Theodore Speight interview recording, 1997 October 20

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Will Wiseman	What location you suppose?	0:00
Theodore Speight	This particular location, we only been here twenty-three years. We was in business from 1939, service station business. We organized and built this in 1974.	0:04
Will Wiseman	Okay. Where were those locations, further down on Fayetteville Street before?	0:23
Theodore Speight	Well, yes, uh-huh. 7th and Pettigrew of course you can't see that now because the freeway came through there.	0:26
Will Wiseman	Right.	0:32
Theodore Speight	And we was on the corner of 7th and Pettigrew, and in 1967 we moved to Pilot and 5th, and that was south of the college, the North Carolina Central at the corner of Pilot and Fayetteville was in the 1300 block of Durham.	0:33
Will Wiseman	What is it you said, you grew up in Wilson, correct?	0:47
Theodore Speight	Well, in Snow Hill in Greene County. And of course that's Wilson is in the vicinity.	0:57
Will Wiseman	[inaudible 00:01:05].	1:05
Theodore Speight	I think I told the group at the meeting the first employment that I had I told the man that I was from Wilson, he later found out I was from a little place called Walstonburg. He wanted know why I didn't tell him Walstonburg and I told him the reason was that Walstonburg was so small he wouldn't have known what I was talking about anyway.	1:05
Will Wiseman	Uh-huh.	1:28
Theodore Speight	But Wilson was something like about 16 or 18 miles west of where I was born.	1:28
Will Wiseman	Uh-huh, and you said it was Washingberg?	1:38
Theodore Speight	Mm-hmm, Walstonburg, W-A-L-S-T-O-N-B-U-R-G, Walstonburg.	1:41
Will Wiseman	Walstonburg.	1:41
Theodore Speight	Mm-hmm. That was in Greene County, and Snow Hill was the county seat.	1:41
Will Wiseman	Uh-huh, so what was it like growing up in was Walstonburg?	1:54
Theodore Speight	I grew up on a farm. So a farmer, my daddy was and of course early on I became of size and age, and course that was my occupation until I left to come to Durham.	2:00
Will Wiseman	So it was tobacco?	2:10
Theodore Speight	Mm-hmm, tobacco, cotton, corn and so forth.	2:10
Will Wiseman	Now did your father own the land that y'all lived on?	2:11
Theodore Speight	No, he owned some property which he lost during the Depression. But most of our time was spent on rented land.	2:26
Will Wiseman	Uh-huh. What was the community life like in Walstonburg? Were there a lot of families around, or was it spread out?	2:41
Theodore Speight	Well, pretty well spread it out. Of course we didn't have dense locations. We had neighbors around, we was something like about half a mile out of the, well so-called, city limits then. And of course around us we had families, some four or five families, White and Black. And there was a Taylor family who owned property adjoining the property we was on. It so happened that we spent most of our time on a property of a Black farmer, the Rod Smith family owned several plots in Greene County and we spent most of our time except for about maybe four or five years. So, I was raised on a Black farmer's property adjacent to the Taylors who had—I don't know what size they had, but there was several farms connected. This Taylor family had a son.	2:50
Will Wiseman	The Taylors were a White family?	4:09
Theodore Speight	They were White, and they was some of the nicest people that I've ever met.	4:11
Will Wiseman	Uh-huh.	4:18
Theodore Speight	We had that kind of relationship throughout my boyhood. Their daughter was a teacher, the others Ed and Les and Jim was farmers, they had their separate farm.	4:18
Theodore Speight	Les Taylor was adjacent to us, and of course he had three children, three boys and one girl. In their early lives his wife passed. And so from then on my mother would kind of mother the children. Of course like when he's going to be gone he'd always bring the children there. Then incidentally they stayed at our house night and day when he was out until they was of teenage, until we left. So we just had that relationship with the entire family.	4:37
Theodore Speight	My dad and Les Taylor, who was the children I'm referring to, was very close together, they would meet sometimes in the field and stand and talk instead of working for hours, they had a kind of relationship with one another. And their whole family from their mother, their father and all of those were people who—In fact, the real truth is I never really felt the direct impact of segregation until I came to Durham, even though segregation was permanent, with the type of relationship we had with that family and the others around us was similar to the relationship we had with the William family and others who was Black around us.	5:25
Will Wiseman	Was it that the same for other Black families in the area? Other Black and White families, was that pretty much the way it was?	6:20
Theodore Speight	It was pretty much the way it was on a kind of broader level. Now you had those other families who was very indifferent to each other and so forth. But it so happened that we didn't have any real connection with them, Walstonburg was a very small place that had, for your information, one store and I think it eventually had a drug store, and a branch bank, and a station where you meet the train and so forth. And most of the people there—In fact I don't remember having any real problems. It were quite slow even with the police department and so forth. Well, you didn't have police in there, you had what's it called? The one person with a deputy and everything else.	6:25
Will Wiseman	Was Walstonburg unique as a rural community in that sense do you think?	7:16
Theodore Speight	Kind of so.	7:30
Will Wiseman	Uh-huh.	7:30
Theodore Speight	Kind of so. Now Snow Hill was our county seat, and of course on a higher level you had some prejudice that existed there, and some tragic things happened. But it was kind of foreign to us in a sense because it did not affect our direct families and so forth.	7:30
Will Wiseman	Uh-huh. Was there a lot of cooperation between families in terms of field work, and the crops, and sharing machinery, or anything like that?	7:47
Theodore Speight	Very well so, mm-hmm. Yeah, we had no problems working together. And of course in those days we had the person who had the farm, you had a place like Wilson, and Rocky Mount and farther other towns that was at a distance, number of people who worked in those with common labor. You had, they called it the tobacco belt, in the fall when they sold tobacco, you had permanent jobs but nothing after tobacco was out. And after the manufacturing process was over they hardly had anything to do until the summer then most of the people they would come to the country and work, help planting tobacco and so forth, and that balanced their income.	7:56
Theodore Speight	And of course the other thing that we did, we interchange with neighbors. We put in their tobacco this week, or this day or two, and then go to ours, you know, exchange labor. And so that worked very well because that's way we paid back instead of investing a lot of money.	8:55
Will Wiseman	Right.	9:20
Theodore Speight	Of course you had to pay those people who came out of town there. But other than that much our work was done by interchange.	9:21
Will Wiseman	Now I imagine there was a big push and a lot of cooperation around the harvest then?	9:30
Theodore Speight	Yeah, yeah.	9:35
Will Wiseman	Did you bring in more labor from outside during the harvest?	9:37
Theodore Speight	Well, well during the harvest with tobaccos for instance your main month for tobaccos later in the season and housing it so forth would be from the later part of June through July and maybe the first or second week in October. And of course after you got most of your crop harvest as far as tobacco and sometimes we'd pay people to come out and pick cotton. That took some extra work because of trying to deal with school hours, school periods. We tried to get the cotton out a little earlier then ordinarily we would have because then that kept the children. You know, give them the opportunity to go to school.	9:41
Will Wiseman	To go to school?	10:38
Theodore Speight	Mm-hmm. And of course the people who came to pick cotton, they picked so much a pound, I don't know what it was, it couldn't have been much, but those were some of the hard jobs that we youngsters didn't care much about because it was hard work. And it weren't that hard, but they had to be kind of swift and move swiftly to get cotton, getting out the pounds per today because you talking about working maybe from shortly after sunrise to sun down, we didn't worry much about the clock, we didn't have no clock to punch. And as result of that we have those who were swift could do very well, three or four hundred pounds a day was pretty good work. And of course I never did well in picking cotton.	10:38
Theodore Speight	And so happened that in later years after I was able to drive safely, my daddy was able to get a truck and back in those days it's a Model T truck. Of course you've probably seen the pictures of one to know what you're looking at. And I say just about, be as it hauling tobacco and course we hauled tobacco to town because Wilson was your preferred market. Of course we went some to Rocky Mountain which was just a little farther. Fond was smaller and then Greene was about the same distance east as Wilson was west. And so we could now I haul tobacco, I hauled tobacco for all of the neighbors, the White, the Blacks and what not, everybody's who was in the community.	11:41
Will Wiseman	You said you grew corn and stuff like that as well, was that to sell at the market?	12:33
Theodore Speight	Yeah, well most of those who raised corn, they used it for their own utilization.	12:41
Will Wiseman	Right.	12:48
Theodore Speight	You had your mill to that was available to grind your corn, that is that you wanted to make your meal for your own use. And I don't know, we didn't sell a lot of corn because actually what happened, we raised a large amount of tobacco in proportion because that was your cash crop. And cotton of course for a number of years remained very low compared to the investment in it. And of course your corn and your garden and so forth, you packed that away, and your potatoes and banked those, and you feed your stock and so forth. And so you didn't have the corn much to sell. Most of the time that we sold was tobacco for the most part and cotton.	12:48
Will Wiseman	Now in terms of supplies like food for the family and stuff, did you buy anything at the market or the store?	13:48
Theodore Speight	Yeah, I guess we had a portion of our supplies, but most of the time for instance we raise molasses, we raised cane, and we cooked molasses and of course that was without purchase. And your corn, you had your corn for your cattle and your hay for your cattle. And you had the bread, you know made cornbread and of course most of that, in fact we even raised wheat, and of course we had to go to wheat refiners and so forth. And so part of our flour and our bread and molasses, and those are some of our major foods. Especially back then everybody had chickens, and ducks, and geese and we raised those.	13:56
Will Wiseman	And the livestock?	15:01
Theodore Speight	And of course we'd feed those. The stock for instance, we raised oats, that also was a feed for the cattle. And then of course wheat was made for flour and that was used for the household. And we always had chickens, and hogs, and cows, so we had our milk.	15:01
Will Wiseman	Wow.	15:21
Theodore Speight	We had our butter, we'd have our meats, our chickens, and in fact we didn't raise no fish because we had to go fish for those. But that was one of the items we'd purchase. But for the most part we raised much of what we used as a family's means of percentage.	15:21
Will Wiseman	Was that the way for most families?	15:43
Theodore Speight	Yeah.	15:45
Will Wiseman	Yeah?	15:45
Theodore Speight	Yep, on average. In fact our economy, and particularly in east part of the state and for the most part in most of the state, was depended on tobacco. And in fact that's how Durham was really built. When I came to Durham, your major employment, highest rate of employment was the factory, you had Lee Miles, American Tobacco Company, and some other smaller companies. But over years, and eventually how the economic machine shifted as the tobacco went out, we see these towns hem up.	15:46
Will Wiseman	Right.	16:33
Theodore Speight	And a result of that then much of the employees.	16:34
Theodore Speight	Well, another thing happened that in the early '30s, the '40s and so forth, your educational system, very few particular Blacks got as high as out of high school and so forth. But as the educational department to begin to grow up then more of our children was educated to a higher level. So that made them potential for the training and research. Had tobacco gone out much earlier and research had come in much earlier, we wouldn't have been ready for it.	16:40
Will Wiseman	Right.	17:22
Theodore Speight	And in fact I think this is providential, that if one goes down, the other comes up. And then at Duke University, I think I referred to back in the early years, or the early '20s and so forth which was moving and a building process and nobody dreamed that Duke University be world renowned now as it is. But then they hired in that building and so forth, much of the common labor. And of course Duke University over the period years has grown and such. Well, Duke University and University of North Carolina and their Research Triangle have grown that they've taken up the stack of demand for employment and so forth that we did not have available in the early '30s and in even the early '40s.	17:22
Will Wiseman	Right. Real interested in the farm Mr. Speight, what were the work roles within the family in terms of your mother, and your father, and brothers, and sisters?	18:19
Theodore Speight	Well, it was kind of like the man told us in Hong Kong, if you didn't work you didn't eat.	18:32
Will Wiseman	Right.	18:41
Theodore Speight	And so there everybody had a part and played their part.	18:41
Will Wiseman	Right.	18:47
Theodore Speight	And they grew up, and the youngster learned to do different jobs early. And I started plowing when I had to reach up at the plow, and people used to come along the road and they'd see me following my daddy. He had his plow and I'd have mine and they'd wonder how I would, you know? It's interesting, you get to a corner—	18:48
Theodore Speight	What did I do with my pencil? Oh yeah.	19:09
Theodore Speight	For instance if you were plowing this field and it would be square for the most part, and of course we were using a single horse plow and so we plowed this way, and plowing don't mean much to you, but anyway, I'll give the demonstration. And of course when you got here you'd have to pull your plow out and then turn your mule around and then continue this way and the people that are interested found out being a little boy how I would make that turn. But my daddy taught me to, instead of picking up the plow which I was too small to do, I would pull my plow back then when the mule makes his turn, I'd be able to catch this turf and follow from these corners, you know what I mean?	19:14
Theodore Speight	That was interesting enough to remind me of something say. Yesterday we had, in the afternoon, we had choir day and that means that you had a visiting church. So we had the church group that came from— in fact they came from the east part of the state down to Little Rosebud, and the pastor who was preaching was making some illustrations about religion and how it was during Depression, and he talked about, we used to use these— What they called the thing, a kind of cane horse, and it had short prongs, and you were the first person who was working in the woods, who was snaking logs, you hook those chains in there and the harder you pull the deeper they would go. It was very interesting because the thing I thought about it, and I said that's a good illustration but there isn't a person now that's old enough to know what you talking about. But those are some of the things that we learned to do.	19:57
Theodore Speight	And then we started finessing and priming tobacco for the most part. You had a truck row where your truck would go through to pickup tobacco, you had two rows on each side, and of course you'd be the person who was driving back, you started the loads, and come up over a period of time as it ripened, always ripened from the bottom. But my dad started me priming tobacco when I was too small to keep up with the group, so what he would do, he'd put me next to the truck and then he would take the outside. The custom was that the person who was on the inside rows would take up the tobacco from the—	20:58
Theodore Speight	For instance, if I was working over here and you were working there, and you were supposed to put your tobacco in the truck, you'd take mine, we'd cross a handful, take mine instead of my walking to the truck and putting mine in, I would hand mine to you, and you in turn put yours in the truck and mine. And what my daddy would do, he would take the outside rows and give me the inside rows, and vice versa. Instead of he handing his tobacco to me. In order for me to keep up, I'd put my own tobacco in the truck because I'm next to the truck, he would walk across and bring his to the truck across the full rows which made it used for me to keep up with the group on the other side.	21:42
Will Wiseman	Right.	22:25
Theodore Speight	But I said that we learned to do these things early and we learned to do our job well, and those were some of the things we picked up in the country actually.	22:26
Will Wiseman	How many brothers and sisters did you have Mr. Speight?	22:36
Theodore Speight	I had three brothers.	22:39
Will Wiseman	Three brothers?	22:41
Theodore Speight	No sisters.	22:41
Will Wiseman	No sisters?	22:42
Theodore Speight	Mm-hmm, in our case.	22:44
Will Wiseman	What were their ages in relation to you?	22:44
Theodore Speight	Oh, I had the three brothers. I was born 1908. Charlie was born, my second brother, was born 1910, next brother born 1914, I think it was four years difference, him. 1911 and then '14 and '16. So we was just—	22:47
Will Wiseman	Real close in years?	23:10
Theodore Speight	—about three or four years apart, mm-hmm.	23:10
Will Wiseman	Now did your mother have different roles on the farm than the men?	23:12
Theodore Speight	Well, the only thing she did most part was to take care of the house, and cook, and clean, and so forth. And of course she picked cotton, and then in the period that we was hauling tobacco, of course everybody was involved there. So she was, other than the time when she was out for preparing food and so forth, she would be helping to string the tobacco. And of course in those days they, for cutting that field of cotton had to be chopped. You know, grass would grow up and you'd chop it out, then you plow. And she used to help chop the cotton, and something like that was something common for women to do, very few women plowed.	23:16
Will Wiseman	Right.	24:00
Theodore Speight	They mostly chopped cotton, looped tobacco, grade tobacco, tie tobacco. And that is after you house it in the summer, then in the fall when you're getting ready to sell it. And interesting enough now they've eliminated a lot of the process through which we had to go then because we had to grade tobacco, then separate it into different grades, you know different type or quality of tobacco, then we would have to tie the tobacco. So the women would help in grading and tying tobacco and of course preparing it for the market.	24:00
Will Wiseman	Uh-huh. So what was your schooling like? In Walstonburg?	24:32
Theodore Speight	We went to— in fact in the early '30s in Greene County, I guess it was maybe in the late '40s, or '50s before we went beyond the eighth grade.	24:35
Will Wiseman	Right.	24:53
Theodore Speight	If you're going beyond the eighth grade, you'd have to go out of the county.	24:53
Will Wiseman	So did you go through eighth grade in Walstonburg?	24:57
Theodore Speight	Went through eighth grade. And then in the late '20s they built the first high school in Greene County, and we went there. I didn't— But it was then that they went to, was it 12th grade? And of course I think I made it to 11th grade or something like that before I left to come to Durham.	25:13
Will Wiseman	Okay. Was the school just the children from the farm community in Walstonburg?	25:19
Theodore Speight	Well the county, the first high school included all of the county.	25:29
Will Wiseman	Right.	25:35
Theodore Speight	We had to use the bus and so forth to get there. But now in Walstonburg we had to the local school, you know, first five or six grades and then you'd go to—well, I believe they went to seventh grade then up to eighth grade. Then when the high school opened it went up and added on the additional grades.	25:35
Will Wiseman	Right. So you had up through eighth grade was in Walstonburg?	25:46
Theodore Speight	Yeah, mm-hmm.	25:46
Will Wiseman	So were those schools integrated?	26:03
Theodore Speight	No, no. No, the schools integrated, oh years—when, in the '50s, '60s or somewhere back then. But before then Walstonburg had this school and we were at two miles or more where we walked to our school. In fact, none of the fathers of those children who we liked, who went to school with [inaudible 00:26:31] came by Walstonburg school. Because it was safety in it because we didn't think about going there.	26:06
Theodore Speight	Then in later years they started they put buses on, school buses. And it's interesting enough for the first few years. I was trying to think of what the other school was out in Walstonburg. But anyway, the Whites rode to school in the bus, and of course we walked. And we did that until probably I was in my maybe ten, twelve, thirteen years old, and my daddy was on the committee. You had committee for your different schools, to work with your supervisor and so for forth. And they finally insist on having a bus for the Blacks. And of course my daddy was one that—and all together—and then the committees had to raise a certain amount of money to supplement the money that we encountered was a lot for a bus. And my daddy happened to have been one of the persons who paid his first fifty dollars in order to get a bus in our community.	26:39
Will Wiseman	Right. Do you mind if I close that door, Mr. Speight?	27:52
Theodore Speight	Oh, yes. You can.	27:57
Will Wiseman	I'll close up, just want to make sure we get everything on tape.	27:58
Theodore Speight	Is a block in the way?	27:58
Will Wiseman	Okay. Yeah, I'll move it. No problem. That's fine. So I mean it must have been odd in a sense, but you had the White children when you would go home to and play with back in Walstonburg, but then you would still go to separate school.	28:00
Theodore Speight	Still go to a separate school. Separate school, separate churches and so forth. But other than that—In fact, for the most part there was a kind of relationship between the White and the Blacks where there was really not a lot of problem with the children, except we just, you go so far and that's it. And course with our nearest neighbors never was a problem because Les Taylor had, that I spoke to, had three boys and one girl, until they was early teenage whenever he went they stayed at our house. I mean, it's no problem. Some of the things we is having problem with now we didn't think about it.	28:33
Will Wiseman	Right.	29:21
Theodore Speight	Yeah.	29:22
Will Wiseman	Right. I remember reading about, there was an incident in the Wilson Schools, it was around 1918, we talked about in class where the superintendent he had slapped one of the teachers, did that news reach Walstonburg at all? Was that a big issue there? Because I remember it was a big issue in Wilson.	29:23
Theodore Speight	Well, it probably—the communication system was not of such, if it did it didn't have the effect of really getting out here.	29:43
Will Wiseman	Right.	29:52
Theodore Speight	Because you didn't have a newspaper coming out daily, and no telephone in the country, and a lot of news just never got around.	29:53
Will Wiseman	Uh-huh.	30:04
Theodore Speight	Yeah, mm-hmm.	30:04
Will Wiseman	I remember when you were at the Heritage Center, you had talked about three really important values in your life of having a work ethic, the value of education, and always having honest motives. What types of values did your parents emphasize when you were growing up?	30:05
Theodore Speight	Well, that's where we picked it up from our parents because they not only taught but they practiced. And they somehow realized, what I see you do have more impression then what I hear you say.	30:26
Will Wiseman	Right.	30:40
Theodore Speight	So my mother and my dad was strictly in the middle of the road when it'd come to behavior. You know, they were churchmens, and they was good neighbors, and we looked after each other, and that kind of thing. And of course that's where we picked it up from. One such things, you need no locks on nobody doors because nobody stole.	30:41
Will Wiseman	Right.	31:07
Theodore Speight	Nobody. If you had something I wanted to, my training was to ask you, and not go and take something that didn't belong to me, or that I had earned the right to own.	31:07
Will Wiseman	Where did your parents grow up?	31:20
Theodore Speight	Oh, in the same county, in Greene County. My parents lived there, I suppose it's until we was in our late teens. We probably lived within several miles of where the family started from.	31:24
Will Wiseman	What were their stories about their childhood like?	31:45
Theodore Speight	Well, I don't recall except that they almost went through the same routine we did. They had a lot of friends. There was a fellow who is by the name— family, I recall that we had the Dixon family, the Shelley family, the Neur family, and maybe one or two others. But those are some of the permanent families who were large land owners and so forth. My daddy talked about fellow by the name of Sam Neur that they stayed on the farm for some years who was an unusual person, at least they had a new unusual friendship together.	31:48
Theodore Speight	I've heard him tell the story that in the fall you'd always go—well, transportation was not of the type where you could move in today, go to Wilson, and do what you had to do and come back the same day, you just had to take at least two days. And he mentioned on one occasion that he was in Wilson. That was in the time he was living with Sam Neur. I don't know what the age he was, he must been kind of a young age. But anyway, he was grown, and that he needed to go somewhere to attend to something, summer fair or something that Sam Neur, that was the land owner on whose farm he lived let him wear his coat to go to the fair. That's the kind of relationship they had together, and he talked about a lot of instances where they was able to do things together, and had an understanding and sense of appreciation.	32:33
Will Wiseman	Was Sam a White fellow?	33:35
Theodore Speight	He was White.	33:36
Will Wiseman	Okay.	33:36
Theodore Speight	Mm-hmm, White family.	33:36
Will Wiseman	Did you have any recollections of your grandparents?	33:41
Theodore Speight	They all passed, when I was very young. My grandfather on my father's side, I remember him vaguely, just I remember how he looked and so forth. But never was around that much, he passed. And on my mother's side, my granddaddy was a preacher, a Baptist preacher. And I probably was maybe eight or ten years old when he passed. But I never knew a whole lot about the activities and so forth.	33:45
Will Wiseman	Uh-huh. Did they ever pass on any stories, or anything?	34:19
Theodore Speight	Well, no. No, none that I recall.	34:23
Will Wiseman	What did your parents say about of race relations when they were coming up?	34:28
Theodore Speight	Well, they was very negative in a sense, at least I don't know that my mother but anyway, they both were very negative. And one of the customs that they had, and I recall that when we moved, maybe I was a little boy to the Sam Keel's farm, it was because the Black person I tell you about that owned the farm was building a house, it was not ready. So we spent one year, and then you couldn't build house like they build it now, they do a foundation today, two weeks now you go by there somebody is ready to move in. It took months to build a house and all that kind of thing.	34:35
Theodore Speight	And this case we moved Sam Keel's farm, a little farm that was near Willard, about the same distance from Willard Place, Walstonburg. And he lived, I suppose he lived in Walstonburg. But anyway, when we moved there, the custom was then that the average Black who lived on a White owner's farm, their wife would have to wash for practically nothing, and wash, and help clean house, and all that kind of thing. Well, in other words they were servants, in a sense, they called him then.	35:19
Theodore Speight	And of course my daddy, he was kind of independent because he'd rather go hungry than do some things. So that kind of attitude kind took on with the family. Mrs. Keel came out some few days after we had moved there and drove—and this place, there was a fence about so high around the yard. So she drove up by the gate and asked, said, "Where is your mama?" And my brother Charlie and I was outside, and it was in the wintertime I recall.	36:02
Theodore Speight	And say, "She's in the inside." "Tell her to come to the door." So when I went and told my mother, well what Mr. Keel said, she said, "What does she want?" And so she put her cape on her shoulders and went to the door and opened the door and said, he said, "How are you Hattie?" And said, "How are you Mrs. Keel?" Said, "Hattie," said, "I came out here to see if I can get you to do some washing for me." I remember my mother got this nerve in front of them, she said, "Mr. Keel, I was thinking about having somebody do my washing." (laughing)	36:41
Theodore Speight	Of course, she later went on back, but my mother never did. Because most of the women who lived on a farm rented like that, they'd give them 50 cent or something to wash for them, and clean for them and so forth. But my mother never played work for anybody.	37:11
Will Wiseman	Right. The Keel, were they a White family?	37:31
Theodore Speight	It was a White family.	37:37
Will Wiseman	White family?	37:37
Theodore Speight	Mm-hmm. They had that kind independence, and my daddy would find something for us to do around the house rather than to— you have a lot of time when you could maybe catch up your farm, and most of the Blacks around there would— Well, Walstonburg was a kind of settlement where you were surrounded by, for the most part, by Whites. So they'd always let the children go away with them, and I don't recall up until we were in a teenage ever working except helping in tobacco, when we lived on the Shady Wilson farm, and that was away from where we lived most of our lives.	37:37
Theodore Speight	The Hendersons had a large farms, and they would hire people to help put in tobacco, so the days when we didn't have anything to do, we'd go and help them. But other than that, my dad never encouraged that. He just said he'd rather go hungry than they'd be bothered because he just had a kind of bad stomach towards some of the White we had, for Mrs. Keel and several others was real rebbish and so forth, and now he just didn't have anything to do with them.	38:16
Will Wiseman	Uh-huh. What type of, when you were kids, what type of games would you play in your spare time? What would you do for fun? If you had time?	38:46
Theodore Speight	Well, baseball was our major play. Yeah, we played baseball, and pitch horseshoes, and those kind of things.	38:55
Will Wiseman	Uh-huh. So at what age did you say you—from Walstonburg you went to Wilson?	39:07
Theodore Speight	No, from Walstonburg—when I left Walstonburg I came to Durham.	39:13
Will Wiseman	Okay. What age were you when you came to Durham?	39:17
Theodore Speight	22.	39:19
Will Wiseman	22?	39:21
Theodore Speight	Mm-hmm.	39:21
Will Wiseman	What were some of the biggest differences you noticed between Walstonburg and Durham when you got there?	39:22
Theodore Speight	Well, the segregation became more apparent to me because of the particular community we lived in there. Some of the things that was happen in other communities didn't affect us because transportation and so forth was not that prominent so you'd get to do a lot of getting around, most of the time we almost lived in the community, stayed in the community where we raised in. Of course when here, we started working with—well, our first job the I was given was at a service station.	39:30
Will Wiseman	Right.	40:07
Theodore Speight	The man who operated the service station by the name of GC West, we soon formed a kind of close relationship because I was from down in the eastern part of state and he was from down the road in another of the towns. So we just had kind of a kinship that existed between us. But a lot of things that you just didn't get into, you didn't become a part of.	40:09
Theodore Speight	And of course some of the fellows who worked around there, they was the type of fellows who worked and spent everything they made over the weekends, so they'd come back Monday broke and then they'd spend much of their time around telling the White folks what big times they had, how much they drank, and so forth. Well, they never knew whether I went to church, I went to a game, or did anything else because I didn't talk.	40:37
Will Wiseman	Right.	41:10
Theodore Speight	And so I got along with them fine. And the other fellows who came and divulged all this information is the one that actually—it usually was them that somebody want to kick at you, or something like that, play with them. And so didn't nobody play with me because I just had a kind of—well, that kind of selfishness if you want to call it that, so I just didn't bother to engage in conversations. And so they really didn't know where I was.	41:10
Theodore Speight	And then the average person, every one of the boys who worked at as the service station, they'd come up by Monday dinner they'd had to borrow money by dinner with. My policy was just never borrow a dime from the person I worked for. So if I would need money sometime—but I had made friends so I could borrow fifty cent from this cousin, or a dollar from somebody else, make it out of the week. So he didn't know whether I needed the money or not because I never did ask him. For that little bit he was paying me, he would owe me all that when the week was out. I was kind of taught that.	41:39
Theodore Speight	And in fact I got that from my father was that you just don't spend everything you make, or that you get in your hand for nothing unless it is absolutely an emergency. So I was kind of raised that kind of—and it was good for me because I learned how to have more saved. The happiest person was person who learned how to do without the most, and I learned that early. And in fact that helped me as I went on in life, and particularly when I started business I had learned how to use money or I couldn't make it because I started off on a hair string almost.	42:17
Will Wiseman	So when did you come to Durham? What was the date that you?	42:56
Theodore Speight	1931.	43:00
Will Wiseman	1931?	43:04
Theodore Speight	Mm-hmm.	43:04
Will Wiseman	And you worked at that service station until you eventually got your own business?	43:05
Theodore Speight	Oh, yes. Mm-hmm.	43:09
Will Wiseman	And that was 1939?	43:10
Theodore Speight	Mm-hmm.	43:13
Will Wiseman	You said in June?	43:13
Theodore Speight	That's right, mm-hmm.	43:13
Will Wiseman	You think was your story unique in that sense? In being able to, in that amount of time, eventually—	43:15
Theodore Speight	Oh, yeah.	43:22
Will Wiseman	—running your own business?	43:22
Theodore Speight	Right, right.	43:24
Will Wiseman	Definitely above average, right?	43:24
Theodore Speight	Yeah. Yeah, because unless you're very careful and have established certain know-hows and certain backgrounds, you just don't get off that soon and be able to make it. I seen a number of businesses started, couldn't make it. But we were fortunate to once we got in and got started. But all of the struggles and so forth, you either maintain from that time till now, that's fifty-something years.	43:26
Will Wiseman	So what happened to your average person coming in from the country looking for work in Durham? I mean, what could they expect?	43:53
Theodore Speight	If you had—well, the factory was your main hope. In fact, I came here with the expectation of getting a job in a factory. Of course I really hadn't planned in any other type of work. And after I didn't get a job, it so happening that I was fortunate to get this job at the service station, so I worked most of my time with the same person, the same company. And then later on changed, and when I think I had my third job when I went in business. Well, maybe it was the fourth because I think I worked the two way service station three years, two or three years. Then I worked with the Aldrich service station four years. And I ended up with at the Chevrolet Place, Culver Motor Company, and that's where I went in business from there.	44:05
Will Wiseman	Uh-huh.	45:08
Theodore Speight	Yeah.	45:09
Will Wiseman	So in terms of the community, what were some of the first things you sort of latched onto in Durham to establish a life?	45:13
Theodore Speight	The church.	45:25
Will Wiseman	The church?	45:26
Theodore Speight	Yeah.	45:28
Will Wiseman	And were there church ties from other people who have come from Walstonburg?	45:28
Theodore Speight	No.	45:32
Will Wiseman	Or, your congregation out there?	45:34
Theodore Speight	Well, no. I had and auntie who lived here, and her family and—	45:37

Will Wiseman	About your aunt?	0:01
Theodore Speight	Yeah. They were a member of St. Mark. And I used to go the Sundays when I was off, because most of the time, I worked on Sunday. I think I was off one Sunday a month. So didn't get a chance to go church much. Then, later on, I got the job at the Aldridge. And in that case, it was two of us working, and we interchanged, and two of us would be off twice a month. And, of course, it was during that time when I joined Mount Vernon.	0:02
Theodore Speight	And at that time, when I joined Mount Vernon, I didn't have any relatives there. I just had kind of made a connection by some friends and so forth, and was impressed with the church. And course, that started from there, and then after I joined, well, whatever looked like was good to join. The NAACP, and then, when I started the business, I joined the Durham Business [indistinct 00:00:57] Chamber, and Durham Committee, and the Board Club, and so forth. Just one by one, over a period of time, that I became a part of. That became a good guideline for separating from the average group of folks who lived only lower levels of life.	0:34
Will Wiseman	I remember you'd said that when you came to Durham, the first three things you did was join the NAACP, and join the Business League, and put a dollar in Mechanics and Farmers.	1:19
Theodore Speight	Yep.	1:31
Will Wiseman	Why were those so significant?	1:31
Theodore Speight	Well, one of the things, when I was at home, in the early '20s, we had—I forgot the name of the bank. But it was the first Negro bank that was opened in Wilson. For some reason, it didn't survive long. It eventually went under. And I don't know the real reason why. But my daddy kind of established acquaintance with them. So he became a little stockholder in the bank. And course they kind of got my attention and so forth. So when I came to Durham, and found out about the Colored bank here, and the Colored insurance company, and so forth, I was ready, as far as I was concerned, to become a part of it in whatever way I could. And I think that kind of gave me a kind of sendoff, because of my previous experience with the bank in Wilson.	1:36
Will Wiseman	Did your brothers come with you to Durham at the same time?	2:40
Theodore Speight	One brother did.	2:45
Will Wiseman	One brother?	2:46
Theodore Speight	At the same time. In fact, a month later, he came. And he also had the job at the service station. And eventually, during the same year, the first company I worked with, DC West bought out the two-way service station. Whereas, when I was with the Carolina Service Station, we only had one employee. He only had one employer. Unless there was something extra to do. But when he moved to that, and the place was larger, and so he had an additional employee. The employer needed the additional employee. And he was so struck by the relationship between Charlie and I. In fact, he helped Charlie get the first job. He got to Mr. Fowles, who was on Chapel Hill Street. But Charlie worked with him, and when Mr. West bought the two-way service station out, he replaced the employees there.	2:46
Theodore Speight	And the first thing he told me, and said, "Chief Charlie wants to come here and work with us." So Charlie and I worked together, at the same service station there, until ST James, who was the druggist in Hayti, built a Shell station. And he had a son who was the same age as Charlie; yeah, about the same age. And somehow we had kind of formed a relationship with this son, especially. He had two sons. And Dr. James decided to open this station for his son. And so Charlie went with him. So, actually Charlie went into business when he and I were together, but he was the one who worked there, and I stayed there, where I was, downtown.	3:46
Theodore Speight	Two years prior to—I believe it was two years? '36? '36, '37. Yeah, something like two years. Which means that I wouldn't have been there til '39. And of course, he had gone in with Sydney in '30—it must have been '37. Something about like that. And of course they were youngsters and they didn't do very well, and they kind of flunked out. And then he later went into business with WA Amy, who was an undertaker, and who bought a business on Pine Street. But anyway, then, it was several years later when Charlie was called to the Army, and when he were discharged, he came back and joined me at the corner of Fayetteville and Pettigrew. And that's where we stayed until he passed.	4:40
Will Wiseman	Wow.	5:30
Theodore Speight	And the other boys came in later, but they never actually became—well, they worked some with us, but they never actually become any part of the ownership of the business.	5:31
Will Wiseman	Right. Did you have any family still out in Walstonburg?	5:41
Theodore Speight	Yeah. Yeah. But that, actually, what we did the third year we was here, fourth year we was here: we bought a farm, where I live now. Out here. And, then. it was way out in the country. We bought a farm, about twenty-nine acres. And the reason for that: we wanted our parents here. And the same year we bought the property, there was a little house, a little other house, on the property. So we moved them here. And, of course, my mother passed a couple of years after I moved here. And we're mourning, and then my daddy passed. Well he didn't pass til '65. This was in—I think they moved here in '38 or something like that, the year before I started the business.	5:46
Will Wiseman	At what point did you meet your wife?	6:36
Theodore Speight	Oh, I met her in 1932, '33? And she was working with a group who came here. They're from Dalton, South Carolina. But they was White. They came here because they came to summer school. And she came with them. And that's when I met her. When she came with them the first year, she was here. And then, two years later, I think; we'd have been married about three years or two years later. Yeah. Because she'd come here for the summer with them, and then she returned home, and course we stayed in touch with each other by mail or something like that, by letters. And then, eventually, it ended up to be a marriage. In 1936.	6:37
Will Wiseman	So what was community life like in Durham for you? I mean, did you live in the Hayti District, or?	7:31
Theodore Speight	Mm-hmm. I lived on Fayetteville Street. 908 Fayetteville Street. And then we later moved to—one of the fellows who worked with us at the two-way service station, lived on Connie Street, down on the West End. And he and his wife had one kid. And he encouraged us to come and live with them. And so we lived with them two years, I think. Something like that. Then we eventually moved back to the 800 Block. That had the place there, near where St. Joseph is now. There was a university. The insurance company occupied the bottom, and they had the bachelor's apartment homes overhead, on the second floor. And we got a chance to get there. And so we moved there, and lived there.	7:42
Theodore Speight	It was almost until the time I got married, because I later moved from there to Camp [indistinct 00:08:45], where the YMCA is now, on Umstead Street. And that's where we went and we got married. And we lived together until we got married. And I got married until '36. He didn't get married until after he came out of the Army, in 1942. But so, from then on, we worked together until he passed.	8:35
Will Wiseman	And what was the community like, at the end of the day? When people were done with work, what would people do to relax?	8:44
Theodore Speight	At that time? I guess the most interesting thing was that the radio was just beginning to get into the homes of a few people. And I recall that, when we was on 908 Fayetteville Street. Pickett Street ran east from Fayetteville. And one block from us, the Grays lived there. And they had the first radio. And so, whenever night comes, and we got to work, everybody would crowd around the house in the summer, and especially listen to the radio. Because it was just that scarce. And we hadn't heard of television, TV, then.	9:16
Theodore Speight	But that's it for the most part. And of course people would get engaged in various other things. But my wife, my mother insisted, when she found out I was coming down, that, "Whatever happens, stay out of bad company." And that kind of stuck with me. And so we didn't bother with the crowd who was carousing around, and creating these bad parties, and so forth. Never got into this crowd. I stayed away from them.	10:04
Will Wiseman	Was there a lot of that?	10:36
Theodore Speight	Yeah, there was a lot of that then. That's about the only thing they had to do, if they didn't have somewhere to go. Unless they were going to church or something like that, they'd just have all these games and so forth, and then public drinking, and all that kind of stuff. And I knew that was dangerous, so I stayed out of it.	10:37
Will Wiseman	So, down in the '30 and '40s, did any of the major entertainers come to Durham?	10:55
Theodore Speight	Occasionally. But sometimes we'd go to a theater or something like that. At that time, we had two Negro theaters on Pettigrew Street and they used to go to them. Across from our work was Carolina Theatre. But if went there, you had to—all the Blacks had to go upstairs, and so we kind of felt ourselves too proud to go there. So we just came a bit over, and we came to the Black theater. And, in fact, working long hours, I didn't have much chance to get into a whole lot of stuff that I could have gotten into if I had a lot of leisure time.	11:02
Will Wiseman	Was it with having North Carolina Mutual, and the Mechanics and Farmers there, was more of a sense of a work ethic and a striving for advancement when you came to Durham?	11:49
Theodore Speight	Yep. Yep. Yeah.	12:08
Will Wiseman	Was that a very strong feeling within the Black community?	12:08
Theodore Speight	Yeah.	12:08
Will Wiseman	Yeah?	12:08
Theodore Speight	For the most part. And I often said that many of the businesses that sprung up kind of got their inspiration from the leadership of those institutions. And of course, some of our peoples were narrow enough to think that they're kind of big up there, and that kind of shit they're saying. But I never thought so, because I had a chance to, where I worked, I always—and that's one thing the service station did. It gave me a chance to touch bases with a lot of folks of different types. And of course, I was able to create some kind of relationship with them, which was very helpful once I went into business. Because, I mean, they actually encouraged their employees to trade with us.	12:08
Theodore Speight	And, in fact, we got help from both directions. Because Dr. Shepard, who was the founder of North Carolina Central, was the founder and president; he died, he passed. It must been in the late '40s, or early '50s. But he encouraged his staff, and his peoples on his staff, to trade with us. And, of course, the teachers, fathers, and so forth. So it kind of gave us some outlet. Because once we opened our doors, prior to then, all of the little places like service stations and so forth, just didn't do anything but sell gas. And they'd have pool tables and that kind of thing.	12:58
Theodore Speight	And of course, when I went into business, my first instinct was to try to venture out to offer some services that other stations of a similar type did not offer. But in—and when I went into business, I don't think there was single service station—and there was four operated. Then, four was operated by Blacks at that time. And now the same one had a battery charger. And the battery charger was essential to the service station. The same one had a service truck. So I traded my little car and got me a truck. And I delivered gas.	13:45
Theodore Speight	And I was thinking about it the other day. I don't know how well we did it. But we had a policy. And of course, gas was not that high then. But we delivered gas. If a person gave out of gas. And that was a common thing. If a person just ran and drove your gas too low, we would deliver. If you bought as much as five gallons, we would deliver the five gallons of gas free of charge! And no delivery charge and so forth. And so it was from there, then, the other service kind of picked up, and start playing pool, and all that kind of stuff, and they started adding on service beyond just the gas and oil.	14:24
Will Wiseman	I remember that, a lot of the readings you'll do on Durham during that point in time, they described Durham as a capital of Negro enterprise. That was the sense among a lot of the outsiders. Was there that same sense, being inside Durham? Did you have a sense of the prominence of the sort of Black middle class in Durham?	15:03
Theodore Speight	Well, most of them did. Well, I say most, and I take a broad view on that. But not in all instances. I had some of the person who worked with me who tried to—In fact, there was a segment that was naive to Negro progress, and, of course, Lincoln Hospital was, I'd rank them, probably the first hospital operated by Blacks in the state. I believe I'm right, I'm not sure. Have to do some research on that. Anyway, we had the Lincoln Hospital. And we had North Carolina Mutual Insurance Company. We had the Mechanic and Farmer's Bank. And there were those who tried to low-rate all of those.	15:27
Theodore Speight	But what we actually found was, in fact, the first year we were married, my wife had a baby in the month of October, or month of November, the second year. The people we stayed with who, was living near Lincoln Hospital, it drove my wife to the point where she thought that she needed to go to Duke. Not there. Because were saying that, in fact, there was a segment who called it Lame Hospital. There was some kind of common name. You know, Slaughter Building, something like that. They claimed everybody there had died. All that kind of foolery. And so my wife wanted to go to Duke. So I didn't—	16:17
Theodore Speight	In fact, she [indistinct 00:17:10] everybody, the people we were living with. Who we were living there at that time. But I didn't question her. I went along with it. When the second child was born, I encouraged her to go to Lincoln. And when she went there, and found all of her friends, and how nice they were to her and so forth, she came with me and was completely excited. Because that was false information that had been fed to her. It was absolutely false. And the same thing was typical. That they said, if you put your money in the Mechanic and Farmers Bank, you know, you couldn't get it out; and if you joined the North Carolina Mutual Insurance Company, and you died, they couldn't pay your funeral bill. Just a whole lot of foolishness that went on.	17:08
Theodore Speight	And I listened to that. But I listened to the other side, and I found that a whole lot of this was prejudice. And here's the real truth. But a lot of that was drilled in. And I wouldn't say this for public information, and you can strike it out. But drilled into everybody by the White people they worked with. You know? If you cared to work with them. If you keep us divided, then these things actually wouldn't happen. But I didn't find any of that to be true.	17:51
Theodore Speight	And then, having dealt with them through the years, the loans and every other thing, at the end of the day, we were proud that we became a part of that movement, because it meant so much to us in so many ways. In so many instances. The percentage of home ownership is at the level it is today because you had the Black institutions. Because I can remember, I was in Columbus, Ohio. Actually went, too, and spent my time with some friends of the Frasiers, who was at the Mutual here. And he found out I was going, and he told me to call his sister. And so we stayed with them.	18:19
Theodore Speight	At that time, you just didn't see any White hotels, nowhere. And they told me of an incident where the area in Columbus, Ohio, where they'd become available, or extra homes become available, in an integrated area. But that wasn't what happened. If, for instance, if I went to the bank to qualify for a loan to buy property in that area, once the personnel to the bank found out that I was Black, and wanted to get in that community, they disqualified my loan.	19:01
Theodore Speight	But on the other hand, here, Mutual Savings and Loan, and those financial institutions, become competitors to the White here. So the main reason we were able to get ahead here, not that they financed all of their loans, but they kept staying so close. Up to the demands, until the White became liberal, where otherwise they wouldn't. And so, instead of being—and on the other hand, in the political world, for a long time, the White press here, they did everything they could. When this election had a primary last week, and you've got Robinson, and I forgot the other fellow's name, running for mayor. You know, one's White, and the other Black. And then some of that support's come from the White.	19:39
Theodore Speight	But yesteryear, it was, "No, you are not a part of the city council. You aWhitet a part of either of the movements, in the government area." In the government area. So you was left out! You know? And I can remember when the first man, the first Black, became a part of the city council. And the first woman to become a part of the Board of Education. But, back then, if you attempted to run, the paper would come out with long stories saying that the— And they called Parrish Street where the Bank, and the insurance company was, the Wall Street Group. And said that the Wall Street Group is telling the Blacks who to vote for. For that reason, lot of people said, "I wouldn't vote for—nobody can tell me how to vote!" And yet they didn't know how to vote!	20:29
Theodore Speight	See, my policy was, the other group, then, because we didn't know the first state of these people. These knew backgrounds. They had me interview with. They had a position to recommend. Whereas, I'm going about my business another way. I don't have time to go through all this research. And so the least thing I can do is take the word of somebody who was in a position to pass the word on. And so that's how it kind of got ahead. But it's these organizations that have served an important part in moving the Black vote, and bringing the races together.	21:20
Theodore Speight	For an instance, we had—and you probably haven heard much about it. But The Carolina Times was founded—oh, I was looking at it somehow ago. But anyway, Louis Austin, who was a country boy, who came from—	21:58
Will Wiseman	He was a writer, right?	22:13
Theodore Speight	Well, yeah, he was the founder. And the editor. And his daughters is the editor now. And the owner! But anyway—	22:15
Will Wiseman	Carolina Times was the Black paper.	22:23
Theodore Speight	Yeah! Yeah. But he played an important part of educating the public regarding your rights, and your privileges, and what's wrong and what's right. And a lot of things he would write would offset what the White person said. And the result of that, for an instance, in the early '40s, or the late '30s, rather, he started writing. One of the things that was happening was that, if the police was called, or a disturbance was begun, and somebody called police, the White police would come down here, and then first thing they do? They started beating up the persons who they was arresting and so forth. And they did all kinds of dirty things! And he started writing about the importance of having Black polices on the street. And not only—	22:25
Theodore Speight	The White thought it was foolish, but a lot of the Black thought it was, you know, it was, "Nonsense!" You heard, like, "How you going to do it?" We had someone by the name of Yancy, who was mayor of the city. Or, not mayor. The manager. City manager of Durham. And he was so impressed with Louis's strategy and cleaning these thing up over and over, until he was later hired to go to Charlotte, as the city manager there. The first thing he did after he got there was put on Negro polices.	23:25
Theodore Speight	And so, when they put him on in Charlotte, I think he went for St. Louis next, and Durham the third. And so, within a year or something like that, after he was in Charlotte, we had Black polices on our streets. And it was that type of historic battle that he did! In fact, Lewis Austin was the person who took the first Black to the University of North Carolina, for him be integrated in the school. He was just that type of person who lived ahead of his time. But—	24:02
Will Wiseman	Was it McKissick? Was he the first? Was it Floyd McKissick? With Austin?	24:31
Theodore Speight	McKissick was one. Yeah, Louis took him over there. Yeah. Yes, sir.	24:31
Will Wiseman	Mr. Speight, as you became established as a business owner within the Black community, was there sort of a sense of obligation to then give back, because was some of your predecessors paved the way for you to form a business, did you then also start help out other people, then, start founding their own businesses?	24:42
Theodore Speight	Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. We had that. We was able to pay that debt. And, to have been able to become a part of a growing community, and contributing our time and so forth. I know it has paid off. Because over the years, we still have customers now that we had years ago, and who are not too old to come out here and still trade with us.	25:06
Will Wiseman	Right. How strong was the connection? Or, I guess, the overlap the between leaders of a lot of the black-owned businesses, NAACP leaders, and church leaders? Was there a lot of overlap or coordination between those leaders within the community?	25:37
Theodore Speight	Quite a lot. And I think that has built a lot to the success of their business development. And I think you've heard about this before: for urban renewal. But their power, the strength they had, the largest business operators, especially in the early years, went out of their way to become a part of the community. In its development. And the success of and development of our businesses, that connected. In fact, the founder and the first president of the Durham Manufacturing Chain was an officer from the North Carolina Mutual. And so you had a kind of cooperation there, that accounted for the success we had, because of the businesses of all types being supported and encouraged, and helping develop, by the leading area of the folks in our community.	25:58
Will Wiseman	Were the business leaders, the leaders at NAACP, and all, and some of the leaders in the church, were they often sometimes just the same people? In each organization?	27:12
Theodore Speight	Almost the same people.	27:19
Will Wiseman	Oh.	27:19
Theodore Speight	From the college, from the schools, from the NAACP, from the Durham Committee. All of these. And, in fact, it really helped to bridge a gap. To the point where, now, that we is in a different situation altogether, when it comes to integration and so forth, with all of the little things, the pity things, that's happening. But for the most part, we have made a lot of gains, because we had that kind of cooperation.	27:19
Will Wiseman	What role did the business community play in the activism within the Black community? What was the role of businesses and business owners like yourself?	27:52
Theodore Speight	Well, you had a mixed multitude. You had some who was too busy to become a part of the movement. And then you had others who thought like we thought, that we were in this boat together, and we got to move farther. And not only that, but that, as a matter of fact, we had a certain togetherness; we was able to create a kind of better relationship with the opposite race than we would have, had we all stood off with chips on our shoulders.	28:06
Will Wiseman	Right. Was your clientele predominantly Black?	28:43
Theodore Speight	Well, really, it was then. But to our surprise, this community has developed out here by leaps and bounds in the last two decades. And, to our surprise, and we weren't expecting this, because, of course, fortunately, when I was at the Aldridge service station, Mr. Aldridge's daddy was on the faculty at Duke. Yeah, Reverend Aldridge. And as a result of that, a percentage of that business, of his business, came from Duke. And then, when I went in business, some of those folks, Dr. Krum, and I could name a long list of them, who still came by and traded me a little bit. But other than that, that was beyond my expectation. But it so happened that, with doing that here with a mixed community, with being able to put in the equipment and keep apace with the developments and the needs of this type of service, of high proportion, I would say 35% of business here is non-Black.	28:45
Will Wiseman	Right now?	29:58
Theodore Speight	Yeah. And we weren't expecting that. But, I mean, we were shooting for whoever we could get. And, see, at one time it was higher than that. But, now, we happened to have been the first business of this type located in this community. And before that, we called the Research Triangle and so forth, and our business move in. So we got several businesses of the same type in this immediate neighborhood, which takes away some of the proportion. But we haven't lost a considerable amount of business in that area based on race.	29:59
Will Wiseman	Back in when you started out in the '40s and '50s, what did cars sort of mean for your customers that came in? Were cars at that point or a symbol of a status or achievement?	30:37
Theodore Speight	Yeah. We had no problem, because as we qualified, we were able to be competitive, in that sense. In that direction.	30:54
Will Wiseman	Right. And were, at that time, in terms of people owning the cars, were they you mostly the Black middle class?	31:02
Theodore Speight	Yeah, yeah. A little bit of the. Mostly a good amount of the folks, even though they weren't able to own them, they did own them. You know? There was quite a few.	31:09
Will Wiseman	So, yeah, you have a car at that point was definitely a symbol of status, or having made it to a certain degree?	31:21
Theodore Speight	Yeah, yeah.	31:29
Will Wiseman	Or some level of wealth.	31:34
Theodore Speight	Right. Of course, some of the folks started to own these cars they couldn't afford, in order to be like the Joneses. Whereas I learned earlier in my life to not try to bother about the Joneses. Try to be myself. And, finally, now, that pays off. Yeah.	31:34
Will Wiseman	When your business was predominantly black, how did segregation affect the business? Did it, in a way, help it?	31:56
Theodore Speight	Well, yes, because many of us didn't have anywhere else to go. Yeah. Because my philosophy was that, once I kind established some acquaintance with the Black ministers, even though I was working in the town, I'd buy my gas in Hayti and so forth, and my grocery and so forth. But then, once the bar was let down, many of the people who traded with Blacks before heard of it; when they'd go to the Whites, they heard of it through the Whites. So that's the kind of adverse effect that some had. And, of course, I think in proportion— and I was looking something that the Chain promoted in those early days on the economic level, that training and creating a togetherness go a long ways towards replacing advertisement, for that matter.	32:04
Theodore Speight	And I was looking at, for an example, we, for years, had had a luncheon every Tuesday. One hour. And, of course, now we'd still be having it now, but changes, made a lot of changes and so forth. And so we were supposed to have that once a month. But then we had it every Tuesday. And, well, an interesting thing happened. As that grew, it become a citywide. So we had the White preachers, and White doctors, and the other people who really came to fellowship. And that very fellowship, in an indirect way, brought together certain relationships that made the place and made the situation a better situation. And we looked at each other as man to man, rather than as whether you're White and I'm Black, or whether that's making a difference or not.	33:15
Will Wiseman	So how did integration affect the business? Did that change circumstances for you guys?	34:04
Theodore Speight	Right much, for the simple reason, though, that the freeway went directly through the businesses. And most of our businesses, that was on Pettigrew Street. And on Fayetteville Street, for the most part. And so we really was not able to come back and reestablish ourselves, except a few of us that were able to make it, moving into other areas and doing other things. But as far as the relationship is concerned, we're coming back. We're somewhat on a different level.	34:12
Theodore Speight	And I would suppose that, providentially, with the change and the upgrade and increased of price and so forth, many of those business would've had to have kept step with the progress, in order to maintain their level in the business world today, because competition is more killer than it's ever been. And it just takes more. More know-how, more everything else, to keep pace with the changes. And so I don't know whether the Urban Renewal did a total damage or not.	34:51
Theodore Speight	Because, over a period of time, unless those businesses had pooled their resources, that's one thing that we preached as an organization, was to pool resources, incorporate those different type of businesses on different levels, so that you have more input, more know-how, and more funds with which to deal with. And, probably, we haven't done a successful job on selling that idea to the business potentials in our community. Because there have been some changes made, but not as much as it could have been.	35:41
Will Wiseman	Right. How did discrimination affect the business back in the early days?	36:20
Theodore Speight	Well, back in the early days, we just didn't expect nobody to trade with us but the Blacks. And, of course, the Blacks had nowhere to go to. Barber shops and so forth. And yet there was some interchange even there. I can remember one of our grocers here, Thomas Bailey, who was one of ours. And he passed several years ago, and the business was going underground. But he ran a successful business, and he was a professional, operating in meats, in special steaks and so forth. And he raised his own cows and so forth. And a portion of his business was White, even in a Black community, because he had what they wanted. And some others. But only those who could do unusual things or offer unusual service would even hope to get any business from anybody except Blacks.	36:29
Will Wiseman	Right. But aside from not having as much White clientele during the segregation and the periods of more extreme discrimination, the Black businesses were pretty much left to themselves within the Black community, or?	37:30
Theodore Speight	Yeah, yeah. Again, for the most part.	37:45
Will Wiseman	And then as segregation began to break down, also, you took on a more integrated clientele?	37:49
Theodore Speight	Yeah, yeah, yeah. That had some effect.	38:00
Will Wiseman	Did you still, at the same time, retain a lot of the clients within the Black community? Did you maintain a large proportion of them?	38:01
Theodore Speight	Well, proportionately, we did. And again, like I said a while ago, it's just that, if you have the goods, if you've got what the customer wants, you can maintain your level if you keep steps. Putting this in here. We've had to invest and reinvest in different new equipment and so forth. Whereas, if we had just said, "Well, we can't put all this equipment," said business, you couldn't expect.	38:10
Theodore Speight	Yeah. But in order to qualify, you've got to do two things. One is you got be equipped to do the job. Then another thing we've had to do: most our fellows here, we send to seminars, in Steady Coast and so forth. So they keep step with the changes, because the changes change so fast. Because, unless you do that, then the automobile that you worked on yesterday, you can forget it today, because it's a different thing altogether! Yeah.	38:40
Will Wiseman	Right. And I would assume that, I guess, the business, by playing an active role in the Black community, and—	39:07
Theodore Speight	Oh, yeah.	39:16
Will Wiseman	The movement, that it was a lasting sort of boon to the business.	39:17
Theodore Speight	Yeah.	39:22
Will Wiseman	And that that's helped.	39:22
Theodore Speight	Right, right.	39:23
Will Wiseman	Retain a clientele allegiance from the community.	39:24
Theodore Speight	Yeah, that's the secret. I had a friend who was in the furniture business. But that was years ago. Baldwin Furniture Exchange. It was only Black furniture company here. And he used to score. His wife happened to be related to some of the Spauldings who founded the Mutual. And it felt like, because he was related in that sense, that they always would come through to him. And then I finally said to him one day, I said, "Baldwin, if you are going to expect business, then you have got to do two things. One is, have what they want, to meet the need of competition; then you got to be a salesman." And that goes around.	39:27
Theodore Speight	There's certain things you've got to be able to sell. Then, the other thing, you got be able to produce, when the sales are brought as results. Then the person comes. I recall, I was on Pine Street. Pine Street is Roxboro now. Anyway, there's a long hill going down, and at the bottom of the hill is the service station. I gave out of gas one night. So I rode down to the service station. And when I got out and told the manager, then he said, "We don't have any gas." That's all I was there for! I said it, and said that, if you advertise or whatever you do, but if you can't produce the goods and the services, then don't be disappointed when the person doesn't come back!	40:16
Will Wiseman	Right.	41:00
Theodore Speight	Yeah. It's that simple.	41:01
Will Wiseman	Okay, well great, Mr. Speight. That's good for that. That was great.	41:01

Item Info

Title:

Theodore Speight interview recording, 1997 October 20

Date:

October 20, 1997

Creator:

Speight, Theodore

Contributor:

Wiseman, Will

Description:

Name: Theodore Speight; Date of birth: 1908; Place of birth: Walstonburg, Greene Co., NC; Occupation(s): farmer; service station business; Residence: Durham, NC
Informant ID: 1270; Interviewed by Will Wiseman.

Format:

Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

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

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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.

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RL00170-CS-0030
69fea708-212e-401f-908b-007abc376e7f
behindtheveil
8b271da9-387d-4b7b-8376-3b924855f38b
ark:/87924/r4s75jt59
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Theodore Speight interview recording, 1997 October 20

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1. Theodore Speight administrative file, 1997

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Theodore Speight interview recording, 1997 October 20

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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