Sallie Washington interview recording, 1995 June 21

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Blair Murphy	Okay. If you could, could you state your name and your date of birth, and your place of birth for the tape.	0:01
Sallie Washington	Now?	0:10
Blair Murphy	Go ahead.	0:10
Sallie Washington	Okay. Sallie Washington.	0:11
Blair Murphy	When were you born?	0:17
Sallie Washington	1908.	0:17
Blair Murphy	Where were you born?	0:35
Sallie Washington	May the 13th, 1908.	0:35
Blair Murphy	Okay. Where were you born?	0:35
Sallie Washington	Clarendon County.	0:36
Blair Murphy	Okay. And you said [indistinct 00:00:39]. Where did you grow up?	0:42
Sallie Washington	Grow up, in Clarendon.	0:43
Blair Murphy	Okay. What do you remember about when you were growing up? Did you live on a farm?	0:43
Sallie Washington	Yeah, we farmed.	0:51
Blair Murphy	What type of stuff did you grow?	0:54
Sallie Washington	Huh?	0:55
Blair Murphy	What type of stuff did your family grow?	0:56
Sallie Washington	Cotton and corn, peas and we had a garden. We usually cabbage and collards, and—	0:58
Blair Murphy	So your family ate what you grew.	1:09
Sallie Washington	Yes, we ate what we grew.	1:11
Blair Murphy	Did you have animals and stuff too?	1:13
Sallie Washington	Yes, we had hogs, cows, mules. We had chickens. We had a lot of chickens.	1:14
Blair Murphy	How many children were in your family?	1:26
Sallie Washington	Three.	1:28
Blair Murphy	Three?	1:29
Sallie Washington	Uh-huh. Three in the family.	1:29
Blair Murphy	Did you work on the farm?	1:32
Sallie Washington	Yes, I worked on the farm.	1:32
Blair Murphy	Did your family own the land or—	1:35
Sallie Washington	No—	1:36
Blair Murphy	—did they rent the land?	1:36
Sallie Washington	—rent. Yeah, we rent.	1:36
Blair Murphy	Did your mother work on the land as well?	1:42
Sallie Washington	What you say?	1:44
Blair Murphy	Did she work on the land as well, your mother?	1:46
Sallie Washington	Yes, my mother did.	1:48
Blair Murphy	Where did you go to school? What was your first school?	1:51
Sallie Washington	Saint Paul. Saint Paul.	1:53
Blair Murphy	Did you walk to school?	1:57
Sallie Washington	Yes, we walk.	1:58
Blair Murphy	How far was it?	2:00
Sallie Washington	A little better than a mile, I guess.	2:02
Blair Murphy	Okay, so that wasn't far.	2:03
Sallie Washington	That wasn't too far. I'll say, two miles.	2:07
Blair Murphy	Did other people have to walk from farther out?	2:12
Sallie Washington	Yeah, we had to walk. Them days we had to walk, because that been down in the '20s and all them days. We had to walk to school.	2:12
Blair Murphy	You had to really want to go.	2:24
Sallie Washington	That's right. We'd want to go, so we'd walk in the rain, the sunshine, the snow.	2:25
Blair Murphy	Did you go the whole year through?	2:34
Sallie Washington	Huh?	2:35
Blair Murphy	Did you start in September?	2:36
Sallie Washington	Yes, we used to start in, I think September or October, or November, something around there. That was way back then, it used to start late then.	2:37
Blair Murphy	Yeah, so you could work?	2:37
Sallie Washington	Then we'd go to school, I guess until May. In the first beginning we didn't go until March. The school closed and we didn't know when the school closed.	2:49
Blair Murphy	And they did that so you could work on the land?	3:04
Sallie Washington	Yeah, work the farm. Work on the farm. You know that was way back there. Yes, ma'am, that was in the '20s.	3:05
Blair Murphy	Okay.	3:20
Sallie Washington	That was in the '20s.	3:20
Blair Murphy	So what grade did you stop going to school?	3:24
Sallie Washington	I went through the 9th grade. I was promoted for 10th, but I stopped right there.	3:25
Blair Murphy	What you do after that?	3:33
Sallie Washington	Stay on the farm.	3:35
Blair Murphy	Okay.	3:35
Sallie Washington	Just work on the farm. I ain't do nothing else. I ain't work in no motels or no nothing, just stay on the farm.	3:39
Blair Murphy	Okay. Did you get married?	3:46
Sallie Washington	I got married in '60.	3:48
Blair Murphy	Oh, wow. So why did you move—	3:48
Sallie Washington	Got married '60.	3:48
Blair Murphy	—to Atlantic City?	3:48
Sallie Washington	Huh?	3:48
Blair Murphy	Why did you move to Atlantic City?	3:48
Sallie Washington	Well, I just went to work.	3:59
Blair Murphy	Oh, okay.	4:01
Sallie Washington	Things was tough down there during that time.	4:02
Blair Murphy	During the '40s?	4:05
Sallie Washington	Yeah, during the '40s.	4:05
Blair Murphy	Why were they so tough?	4:07
Sallie Washington	Huh?	4:07
Blair Murphy	Because of the war was going on at the time?	4:09
Sallie Washington	No, because couldn't get nothing for what you worked for.	4:09
Blair Murphy	Oh.	4:09
Sallie Washington	No, farming was tough then. That was Hoover time. You hear talk of Hoover didn't you?	4:21
Blair Murphy	Mm-hmm.	4:22
Sallie Washington	All right. That was Hoover time. Things didn't get good until after Roosevelt came in.	4:26
Blair Murphy	Oh, okay.	4:29
Sallie Washington	Things didn't get good.	4:31
Blair Murphy	So it was tough to find work or tough to—	4:32
Sallie Washington	Yes.	4:34
Blair Murphy	—sell what you'd grow?	4:34
Sallie Washington	Well, we didn't have no work out, you had to do well on the farm. We ain't have no other work to do, no. Farm work, that's all we did.	4:42
Blair Murphy	So you moved to Atlantic City?	4:48
Sallie Washington	Yeah, I moved there.	4:49
Blair Murphy	Why did you go to Atlantic City, is it sort of—	4:57
Sallie Washington	I went to work, get myself some money.	5:01
Blair Murphy	Why'd you choose Atlantic City?	5:01
Sallie Washington	Well I had a friend up there, a lady friend, and she send for me.	5:01
Blair Murphy	Oh, okay.	5:06
Sallie Washington	And I went up there with her.	5:06
Blair Murphy	And where'd you work?	5:06
Sallie Washington	So she get me a job, houseworking.	5:07
Blair Murphy	Okay.	5:08
Sallie Washington	Private.	5:08
Blair Murphy	Okay.	5:10
Sallie Washington	Private job.	5:14
Blair Murphy	Did you enjoy doing that?	5:16
Sallie Washington	Yeah, I enjoyed it for a while and I left and went to a hotel. I enjoyed that much better, because that was more money and I didn't have to cook. I hate cooking, but I love to eat.	5:17
Blair Murphy	Me too.	5:35
Sallie Washington	So I enjoyed while being up there.	5:37
Blair Murphy	What was different about being in Atlantic City then living in Summerton?	5:40
Sallie Washington	Well work was up there to do, wasn't nothing here to do. Wasn't nothing in summerton to do. Not for me anyhow. Not for me, so I went to Atlantic City. So I enjoyed being up there and working.	5:51
Blair Murphy	That was still during segregation in the '40s.	6:02
Sallie Washington	That happened during segregation time.	6:05
Blair Murphy	How did they act in New Jersey?	6:08
Sallie Washington	Well they was acting all right in Jersey. Yeah, everything was fine in Jersey, but I didn't know nothing about the segregation until I come back home.	6:11
Blair Murphy	Oh.	6:18
Sallie Washington	I didn't know all this was going on.	6:18
Blair Murphy	You didn't know?	6:22
Sallie Washington	No, it had been before this when it happened.	6:22
Blair Murphy	You mean when the charges started to come?	6:25
Sallie Washington	Yeah. Yeah.	6:26
Blair Murphy	So did you notice, when you came back to Summerton, was it different than when you were young?	6:29
Sallie Washington	Yes, it was different. Big difference.	6:34
Blair Murphy	Big difference?	6:34
Sallie Washington	Yes, ma'am, big difference.	6:36
Blair Murphy	What were some of the differences?	6:38
Sallie Washington	Now let me think of what was the different. I don't know if I can remember to tell you anything different or not.	6:43
Blair Murphy	Now, were the White people, were they acting nice by the time you got back or was it still the struggle to change—	7:02
Sallie Washington	No, it was worse, I think, because they didn't want you to go to certain stores to trade.	7:06
Blair Murphy	Oh.	7:22
Sallie Washington	Didn't want you to go there for different things here in town for shopping.	7:22
Blair Murphy	And before you could?	7:22
Sallie Washington	Didn't want you to go there. Huh?	7:22
Blair Murphy	Before you could, before you left?	7:26
Sallie Washington	Yeah, before that happened you could do what you want. They let you have things on credit. But right then, they wouldn't let you do that after the segregation started. They wouldn't let you do no credit.	7:28
Blair Murphy	So it was just difficult for Black people here, in general?	7:44
Sallie Washington	Yes, yes, difficult for Black people. They'd want to get credit, I guess they had to go out of town to get credit, Manning or whatever. But I didn't do no credit.	7:46
Blair Murphy	Okay. What did you do when you came back to Summerton?	8:06
Sallie Washington	Get on the farm, start to working.	8:06
Blair Murphy	Okay.	8:06
Sallie Washington	That was all we had to do.	8:06
Blair Murphy	And the situation was better?	8:13
Sallie Washington	Yeah, it's much better then. Later on, coming up in the '50s, it was much better.	8:13
Blair Murphy	Nice. So did you work on other people's land or did you—	8:18
Sallie Washington	Yes, I used to go and help pick cotton or pull cotton, whatever. I'll help them like that.	8:23
Blair Murphy	Oh, okay. And you made pretty good money doing that?	8:29
Sallie Washington	No, honey.	8:32
Blair Murphy	No, money?	8:32
Sallie Washington	No, no. Come on and up later, you could get pretty good for picking cotton, like $1 a hundred. You could do that. Pulling cotton, wasn't nothing but to do that since the center of dawn, something like that. Wasn't nothing at all. Man, we came from a long ways, hard time.	8:35
Blair Murphy	So what kind of church did you go to.	9:07
Sallie Washington	Methodist.	9:16
Blair Murphy	Methodist?	9:17
Sallie Washington	Mm-hmm.	9:17
Blair Murphy	What church did you go to here?	9:18
Sallie Washington	Liberty Hill.	9:18
Blair Murphy	Liberty Hill?	9:18
Sallie Washington	Uh-huh.	9:18
Blair Murphy	Oh, okay. What church did you go to in Atlantic City?	9:18
Sallie Washington	Methodist, Methodist church.	9:18
Blair Murphy	Do you remember the name?	9:18
Sallie Washington	Saint James.	9:19
Blair Murphy	Okay.	9:21
Sallie Washington	Saint James AME Church.	9:22
Blair Murphy	Okay. Was church different, going back then than it is today?	9:31
Sallie Washington	No, I don't think. Everything about the same.	9:33
Blair Murphy	The same?	9:33
Sallie Washington	Uh-huh.	9:33
Blair Murphy	You always enjoyed church?	9:41
Sallie Washington	Huh?	9:42
Blair Murphy	Have you enjoyed church?	9:43
Sallie Washington	Yes, I did enjoy church. Yes, I really enjoy it.	9:43
Blair Murphy	Was it a kind of place to meet people? Because, could you see people during the week that much?	9:49
Sallie Washington	Well, no, when you're working, you ain't see nobody. I'd visit a little bit probably in the nights. You could have gone anywhere during the night then. You ain't be able to go out nowhere in the nights here and I wouldn't try.	9:59
Blair Murphy	No.	10:18
Sallie Washington	No, I wouldn't try to go out nowhere.	10:20
Blair Murphy	But you would get to see people on Sunday?	10:24
Sallie Washington	Yeah, get to see people on Sundays, because I don't do much of visiting. People here and people on Sundays. Then you could chat a little while and go on home, that's it.	10:26
Blair Murphy	So did you do any activities in your church besides attending church, like the choir?	10:43
Sallie Washington	No, I was singing a little on the missionary choir.	10:49
Blair Murphy	Oh, okay.	10:57
Sallie Washington	I sang a little bit on that. I get so now I can't hardly walk, I don't even bother with going up there singing no more.	11:05
Blair Murphy	Oh, okay.	11:22
Sallie Washington	No. I ain't able to walk, so I'll stagger in with my walker.	11:22
Blair Murphy	You look pretty good with it.	11:22
Sallie Washington	Yeah, I'm doing pretty good with this kind of staggering while you're walking now. I mean, can't do like I used to. No. And you got all that on there too, huh?	11:25
Blair Murphy	Yeah. That's all right.	11:26
Sallie Washington	All that funny talking on there, do you?	11:33
Blair Murphy	That's all right. So why did you get married in 1960?	11:36
Sallie Washington	Well this man had wanted a wife and I guess I had wanted a husband, so we just went ahead and got married.	11:44
Blair Murphy	You ain't get married all that time, figured you'd keep going.	11:52
Sallie Washington	That was a long time, long time.	12:04
Blair Murphy	So why did you move back to Summerton? Why did you leave Atlantic City?	12:04
Sallie Washington	My mother was sick—	12:06
Blair Murphy	Oh, okay.	12:06
Sallie Washington	—and I come back to help take care of her.	12:06
Blair Murphy	Okay.	12:06
Sallie Washington	My sister and I, we come to help take care of her. I was back a month—I came back in January, momma died in February.	12:20
Blair Murphy	So you just decided to stay home.	12:25
Sallie Washington	Huh?	12:25
Blair Murphy	You just decided to stay in Summerton?	12:25
Sallie Washington	Yeah. I stayed because things was better then, so I decided to stay home.	12:25
Blair Murphy	Otherwise, you think you would've stayed in Atlantic City or?	12:36
Sallie Washington	I could've gone back, but after I get home I didn't want to go back.	12:39
Blair Murphy	You enjoyed being back home?	12:45
Sallie Washington	Yeah, I enjoyed being back home, so I been back home ever since '51 and still here. And I think I will be here now until death, not going back.	12:47
Blair Murphy	So how has Summerton changed since the '50s until today?	13:00
Sallie Washington	See, everything going out of business here. Ain't nothing here in Summerton.	13:03
Blair Murphy	It used to be more vibrant?	13:11
Sallie Washington	Yes, it used to be a lot in town that you could go there any time and get you a hat or dress, or whatever.	13:12
Blair Murphy	Wow.	13:52
Sallie Washington	Ain't nothing down there no more, everybody going out of business. Everybody going out business. Ain't nothing now here but Piggly Wiggly and all these other things is this, what now, antique things, old antique things. Ain't nothing going on here.	13:52
Blair Murphy	Why you think it went down like that?	13:52
Sallie Washington	I don't know why it went down.	13:52
Blair Murphy	You don't know why?	13:52
Sallie Washington	No. I don't know why they went down. I don't know.	13:52
Blair Murphy	But you used to come shop in the town?	13:52
Sallie Washington	Yeah, we used to do all our shopping here in town. But since the segregation break out, everything just went right on down.	13:56
Blair Murphy	So was it White businesses in town?	14:05
Sallie Washington	Yeah, White. Blacks ain't got nothing in there. Nothing but a little shop or something with some little clothes or something you sell in there. Ain't nothing much going on.	14:06
Blair Murphy	So the Black people bought from White businesses?	14:24
Sallie Washington	Yeah.	14:30
Blair Murphy	How would they treat you when you went into the White—	14:30
Sallie Washington	They treated you all right.	14:31
Blair Murphy	They treated you all right?	14:31
Sallie Washington	Uh-huh.	14:31
Blair Murphy	Would they wait on you in order? If a White person came in, would they wait on them?	14:32
Sallie Washington	No. Now you're first come, first serve, now.	14:35
Blair Murphy	Now. But back then—	14:35
Sallie Washington	Yeah.	14:35
Blair Murphy	—it wasn't like that?	14:35
Sallie Washington	Back in the day it wasn't like that.	14:35
Blair Murphy	Okay.	14:35
Sallie Washington	A White come up, they'll serve the White and the Black wait. But now, first come, first serve, Black or White.	14:36
Blair Murphy	Could you use the bathrooms in the businesses back—	14:57
Sallie Washington	Yes, yes, we can use that. All use one bathroom.	15:01
Blair Murphy	But before they had two bathrooms?	15:02
Sallie Washington	Different, that's right. Different. Doctor offices, they had different rooms for you to sit in doctor offices too. The Colored one side and the White on the other side.	15:03
Blair Murphy	Okay.	15:19
Sallie Washington	But now, all sit together.	15:19
Blair Murphy	So it was a White doctor you went to?	15:25
Sallie Washington	Mm-hmm. Yeah, all White doctors here in town.	15:26
Blair Murphy	Okay. Would he wait on all the White people first?	15:29
Sallie Washington	Mm-hmm. Now, first come, first serve.	15:32
Blair Murphy	First serve.	15:32
Sallie Washington	That's right, now.	15:32
Blair Murphy	But back then—	15:32
Sallie Washington	But before they didn't. The doctor wait on all the White and the Black just sit there until—	15:32
Blair Murphy	He was done?	15:45
Sallie Washington	That's right.	15:45
Blair Murphy	So sometimes you had to wait a really long time?	15:50
Sallie Washington	I have spend the nights right out here. I have spend the nights out here to the doctor office.	15:52
Blair Murphy	So did people go to the doctor for every time they got sick?	16:01
Sallie Washington	Sick? Not unless they be real sick.	16:05
Blair Murphy	If they weren't real sick, what would they do?	16:09
Sallie Washington	Stay home until I guess everything—until they feel better. They don't go to doc for everything. No, because if you do, I'll be going to the doctor all the time.	16:12
Blair Murphy	My mother used to tell me about, there was a root doctor and he would find an herb and give it to you if you just had like a skin rash or worms or something. Did they do that around here?	16:25
Sallie Washington	No.	16:38
Blair Murphy	They didn't have?	16:38
Sallie Washington	No. No.	16:39
Blair Murphy	Did a midwife deliver children?	16:43
Sallie Washington	Used to. Yeah, that's all we had at one time.	16:45
Blair Murphy	So you wouldn't go to the doctor to have a baby.	16:51
Sallie Washington	No, you didn't go to the doctor. Now, everybody going in the hospital now to have a baby. Then they didn't go in the hospital.	16:52
Blair Murphy	So did you have any children?	17:06
Sallie Washington	One.	17:07
Blair Murphy	Okay.	17:07
Sallie Washington	One son and I didn't go in the hospital for him.	17:09
Blair Murphy	You had a midwife?	17:12
Sallie Washington	Mm-hmm, had a mid-doctor.	17:12
Blair Murphy	So you would buy your clothes to go to church here in this town?	17:24
Sallie Washington	No, I get my clothes from Sumter.	17:31
Blair Murphy	You go to Sumter to shop?	17:31
Sallie Washington	Yeah, I go to Sumter to shop.	17:31
Blair Murphy	Why? Because you said there was some businesses here.	17:38
Sallie Washington	Oh.	17:39
Blair Murphy	Back then.	17:39
Sallie Washington	You mean back then?	17:39
Blair Murphy	Yeah.	17:39
Sallie Washington	No, I used to do my shopping right here in town.	18:03
Blair Murphy	Okay.	18:03
Sallie Washington	Used to do my shopping here in town. I don't know whether I—Yeah, I think I did buy a dress here from town. But in that time, we used to get the material and make our dresses. We didn't do much—	18:05
Blair Murphy	Shopping?	18:06
Sallie Washington	No. No buying, because we used to say, "Already made dresses more expensive."	18:07
Blair Murphy	So everybody, for the most part, knew how to sew?	18:13
Sallie Washington	Yeah. And we used to get the material and sew our clothes. I used to do a little bit of sewing. I could sew what I want. Yeah, I could've sewed what I wanted. But we used to get shoes and hats from here. They had all of them here, you ain't got none of them now no more. They all done closed down over there.	18:15
Blair Murphy	Let me see if I got anything else. Guess that's about it.	18:31
Sallie Washington	I guess that about it. All right.	18:31
Blair Murphy	All right. Thank you very much.	18:43
Sallie Washington	Yeah.	18:54

Item Info

Title:

Sallie Washington interview recording, 1995 June 21

Date:

June 21, 1995

Creator:

Washington, Sallie

Contributor:

Murphy, Blair

Description:

Name: Sallie Washington; Date of birth: 1908-05-13; Place of birth: Summerton, SC; Occupation(s): agriculture; domestic; Residence: Summerton, SC
Informant ID: 1233; Interviewed by: Blair Murphy.

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Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

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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.

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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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293f274c-4c45-4492-8eed-1f6511adf12d
behindtheveil
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ark:/87924/r4vx0jc4m
8d57f0d1-267a-41d1-8cad-7eb6b760faf9

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Sallie Washington interview recording, 1995 June 21

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1. Sallie Washington administrative file, 1995

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Sallie Washington interview recording, 1995 June 21

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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