Sandy McCorvey interview recording, 1994 July 15

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Sandy J. McCorvey	And the four surviving child now, oh, there were eight boys and two girls, four boys expired and two girls are expired. And I'm the oldest survivor now. And grown on a small farm in Monroe County, Alabama, southwest, about 150 miles from here. Schooling, I attended the county-supported school, elementary and junior, but not junior high, but elementary school in the county-supported schools. And for junior high and high school, I went to the Bethlehem District Baptist Academy. This was a school which was supported by the Black Baptist and Monroe County, surrounding counties. The building, you wouldn't want your car or horse to be housed in the building. The frame that we were framed in, but that was something there that was much better than the looks of the building, that was the spirit.	0:00
Paul Ortiz	And what was the spirit of the school?	1:58
Sandy J. McCorvey	Spirit of school was religious. We loved each other, helped each other, stood together. One of my classmates, although I didn't have enough money to pay my own tuition, but one of my classmates was the granddaughter of the two old people who I'm living with. And in 1932, her father died. And one evening we were studying, she said to me, said, "This is probably be the last day that we'll study together." And I asked her, "Why you said that?"	2:02
Sandy J. McCorvey	She said, "Well, Father died and there's six of us children and mother's just a seamstress. She said, she can't make enough to take care of us and pay our tuition." It hit me like a clap of thunder. I said, "Wait until tomorrow." I was president of my class and we have sold enough peanuts and candy to pay for our rings and to pay for our cards and everything. And I made a request to the clerk. I said, "This is her case." We explained to them. And I made recommendation and the class accepted my recommendation and we paid her tuition. Although my tuition was in the red.	2:42
Sandy J. McCorvey	And that's the kind of love that when I say that we love each other and the spirit. And she and I, there were 10 of us who graduated 60 years ago this year. And she and I are the only two who went to college. Now, the rest were successful in their jobs. One became a miner, successful coal miner and two became successful carpenters. And after finishing high school in 1934, I entered the Civilian Conservation Corps, which is the forerunner of the Job Corps. My father was a carpenter, he could be this house. I worked with him and learned a lot about carpenter work. So while in the CC, the basic pay in CC was $30 a month. But they had 11 slots for $36 a month and 15 slots for $45 a month, you had to send $25 home. You keep the rest of it.	3:23
Sandy J. McCorvey	And so in three months, I was getting 36. I still sent 25 and saved the other. And then in a total of five months, I was a $45 man. In the meantime, I had a brother in school at Alabama State Teachers College, Montgomery. He didn't write home for any assistance. He wrote me and I shared with him that which I had. And at that time, you could open up a saving account in the post office. And I opened up a saving account in the post office at Moton, Mississippi. I served in five different camps while I was in service. And the reason why I served in five different camps is when they opened a new camp, they'd send a vast [indistinct 00:05:47] there of 12 people to make certain everything was ready when the troops got ready to come in. And I was always a member of that troop.	4:49
Sandy J. McCorvey	I learned something. In that camp were 250 people, enrollees we were called. There were two clique groups, one headed by the group from Montgomery and one headed by a group in Mobile. The camp commander found out that I knew something about carpentry. And he said, we need a camp maintenance engineer. Can you cut steps? Yes, sir. Can you cut rafters? Yes, sir. If I could cut rafters or steps, this thing here could do it. I couldn't do either. But I got busy very quickly and learned how to do it and he never knew I didn't know I had to do it. But those clique groups, if you were going get a promotion, you were supposed to have gone through one of the other clique groups. I made a mistake and not John in the clique group because on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings they would go to town and have free and have a good time. And I was trying to get save bus money to come to Tuskegee. And so that put me on the outside and they abused me.	5:57
Sandy J. McCorvey	But there was one young man, Fred D. Sanders, who, God touched his heart. Now, he's the ring leader in one of the groups. And they'd pulled tricks on me, this kind of thing. But he came to me one day and said, "I want you to build me a footlocker." I said, "What size you want?" And I had, in a day or two, I had his footlocker ready for him. "How much you charge me?" "Not a thing." "Oh, yes. Yes." He paid me full-time for that charge. And then he pulled me aside and said, "Now, I want to tell you something." And then he began tell me about the clique groups. He said, "I'm a member of it." And said, "I'm going to remain a member of it." He said, "But I'm going to tell you any time your name come up, you going to know about." And he said, "Don't fear, I'm not going to let anything happen to you. Don't fear."	7:16
Sandy J. McCorvey	Well, that was a good experience for me for life because I had been in a situation where the extended family controlled in my home, church, school, in the community, I had obey a elder. You didn't have to be a member of my family, but if you happen to see me doing something, you go, son. Yes, sir. So and so and so and so on. Yes, sir. Well, when I went to CC camp, I found a different situation, the clique group. And that helped me a lot for life too. Okay. But I succeeded because I was a praying man. I saved up $200 in 26 months. Helping the family for the $25. I never got a penny of that money that went home. In fact, I sent some money home besides that.	8:04
Sandy J. McCorvey	And then I'd told my mother, my father, my mother that I'm going to college. Father pointed out to me, he says, "Son, you're now making as much money, more money than a school teacher who got degrees already." And I really questioned, "What mean you?" Mom said to me, "Son, you helped us and we're going to miss it, but God will make a way. Go ahead." I said, "Thank you." And so I went ahead. And then my commanding officer in my camp, Civilian Conservation Camp, very much wanted me to give up the idea of going to college. And he tried his best to persuade me to stay. I told him, "No, I'm going." He said, "Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to, I'm going to keep you on this payroll for a month while you up there. If you go up there and you find you don't like it, come back and you take your same job." I said, "Thank you very much. I appreciate that." Because I didn't think I was coming back, although I got along very well with him.	8:59
Sandy J. McCorvey	But the CCC made it possible for me to come to Tuskegee and to bring my sister here with me. Of that $200, I had to pay $40 to become a work student. I paid. I said, "Well, if you want to go and become a work student, I'll pay you." And then I did, not realizing that she being a young lady, that I'd be responsible for spending a little money here and there. A young man, he could get out, hustle for himself. But anyway, God blessed us. And I entered Tuskegee on a five-year plan. You heard something about it, I imagine.	10:02
Paul Ortiz	A little bit.	10:43
Sandy J. McCorvey	That is, you go to school for five years. The first two years, you're working the daytime, go to night school. And then next three years, you work a few hours or hour, two hours, whatever it was, day and go to regular classes. Well, they had the quarter system then, after I left two quarters, the good master spoke to me and told me, "Get off the plan." And I debated the idea. I said, "I don't know anybody here, where I'm going to eat or sleep and that kind of thing." But the same message came back to me, get off the plan. And I got off the plan. It was just like step off the top of this house, that's where I was going eat or sleep. But the good master would point out to me. He would guide me. Go here, there. And eventually, I got a job on Mr. T.M. Campbell's yard. Mr. T.M. Campbell was the first county agriculture agent appointed in the United States of America.	10:43
Paul Ortiz	He was Black.	11:50
Sandy J. McCorvey	Black, the first appointed. Washington appointed him the first. T.M. Campbell. Although there are some White institutions that tried to steal it, but this happened in 1906 when we didn't have any federal program. And so we know that and we cling onto it. But Mr. Campbell's wife was a mother away from home for me. I didn't let her know that I didn't have a meal ticket. Because if I had done that, to me, that'd been begging. My family wasn't a begging family. We believed in working and paying our way. But I wouldn't let her know it because she would've insist I come out there. She'd always ask me when I finished, called me in her room and I didn't feel like coming in and sitting down, sweating. Well, she'd say, "Sit down. How you getting along?" I always told her I was getting along fine.	11:51
Sandy J. McCorvey	Then sometimes she said, "Here's a sandwich," or something like that. She didn't [indistinct 00:12:47]. And so the money that I made on that yard, what I used to eat off of. One man who was named George Carter operated a little store on the square there. I went to Mr. George Carter and told him my situation and bargained with him to let me have three hamburgers for a dime. And after he agreed, I went back and told him, "Mr. Carter, I'm sorry to come back to you." I said, "But sometime I may not be able to eat the three at one time. Could I just pick up one or two?" And he said, "All right." And I never forgot that man. Mr. Carter, he eventually lost both legs, sugar. And his wife looked after his business for him and everything.	12:43
Sandy J. McCorvey	Now, I used to carry vegetable. I'm a vegetable farmer. I mean I kept a garden. I used to carry vegetable weekly to his place because I couldn't forget what he did for me.	13:48
Paul Ortiz	And had you went to Tuskegee?	14:00
Sandy J. McCorvey	Tuskegee. I had gone to Africa and back now. Actually, I went to Africa in '52 for 21 years. West Africa. I worked for State Department Foreign Service.	14:05
Paul Ortiz	And now, had Mr. Carter went to the Institute?	14:18
Sandy J. McCorvey	Mr. Carter was an independent businessman, had a store.	14:21
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	14:24
Sandy J. McCorvey	Right across the street from the Institute there.	14:25
Paul Ortiz	Oh, okay. And what was the name of that store?	14:27
Sandy J. McCorvey	Huh?	14:30
Paul Ortiz	What was the name of that store?	14:30
Sandy J. McCorvey	It was just Carter's Grocery Store. Carter's Grocery Store.	14:32
Paul Ortiz	He was Black.	14:35
Sandy J. McCorvey	He's Black. And so every week, more or less, I carried Mr. Carter a mess of greens. And the last mess I carried him, his wife, when I used to go, his wife, touched the doorbell, she'd come. And if she wasn't there, I'd have to take it around and leave it at the back door because she'd always wouldn't come out the back door. She'd go to the store or go to the bank, that kind of thing. And so this time she didn't come. And I said to a young fellow who was with me, I said, look, "Take it around there. There's a chair sitting beside the door on the back there, put in that chair."	14:43
Sandy J. McCorvey	Well, Mrs. Carter was in the hospital desperately ill. Her daughter was here from Washington to look after, I didn't know anything about it. But a neighbor saw me, had been watching me carry greens there. And that neighbor knew that Mrs. Carter was desperately ill in the hospital. Mr. Carter, double amputee. She knew the situation. I didn't know. And so that neighbor picked up them greens, washed them, put them in the refrigerator. And Sunday, she prepared Sunday dinner for that family, including the greens. I said it made me feel so good. Just the idea, she'd been seeing me leaving those greens there. And she knew the Carter family. Mrs. Carter was sick and everything, what they did. I said, well, there's some good people still in this world.	15:19
Sandy J. McCorvey	And so Mr. Carter's son died not too long, about two years ago. And I went to see him. And I also made a hefty contribution in total appreciation for what he did for me when I was in need. Okay, sir. When I graduated, before I graduated from school, I went to Mr. Campbell about a job as a head coach demonstration agent. He was then over seven southern states, the extension served in seven Southern states. And Mr. Campbell sent me to the man who was under him, knowing that that man couldn't do anything for me. He said, "Go see Mr. Collock." I went to talk to Mr. Collock. Mr. Collock said, "Well, buddy", he said, "now you know we don't hire anybody out directly out of school. You got to go out and get yourself a job and let us see what you can do, and then we'll decide whether we're going to hire you or not."	16:22
Sandy J. McCorvey	So I went back to Mr. Campbell and he said, "What did he say?" And I told Mr. Campbell what he said. He said, "Go back to him again." I went back, he told me the same thing. Went back to Mr. Campbell. "What'd he say?" That's what he said. "Go back to him again." And I never did realize, I think I figured out what he was doing. Mr. Campbell, I think, was testing me in a sense to see where I would become discouraged and say, well, there's no need. To see whether I was persistent. But I went back to him. And then he used to go fishing. He worked till 12:00 on Saturday and then he came to get a snack and go fishing. And I jumped on his car and was going to wash it and help [indistinct 00:18:27] impression. And he came up before I finished, that thing hurt me so bad. He came up before I finished it, said he had to go because somebody's waiting on him.	17:38
Sandy J. McCorvey	Then he asked me a question. He said, "When are you going to finish school?" This is 1939. And this was in April, no May. I said, "I'm going to finish school in August." He said, "Oh, we had a job for you, had a job for you." When he said that, my old heart, I said, "I done messed up. I missed this job. I missed this job." He said to me, says, "Go to my office and Mr. Green, you know Mr. Green?" "Yes, sir." "Go there and see him. He'll tell you what to do." And so that was Saturday evening. That's the longest Saturday, weekend I ever had. But Monday I went up. Mr. Green told me, he said, "Now, I'm [indistinct 00:19:22] four agents and you are one of the four. And he said, "You told Mr. Campbell you going graduate in August?" I said, "Yes, sir. The 19th of August." This was on the 20th—	18:36
Paul Ortiz	1939.	19:34
Sandy J. McCorvey	1939. This was the 20th of May. And Mr. Green said, "Okay." He says, "Fill this application out." I filled the application out. He said, "Now Mr. Thurston, [indistinct 00:19:53] extensions over here. Said, "Go and talk with him and go out with him sometime. And so here's some literature here and you can come up and you can read and some of the literature you can take to with you and read that kind of thing and become acquainted with the job that you're supposed to be doing."	19:37
Sandy J. McCorvey	And so that I did, and everything has been very good for me since I graduated, including that. My brother who I helped at Alabama State, was working for the State at Mount Mays Correction Institution for Boys. But he was only making $45 a month. And I started off at $156.50 cents a month. Well, we had obligations back home. And he and I would go back and whatever those obligations were, we're dividing this way in terms of responsibility. He would take one fourth and I'd take three fourths of whatever it was to do around the home, help out the parents. That's the way we shared it.	20:12
Sandy J. McCorvey	And then when I graduated from school in 1939, the Campbell family was so much impressed with me. Ms. Campbell, she told me, she said, "You told Mr. Campbell if he didn't have but one job, that was my job. It was going to be for me." And then she asked me, "Do you have any brothers who are coming to school?" I said, "Yes, ma'am." She said, "Please send them to us. Please. Please send them to us." And so my brother came and I took him around to Mr. Campbell, Mrs. Campbell and introduced him. And they employed him. And then I told my brother, I said, "Now look, get yourself a job working for the school, but don't overload yourself with hours and I'll pay the difference." And that, I did. And then I had another brother to come later, likewise for him. Told him, I said, "Now, get you a job, but don't overload yourself with hours and I'll pay the difference."	21:06
Sandy J. McCorvey	And then that left my baby brother and baby sister. So my brother who was making the $45, now he was here, superintendent of the Air Maintenance Group here. He took me down when he was making that $45 a month. He went to Maxwell Field. Maxwell Field opened up a job training for mechanic assistants.	22:09
Paul Ortiz	And what year was that?	22:40
Sandy J. McCorvey	Huh? What year was that? Oh, that was in 1940. 1940. And so my brother took the course and he said that he impressed one of the White officers so much, that fellow. But when he finished that course, he could not put a wrench on anything. Only thing he do is hand the wrench to somebody. Well, they didn't allow him to put a wrench on anything. He said, this White gentleman who he impressed told him, said, "Look", he said, "The government's going to open up a unit at Tuskegee and if you stick with us, you have a chance to go in there and become the superintendent." And so he did. And he did.	22:42
Sandy J. McCorvey	And so our family, we've helped each other, no question. Now, when I finished high school, I didn't know how I was going to get in college. But the CCC thing became available. And my oldest brother, the brother who I helped in college went to CCCs. It was a welfare thing, what it was. They only allow you one year. Our family, one year, then they had to rotate to all the other families. And so now he came out in 34. I was in the field working with my father. I said to my father, "I'd like to go to CCC." "Well, son, you know what they said." I said, "Papa, go and see Ms. Jewel Nettles." Now, she was a White.	23:39
Sandy J. McCorvey	And after he got through talking with him, he said, "Okay, I will." He went to see Ms. Jewel Nettles. And Ms. Jewel Nettles sent him down. Well, that was giving me an advantage over other families. And the reason why Ms. Nettles did that, my granddaddy was five years old when Lincoln signed the Proclamation Emancipation and Mr. Tom Nettles who migrated from the Carolinas. And the [indistinct 00:25:08] development was then that they'd come to a fork of a road, heavily traveled and then they'd set up a store there.	24:32
Sandy J. McCorvey	I can point out some three or four different places in our county where they have them. Well my granddaddy's start working for Mr. Tom Nettles who set up the store there at the fork in the road. Was a farmer, big farmer. And what he did, my granddad, he eventually set up a gin. My granddad was the farmer for that gin. He was so pleased with my granddad's work. $7 was the wage, basic wage. But he paid my granddaddy $9 because granddaddy was trying to buy a place, 60 acres of land. My father and my grandmother worked on the farm and granddaddy worked there. And that's how they paid it back. And that was a seed they planted in our family. And I would say that 99% of his offsprings owned their homes. 99%.	25:18
Paul Ortiz	Did he have a lot of influence over his children?	26:20
Sandy J. McCorvey	My granddaddy?	26:24
Paul Ortiz	Yeah.	26:24
Sandy J. McCorvey	Oh yes, sir. He had five kids. Let me see. Had two boys. No, three boys and two girls. That's five kids. And he helped each one to built a house, but then calling this one his house right there on the place, except one of my aunties who decided she was not going to leave. They were getting old, decided she was not going to leave them. So she stayed there with them. And then she actually inherited a home place when they died.	26:25
Paul Ortiz	And this was in which county?	26:55
Sandy J. McCorvey	Monroe. Monroe. Monroe County.	26:58
Paul Ortiz	So it sounds like your grandfather was quite an influence.	27:00
Sandy J. McCorvey	He was an influence. Let me tell you now, that's been five generations ago. And Mr. Tom Nettles, who Granddad ended up working for, oldest son was named Joe. And in the meantime, the railroad came through [indistinct 00:27:27] from Pensacola to Selma, came through. Well, I said Tunnel Springs, but it was named Kempville before. That was the name of the place, Kempville. But they had to dig through a tunnel, just a little north of Tunnel Springs, had to dig through a tunnel. Then they changed the name of the place for Tunnel Springs.	27:09
Sandy J. McCorvey	And so Mr. Nettles' three sons set up stores in Tunnel Springs. And there were two other stores there. Mr. Nettles, he helped a lot of people. He advanced them, a lot of people. And the other store, Dailey Store do likewise. But Tunnel Springs, Alabama. I never had known a friction between Black and White. Never known a friction between Black and White. And I've traveled a good bit in this country and out the country too. I've never been to a place where people were nicer to each other, Black and White, than Tunnel Springs.	27:49
Paul Ortiz	Why was that? Why was it so unique?	28:52
Sandy J. McCorvey	I think this, that the Nettles family was a Christian family. If you worked honest, paid your debts and what not, you could go to him for a favor and if anybody wanted to bother you, go to him and he'd take care of it. He just didn't allow. And White people used to come to my grandmother. My grandmother on my father's side. Oh, she had a large flower garden. In the springtime, Lord, them White people used to come there and asked her for a piece of this and a piece of that and that kind of thing.	28:56
Sandy J. McCorvey	And then sometimes, they would come just for a visit. They come for a visit. And I have gone to town with my grandmother and she'd pull up in the yard of a White gentleman and that gentleman come out and help her out the wagon, tie that mule. And they've had just a conversation like, we haven't seen you in some time. What happened? Anything, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that's the relationship that exist there.	29:37
Sandy J. McCorvey	[indistinct 00:30:15], I finished high school in '34. I sent some invitations to some Whites and to Blacks. I got one token from Black, 25 cent, which was a big token at that time. I got two from Whites.	30:12
Paul Ortiz	Token?	30:33
Sandy J. McCorvey	Yes, sir.	30:33
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Now, what was the token?	30:35
Sandy J. McCorvey	A shirt.	30:36
Paul Ortiz	Oh, okay. Like a gift. Okay.	30:38
Sandy J. McCorvey	And the Nettle family give me a token. I forget what it was now. We operate the store. What he said to me, he says, "Son, I'm going to tell you something." I said, "What that, Mr. Nettles?" He said, "Now, you have made it to the foot of the ladder." He said, "But now everybody's at the foot of the ladder and you going to have climb that ladder. And that's what I expect you to do." I thanked him. And then there was the village blacksmith, Mr. Ed Hilton and his wife named Mrs. Betty Hilton. I sent them. And that spring after I came home from school, Mr. Ed Hilton put his whole family in his car and drove them, come down to our farm. I was out there working. They sent for me. I went and they give me three tokens. And then they said to my father and my mother, they said, "Now, we are adopting Sandy. So he belong to our family now. He's a member of our family."	30:43
Sandy J. McCorvey	And I had to go, when I'd go away and come back, or if I was away for good while, I'd have to write to him. And if I went away, I'd come back, sit down, talk with him. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that was this type of relationship. I mean, it was beautiful.	32:01
Paul Ortiz	And they were Black?	32:24
Sandy J. McCorvey	They're White.	32:25
Paul Ortiz	They're White.	32:25
Sandy J. McCorvey	They're White. The blacksmith from town named Ed Hilton, wife named Betty. I used to put 25 cents in the bank because 1929, if you know, we had the, depression started in 1929. And at that time, they weren't giving you school books free. You had to buy your own books. And my parents were not able to buy all of us books. I go out and cut a job, makes 50, 75, a dollar. Maybe father would give me sometime, 25, somebody give me 50. I'd go out and put it in the bank. So one day, I made a deposit in the bank. And here's a young fellow, name was Charles Nettles. He said, [indistinct 00:33:16]. Mr. Nettles. He said, "You know what?" I said, "What, Mr. Nettles?" I thought he was going to berate me and tell me don't come back there putting 25 cent in that bank. He said, "You ought to bring at least half the money you get and put it in this bank and leave it here until you have a real need for it."	32:27
Sandy J. McCorvey	Now, here's just a White young chap himself. I appreciate that. And 30 years later, I went back, he's a big man, I suppose, a millionaire. Cattle and [indistinct 00:33:47]. So I went by his place to see him one day. He looked at me, he knew my features. He thought it was somebody fantastic. Okay, what I got to do for you? Haven't seen other in a long time. I said, "Mr. Nettles, I just came back to thank you and remind you of something you once said." He said, "What was it?" Now, I reminded him of the time. He said, "Well, I don't exactly remember that specific time. I do know that I used to encourage all young people to save their money and put it to good use."	33:32
Sandy J. McCorvey	Well, he couldn't have told a White chap any better. Couldn't give him any better advice than that. And so that was the relationship we had through five generations starting off with my granddaddy and Mr. Nettles, Mr. Tom Nettles was a captain in the Confederate Army. And when he came back, he borrowed two bales of cotton from a local person there. But that man went to town. He became a wealthy person. And the person who he bought the cotton from, he was just a commoner. He remained a commoner. Nettles, he's a genius. He knew what to do with a dollar. And he had a number of Colored people who worked around that farm, that kind of thing. And I've never known anything except good relationship. [indistinct 00:35:08]. Let me see. That was Jordan Nettles.	34:16
Sandy J. McCorvey	Third generation. Remember the third generation. Mr. Evan Nettles died about four years ago. And I heard about it and I went to the funeral. And at the funeral, I went to see Mr. Evan Nettles's nieces. Pink Jackson. Pink Jackson, he married into the Nettles family and he had two daughters and I wanted to see them. I didn't know them because I haven't seen them in years. The baby daughter, hadn't seen her too much in first place, but the oldest one, I had. And so I looked and I couldn't see them. But I left the graveside, Mr. Nettles' son came around, shake my hand and thanked me. Brother came around, shaked my hand and thanked me for coming. I told him I couldn't do anything else. Anything I could do, I'd be happy to do it because Mr. Evan was such a nice person.	35:12
Sandy J. McCorvey	My brother, who's older than me, used to go by the store, Mr. Evan Nettles father's store. And he asked Mr. Evan to help him with his [indistinct 00:36:40]. And Mr. Evan helped him. Mr. Jewel Nettles never did, Mr. Evan Nettles' father, he never objected to anything. Evan would take a little time and helping my brother. And Mr. Evan would let my brother have clothes and his books and that kind of thing. That's a good relationship.	36:24
Sandy J. McCorvey	And on down to the fourth generation now. My nephew told me, he went to the [indistinct 00:37:05]. He wanted to buy a tractor. And so he was talking to the boss, the manager. But Mr. Evan was there himself. And said Mr. Evan heard him talk with the man telling what he wanted. A man was trying to find out— "Now, you are so and so and so and so?" Mr. Evan came by and said, "Look, sir." Said, "Whatever he want, let him happen. Whatever it is, just let him have it." And it's been that way ever since. In other words, if I needed something now to be done down there, I needed help from outsider, I'd call Mr. Franklin Jackson, Franklin Nettles, and explain it with him and he would act responsibly.	36:57
Sandy J. McCorvey	My wife and I went down home, we retired in '74 and in '75, I went home to a annual meeting, church meeting on Sunday. And I had a wreck down there. My wife was in the hospital for two or three weeks. I stayed down there with her. My cash money ran out. I was only six miles, something, from [indistinct 00:38:11] Alabama. I remember my daddy did a lot of banking and did some banking in Monroe there. So I went to the bank and I said, let me go to this bank here since its [indistinct 00:38:22]. And I had some identification. And a young man who I spoke to, he said, "Well, I believe I shouldn't give you." I said, "Let me go and see my father."	37:46
Sandy J. McCorvey	I went over there and he said, "Father, this is so and so and so and so on." I said to him, I said, I told him what happened to me. I said, "I'm over here without some money." I said, "I could get it. Go to [indistinct 00:38:48] Bank. Wouldn't been six miles away, it wouldn't be any question. But since I'm here, I just—" I said, I'm the son of the late [indistinct 00:38:50] and I have some identification. He looked me in the eyes and said if my daddy died in sixties, this was in '75. He said, "If you [indistinct 00:39:00]'s son, you need no further identification."	38:30
Sandy J. McCorvey	He took what it was, whatever he want to give it to him. Let him have it. And that was the type of relationship that my father maintained in that community. And I can say that his children followed that reputation. Okay. Now, I finished high school. I mean, I finished college here, '39, and went to in the extension service, Tallapoosa County, Alabama, Field Extension Service. It was federal, state, and county both involved in supporting me. Then I stayed four years. Then I went to the Army and I was in the Army for four years. And I came back from the Army, I went to Randolph County, a new county. There's been a controversy up there in Randolph County. I don't know whether you heard about or not.	39:03
Paul Ortiz	Huh? A controversy?	39:58
Sandy J. McCorvey	Well, there was a young lady whose father was White and her mother was Black and they were married and that was kind of unusual, but it was true. They were married and she had raised, I forgot how much money. She was the chairman for what they have when they graduating class. What they call that?	40:00
Paul Ortiz	Alumni club?	40:23
Sandy J. McCorvey	No, it was before they graduated.	40:29
Paul Ortiz	Fraternity, sorority.	40:31
Sandy J. McCorvey	No, no. It was, what the kids have, they have a dance.	40:33
Paul Ortiz	Prom.	40:40
Sandy J. McCorvey	Prom, prom. She was chairman. Raised a good bit of money. And the principal assembled them and said they wasn't going to have any mixed couples come to dance. If they did, they wouldn't have. He just said, won't have it. And she said to him, said, "Now, what about me?" Said, "My father's White, my mother's Black." He said, "They made a mistake. I don't want anybody to make a mistake." And she started crying. And she started crying. Then Black and White students went up, begged her, begged her, begged her not to cry. Don't cry, babe.	40:40
Sandy J. McCorvey	But yeah. And NAACP got it and the Martin Luther King group out of Atlanta got into it and then this man, Dees.	41:29
Paul Ortiz	Morris Dees?	41:44
Sandy J. McCorvey	Uh-huh. Got into it and he had to sue. And he earned $25,000 for her. I think that was reasonable. NAACP, I think it was, saying that they should have gotten more, but I think that was reasonable. Randolph County is the poor county. I think $25,000 was reasonable. And now, the federal government is saying they want them to remove that principal or fire him. And so that's where they are now. I don't know. I worked in that county there for six months.	41:47
Paul Ortiz	Did you see cases of discrimination against Black people when you were there or problems?	42:23
Sandy J. McCorvey	Not in a sense. No. You see, starting in this county going across the whole State of Alabama is called the Black Belt. I thought that it was called the Black Belt because the ratio of White and Black was in favor of Blacks four to five to one. And I thought that was how I got the name Black Belt. But there was a school in Michigan state, now Michigan University, in 1947 in our sociology class, and there was a teacher who had made a study in this Black Belt.	42:36
Paul Ortiz	Charles Johnson?	43:22
Sandy J. McCorvey	Huh?	43:23
Paul Ortiz	Charles Johnson?	43:24
Sandy J. McCorvey	No, I forget his name now. But he made a study of some study in the Black Belt and I asked a question and he told me no. He said the reason why they called it Black Belt is because the characteristics of the soil. He said the soil was black and was fertile soil and it was rich and produced good cotton crops and it's labor intensive. And said that was the reason why you had so many more Black than had White because during slavery time, they needed them in there to plant and pick that cotton, that kind of thing. You understand? And that's how it got its name from just because of the characteristics of the soil. Well, I was really happy to know about that.	43:25
Sandy J. McCorvey	But now come back to your question about the relationship with White and Black in that county. Okay. The relationship of Black has tended to be worse where there were more Black than White. It tended to be worse. And where there was fewer Blacks and Whites, the relationship was better. And there were fewer Blacks. In other words, you had about two third White, one third Black and that made a big difference. And there was always a difference. But if you had many more Blacks than you had Whites, the situation with much worse.	44:10
Paul Ortiz	Now in Monroe County—	44:53
Sandy J. McCorvey	Yeah.	44:56
Paul Ortiz	What was the ratio?	44:57
Sandy J. McCorvey	The ratio was 46:54. 46 Black, 54 White. That's when I was growing up there. And if I had, I'd show you a picture. The Monroe General used to make pictures of Black and White students. Where they place where you are by name, by school. And for, I'd say, about 15 years, the ratio of White and Black completing high school didn't vary more than 10 or 15 for about 15 years. This year, I think, it jumped more than any time before. Now, I think what accounted for that is this, or partially, the employment was better and more available for Whites. And I think that's why maybe some of them stopped school because they could get employment. You understand? When Blacks, now when I left there, the only professional job open to a Black was school teacher and Black women dominated that field. And so that left the majority of the Blacks out, so I had to scramble for something else. And so—	44:59

Sandy J. McCorvey	Surrounding counties, it'd be difficult to find a county where Blacks have advanced further and faster than in Monroe County, although kind of like Wilcox County. They had some half a dozen schools that were supported by religious organizations, Quakers and whatnot. We didn't have a single school in our county. I asked one of my ex-principals. I said, "What you think made the difference?" I said, "There's a big difference between Black and White. What do you think made that different?"	0:02
Sandy J. McCorvey	He said to me. He's from my county, too. He said he came to my county as a young boy, principal of my high school. He brought something different. The other principal who we'd had, gray-headed and old, and this man, if the boys were playing baseball, he'd go out there and play with them. At first, they didn't know how to play with him because they didn't know whether they could play hard against him or not. He said, "Wait, now." He said, "You're playing to win." He said, "When I come out here," he said, "I'm just a player like you." He said, "But when I go in that building there, I am the principal. But out here," he said, "you're playing to win. Everybody."	0:41
Paul Ortiz	He was Black?	1:28
Sandy J. McCorvey	Yeah, he was Black. That was different though. In the past, you wouldn't think in terms of brushing up against a principal. I asked him this question, the very question. "What made the difference now?" Because Monroe County, it seemed like they kept their advancement much faster and further than the surrounding counties, Blacks. He said to me. He said, "I don't know," he said, "but I think two things that may have had influence." He said, "Number one, the local school controlled by what they called the trustee board. The local school is controlled by what they call a trustee board. They were Blacks. They were Black."	1:32
Sandy J. McCorvey	He said that, "Landownership in Monroe County among Blacks is far above that of Blacks in the surrounding counties." He said, "I think that caused the difference." Well, I don't know, but that's what he said. Now, I went to county agency work up here, Tallapoosa County. Frankly speaking, I want to tell you something. The county agent there, his name was Fletcher Farrington, White. And then they called me the Negro county agent. But he was one of the greatest technicians I think I've ever worked with at the community level. His name, Fletcher Farrington, White county agent. But his attitude toward Black people was plantation-type.	2:16
Paul Ortiz	Plantation-type?	3:26
Sandy J. McCorvey	Plantation-type, relationship. On plantation, okay, you're not supposed to have anything up here and your head low. But you're supposed to do what I tell you to do. Okay. We'd have joint meetings sometime, but Farrington never would call on me to say anything in a meeting. There were Whites sometime would say, "Fletcher, Sandy has been working on that." Said, "Maybe he has some experience. Let us hear from him." But he never did. He never did. Well, here's what happened to him now, sir. When it come to program planning, development, and execution, the Whites had a secretary. We didn't have a secretary.	3:27
Sandy J. McCorvey	We had a NYA girl who'd come in for two weeks and then another one come in for two weeks. We had a typewriter. The county didn't give us anything then. But the war came around. Farm Credit Administration had Bank of Cooperatives in New Orleans, Louisiana, which covered Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. They had money to advance the 4-H Club work and that kind of thing. Fletcher Farrington wouldn't tell me about that. He knew about it. I didn't know about it. But then there was a Black guy who went to Washington to work for the Farm Credit Administration, and he wrote letters.	4:22
Sandy J. McCorvey	He didn't know what was happening, but he wrote letters and said, "Now, look, it is said that food will win the war and the right to peace." Said, "Now, we're going to have to do a much better job of producing than we have done." Said, "Now, if you need money for your 4-H Clubs. Here's the Bank of Cooperatives. Contact them." When I got that letter, I went up and talked with the county agent again. I said, "What about—" He said, "Well," he says, "I don't know. Let me call the bank." Call the bank. The bank turned him down flat. He said, "Well, we're going to have to go to Farm Credit Administration." I guess they told him, "Okay, go ahead."	5:04
Sandy J. McCorvey	So he couldn't help me then. But then I learned that the guy who, the local representative of Farm Credit Administration, lived right across the street from my office, but I didn't know it. And then every Thursday, a member of the Farm Credit Administration would come there for consultation with farmers, White farmers only. I got to know about that. So I went to the guy once, and I said to him, "We've got some boys and girls who need some help." He said, "Well, we never let any Colored have any. I don't know how it would work." I said, "Well, we have some people. If you want to let me bring them in here, [indistinct 00:06:31], and let you talk with them and see." I said, "Because of the fact, we want to. Here's a letter here, too, saying we can get the money."	5:46
Sandy J. McCorvey	So he said, "Okay, bring them in." I brought them in. I got a picture somewhere I can show you now. But I brought in 16 people.	6:38
Paul Ortiz	These were young people?	6:47
Sandy J. McCorvey	These were old people.	6:49
Paul Ortiz	Old people.	6:49
Sandy J. McCorvey	But they had youngsters at the 4-H Club who they wanted to make some money so they could get in school or something like that. You see?	6:50
Paul Ortiz	They could do that at the 4-H?	6:57
Sandy J. McCorvey	Oh, yeah. The Bank of Cooperatives works, but had banks there for farmers, too. But this was a 4-H Club specifically. So after that meeting, he said to me. He said, "Now, we'll let you have enough for 100 boys." I said, "Okay." They had selected these people. I supervised them. On Sunday, I'd go out and see how they'd get along and whatnot. When I traveled, they only allotted $25. That wasn't enough, but I just went on anyway on my own. $33.33 was enough to pay for the chicken and the feed and everything. The pairing up was supposed to agree, the supervisor. They all agreed to do it.	6:59
Sandy J. McCorvey	We paid it back in 11 weeks. We paid it back. Now, this same guy who had said he didn't know about loaning to Colored people asked me, "How did you do it?" I told him. Meantime, I had gone around and selected out of that 16 people, I had selected out some. I said, "Now, you going to take two this time." That's what I said. "You're going to take two this time, 200. Then you're going to take 300." Another guy, "You're going to take five."	7:55
Paul Ortiz	$500?	8:25
Sandy J. McCorvey	No, 500 chickens. I said, "That's it." I said, "Get set. Get set. We're coming. Be ready." Well, I could be dogmatic with them because they were having tough times then. So they all succeeded. And then the local guy who had told me he didn't loan any money to Black people for, he said, "I want to tell you something." I said, "What is that?" "Did you know that you have a better program than White have here in this county?" He said, "The White are not paying back like you're paying back. They're not paying back like you're paying back." Well, I was shocked and surprised because they had more people to work than we had.	8:28
Sandy J. McCorvey	They were getting money from the county. We weren't getting anything from the county. I was surprised. Then he said to me. He says, "We going to have a meeting at Auburn in [indistinct 00:09:18] Theater today. Bring a busload of your people down there." I got ready about to bring them down, but Tuskegee intervened and called me to come here to a meeting. So by George, I missed out. I regret it. I missed out. I called and told him I couldn't make it. But anyway, then the President of the Bank of Cooperatives in New Orleans had been getting our report and getting reports from the Whites.	9:06
Sandy J. McCorvey	He wrote Mr. T.M. Campbell, the man who gave me the job. He says, "If it's convenient, I'd appreciate if you would bring the surrounding county and home agents, and let's sit down and have a critique on what's happening in Tallapoosa County." Mr. Campbell said, "Okay, glad to do it." At that meeting, Mr. Campbell introduced the man. He's the President of the Bank of Cooperatives now in New Orleans. And then, among other things, the President of the Bank of Cooperatives said, "The reason why we asked Mr. Campbell if he'd bring you in here because of the fact that the best 4-H Club that we're working with in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tallapoosa County is Mr. and Mrs. Sandy McCorvey. Mr. Sandy McCorvey and his coworker." Talking about me and my coworker.	9:42
Sandy J. McCorvey	We had the best program in the three states that he was dealing with. That's what he said right here in the extension building. He said, "That's the reason why I asked Mr. Campbell if he'd bring them in here and let's sit down and have a critique because it is crucial that we increase productivity, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. We want to find how they're doing it and see if somebody else could do likewise." Okay. Now, that guy went back and he wrote— They published what they called a [indistinct 00:11:16]. They wrote an article all the way from the top to the bottom about Black farmers and the 4-H Club in Tallapoosa County and then wrote one about White. But ours was from the top to the bottom and put one in about that long for White. But that was it.	10:42
Sandy J. McCorvey	Well, that didn't go well with Fletcher Farrington, the White county agent. And then he began doing some things which were a bit unfair. But my coworker said, "Let's do so and such." "No, no, we can't do that," I said. "Now, he can mess us up. We don't want to do that." Okay, now, here come 1941. We had a fair up there, Alex City. I don't know if you know anything about Alex City. Do you know anything about Alex City? It's affluent little city up there, affluent city. There was a family, Russell family. Russel make more out there for athletic than I guess anybody in this country.	11:33
Sandy J. McCorvey	At that time, he almost owned Alex City. Owned the waterworks, and he had steelworks there and textile industry and the land, the McMartin, 750 miles around it. He had land all here and there. We went in to see Mr. Russell about the fair, myself and my coworker. He had a talk with us, explained to us what he wanted, liked for us to see. He said to us. He said, "I want this to be the biggest fair in the State of Alabama where Black people participate." I said, "What about the state fair?" He said, "No exception. No exception." He said, "Money's not a question." Well, that sounded good to us.	12:27
Sandy J. McCorvey	He said, "Mr. Campbell, come here." He said, "When these people come here for money, anything for that fair, let them have it. Let them have it." He wanted to extend our fair share and everything like that. And then I made out the prizes. I had enough prizes, and I helped them boys pay for their animals and whatnot. October '41, when I began bringing in the livestock or assisting my employees in bringing their livestock, Fletcher Farrington was there, and he began looking at it. He came to me and he said, "Sandy." He said, "I suggest that we let the boys and girls exhibit their livestock together this time."	13:13
Sandy J. McCorvey	I couldn't understand. I said, "This is terrible," because you got the judges. I got this thing set up so my boys and girls are going to get lots of prizes and that kind of thing. I said, "Mr. Farrington, I got to see. I can't make that decision myself." I could have made it. I said, "I have some leaders. I got to consult my leaders before I can do it. I can't make that decision myself." He said, "Okay then. Okay." So the next day, I'd hoped he'd forgotten about it. But he came back. He said, "What did they say?" I said, "They said we could go through with the calves, but not the pigs." He said, "Okay, okay."	14:03
Sandy J. McCorvey	So I still wasn't satisfied. The judges are going to be White, and I didn't know how fair they were going to be and that kind of thing. But I want to tell you. I have never seen any fair judging in my life than those judges there. They were fair. I mean they were fair. My boys from here came, 4-H Club, now this is the 4-H Club people doing it. My boys from here came. He arrived and he saw the Black boys out there with the Whites. "What's happening? What's happening? What?" We told him. He just had a fit, so happy. He said he'd never heard or dreamed of such a thing before, never heard it before in the State of Alabama.	14:44
Sandy J. McCorvey	Mr. Russell, I went to his office and found out exactly when he's going to be out there because he was going to come and visit the fair. He'd come, "Because I want to find out so I can be there." I was giving him the red carpet. I said, "Mr. Russell, now this is—" We had seven booths in there. I said, "This cup and saucer was made from mud from such-and-such a community. This piece of ironwork was done by the blacksmith, so-and-so. This was done by— This was made blah blah blah blah," all along there. When I made it through there, Mr. Russell was smiling. He was the happiest person you ever seen because he said he wanted that to be the biggest fair.	15:29
Sandy J. McCorvey	He asked me. He said, "Have you invited the President of Tuskegee Institute?" "No, sir." He said, "Okay, I'm going to my office now and invite him." He was a member of the Tuskegee board himself, Mr. Russell. "Have you invited Mr. T.M. Campbell?" "No, sir." He said, "Well, I'm going to." He went and invited them. They came. When Dr. Patterson, who was President of Tuskegee, observed one day he said, "I want the advanced agriculture class to come up here and see this, too." So he sent them up there. Now, I want to say this. My philosophy is that if you make the best use of your time, talent, and opportunity, whether you're Black, Blue, or Brown, you won't have anything to worry about in this country.	16:13
Sandy J. McCorvey	It' the majority of the people who are bitter or saying somebody owe them something and every time something happen, it's racism, racism every time are people who haven't made the best use of their time, talent, and opportunity. They're saying that somebody owes them something. For me, you just owe me an opportunity. I went overseas for 21 years in West Africa. I started off as a technician in the village level, worked myself back to supervisor level, and then the administrative level. I supervised Whites and Blacks, administrator of Whites and Blacks. I didn't have to doff my hat and say, "Oh, I came from Tuskegee with millions of dollars when you have pennies," and that kind of thing.	16:57
Sandy J. McCorvey	I didn't have to do that at all. The only thing I could do to them is like Jackie Robinson. You know about Jackie Robinson? Jackie Robinson didn't say, "Pity me." He didn't say that. He said, "I can play ball. Give me a chance." That's what I said to those people. That's the only thing I can say to them. I wasn't trained to do research work because Auburn University did that. But overseas in Africa, in some places they didn't have school books. Some places didn't have textbooks for their students. They were lecturing just like you would lecture to a college class. I said, "My goodness."	17:52
Sandy J. McCorvey	And then I started writing up. I started doing, what they call it, applied research. I started to study or reading about research which is happening in countries that had similar climactic conditions to the country where I was working, so in that parts of the world [indistinct 00:19:30] this, that, and the other. And then I started planning. I could have a demonstration. I had 300 acres. I owned land, about 25 acres. But I could have a demonstration. Firestone had 100,000 acres, rural plantation in that country. It was [indistinct 00:19:56] who headed it, Dr. [indistinct 00:19:58]. He'd been all around the world several different times.	19:04
Sandy J. McCorvey	Wherever he'd see something he thought that would work in that country, he would bring it and try it out at the research station. I was in the Eastern part of the country. Firestone had a small plantation there, 13,000.	20:00
Paul Ortiz	Now, what country is this?	20:19
Sandy J. McCorvey	This is Liberia.	20:20
Paul Ortiz	Liberia.	20:20
Sandy J. McCorvey	They had the big plantation in the central province. They had a disease problem there. Of course, that didn't knock the production out. But when Dr. [indistinct 00:20:35] come down to check, I would find out when he was coming and meet him at the airport and invite him out. He'd tell me, "Well, now I'm going to schedule so-and-so, but I think I have a little time." He'd come out. He was a considerable help to me. Something he put me at least three years in advance of what I was doing and how I was going to do it because he had experience and I didn't have experience. So I accepted shortcuts.	20:23
Sandy J. McCorvey	I worked very hard because I said, "Now, here we have about 65 or 70 Firestone employees, White, and if I don't do a good job, then they'll go back home. They'll say, "So-and-so and [indistinct 00:21:29] haven't done a damn thing." I asked God to bless me. We organized and set up the Maryland County Agriculture Council. They wanted to give me a long name. I said, "No." They said, "Will you?" I said, "Okay, agricultural advisor." I went to Firestone and asked the manager there if he would serve as advisor on there. He said yes. He did. When Firestone big people would come down, I'd meet them.	21:13
Sandy J. McCorvey	On one occasion, I was carrying a load of vegetables to Firestone for my demonstration project. It was governor's project. A big man was there. The local manager sat down. He said, "Now, formerly," he said, "we used to have to order and import our vegetables and that kind of thing, have somebody come in by air." He said, "But now with this program during the rainy season especially," he said, "we don't have to necessarily order like we used to order." He told the big man about some things we'd done. The big man said to him this. He said to him right there. He said, "Now, whatever this man needs for this program, get it to him."	22:02
Sandy J. McCorvey	That's what he said to him, "Whatever he needs for this program, give it to him." Well, I needed tools from time to time, and I needed seed. Sometime he'd have seed that nobody else had, and I could get them from him. And then I ordered my own seed from a seed company here because I was planning for something to be as a guide when I was away. When I left the country, I wanted something for a guide because if I didn't do that, the people who I worked with, after them, nobody would know that I'd been there. But with these things here, they'd know I'd been there.	22:50
Sandy J. McCorvey	Now, I want to tell you something, too. Your government didn't pay me not one doggone dime to do that, to [indistinct 00:23:47] there.	23:40
Paul Ortiz	Okay. So you were working your own independent research, and you're working for the USAIDS, United States Agricultural—?	23:48
Sandy J. McCorvey	United States AID.	23:59
Paul Ortiz	Oh, AID.	24:00
Sandy J. McCorvey	Foreign aid program. Well, the thing about it is that they would not— I mean that's who I was employed by, the State Department, see? It was on the State Department. The thing about it is that they wouldn't order me the seed that I wanted and needed. I'd ask them to get what kind of seed I want, and they always just [indistinct 00:24:22] seed. "We got plenty of seed, plenty of seed." But it wasn't anything that I wanted. I wanted something so I could lay guidelines. You understand? Okay. Now, let's see. Hold on just a minute. Let me look.	24:01
Sandy J. McCorvey	I wanted to lay some guidelines because I wanted to leave something here for these— I'll tell you what. Let's put these all back in together. I'm going to take out a new set. I'll take out a new set. So the government didn't pay me. I ordered the seed, and I planted my seed. I developed these guidelines here for the people. Do you know that three of these books was used on a worldwide basis? On a worldwide basis, three of these books were used. That one there, that's a special one. It's different from the rest of them.	24:40
Sandy J. McCorvey	Here's a little baby. Yeah. Yeah. Here I am. There's still one other that I want. I going to have to borrow it from— Okay. My agents didn't listen to me on buying the seeds I wanted, so I ordered my own seed.	25:56
Paul Ortiz	Who is this?	26:36
Sandy J. McCorvey	That's the Minister of Agriculture in the Dahomey. It's Benin. The name of the country is Benin. That's in French. What happened is I went to that country, and it was a former French, from the French. Those people, when it come to discipline, they're well-disciplined. They're well-disciplined. But when I wanted something pertaining to extension, [indistinct 00:27:16], had a signature office. I'd go there. [indistinct 00:27:23]. I'd spend a whole day and not find anything. So I got tired of that kind of thing. So I went to the director one day, and I told him.	26:36
Sandy J. McCorvey	I said, "Now, I'm here as an invited guest, and I don't want to mess up my status." I said, "But now, it's unfortunate that when I want to see a piece of legislation, a ruling and whatnot, I spend a whole day sometimes and don't find it." He said, "[indistinct 00:27:53]." I said, "Well, look, would you give all your officers orders to give me every sheet of paper they have pertaining to your minister of agriculture extension," and he agreed. So I got it. I studied it, and I put it in there so that in that little thing, it has everything, how officers are appointed, how they're promoted, and what they should do and that kind of thing right there in the thing there. They said that there's the Bible.	27:34
Paul Ortiz	I see. This is the chain of command.	28:36
Sandy J. McCorvey	Yeah. When I first went to Dahomey, I was the only Black on our staff. On my maiden trip, I had dinner at one sous-préfet. I forget the name of the sous-préfet now. But it so happened there were some researchers there, agricultural research people, Frenchmen. One of them supposed to speak English well, so he was going to be my interpreter because at that time I didn't understand much French. I didn't know that the sous-préfet, that is the district officer, knew anything about English. I didn't know he knew English at all.	28:42
Sandy J. McCorvey	But after a while, this research guy was misleading. He wasn't repeating me in a good way. So the sous-préfet, the district officer, I didn't know he could speak English. He said to him, he said, "Speak what the man says. Speak what the man says." He was this man's boss, too. But I didn't know he could speak. "Speak what the man says." That guy was trying to mess me.	29:21
Paul Ortiz	Was he a White guy?	29:54
Sandy J. McCorvey	He was French. Didn't want us there.	29:54
Paul Ortiz	[indistinct 00:30:02].	30:00
Sandy J. McCorvey	This guy—	30:03
Paul Ortiz	Why do you think that was? Was that a—?	30:04
Sandy J. McCorvey	Well, you see, they had been there. They didn't know what was going to happen. Their jobs was the thing, too. They didn't know whether we were going to affect their job because that was their job, their source of employment. That was another reason for it. Now, that was down in northern Nigeria. When I started with this one right here, you won't see anybody's name in there except my name because of the fact the minister couldn't spare me anybody, and so I went on and did it myself.	30:07
Sandy J. McCorvey	But then when I went to other countries, in most cases, they were able to allow one person to work with me. I wanted somebody to work with me who could carry it on and update this work. You understand? Now, that one there is not as sophisticated as some of the rest of them because that was my first effort. But I did this in the nighttime, and it didn't cost my government a dime for me to do it because I did it in the nighttime. Had a radio for about two hours. Most of the time, I just went ahead and did this.	30:39
Paul Ortiz	Now, what did you see as your primary responsibilities as an extension advisor in West Africa, USAID?	31:22
Sandy J. McCorvey	Well, my job was to introduce new practices and approach to agriculture because some of the old methods had been outmoded and outdated. I learned this though very quickly, that you cannot be successful in such an effort unless the people first accept you. They got to know that they can trust you. You see? So what I did, I went out and I lived in the tents with them. Now, that's a field they were having there. The farmers went in the field there. So I went out and I lived with them in the position and whatnot and observed them because they have certain organizations that have caused them to tick for over 100 years.	31:35
Sandy J. McCorvey	Rather than going and trying to supplant that with a whole new, I said, "Well, I got to go in here sometime, and I got to go in here. I got to take and do like the fruit tree man and do some bud grafting, bud graft some ideas on to what they're doing, that kind of thing." Because if I go in and say, "You take this thing," I could be offering worth a 1,000 times more, but it wouldn't be anything to them unless they accept it, you see? So I went out there and I lived with them. We'd sit down. We had fun, talking and questioning. That's with the Littoral people at the farm living now.	32:46
Sandy J. McCorvey	With the Littoral people, I learned how to get that simply. When one would die, they'd make a big thing of it. They'd have a big party, drinking, the malt liquor. Nobody getting drunk. You'd hardly see anything like that. But they'd drink, and they had fun. They sang. Oh, my goodness. But I would carry one or two bottles of liquor, and that made me a part of them. They'd talk things there that they didn't talk anywhere else, that I got a chance to— They didn't mind my being there because I was one of them then, you see? By the time I'd leave in September, well, I said, "I'll be back in an hour." I'd get away.	33:27
Sandy J. McCorvey	They'd start singing and going on. I started enjoying it, too, myself, and getting approaches and understanding this, that, and the other that they didn't talk anywhere else. Just become a part of them. So that technique and getting into the people who could read and write and that kind of thing, and then this other method of going and living with the people in the villages and sitting down and talking with them through interpreters, of course. So that was my first one there. This was my first one and the one that I liked so much. That one right there, my first edition.	34:20
Paul Ortiz	So you were quite busy writing these pamphlets and bulletins and basically advice on new kinds of techniques. What were the new kinds of techniques that you were teaching and writing about that were improvements?	35:06
Sandy J. McCorvey	Okay, improvements. Take financial. Now, this is where I would help myself. It was reversed this time. A little farmer was at this meeting. You saw in the first one there and this one here. There was a little farmer there, didn't speak English. He was in this group here that you saw there a while ago. He would come to every one of our meetings. He would see the plants and whatnot we had there. So he observed the coffee plants, rubber plants. We had all kind of plants that they used.	35:27
Sandy J. McCorvey	We'd first give them to them. But then we say that in order to ensure that they would put them to good use, we'd make the people pay 50 cent a year for membership. People who were learning to read paid $5 a year for membership. They would come and get their plants and whatnot. So this guy came out one morning. We were batting a ball. He came out, waved us down, and told us to bring him 600 coffee plants. I said, "Mr. Sackey," talking to my man now, guy who spoke their local dialect. I said, "That's a lot of coffee plants." I said, "Now, let's tell him we're going to bring him 300."	36:10
Sandy J. McCorvey	We brought him 300 plants. I went into the bush and cut a stick and showed him how to plant this way and that way. Make certain that you had the same distance, you understand? This way and then move out and same distance from the line. You see? Make a line. And then when I got back, the man had planted the coffee a little closer than I had advised. I just fell to pieces. I said, "Mr. Sackey." I said, "Didn't we go out there and get a stick and show this man how to plant this coffee?" "Oh, yes. Yes, we did." I said, "What in the—" He was looking at me. I said, "Why in the devil didn't he do what we said?"	36:56
Sandy J. McCorvey	He asked him in his dialect. You know what the guy said now? He said that he discussed it with his wife and said his wife told him that if they planted that far apart that grass would grow up between the plants and make it hard for them to have to do more work. You understand? What she said was absolutely true to a certain point. But then I pulled out my pocketknife, and I walked up to a coffee plant about four feet tall. I cut the top out of it. Then I told him. I said, "Now, this plant, instead of growing up eight or 10 feet, it's going to branch out like this, and it's going to do a more effective job than your planting it and letting it grow 10 feet tall, instead of planting it a little close and let it grow 10 feet tall."	37:39
Sandy J. McCorvey	So when you had the harvest, you had to pull that tree over. But now if you cut that top out at four feet tall, that tree will branch out, umbrella out. It would shade out the grass and the undergrowth and that kind of thing. You see? So it was those type of things that we taught and and then when to plant and how to plant.	38:35
Paul Ortiz	I see.	39:06
Sandy J. McCorvey	When I first went there, they had a few cattle and, also, they had just big mounds of ash, wood ash, around the place. I took that wood ash, and that's what I— That green there, that's [indistinct 00:39:26], isn't it?	39:07
Paul Ortiz	Yeah.	39:27
Sandy J. McCorvey	Well, that came from wood ash. I didn't have no fertilizer in three years when I first went out there. What I did then is I went around and picked up the cow droppings. I got myself some 55-gallon drums. Went out and picked up the cow droppings. I went to the village and I got myself a load of ash and brought it there. I made up different levels of mixture, this, that, and the other. I used that until I found out the one that seemed to done the better, then I discontinued it, all except that one. I'd use it.	39:28
Sandy J. McCorvey	When I'd plant a vegetable, I'd leave a cup around. I said a cup where you could pour water in it. I'd take that and mix that. I'd take the wood ash and the cow dung and mixed it to different consistencies until I found out the one that seemed the better. Then I used that one. That's how I got them vegetables you see over there. The people then, they started doing that, too. They would sell vegetables in the market. I'd come to a market. They were selling some of them vegetables. I wouldn't sell them. I'd go to another market. I wouldn't sell them there.	40:06
Paul Ortiz	Why was that?	40:48
Sandy J. McCorvey	Huh?	40:48
Paul Ortiz	Why was that?	40:48
Sandy J. McCorvey	I didn't want to compete with them. You see, I was selling for the government.	40:49
Paul Ortiz	The United States government?	40:52
Sandy J. McCorvey	No, the local government.	40:52
Paul Ortiz	Local government?	40:52
Sandy J. McCorvey	Uh-huh, local government. Selling for local government. And then in this country particularly, you had only one rain zone. That was a high forest rain zone. They got around 175 inches of rain. You see, the country didn't go very— It went out around 200 miles from the ocean, just about 200 miles. Well, that was one rain belt. You'd out in another rain belt and another. You had about three rain belts if you go out about 700 miles. Well, that meant that the farmers could not make row crops in general because they'd get washed away. But for a little plot of vegetables, you could have that.	40:58
Sandy J. McCorvey	So they had to have something to keep the soil together, and that's what we used to keep the soil together, vegetables and poultry. Now, our poultry would not live, couldn't stand the weather conditions. But at first, we passed out eggs. We found out they didn't live long enough to really do any crossing. And then we started passing out roosters. You get across and you'd get about a 35, 40% increase, all things equal, in the size of a chicken and a egg. That's another way that we were doing, trying to improve the protein.	41:52
Sandy J. McCorvey	So now that little book that you had there a while ago, Growing Rubber Production, where is that book? There it is. Here it is right here. That was the first edition. This is my second edition. You see, the local people had about as much acreage as Firestone had. But Firestone's productivity was so much higher than that of the local people. They hadn't had an extension program when I was working with the local people. So we went out. We developed this and went out and worked with the local people. What we would do, we would put out and blow up. If we were going to talk about laying out your nursery, we'd just take one of these pages here and blow it out with a picture like this right here, like that.	42:34
Sandy J. McCorvey	If we were talking a nursery, okay, that's your nursery layout. And then if we're going to talk about— That's another part of the nursery right there. And then over here, how to plant, and this is showing you how when you're going to— You see, rubber usually you get much higher yield out of it if you cross it up, wood grafting. So that'll show you wood grafting. That'll show you here. You see now, that just came out from the tree itself. Well, that's not what you want. Here's what you want. You see that patch around there?	43:24
Paul Ortiz	Mm-hmm.	44:29
Sandy J. McCorvey	You see that patch down there? Okay. That's what you want. This you cut off. This you want it to grow and become a tree. And then when it come to tacking rubber, that's a very acquired skill. Of course, some of the people do it very well if you train them well. What we tried to do, we tried to put this in booklet form because a lot of people go out and they'd plant rubber farms and didn't know these things, you see? You'll find that to be very unique. They've used it on a worldwide basis. Firestone used it on a worldwide basis.	44:30
Sandy J. McCorvey	In that work, I had to compete with people from all institutions throughout the United States, agricultural institutions throughout the United States. But God blessed me. I didn't have to	45:24
Paul Ortiz	I need another tape.	45:42

Sandy J. McCorvey	The United States of America, the students we'd sent in for training in agriculture, well it was the State Department that sent them in, the United States Department of Agriculture did the training in the international training program. When this came out, they saw it and they asked me if they could reproduce it to be used as part of that training people who were coming here for training in this field here. In the Mid East, I never worked in the Mid East, but there's some technicians in Washington DC who saw this bulletin here. They looked it over and said, "This is the very thing that we need in the Mid East." They got in touch with me through my headquarters in Washington DC and asked me if I mind if they would replicate this. I said, "No." He said, "Well, just a little changing, it'll be the best thing we need." I said, "Okay."	0:00
Sandy J. McCorvey	Only one difference that I had to make here, and that is— I lost one of the pictures I had now. That's a picture of an African young lady. That young lady was waiting for a man who finished [indistinct 00:01:40] out here at Tuskegee. And this young man had him, went back there, and he had a little gold mine. This is in Ghana. Because protein, there was a shortage of protein. That guy set him up a poultry unit out there and he just had him a little gold mine. And he was trained. Dr. Monday was very thorough and he would test his feeds. If he bought some feed, he'd always test it himself.	1:16
Sandy J. McCorvey	When I got there, he had, oh, a big mound of manure, horse manure, oh my goodness, on some extra land there doing nothing. I said, "Man." I said, "What's wrong?" I said, "Why don't you make full use of it?" "I am now." I said, "Well, no sir, you're not." I got him to start off growing vegetables. And I'm here to tell you, you're talking about cleaning up. That guy did some clean up, selling vegetables, cabbage especially. First time I got 30 cent for a pound of cabbages was when I was working in Africa. Got 30 cent a pound. But you had a lot of people come to Mid East, Lebanese and Syrians, and they'd been used to eating those things in that country, but they hadn't been getting them there. So, they'd pay me 30 cent a pound for them. Well, for the government, however.	2:13
Sandy J. McCorvey	And so, when they asked me to— That picture, there was— No, so this picture, that's picture of my wife. We grew those vegetables around my house. This is the same thing, but this is in French, see? This has been translated into French because they speak French in the Mid East. Now, we had two children. Mosgood was a nurse and she expired. She died 10 years ago. She left her little grandbaby with us when she with her father in California.	3:10
Sandy J. McCorvey	My baby daughter, what happened is that my kids went to school here. They used to have a special school here and went here for a couple of years. And then they went to Brune, [indistinct 00:04:28], and then they went to Hank Lamaine. My oldest daughters finished up there and then my baby daughter had four more years to go. We were wondering how she was going to react with the older sister, so I asked her, I said, "Where you like to go to school?" She says, "In Europe" I said, "Okay, then. Find a place." She couldn't find a place and I said, "Okay." I wrote to Switzerland and asked them to send us a catalog, but they catered to people who were working in the foreign service, and children training. I brought it down to three, I think I was, and I said, "Well, here are three places that look like might be okay, and you make your final choice."	4:14
Sandy J. McCorvey	She made a choice and she spent her last four years at high school in Switzerland. Each year they would take a trip to another country, and lo and behold decided to want to go to Russia, and we were in Africa. She wrote us. We said, "Oh yeah, by all me owe means. All means." It cost $500. We said, "Go." It was good she went because of the fact that, among other places, they went to Khasan in Russia. The Russian had a sweet line for people who were down on the level, poor level. They used to have, oh my goodness, they had, which was impractical, it was impractical in too many cases. They kept me to Khasan and my daughter said to me, said, "Daddy, it sounds unbelievable. You wouldn't think you were in Russia." If you look at the level of living, other people in Khasan, you wouldn't think you were in Russia.	5:14
Paul Ortiz	Because they were—?	6:25
Sandy J. McCorvey	It's such a poor condition. To me, that was worth a lot for her because she may have thought that I was just trying to talk about United States because we were from United States and that kind of thing. But it was a fact. [indistinct 00:06:44] about that. Just like selling equipment. Russia's [indistinct 00:06:49] and they used to sold our equipment in Africa that was not designed for Africa. Not designed for Africa.	6:26
Paul Ortiz	Now, going back to a few questions to ask you about.	6:57
Sandy J. McCorvey	Go ahead. Yeah?	7:02
Paul Ortiz	Now, when you started there and you said that you began on a five-year plan.	7:04
Sandy J. McCorvey	Yeah, right.	7:05
Paul Ortiz	Did you feel overloaded in terms of coursework?	7:10
Sandy J. McCorvey	Mm-mm. Under-loaded.	7:14
Paul Ortiz	Under-loaded.	7:15
Sandy J. McCorvey	Uh-huh. And then at that school, high school, I attended high school in '34 and this was 1936. I was going to be here five years, that put me seven years from high school through college. That was, to me, was too long. That's right. I opted, I said well. At first I said, well, I'm in a strange place. I don't know anybody, got to eat still, still need sleep. What I did, sir, is I did without some meals. Because I got to Carter, he helped me out, give me three [indistinct 00:07:54]. Then when I was going sleep, I went to Captain Dry, the band master up here at Tuskegee. We, myself and Dr. Townson over in Little Rock Arkansas, and we asked him if he let us make a makeshift under his house. He said, "Well, I don't have anything under there." I said, "Well, let's make a makeshift." He said, "Okay. If y'all can do it, you can sleep down there." Okay, and we slept under Captain Dry's house.	7:17
Paul Ortiz	Under the house?	8:18
Sandy J. McCorvey	Yes, sir, under the house. A makeshift. The house was high and we slept under the house.	8:19
Paul Ortiz	You set up like a tent?	8:25
Sandy J. McCorvey	Huh?	8:26
Paul Ortiz	You set up like a tent?	8:27
Sandy J. McCorvey	No, no, no. We took planks and built a little room under the house.	8:29
Paul Ortiz	Oh, I see.	8:34
Sandy J. McCorvey	That we lived.	8:36
Paul Ortiz	How long were you living there?	8:36
Sandy J. McCorvey	I couldn't tell you how long, but most of the time I was in college was there.	8:42
Paul Ortiz	I see.	8:44
Sandy J. McCorvey	But I got in the dormitories. Got back in the dormitories. But most, I'd say, I spent more time there than I did in the dormitories.	8:46
Paul Ortiz	How did you find the other students that came to Tuskegee? Did you have seem to have a lot in common with them? Were they people from different areas?	8:58
Sandy J. McCorvey	Well, let's say that you had— This is during the Depression now. First Depression we ever had. I'd say the majority of us kids were working students. It was the happiest, as close to Heaven that you would get on Earth as far as being happiest is concerned, because everybody was happy. Everybody was happy. Absolutely. So, there's no big I, little you as far as I could see. No, sir. No big I, little you. Everybody's in the same bucket working, trying to make it.	9:08
Paul Ortiz	I see. Were you able to get involved in any kind of extracurricular activities at Tuskegee?	9:47
Sandy J. McCorvey	Well, there, I must admit that I cheated myself, I guess, because the fact that I had my sister here. I brought my sister here. I was responsible for looking after her. Thought she had to spend some little thing for her here and there.	10:03
Paul Ortiz	Right.	10:19
Sandy J. McCorvey	That little boy, I tell him get out there and get the wagon.	10:19
Paul Ortiz	I see.	10:22
Sandy J. McCorvey	That was the story there.	10:31
Paul Ortiz	Now, you talked at length about your job's agricultural extension agent in Tallapoosa County.	10:32
Sandy J. McCorvey	Yeah.	10:43
Paul Ortiz	And you talked a little bit about the 4-H. Now, I'm not too well-versed in the relationship.	10:45
Sandy J. McCorvey	Okay, I'll tell you. In them days, school system was decentralized and usually whatever there was a church, there was a school. Okay. We had 20-some-odd, almost 30 different schools at the time. Now, you have maybe half a dozen. We'd go out and we would make a survey, find what was there, tell the people, that kind of thing. Then we had several clubs, two different type of clubs. One was the 4-H Club with children, that's 4-H Club.	10:52
Paul Ortiz	You do this as an extension agent?	11:39
Sandy J. McCorvey	That's right. And they had a club pledge. I don't remember club pledge, man. But I lift my head, so on, so on, my heart, my hands, my health for my community, my country, and on like that. Something like that. I've forgotten that now, but that's what 4-H was. Head, heart, hand, health. And you had a little stamp for each one. That was the motto for the kids, the children. No, the motto was making the best better, frankly. I forget what that was, but it was 4-H Club, the head, heart and the [indistinct 00:12:33]. Head, heart, hands, health for better living for my country and my community. My community, my country and something like that. I've forgotten myself. It's been such a long time since.	11:40
Sandy J. McCorvey	But anyway, then we had clubs for the farm and homemakers. Farm and Homemakers Club. Some of the things that we'd try to do, actually we [indistinct 00:12:58] and our own sanitation on [indistinct 00:13:04]. There's sanitation and how to improve the cattle, the livestock and how to improve the vegetable garden and the crops likewise. And the use of fertilizer application and that's how you applied and all that kind of thing. Anything that could help to improve whatever they were doing for livelihood.	12:43
Paul Ortiz	I see. Now, during this time, were you employed under a New Deal agency?	13:31
Sandy J. McCorvey	No, no. You see, United States Department of Agriculture, the extension service was developed in 1913 or '14. You had extension service and you had a VWAG program. The VWAG program, the teacher would go into, each county had what they called a county training agricultural training school. You have a teacher there who taught vocation agriculture and a teacher who taught home economics. You see? Now, for those teachers, the Department of Agriculture, the state and the county paid their salaries.	13:34
Paul Ortiz	I see.	14:18
Sandy J. McCorvey	But for the regular teacher, the county was usually responsible to that. Unless the city. Some cities would assume responsibility.	14:21
Paul Ortiz	So, the federal government would pay the—	14:34
Sandy J. McCorvey	Pay a portion of it, they state would pay a portion, and the county would pay a portion.	14:34
Paul Ortiz	I see.	14:40
Sandy J. McCorvey	I worked for that agency. I worked four years, for one. I mean, six months after I came out. The zoning for the [indistinct 00:14:57] home improvement, whatever they seem to need most, that's what we tried to provide. Fertilizer use, cleanliness, sanitation, how to take care of your livestock. They keep their lives and not insect but your vegetable. You had insect there that you had to fight. With your livestock, you had internal worms and that kind of thing. Had to keep cleaned out, and to keep the flies and whatnot. That was something you could— A cow gets bothered by flies quite a lot. But sometimes you can put something on that cow that'll keep them flies from bothering them.	14:46
Paul Ortiz	Now, you mentioned that one of your supervisors, Fletcher Farrington, gave you some difficulties. Wasn't there—?	15:49
Sandy J. McCorvey	It was Farrington, yes. No, no, Mr. Farrington. Well, Mr. Farrington idea about— He was a technician. To me, he was one of the most outstanding technicians I worked with, frankly speaking. Here's what he did, and I agree with it, I'm saying. You see, the federal government has different agencies out there to help farm people. Okay. What he did in the spring and the fall, in the springtime, we'd have a meeting of all agencies at different points throughout the county for the convenience of the farm and home people.	16:03
Sandy J. McCorvey	Okay. Then we'd explain to them what was available. If they needed this, that, where to go for what. And then if you recommend Home, not Home but the Soil Conservation Service, if there were problems they were having pertaining to soil conservation, you would tell them. You'd say, "I'll be out there and I'll work with you." You went out to work with them, not to dictate to them, but to advise them. Now, they could accept and reject your offer.	16:50
Sandy J. McCorvey	And then, that was the FHA government, loaned money to farmers. And there was an extension service, and the extension service was supposed to have been the educational branch. Farrington was the county agent in charge of the extension. That's how he did it and I thought that was the right way, because of the fact that in so many other counties, I find that the agencies sometimes are fighting each other. But in this case, you had everybody working together.	17:21
Sandy J. McCorvey	Sometimes I'd go out to a farm, "I'm your best farmer. I'm your best friend. I'm your best friend now." So and so and so and so. A lot of times, the farmer was confused. But every few weeks, so everybody go out there. Okay? If problems come up for discussion, it's in your field, okay. About leadership. My field, I pull out leadership and a round table. And we do that at least twice year. In the springtime, planning, and then evaluating what had happened in the fall of the year. We'd meet at churches or schools, wherever was convenient for people to meet, more or less. That was out for people who missed schooling, missed getting training in school, and governments just trying to help them to improve their status.	17:48
Paul Ortiz	If you had to sum up your life, perhaps thinking about what have been the most important guidelines or philosophies in your life that were taken heart and that have carried you forward?	19:08
Sandy J. McCorvey	Well, I would say when it come down to wants and needs, wants and needs, there's a simple way of saying it. I told you I used to put 25 cent in the bank. See, my priority was I wanted a book when I go to school, and I did. And other than a shirt, I had my books. I'd put that 25 cent in there so at the end of the year every time I buy books, I had enough to buy my books. That was my priority. Okay now.	19:29
Sandy J. McCorvey	My wants, I could have eaten sardine, soda crackers, and cheese because I really liked it. I could have candy, I could have spent that money very easily and done those things. That my wants. But I suppressed my wants in favor of priority for my needs, and I did it all the way through life. All the way through life.	20:10
Sandy J. McCorvey	When I used to go to church, there were some Blacks who could wear better clothes that we could wear. Some had cars and all that kind of thing. But few had cars. I said to myself, something better can and should exist. This experience, a better experience, when I first started school 73 years ago. There were four of us boys. The supervisor, the government, there was a genius teacher who used to go out, supposed to go out and encourage Blacks to go to school and to help teachers in school. They do good planning and that kind of thing to encourage people, Black people, just make the best use of their time, talent, and opportunity in the first place.	20:49
Sandy J. McCorvey	This teacher used to come by and negatively, I thought, make fun of me and my brothers because of the fact that we wore patched clothes to school. She didn't say we were dirty now, but she made fun of us, say you shouldn't come to school wearing patched clothes. "Where are them McCorvey boys? [indistinct 00:21:55]." Of course, some of the kids would laugh at us. Well, that was something that hurt me because I learned then you don't hurt the soul of a child. It's hard to avoid that. That boy, hurting the soul of a child. We'd go home and we would just tell Mama about it. She'd pat us on her head and sometimes put her jaw against our jaw, and whispered in our ears, "It's not going to be like that always. It's not going to be like that always." And we found out what she said was the truth.	21:36
Sandy J. McCorvey	My mother was about a sixth-grade graduate, but she wanted her children to go to school. My father never kept us out of school one day. Not a single day. He would've kept us out if my mama hadn't been strong-willed. My daddy, sometimes he wanted to keep us out and he'd sit down, and winter time, sit down by the fire and say, "Oh, tomorrow I could do so and so, and I could just do so and so and so. And we could do so and so and so and so, and could do it so easy and it would mean so much." Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Mama was sitting up there. I'd have to worry. He said, "Just what you said?" My mama said, she'd call my father's name, Enis. She said, "Mr. Enis, my children are going to school."	22:33
Sandy J. McCorvey	And he never did. My dad never did try to overrule her. That's one thing I really appreciated. He never. But now, we had to work sometime at night because harvest and corn, the way we harvested it, you probably didn't do that in the Midwest that way. But we would, here at the center row here, okay for maybe four rows on this side, we'd pull and throw it into the center. Four rows on this side, threw it in the center. You really understand what I'm talking about? And so, you would have about eight rows of corn in piles and you'd take your wagon and pull up and down that row and load your corn on. We'd haul corn at nighttime.	23:24
Sandy J. McCorvey	During the summer time, we would labor our crops around July the fourth. Would have then until harvesting time, sometime four to five weeks. Then we'd get out and cut little jobs, I mean get little jobs, this, that and the other. I've seen times when I'd work all day and couldn't find a job that would pay me 50 cent. That was during the Depression.	24:12
Sandy J. McCorvey	I think that that taught me one thing, too. That perhaps problems, if you start off with problems to start with, might help people to make their mind to want something better and be willing to make the sacrifice. But if you start off giving them too much to start with, it's terrible. It's terrible.	24:35
Sandy J. McCorvey	I'll tell you truth. When I went to Africa to work, our government policy was if you were in a country that's close to Russia, they overload you with money. There's no question about what you did if you were close to Russia, and we were far away in Africa. At least I was. And no, that didn't have much influence. And so, I learned this one thing, sir. I'd ask the people, what about so and so and so and so? We asked the government. I said, "Well, H-E-L-L. Now, we're going to change. We going to do what we can do first and then we're going to ask the government."	25:16
Sandy J. McCorvey	Do you know we had the best program in the whole country? The best program in the whole country. In other words, you're not helping a person out. You're not helping the people unless they're making the best use of that time, talent already. Where they have already. That's the only time you have. If they're not doing that, then get an appoint to make the best use of their time, talent and what have you.	26:00
Paul Ortiz	Well, I got one question that I forgot to ask earlier. Now, when you went to West Africa in beginning of 1952, did you see any similarities between farming practices in West Africa and Black farming practices in the United States?	26:35
Sandy J. McCorvey	Yes, sir.	26:59
Paul Ortiz	Can you tell me about them?	27:01
Sandy J. McCorvey	Well, in the United States, we were much further ahead than they were. Much further ahead than they were. And yet, we weren't up to the White-level because White-level people could get money to buy machines and that kind of thing. And average Black really couldn't get it. And then to training a lot of times, had to have been trained to use it in the first place. You understand what I'm saying?	27:03
Sandy J. McCorvey	And so, the Black African farmer had no training in many, I said no training except tradition where he seen his father and pal do it. Then, you see, one of the big mistakes, this serious mistake that I think I saw. It was illustrated on my last trip to Wazo Station. We had the farmers come in there. There's a government demonstration, and this is '73. That's when it started getting dry. The farmers were talking among themselves. I didn't hear them because they were talking their language, but my advisor touched me.	27:27
Sandy J. McCorvey	He said, "Do you know what they're talking about now?" I said, "No." He said they can't understand why they live around here and their crops don't look like the crops here. I called attention to my supervisor because that week we worked together then, my soul concession. I said, "Do you hear the question they're asking you?" He said, "No." I explained to him. I said, "Do you want?" He said, "Yeah, yeah. Let's stop right here and let's have a little talk." Then they repeated it.	28:10
Sandy J. McCorvey	All right now. We had a good example there, where we made our rolls on the contour. On the contour. You understand? On the level. On the level. We maintained a level more or less from one end to the other. Now, that meant sometimes the roll may have to go this way a little bit or that way a little bit. You understand what I mean? In other words, you have to just— Because if you're going to keep it on a level, maybe to pockets of the land would differ here and there. If you come to incline, then you have to push it up the hill. You understand? They keep it on the level. Well, here's what they did. You see that? Now, this is an incline here. They ran their rolls this way.	28:47
Paul Ortiz	Down the incline?	29:38
Sandy J. McCorvey	Down the incline. You see what you're doing? You're sending your topsoil to the ocean through the channels of the creeks and the rivers and what have you. Sending it to the ocean.	29:41
Paul Ortiz	Erosion.	29:55
Sandy J. McCorvey	Erosion. That's one of the biggest problems, I think it face [indistinct 00:30:02] West Africa today. Unfortunately, it's true. And there's no comparison between the West African farmer because, see, here's the thing about it. In West Africa, the average man who's got some book training is not farming. Is not farming. That person who don't have that book train who is farming. And then there's probably, which I think is another reason for that, that you don't have big people farming. Because of the fact that when it comes to storage, storage is a problem which still hasn't been solved on a practical basis now in West Africa. You got the store stuff if you're going to be able to really make an economic go of it.	29:56
Paul Ortiz	Oh, and what year did you get married?	31:05
Sandy J. McCorvey	'43. 29 years old. I was 29 years old.	31:08
Paul Ortiz	Did your wife work?	31:35
Sandy J. McCorvey	Well, in West Africa she did this now. They didn't have a library in the little— They had two high schools. Well, okay. One owned by the Catholic and one owned by the government, and they didn't have a library. Well, first she insisted on setting up a library for the government. She took her meager salary they gave her and applied it right back in the books, is what they did. So, she did a little work but it wasn't— She never worked to help the family.	31:37
Sandy J. McCorvey	I mean, no, no. Except one time now, when I was in school in Nashville. I was in Nashville in school for a year trying to get into medicine. She worked at a little nursery school, and that was for one year only. But other than that, she's just in a housewife station.	32:19
Sandy J. McCorvey	This, and I'll tell you what I did. I developed a scheme. I don't have it here but I have it in there. I wanted to help out in supervision, and it took me 20 years to really come up with this scheme whereby I could be sent into the back of nowhere and I could have people trained as supervisors to do a much more effective job of supervision. We'd sit down and what we'd do, I would take each crop. 12 months, all right? To indicate what you do for this crop if it's for 12 months. Not all crops grow that much, you know?	32:45
Paul Ortiz	Right.	34:08
Sandy J. McCorvey	But for whatever month it is, each crop. Now, here's the way I did it, God bless me. Most countries had similar extension supervisor, but they'd never been used to this kind of thing. Now, I asked them. I said, "What about your work program? Your work schedule and that kind of thing?" Well, they never was able to really come up with it. And so, what I would do then is I'd take those supervisors and I'd take a simple crop. We'd work it out for that simple crop.	34:17
Sandy J. McCorvey	Then I'd take another crop, maybe two or three crops, and then we'd make out what we call a master schedule. I put our 12 months there. I said, "Well now, we'll start with the most important job that you have to do for each crop and make a calendar of activities. Take all your crops, and let's start at January, and start off with the most important thing to be done. If it's breaking the land, whatever it is, for that crop. And to list all of the crops you have anything to do with on January and on through December." I said to the supervisor, "Now, you don't have to be there," because I was working it up with them. Then I would go back and they had fellows who were located in the village level, at the village level. I said, "Now, we going to do it with them. Bring them here. They're going to do it themselves. I'm not going to do it." I said, "Now, you, you understand what we did. How we did work with you. Now, that's what I want you to do for them."	34:49
Sandy J. McCorvey	It worked out all right and it improved their method of supervision and whatnot, because they didn't have to be there to tell that fellow at the vision level what to do if I didn't get there in time. By George, yeah, you don't have to make out this master schedule now. You don't have to wait till I get there to tell you to do what to do. They loved that. I'm telling you. They loved it.	36:14
Sandy J. McCorvey	The next thing, in a Muslim country. Muslims don't believe in paying taxes. Or not taxes. They pay taxes but don't believe in paying rent. Is it rent? Rent? No, interest. Interest.	36:47
Paul Ortiz	Interest.	36:58
Sandy J. McCorvey	They don't believe in paying interest. When I first went to the Muslim country in northern Nigeria, well, we can't do it because the Muslims don't believe in paying. If I make this improvement, well, we could do that but the Muslims don't believe in paying in interest. I said, "Well, I think we can beat that." At time in this state, they were filling, I lived on a half million dollars of fertilizer. We had what you call the tragic approach extension. What we mean by this, we would— Okay, so here's a village and how many people had farms in that village? We'd set up a percentage level of projects for demonstration we carried out in that village.	36:59
Sandy J. McCorvey	Now, we were not going to tell them who to give them to. We were going there, go explain it to the chief of people, and then we were going to ask them. So now, look. We want you to— For the projects now. Then we said we got the fertilizer seed, the fertilizer, the chemicals and everything you need for one quarter of an acre. I said, "But you have to select a man who farmers owned." Or no, no, no, no. "A path is traveled heavily, or a road is traveled heavily, because we want a lot of people to see it." And a man have to have at least a half an acre. And then he's going to have from that, that make a fourth an acre. Because we have enough seed in this package for fourth an acre. We have the seed, the fertilizer, and insecticide/herbicide, whatever you needed, and show him how to apply, show this guy how to apply everything. How to teach the people how to apply everything.	38:05
Sandy J. McCorvey	Hinder, now he's going treat one. He's got a half acre there because this is just for the demonstration. On one, he's going to treat it code recommended practice, the other going to treat it code traditional practices. And we're going to record the difference.	39:20
Sandy J. McCorvey	We didn't have to have anybody at those projects to call attention. The people come along who spoke different dialects that came. We didn't have to be bothered by having anybody there to call their attention to hear something that's new, here's something that's different. Here's something significant. You'd go by sometimes you may see 15 or 20 of them fellows there. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Yep, yep. Nobody guiding anything. They're concerned over what they see. They see the difference. They see the recommended practice. They see the one that's traditional. And we usually got around 300% more, and you have to go through the same motion. If you didn't have recommended practice, you'd go through the same motion yet your productivity would be much lower.	39:43
Sandy J. McCorvey	Within the [indistinct 00:40:31] in terms of bags, peanuts, or whatever it is, the other ones got all tradition. Yeah, we got to offer you recommended. Afterwards, now we'd go out there in the forest area and let the chief know we have so many for him, for him and his people. And they going to have to decide where it's going to be. We don't decide where it's going to be. But then they tell us where it is, too. See? When they were done.	40:29
Sandy J. McCorvey	Okay. Now, the farmers, they appreciated that because they could see. I asked the government. I said, "Now, why is you continuing this?" "Oh, we're teaching them. We're teaching them." I said, "Teaching? They know already. They understand already." Because if you travel two, three— If you travelers, I used to do many days out there. You will see a group of farmers here, a group of farmers there. They're concerned about they see a difference and they want to know what makes that difference. Want to know if they can get it.	40:57
Sandy J. McCorvey	And so, the government said, "Well, they don't pay interest and if we make credit for any of this, they have to pay interest." I said, "Well, I tell you. I think I understand. I have something we can go that way." So, one evening, Abrisha was still there. He was the permanent secretary in position of the chief agricultural officer. Everything had to go through him. I talked with them about it. And so, one Sunday afternoon he came to my house. He said, "Now, you've been talking about so and so and so and so on. Could you have it on my desk tomorrow morning by nine o'clock?" I said, "Oh, yes." I had more typewriter there. Got one for helping, that didn't take me long to be there. Had it on his desk. They accepted it.	41:35
Sandy J. McCorvey	I said, "Now, here what let's do. Let's go out there with a barter program. Don't talk about money. Let's carry the seed. Let's go out there and let's carry enough to saturate whatever seed we'd like to have growing here. Let's carry enough to saturate the whole village, and then let them pay back in kind." But let them know that you do some losing, and they had to pay back what they've lost. Now, we don't call it interest, but they pay that back. We had to set up higher up, so it tripled the interest to tell you the truth. And they agreed to it.	42:25
Sandy J. McCorvey	Okay. We said, "Okay, we will saturate this state in five years." Yes. Well, we could have saturated the state in three years. The government didn't have the input. I said, "[indistinct 00:43:29], will you go here? This fell here? Okay, now you let him pay back in kind, and then you have a certain day when you going to pick that up. Then you take that to another village." The thing got moving so fast, the man was so high. We could have done it in three years. Excuse me. Done it in three years, to saturate the whole, what that.	43:14
Sandy J. McCorvey	Two things. We didn't have the seed and then the dry weather set in in '73. But here you had now, the government had a monopoly on the sale because as a peanut farmer, that was a major crop there. As a peanut farmer, you could sell locally to for anything. I think if you're going to market, you had to sell to the government. We showed the government that you become [indistinct 00:44:23] you were controlling the market and everything, and the government bought that.	43:57
Sandy J. McCorvey	Now, the government was spending about a little bit over half a million dollars in fertilizer when I went there. When I left there, there was $5 million dispenser fertilizer. The thing was just showing up beautiful. We called it the package demonstration approach. I've never seen anything, even in the extension in this country, that was more effective because of the fact that you didn't have to have anybody there at that project. When the farmers come there, they would stop themselves. They wondered if— I've been at projects there a lot. I would kind of spend more time than I would've spent if it hadn't been for that interest, you know? And give them time.	44:28
Sandy J. McCorvey	Because now, they never come to me but they'll come to, if I have a local question, which I always had a local person because I didn't understand the dialects and that kind of thing, they would find him and want to know how can we get this so and so and so and so? Well, nobody told them here's something better, but they saw with their own eyes. They took initiative and it worked out beautiful.	45:13
Sandy J. McCorvey	Now, they've done pretty well there. At one time in Nigeria, they had some of the best oil that you found anywhere in the world. Product it was required less effort to process and all that kind of thing. Of course, you probably know more about that than I do. But then they started letting the agriculture slide, which was unfortunate. It was unfortunate that they let the agriculture slide. Because formerly, Nigeria was divided into three regions. Each region had something in agriculture that it sold to bring foreign exchange in Nigeria. In the north, you had peanuts. And in the central province, you had [indistinct 00:46:33] and some cocoa. In the western province, you had cocoa principally, and some coffee.	45:38

Sandy J. McCorvey	Now, let me say this too. You've got to find people who love people in the first sense. [indistinct 00:00:15] who love people. And people who don't mind getting out and working. Love people first. If you don't love people you're not going to do the Lord's job. I had one of the biggest arguments I had while I was over there with a chap who was trained in Russia. And we're having some senior training meetings. And he asked me if he could go along with me. I said, "Yes." The first day I had to wait on him. I said, "Now brother," I said, "Now [indistinct 00:01:00] here's the program. [indistinct 00:01:02] I said, "Now tomorrow, if you want to go along, you be there at a certain time. If you're not there, you're going to have to find another way of getting out there." Never had any more trouble out of him after that one time.	0:04
Sandy J. McCorvey	You see another thing that hurt Africa too, this I hope will grow out, I mean will— It ain't the best way. The colonialist people, if they taught school, they could take a vacation almost the whole summer back home. Vacation with pay. And do you know one— I got into town with a local schoolteacher who wanted to go to England so they could get their pay too. And then another thing too, was that the role model for the masters and they wanted everything that the master had. The master didn't go out and get their hands dirty on anything. Had a small boy to do that.	1:21
Sandy J. McCorvey	Well, they the one— Well I could go out, got some clean clothes, but I said, "Now if a cow, a horse, a hog, whatnot, if something need to be done with him," I said, "I'm ready and willing to become involved. If we have the time of whatever they have to do, get that job done." But then I'd go back home, take a bath, and [indistinct 00:02:56] clean again. And I said, "I don't lose any prestige at all by going out there, working, taking the shovel or whatnot. I'm working on that kind of thing." And to me, that's another thing that's going to have to happen.	2:28
Sandy J. McCorvey	But now when it comes to overall tranquility and progress, I think that's a long ways away yet. Because in most countries you got most of the people down here, a few people up here. And if I'm down there and I want to get up here and I can see you're going South with a lot of money or something like that, I can't say anything about it. If I say anything about it, everybody up here going to say, "Uh-huh. Put your feet on him."	3:11
Paul Ortiz	Crush him.	3:46
Sandy J. McCorvey	Crush him. And for that I said— For any type of democracy to survive, they got to have a functional middle class. Got to have a functional middle class. Without a functional middle class, you won't get to first base.	3:46
Sandy J. McCorvey	[indistinct 00:04:18]	4:07
Paul Ortiz	No, this has been wonderful. I've learned an incredible amount of information and that.	4:20
Sandy J. McCorvey	Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And now what we could do— Now I didn't tell you something else. I don't think I have a copy of my bylaws and constitution, but I have a 500-acre— I lived on a 500-acre farm out there of my own. I used to run a small cattle ranch. The guy who I had out there looking after the cattle ranch got old, decrepit, wanted to retire. I said, "If you're going to retire, I'm going to retire." So seven years ago, he retired and I sold my cattle. [indistinct 00:05:01] farm down in pine trees except for my hayfields. My hayfields, I kept them open, rent them out. But I have an 80-acre project there, plot of land there. I spent $80,000 of my money on that without— You won't see it. That's what I spend on that side, that plot of land already. Got two blacktops running into it.	4:31
Sandy J. McCorvey	I want to develop an educational, recreational, educational, recreational. Socioeconomic project there. Socioeconomic project there. I want it to be educational because of the fact that when our Black kids first got into White schools, they would go in and play ball. Lot of them went in there with nothing up here and came out with nothing up there. A lot of them. And there were those who had something when they went in and they came out with something. They made millions of dollars, helped to make millions of dollars for income for the athletic departments for various schools. And when it come time for them to leave, they left with nothing.	5:33
Sandy J. McCorvey	And now, I say if we can get them to the point where they can appreciate education, that's number one. And the project we planned [indistinct 00:06:50] having becomes— grow to become self sufficient. I have two ponds on it. One's 7 acres and one 18. And I can develop another 100 acres out there. And develop a catfish farm, which will go a long ways. And the initial cost's going to put us behind, but it'd be worth it in the long run to set up a processing plant there. You can process— This is a ordinary plant. You can process 10,000 pounds a day. And we actually process catfish moving through the sales, yeah, they move pretty fast.	6:34
Paul Ortiz	Well, it sounds like a good project.	8:00
Sandy J. McCorvey	Well, I think this. If we want to have a standard recreational program and we want the kids with a regular Olympic pool and them to pay a certain fee. It's a member fee. But to work it out rather than they pay it. Willing to work it out rather than they pay it, you see. I used to do this in West Africa, now. In West Africa, you had some little missions and some big missions. And in the missions, the missionaries would [indistinct 00:08:43] come out and try to set up something [indistinct 00:08:47]. Some place they'd want rubber trees. Some places they'd want [indistinct 00:08:52] cocoa or coconut, et cetera.	8:04
Sandy J. McCorvey	Most case they'd want to grow some vegetables. And I would take— I'd find out how much land they had and say we cut this plot— This is the plot, I'm going to cut that plot in two. One plot for the school, one plot for the student. Now, you'd have to give priority to the school project. But we never had any difficulty at all. They kept both project nice. And when they got ready [indistinct 00:09:27] and start selling it, I'd go in the market and I'd try to help them do sales, price, the price and that kind of thing.	8:55
Sandy J. McCorvey	And I'd make them do a load of vegetable, but I wouldn't sell in competition with them. I'd move on to another market. That's beautiful. Those kids, when they start selling their product and getting a little change, oh, you talking about smiling. It wasn't that they were— It was interesting. And think about this. We made a survey to find out how much local producers produce of the small fruit and vegetables that pass through commercial channels here. Found out that 96% of small fruit and vegetables, which go through commercial channels were brought in somewhere else. And that we could produce at least 60% or more of those things right here. I said it's like a little sweet potatoes, what have you. And we have an organization set up for that [indistinct 00:10:41] sweet potato festival set up for that.	9:38
Sandy J. McCorvey	But, I have out there, where this project would be, I have a blacktop running this way and a blacktop running that way. And we'd set up a vegetable sale market and a shed right there where those two roads meet, at the intersection. And we'd have the kids selling their own vegetables and whatnot. Doesn't mean that every kid would be selling now, that means that we'd have just what's needed when they would accept people, because if I— I could bring mine there and I could pay just a small fee to let them sell them. And then I could come in here to town with these stores, and get their business too. And so that's what we're thinking about.	10:49
Sandy J. McCorvey	And I already spent $80,000 of my money out there. You won't see it. [indistinct 00:11:51] to you. The two ponds cost me $35,000 each. The land has been [indistinct 00:11:57] most of that land has [indistinct 00:11:58] That's because I was going to do a housing project. And I changed and thought— And then, I had to bring gas from across this highway and then across this highway and carry it down about a tenth of a mile. That cost me $8,500. Got water right there. I got sewage. The sewage— Now, the sewage line for this city run right along at the heel of it. And so we have all of these amenities. And then the first highways and whatnot. We're off 85 and one way about a mile and maybe three quarters. We're off this highway here, over here, about two miles. And then for going north, we can go on up as far as Birmingham, anywhere that we want to go. And that's it.	11:46
Sandy J. McCorvey	And then we're getting ready to get— There is an older bridge that's a tenth of a mile from the place. And we have been qualified now— I mean, have been certified to get in the next three or four years, an intersection there. And that's going to improve the property around there. You see? And so we have high hope for this thing. The constitution bylaws are already ready. We've done that already. We have that.	13:16
Paul Ortiz	That's great.	14:03
Sandy J. McCorvey	And I worked on— Look. No, just sit down. You don't have to get up. You see that table in there? Those letters, I work on them. I went to bed after 4 o'clock this morning. Because I usually like to do my mail before I go to bed at night. I can do it better at nighttime than I can in daytime because with the wife here and my daughter here right now— Daughter just came in from China. She's working in China now. And they'll come in, even I didn't want to— So and so and so and so, and I'm working on something and I'm trying to think or something like that and disturb me. So I'd rather do that at nighttime [indistinct 00:14:51]. And so now you said this thing here?	14:05
Paul Ortiz	Oh yeah, okay. If you could sign that. This gives us basically the permission to [indistinct 00:15:03] and students to use it.	14:56
Sandy J. McCorvey	[indistinct 00:15:11]	15:04
Paul Ortiz	Yeah. And that's— Excuse me, sir. It's out of Duke University. That's—	15:11

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Title:

Sandy McCorvey interview recording, 1994 July 15

Date:

July 15, 1994

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McCorvey, Sandy J.

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Ortiz, Paul

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Name: Sandy J. McCorvey; Date of Birth: 1940-07-06; Place of Birth: Monroe County, AL; Occupation(s): agriculture; educator; teacher, farmer; Residence: Tuskegee, AL
Informant ID: 671; Interviewed by: Paul Ortiz.

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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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Sandy McCorvey interview recording, 1994 July 15

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1. Sandy McCorvey administrative file, 1994

2. Sandy McCorvey slides: 4-H Club Institute, Tallapoosa County courthouse farmers attempting to get credit, 1960s

3. Sandy McCorvey slides: Brother David McCorvey in Navy uniform, 1939-1945

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Sandy McCorvey interview recording, 1994 July 15

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