]. Anyway, my dad, I had nine sisters and brothers, and we owned 160 acres of land down there. We grew up, and we farmed on his land. We accepted Jim Crow as long as we stayed in that community. But then once you get on the outside, look out.	23:25
James Story	But anyway, we had a good time, a good life. We struggled. As he said, most of the parents those days thought you were born to work. We worked. I mean we worked. And many times he would have his cheap crop was cotton. And we would make 20, 25, 30 bales of cotton for every year. And then it was 10 kids, we worked for him. He never hired anybody to help him. We did the work. The school, they had a community school there, junior high, 10th grade. That was for the—	24:20
Stacey Scales	What was the name of the school?	24:58
James Story	[indistinct 00:25:01].	24:58
Stacey Scales	Okay.	24:58
James Story	Junior high school I guess they were.	24:58
Mildred Debbie McKinney	And that looked down at the Black then.	24:58
Johnnie Williams	Right.	24:58
Stacey Scales	That was a Black school too?	24:58
James Story	Once you graduated from 10th grade you had to go somewhere else to get that two years of high school. So, as she said to make a long story short, my sisters and brothers are older. I'm number eight out of 10. They all went someplace else. Three of them went to Magnolia including myself. And after I graduated from Magnolia Colored High School right here, my sisters and brothers underneath me, our school combined consolidated with Walker.	25:12
Stacey Scales	So yours was one of the schools that connected with Walker?	25:37
James Story	Right. Right. And after [indistinct 00:25:43], you know they've been combined ever since, consolidated ever since then.	25:41
Stacey Scales	Did the people in that community help each other?	25:45
James Story	They helped each other. They worked together. Something that stood out in election time, leading up to election we had a village of White people running for judge, running for whatever office they'd be running for, they would show up. And my dad was a community leader. They would come to him, and they would put a little money in his pocket, and he would go out and campaign. And I heard him say many times, he said, "Nobody knows how I hope when I go [indistinct 00:26:20]." And I know one thing, they had to pay their poll tax. I think it was. Poll tax in order to vote. And some of these Black people down there couldn't pay their poll tax. Some of them they wasn't farmers. They'd just hitting and missing. Some of them weren't farmers, but a lot of good farmers came out and did it..	25:51
James Story	The other thing we ran into here in Magnolia was the old bus station, we would be going places. They didn't have a gym at the school here. We had to play in the White gym when we played basketball on the other side of town. Things of this nature. Out of the 10 kids, seven completed college, and only three otherwise.	26:35
Stacey Scales	Did they have Black businesses in the area, Black owned?	27:05
James Story	No. The only thing they had Black was the barbershop, shoe shine shop, and what else? I think one time Columbia was kind of winning one time.	27:09
Johnnie Williams	Yeah, I remember that.	27:09
James Story	They was wet, and they had a little bar right here across from First National Bank behind the gasoline station.	27:18
Johnnie Williams	Yeah.	27:18
James Story	And they used to sell beer in there. I was a little kid going to school.	27:21
Johnnie Williams	Sure enough? In my house, get in trouble.	27:29
James Story	Well, see I came along a little after you guys. I could tell that when you was talking. Okay, well just behind you now. Maddie, you and I might have come along together, I don't know.	27:32
Johnnie Williams	I'm afraid so.	27:39
Carlina Turner	Another thing you think about too is during that time anything that we had at the Black rate they came. They had the choice [indistinct 00:27:57]. But whatever they had, we could stand around and look in the windows. We went to one teacher school, and we'd have our little clothes and exercise. They came. The wanted to see the program. We gave them [indistinct 00:28:08], but we couldn't go to theirs. [indistinct 00:28:12]. And another thing, in the school district— Now, some years ago he wouldn't have been down in the Black district. All the new books came to the White school first, and after they had used them and they decided to go and get the new books, then the old books, Michelle sold them to us.	27:43
Johnnie Williams	Yeah. Pass them down there.	28:31
Carlina Turner	I can never forget, and this hasn't been too very long ago, they had taken up all the old books from the library, and they were going around selling books, and the principal there was getting approached. When he walked in, and we started looking at books, I said to him, "We don't want these old books." "Yes we do. We don't have no books. We want some." That was one of the things that kind of hurt us I'm saying. The people who were in authority would lean to the idea of these people because they'd give them a dollar.	28:35
Johnnie Williams	Yeah, right.	29:06
Carlina Turner	Okay. I'm working in the school system over here, and there's a White over here. I have a master's degree, 20 years of experience, and a White teacher come in just out of school, no experience, and her salary will be $2,000 to $3,000 more than mine. I had taught in a school where I sponsored the dramatic club, gym class, singing class, and student council, taught six classes a day, got just the salary we got. But when they integrated schools, and I got any extra things that I had to do. I got paid $200 or $300 extra for it. And they had been experiencing this all along.	29:10
Stacey Scales	Did people have ways that they would fight the type of racism?	29:56
Carlina Turner	You'd better keep your mouth shut.	30:00
Johnnie Williams	No, you didn't have no chance.	30:02
Carlina Turner	If you wanted to work, you'd better keep your mouth shut. Let me say this. One time it came up that they put a Black teacher over in the White school, and they were not aware of what they were doing. Everything they got over there at this White school where the Black teacher got into, but at the same time there was a teacher where this Black teacher was living. The teacher told the Black student. She comes in at Christmastime with a Christmas bonus. The lady says, "I never paid her car note." And we didn't get a bonus.	30:02
Carlina Turner	So I wrote the State Department of Education but did not sign my name asking about the thing. They referred my letter to the Superintendent and to the principal, and they thought I did it, but they couldn't really prove that I did it. I would've been fired. Whatever they gave you, you had to take it if you wanted to work, and you know you had to work. You shut your mouth.	30:31
Johnnie Williams	But the White folks were smart enough. He knowed exactly how to get the decent majority. He'd hire them one student teacher, and then they'd go and come there and listen on. And he wouldn't forget nothing that had been said in this building. And when you go out in the morning, that White man know all about what we've done. I never heard we had to watch the White man and the Black man too. That's what hurts.	30:53
Stacey Scales	So your own people would turn their back on the job.	31:25
Johnnie Williams	Oh yeah. Just for 50 cents, a dollar. It didn't have to be much. That man pat him on the shoulder. That White man been out here most so— He thought he would survive. I come up in all Black community, friendship, where's friendship. I don't really know like y'all was down here. But when we kill a cow whole in the wagon, that's when we are traveling around all over the country until they run out. Fighting with the neighbor. They would do the same thing won't nobody killed, fighting with the neighbor.	31:38
Johnnie Williams	We lived like that, but my parents— they were short sighted, didn't build it. They just didn't know how to help build it.	32:09
Carlina Turner	Yeah, get it out.	32:14
Johnnie Williams	That's one reason we had to wait. We had 160 acres of land, but they didn't know what to do with it. They didn't know how to maneuver. And I was just a kid. And I said, "Ma and Pa, I don't see no future in it." I was about 10 or 12. I said I don't see no future. I got to go. Grandparents raised me. Always got to do better next year. I don't see no— Why all this White man I'm working with give me a chance, beat me out of a dime? [indistinct 00:32:45] a dime. Wasn't making but 50 cents a day. You didn't meet no wife because you had to go by that man, that sun with a watch, sun up to sun down. I said, "Now you took a dime from me." I said, "I ain't going to give it do you." I jump the fence and come over the [indistinct 00:32:48] not in this community.	32:20
Stacey Scales	So you left?	32:45
Johnnie Williams	Left, and I did so on [indistinct 00:32:48]. This White man had three girls, and we went all over that place night and day. They nicknamed me Sambo. Anything that I wanted, someone would do it, but they had to go along with the program. When there wasn't nobody around, I was all around the fire with them. They had a room back there, but when they had company I had to tip out to the kitchen while they're at the fireplace. And then I had a little house set off from their house. Thunder and lightning, I was still with them. They'd holler, "Come up here, Sambo." And I'd go up there and spend the night. We couldn't made it this far hadn't been for some of them taking up for us. We wouldn't have made it this far.	32:48
Carlina Turner	That's the point I wanted to bring out.	34:14
Johnnie Williams	Right.	34:14
James Story	There were some good people back in those days, some good White people.	34:14
Carlina Turner	When we had generally throughout the state of Arkansas education for the Blacks just about through the eighth grade. That's why when you said we had met some of them with a heart. I said, "Don't forget, in central Arkansas where the University of Arkansas is, those kids sent to eighth grade, Black kids, they had to go way down the [indistinct 00:34:47] to school. And two White ladies fought the idea and said those children need their parental protection throughout high school, and they fought it until they got those kids in a high school there." It's been rough, but at the same time there's been some people with a heart.	34:33
James Story	But they had big people to live with. I could understand that. Three or four couldn't buck the line because they'll do away with them. They killed them. Somebody would put a hitman out there and kill them three or four before they would let us merge like we did.	35:06
Stacey Scales	Did people run away from the land or the places that would treat them bad?	35:25
James Story	Well, if they could sell it out they'd sell and move up.	35:29
Stacey Scales	I mean like when they were sharecroppers, if the boss treated them bad, would people leave and take up—	35:34
James Story	They lifted crops.	35:43
Carlina Turner	I'll tell you something else they would do too. They would let you get out there and make a good crop, get it up, get it laid like they promised, and they'll run you over.	35:43
James Story	That's what I mean. They'll lift the crop.	35:52
Carlina Turner	And make you a loser. Pretend you did something. Now that wasn't often, but it happened.	35:52
James Story	Yeah.	35:52
Carlina Turner	You worked to get it all ready. All that has to be done is harvest it now. They make you leave their house and then harvest that was all theirs.	35:58
Mildred Debbie McKinney	I remember when George West come out of Louisiana, I live [indistinct 00:36:09]. He ran a store down here on 79, and a White woman drove up there with an old T bow. She just warning about you out there. "You bumped up against me." And he had to pay that woman a lot of money. He'll find stuff against me.	36:08
Stacey Scales	Really?	36:25
Mildred Debbie McKinney	He had to pay that woman a lot of money.	36:29
Carlina Turner	Let me tell you something else about them. The same as the West— They knew he had some money. Some White man invited him and his wife to dinner one night. And they enjoyed everything. And when he got up and he tell them how nice it was and what a pleasant meal and how cordial he was, he said, "Yes, but that meal will cost you $2,000."	36:31
James Story	Yeah. I been hearing about that.	36:50
Stacey Scales	$2,000?	36:50
Carlina Turner	Now he had to write him a check for $2,000 before he could get out.	36:50
James Story	And I remember this.	37:00
Carlina Turner	And that was just right down the street.	37:06
Johnnie Williams	Wait a minute. Tell him who George West was. I think he should know.	37:06
Stacey Scales	Right.	37:06
James Story	He was Old Man George.	37:06
Carlina Turner	He was related to Reverend Tim.	37:06
James Story	And then there was a young George, Junior. There were two Georges, old George and young George. And yeah, Reverend Tim was in that family. And they had the old man down there in the woods. They tied him up and plastered him all. He stayed down there a long time because —	37:15
Stacey Scales	He was the one with the money?	37:37
James Story	Yeah. Old man. They thought he was still out to the store. And you know at the time they went out there checking with him, and there wasn't no George in the store, and they comes calling and all, drove in the woods, and right there there was a body. He was down there tied and mouth plastered. And they done got his money gone. Oh man, we come up on the rough southern mountain.	37:39
James Story	Now and then a Negro would get what I'd call mad, and they knowed that Negro wasn't going to take no fortune. He would die with what he believed. They'd back off and call him crazy. Back off and— Any time you'd go to take up for yourself you crazy.	38:09
Carlina Turner	It's exactly what he's saying like that. There's an old man up in Nevada County called Mr. Big Al McKinney. And he had this thing on he was going through, the screaming Negro. They call him the nigger.	38:34
Stacey Scales	What's his name, ma'am?	38:44
Carlina Turner	Big Al McKinney. That's what we call Alfred McKinney. We call him Mr. Big Al. And they were going through. He's mad, you know. So he walked with Mr. Big Al. They had took a lot of people. "You a nigger, ain't you?" "Yeah, I'm a nigger." "You're not going to get nothing. You're a damn nigger." He says, "I told you I was a nigger. I ain't no damn nigger." And he got out of the way. And I think they went home.	38:46
James Story	Uh-huh, yeah. Oh yeah.	39:02
Carlina Turner	I'm a nigger, but I ain't no damn nigger.	39:02
James Story	That's one reason I think why most of the families survived back in those days especially Black men because they had two things they could cling to. One is the church. That's something they called their own. That was their own. And another one was their lodge. Men and women, that was their life, lodges and churches.	39:07
Stacey Scales	And Sonic and Easter Star.	39:26
Johnnie Williams	Yeah.	39:28
James Story	Definitely so. So that's why compared to today that's why these organizations were slow to deteriorate because we don't care about it. We doing everything else. But those people survived because they had those two things, and they had their families. They'd cling to their families back in those days. Nowadays I don't even know where my son is, and he's only 40 years old. Back in those days they knew where you were.	39:30
Johnnie Williams	When I was four was mine further away up over there. They know the law or the White folks law. And they taught it us. Don't do this, don't do that. Be careful. Don't have an old dipper lot to the well. Don't do it. You draw the water pour your water in the doorway you drink out of their [indistinct 00:40:19]. And they'd tell you that now you know you don't do [indistinct 00:40:21], and don't pay the little girls any attention. Turn your head. So they knowed, and they done the best they can good by teaching us how to stay out of trouble.	39:54
James Story	Then I've also known Black young men had to enlist in the Marine Corps or Army, Navy to get away from some little White girl.	40:33
Johnnie Williams	Yeah.	40:42
Stacey Scales	Really?	40:43
James Story	Oh yeah, definitely so.	40:43
Stacey Scales	Get away from the White girl?	40:46
James Story	Get away, that's right.	40:47
Mildred Debbie McKinney	It has always been [indistinct 00:40:51] to the younger people when they were coming along. There would be no racial, what I'm trying to say? It would all be biracial. And it usually these White people running after these Black people.	40:51
Johnnie Williams	Right.	41:06
Mildred Debbie McKinney	It's more that than it is. But it's gotten to a place now, and I hate it, but when Black men get a certain status, I don't know why they have to go and get a White woman. But younger kids they just the White prefer the Black. But when these men always make a child, and this child is an inbreed. When we get a certain amount of money and certain things, I don't know why we think it's better to get with a White woman than with a Black, but that's the way it goes.	41:07
Johnnie Williams	Mm-hmm. That's the way it goes.	41:19
Stacey Scales	Could you tell me a story that happened where you had to leave town if somebody else liked you, not if you liked them?	41:20
James Story	They [indistinct 00:41:45]?	41:43
Stacey Scales	Yeah. If a White woman liked a Black man.	41:44
James Story	In the Jim Crow.	41:50
Stacey Scales	In the Jim Crow time, he would have to get out of town?	41:51
James Story	He would have to leave or get hung.	41:55
Johnnie Williams	Or get hung.	41:55
James Story	Or get killed or shot, whatever.	41:57
Stacey Scales	So what if he just stayed in town and didn't pay her no mind?	41:59
James Story	She wouldn't tolerate it. The girl wouldn't tolerate it. And you know as well as I do once you've had the experience with the Black man they don't want no White man. It's just that simple.	42:04
Johnnie Williams	Let me tell him this [indistinct 00:42:21] man right in the fall at the courthouse there. West, this is west, this is east. Right there in the courthouse where the road forks there in the walk, walkers come from the courthouse. The year I was born they brought a Black man right there, right there, same yard.	42:24
Stacey Scales	Did your parents tell you about that?	42:49
Johnnie Williams	Mm-hmm, yeah. My mother-in-law was telling me about it.	42:51
Stacey Scales	Why would they do that to him?	42:55
Johnnie Williams	His Black man didn't take no fool. This White fool told him to come out from under the bed. That's what mama said. He stooped down to shoot him, and that Black man his [indistinct 00:43:16] shot and killed him, killed the police. Killed the high sheriff and they blame him.	42:58
Stacey Scales	Were there other lynchings down here?	43:24
Johnnie Williams	Oh yeah, oh yeah, plenty of them. There's on highway 19 four and a half miles out of town, must be about 10 miles out, they caught this Black man in the bed with a White woman, and they had been there some length of time, enough to go to sleep I guess. And they caught him, and they had horses, and they tied him with a rope and tied the rope to the til and the horses and roughed him then, and them horses was running with him until they killed him. They just kept running so they named it Horsehead, Horsehead.	43:27
Stacey Scales	That's the name of the street?	44:01
Johnnie Williams	That's the name of the road what they call down there. They call it Horsehead because they killed that Negro.	44:01
Stacey Scales	And were you born when that happened?	44:25
Johnnie Williams	No. I don't think I was born when that happened, and I could've been, but my uncles all know it said that's named Horsehead because they killed a Negro, tied him behind the horses with the horse tail and had the horses run as fast as they could go.	44:27
Stacey Scales	And that's how the Horsehead name?	44:30
Johnnie Williams	Horsehead. I shake too much to sign here.	44:30
Stacey Scales	I'm wondering — Oh, I could fill out most of it for you.	44:58
Johnnie Williams	All right.	45:01
Stacey Scales	And then you could just sign the part with your name.	45:02
Johnnie Williams	All right.	45:08
Stacey Scales	So they called it Horsehead when—	45:08
Johnnie Williams	Uh-huh. Yeah. Called it Horsehead.	45:08
Stacey Scales	So those guys, did some of them have to leave their families when —	45:13
Johnnie Williams	Oh yeah, oh yeah. You know what? This reminds me a brother-in-law of mine named Rubin Raford, you know him.	45:19
Stacey Scales	Mm-hmm.	45:33
Johnnie Williams	He had a son working for an old, rich White man down in Louisiana. And this White man had a big brown horse and a cow. And there's another poor White man living on the same place. This boy Rubin knows what time to feed up, so he's down there feeding up and here comes this White down there. And she snacked on him. So he knowed it was bad and all this. He knowed they'd kill you [indistinct 00:46:05]. He told her, "Go home. Go away." And the herdman saw. He went and saw it. And so we walk up here, shouting "Rabbit, rabbit." He said, "No, you're lying. I saw it all." Said, "Now, what business you have being at the barn anyway at this time of night." This is that man's job. "Why you down here? You ain't got no reason for being down here." And the White folks was loose on it didn't want to turn him loose out the home was telling that.	45:34
Johnnie Williams	Just had somebody gone kill him. He'll let law kill that boy, hang that boy. Louisiana be into it. They slipped and turned him out said, "But you got to leave out of Louisiana."	46:39
Stacey Scales	When they would start to try to hang these people would any of the Black folks take up weapons and guns?	46:56
Johnnie Williams	He wouldn't—	47:00

James Story	Excuse me. The one thing about it. Whenever these things took place, if there was one Black and 100 Whites doing it — So the Blacks couldn't rebel, because they was outnumbered.	0:02
Johnnie Williams	That's right.	0:15
James Story	In other words, nowadays, even if you see a fight nowadays, where there's a Black and the Whites involved, it take two or three of those to get one Black down. We are stronger, physically.	0:16
Johnnie Williams	Right.	0:29
James Story	And that's what I was mentioning, talking about a few minutes ago, concerning this White woman over here with Black boy. Because we are excel where we go, in physics, in loving, and everything else.	0:29
Stacey Scales	Would White men have their with the Black women?	0:45
Johnnie Williams	Yeah. Yeah.	0:48
James Story	Had their way, but what could you do about it? Something that I don't know anything about, but was told to me, there was times when a group of young White boys used to ride around in the community at night, and start with this Black man's house and tell him to send his daughter out there, so they can take her for a ride. And nothing you could do but let her go. If he didn't they was going to set his house on fire or kill the family. Now, these things actually happened.	0:54
Johnnie Williams	We was just helpless. We was just helpless. That's all.	1:18
James Story	That's right. And Blacks wouldn't help, because you know in your lifetime, we don't work together now.	1:22
Johnnie Williams	That's right.	1:28
James Story	You know they didn't work together back in those days when it came to things like that.	1:29
Johnnie Williams	No. We got—	1:33
Stacey Scales	And he would just have to send his daughter on out?	1:33
James Story	Sure. Let them have a good time, rape her and what have you. That's right. Or his wife.	1:36
Johnnie Williams	Yeah.	1:43
James Story	It didn't matter. Sure. He had to. So these things, it was tough. But like I said, they survived. Our ancestors, they survived. They caught the devil, but they survived it.	1:43
Johnnie Williams	One [indistinct 00:02:02] me one time, he says, "I don't believe God ain't fooling White and Black to me." I said, "Why do you say that?" I said, "Been mixing all my life." I said, "They've been mixing ever since slavery time." And he says, "Well, I just don't believe God ain't fooling me."	2:04
Johnnie Williams	I said, "You know better." I said, "You're just trying to make a fool of me, and make me believe you did." I said, "Been mixed ever since there's been a world."	2:23
James Story	Ever since there's been a world. And I love for them to talk to me like that, because I'll tell them. I'll say — Especially when they say, "It's in the Bible, races shouldn't marry." I say, "Yeah, but why? Why is it in the Bible?" They don't tell you that. And I say the reason for it is because the fact, Solomon was a good example. He brought these foreign women in, and Solomon turned to worshiping their gods. That's why it's in the Bible that they don't supposed to marry, interracial marriage.	2:34
Stacey Scales	And would Whites try to change the way we looked at our religion?	3:02
James Story	Right. That's rue. Sure. Sure. Right now I could go here at this church in Magnolia, any White church in Magnolia, you can go in the ten churches, but once upon a time you couldn't.	3:11
Johnnie Williams	Oh, no.	3:18
James Story	No, no. You wouldn't think about going to the church. Because church is for Whites only, let them have it. We wasn't human.	3:19
Stacey Scales	Right.	3:29
James Story	Blacks wasn't human.	3:29
Johnnie Williams	No. One time, my father got an old White man, he was heartles til his death, you could see it wrote all over his face, "I just ain't going to mix. I don't care what you — My kids ain't going to mix." I said, "You're talking too much." That was the point, we kind of got strong then. Done had this march and all. Get back at them, they got scared the Negro done come together.	3:32
Johnnie Williams	They knowed when we was divided. I said, "No." I said it then. The White man, he loved to see the Black man marry his daughter. I said, "You love that, but he don't want him to marry his wife's daughter." We've been marrying your daughter ever since I've been in this world. Black man marry a half White girl. But you want him to marry your wife's daughter. That's what hurt you. And then—	3:54
Stacey Scales	And with the religion— Sorry. Go ahead.	4:28
James Story	No, there was one other thing I was going to tell you. The good side of it. There was a White family living across the creek from us. It was about three or four miles. But anyway, there was a creek in between. And their three sons, and four or five of us Black boys, we used to meet on Sunday afternoon, and go down there and swim, and have the greatest of times.	4:32
Stacey Scales	Oh yeah?	4:51
James Story	Mm-hmm. And their father told my father plenty of times, "You don't have to call me sir, and all that." If you see one of them out there amongst them people, sure you'll say, but when we're together, you don't have to— But anyway, these boys, they live here now, and I see them every once in awhile, and they often stop and chat with me, every time I see them.	4:52
Johnnie Williams	Yeah.	5:22
James Story	But that was some of the good things that we had in lifetime.	5:22
Stacey Scales	On the religion, did y'all have to go to church when you were growing up?	5:23
Johnnie Williams	Oh yeah. Barefooted. I went to church barefoot.	5:26
Stacey Scales	Yes, sir.	5:28
Johnnie Williams	Yeah, trying to hide my foot. A lot of times.	5:30
Stacey Scales	Would people get the spirit back then?	5:34
Johnnie Williams	Had better spirit back then than they do now. They would send chills there and you could feel it. Yeah, you could just feel it. Everytime Mama was walking, carrying me to church, she could hear them singing that hymn, and I had to trot to stay up with her. Yeah, I had to trot to stay up with her.	5:37
Stacey Scales	Did they have baptisms, and revivals, and —	5:58
Johnnie Williams	Oh yeah. But the baptisms was down in the little old creek or slew or something.	5:59
Stacey Scales	Okay. Would there be lots of people there.	6:04
Johnnie Williams	Oh my Lord. Yeah. There was. They don't go now. But you ought to seen them back then, baptizing. I don't care if they wasn't but three, they was just going to hear a voice. Oh boy.	6:10
Johnnie Williams	And we went to the grist mill, had our corn, and had the corn ground up, back in them days. [indistinct 00:06:32]. And that old, have meat on Sunday morning.	6:18
Stacey Scales	So Sunday you had a special dinner?	6:41
Johnnie Williams	Special, special, special.	6:43
Stacey Scales	Food.	6:44
Johnnie Williams	Yeah. Chicken was for the preacher.	6:44
Stacey Scales	Mister—	6:48
James Story	For the what?	6:51
Johnnie Williams	For the preacher.	6:51
Stacey Scales	Mr. Story, you were on farmland. I'm wondering, did your family use the signs to plant the crop? The almanac.	6:54
James Story	My dad did.	7:03
Stacey Scales	Oh yes?	7:04
James Story	Yeah. Often, during the middle of the day, after lunch, he got this little cart out there, under the sycamore tree, and he would catch his little nap, but he also had his almanac there, reading it. And he usually planted by the signs. And he made a successful farmer, too. I'm not saying it because he's my father, but he was—	7:05
Johnnie Williams	He was good. I knowed them all down there. Remember Bill? Joe. Yeah, I knew all that whole bunch.	7:28
James Story	You probably know my family, then, Story.	7:34
Johnnie Williams	Yeah.	7:34
James Story	Know my dad.	7:40
Stacey Scales	Did you all ever go to the baseball games that—	7:41
James Story	Oh, man. Yeah.	7:44
Johnnie Williams	Yeah.	7:45
James Story	That was the only thing they did on Saturday afternoon and June 19th.	7:48
Johnnie Williams	Yeah. Yeah, man. That was our day. That's right. That was our day. What a time. What a time.	7:58
Stacey Scales	Do you remember any of the baseball players you would see down there and —	8:00
Johnnie Williams	Yeah, yeah. Now, I had a brother, could go out the park any time he wanted to. That was K.D. Chapman.	8:04
Stacey Scales	Mm-hmm. I've hard of him.	8:10
Johnnie Williams	Now, he could pitch the ball. And really, to me, I totally believe that these were better players than these boys that I see on the screen today.	8:15
Stacey Scales	Oh yes?	8:25
Johnnie Williams	I've seen them catch the ball on the spin. Spin while they was in the air. I've seen them jump up and catch a ball and spin while they was in air. They chunked it before they the pitch.	8:27
Stacey Scales	Spin?	8:39
Johnnie Williams	Yeah.	8:40
Stacey Scales	In the air?	8:40
Johnnie Williams	They'd jump up and —	8:41
Stacey Scales	And twist around?	8:41
Johnnie Williams	Yes, twist around, uh-huh, and just spin. All them boys could play ball. Johnny Scardner, Son Robinson, and all of them, man, they could play ball.	8:45
Stacey Scales	Yeah.	8:52
Johnnie Williams	Eberd Grissom.	8:52
James Story	They had some boys over there at the —	8:57
Johnnie Williams	[indistinct 00:09:00].	8:59
James Story	The Parker boys, them Parker boys from Friol.	9:01
Johnnie Williams	Yeah, that's right.	9:01
James Story	[indistinct 00:09:03]—	9:02
Johnnie Williams	Old Johnny Parker could throw a ball.	9:03
James Story	Yeah.	9:06
Stacey Scales	And where would they play?	9:07
Johnnie Williams	In these pastures.	9:09
Stacey Scales	Oh yeah?	9:09
James Story	Oh yeah, yeah.	9:12
Johnnie Williams	They didn't know nothing about get no money for it. No, just play for fun.	9:12
James Story	They played for fun. And every little community had their own baseball team. Saturday afternoon, around noon, man, even the White man let a nigger off on Saturday afternoon. But anyway, in other words, about one o'clock they started gathering, they had a regular rotation. These two played, after that they played the winner. And—	9:17
Stacey Scales	Oh yeah.	9:37
James Story	The night. And they had these big containers of homemade ice cream. What was that?	9:39
Johnnie Williams	Lemonade.	9:42
James Story	They lemonade, soda water, and you name it. Free sandwiches.	9:42
Stacey Scales	Would they play at night?	9:47
James Story	No, no.	10:01
Johnnie Williams	No, we didn't have no lights.	10:02
Stacey Scales	Okay.	10:02
James Story	And the boys, and the cats had the moonshine out there—	10:02
Johnnie Williams	Yeah, yeah.	10:03
James Story	They had good times.	10:03
Johnnie Williams	Good times. There wasn't near about this many out there.	10:03
James Story	No, no, no.	10:03
Johnnie Williams	No, no, no, no, no. You could go up in the morning, when it was hot, and pat him on the shoulder. But you can't do that today.	10:04
James Story	That's right.	10:12
Stacey Scales	Did they ever White baseball teams?	10:13
Johnnie Williams	No, not until along in the '60s.	10:16
Stacey Scales	Oh yeah?	10:18
Johnnie Williams	Yeah, that's the only time we come to the light. Got big bright lights along in the '60s. And we made the march up here, opened up the White folks eyes. They told us it wasn't going to be, and we told them it was going to be. And I made a big remark right there before the mayor. I said, "Who care anything about dying?" I said, "It's just like blowing out a match."	10:19
Johnnie Williams	Now, White folks don't like to hear that. They feel like you kill someone. I said, "It's just like blowing out a match. And furthermore, you'll never you've been here."	10:47
Johnnie Williams	Boy, they quieted down.	10:56
Stacey Scales	Now, would the older people back then talk about haints and spirits?	11:02
Johnnie Williams	Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Them old White folks had an old drum that they pulled, and that thing could make some noise.	11:10
James Story	I got to go, though.	11:16
Stacey Scales	Thank you.	11:17
Johnnie Williams	It would scare you to death.	11:17
Stacey Scales	Oh yeah?	11:18
Johnnie Williams	They'd pull it. My brother-in-law run five miles he said, with his pistol in his pocket, forgot he had it.	11:18
Stacey Scales	They would pull a drum and make a noise.	11:25
Johnnie Williams	Yeah. It would go like a lion. Wow. He say he run five miles with his pistol in his pocket, forgot about he had it.	11:27
James Story	There was some little jack-legged preacher was in our community. He would come around and help us every once in awhile. And he would start telling lies out there in that field, talking about the hainted housed that he lived in. And he'd say at night, when he'd cut out the lights and go to bed, he'd say one would get in the bed on one side, and one would be on the other, pulling covers. And he'd get in the middle. And he said, he goes in the kitchen, and he'd turn on the lights, and he cooks and eats his food, and everything is okay, but as soon as he turns the lights off, they started going and rattling pots and pans—	11:37
Stacey Scales	That's all right. It's been a pleasure talking to you.	12:10
Johnnie Williams	Yeah, man. I enjoyed it.	12:13
James Story	[indistinct 00:12:13].	12:13
Stacey Scales	I need to get this —	12:13
Johnnie Williams	Oh yeah.	12:16
Stacey Scales	Yes, sir.	12:17
Johnnie Williams	Put it right here, and I'll sign it.	12:17

Item Info

Title:

Johnnie Williams (primary interviewee), Mildred McKinney, and James Story interview recording, 1995 July 21

Date:

July 21, 1995

Creator:

Contributor:

Scales, Mausiki Stacey

Description:

Name: Johnnie Williams; Date of birth: 1926-05-20; Place of birth: Magnolia, AR; Occupation: unknown; Residence: Magnolia, AR. Name: Mildred McKinney; Date of birth: 1931-02-23; Place of birth: unknown; Occupation: unknown; Residence: Camden, AR. Name: James Story; Date of birth: 1912-02-29; Place of birth: unknown; Occupation: unknown; Residence: Emerson, AR
Informant ID: 1106; Informant ID: 1107; Informant ID: 1108; Interviewed by: Stacey Scales.

Location:

Format:

Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South interviews, photographs, and project records, circa 1864-2011, bulk 1990-2004

Series:

Related Resources:

See below

Provenance:

The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library acquired the Records of the Behind the Veil Oral History Project from the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies in 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2002.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

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

Identifier:

RL00170-CS-0348
fac80672-6b3f-4569-9278-952720bdc991
behindtheveil
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Johnnie Williams (primary interviewee), Mildred McKinney, and James Story interview recording, 1995 July 21

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1. Johnnie Williams, Mildred McKinney, and James Story administrative file, 1995

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Johnnie Williams (primary interviewee), Mildred McKinney, and James Story interview recording, 1995 July 21

Transcript

Item Info

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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