Amelia Thorpe interview recording, 1996 October 28

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Julie Zwibelman	Okay. This is October twenty-eighth, 1996, and this is an oral interview of Amelia Thorpe.	0:01
Julie Zwibelman	Mrs. Thorpe, can you tell me a little bit about your childhood in Durham?	0:07
Amelia Thorpe	My childhood Durham, it was very pleasant. This was a very cooperative community. Most of my friends lived right on this street, all within walking distance. We had the college [indistinct 00:00:30], so we went to programs that we belonged to. Drama club. Swimming. We had the library, Stanford L. Warren Library, right up the street, so we had the advantage of going to books. All of our schools were right here and within walking distance. We had very good schools. We had teachers that really cared about us and wanted us to do our best. Our parents were friends, so we had a network of support.	0:13
Amelia Thorpe	We went to birthday parties and went to the recreation center, also some—we had neighborhood clubs. We went on hikes. Lots of people, lots of adults, were involved in our growing up. At that time, we adhered to the principle it takes a whole village to raise a child. Well, this was like a cooperative venture. Parents belonged to mothers' clubs. Then, other people were involved in our growing and making sure that we took advantage of—that we were exposed to important things for our childhood.	1:08
Julie Zwibelman	Yeah. So, who else was in your household?	1:55
Amelia Thorpe	My mother, my father and my sister.	1:56
Julie Zwibelman	Mm-hmm. What kind of jobs did they do?	2:02
Amelia Thorpe	My mother was a first-and-second-grade teacher, she taught right over at Pearson School, and my dad worked for the Golden Belt Manufacturing Co.	2:06
Julie Zwibelman	What kind of values would you say that your parents really tried to instill?	2:15
Amelia Thorpe	The values of being kind, being honest, appreciating people, reaching out to people. Being a good citizen in the community and in our city. Of course, going to school. The important stuff. Having religious experience. We went to church. We belonged to White Rock Baptist Church. Those are some of the major things.	2:19
Julie Zwibelman	Mm-hmm. Did you know your grandparents at all?	2:49
Amelia Thorpe	I knew one grandmother, my dad's mother, and they lived until I graduated from college.	3:05
Julie Zwibelman	Oh, really?	3:13
Amelia Thorpe	Mm-hmm. Then, I had a great aunt who was my grandfather's sister. She took over as grandmother, and I called her Grandma too. She lived until I was in my mid 30s, so I had a long experience, really, with both of them. Two grandmothers, but I did not know either of my grandfathers. I know a lot about my mother's daddy, but he died maybe six months before I was born.	3:14
Julie Zwibelman	What kind of stories did they share with you about their history, and what kind of things did you guys, you know, learn about?	3:43
Amelia Thorpe	Oh. Well, Pearl Page, she was my great aunt that I called Grandma. She really told me my mother's history. I am named Amelia, my grandmother was named Amelia, and my great-grandmother was named Amelia. Pearl Page was just a young woman when she came to Durham. My grandmother, Lizzie, was a sickly person, but she got to know her, and she told me most of the things that I knew about that part of the family. Because she lived a long time, she would say, "I remember when there were no airplanes. I remember when trains were frightful things." People said they came from the devil. If you got on a train—she would see people working on telegraph poles, and she'd say, "Well, I remember when there was no electricity, or any telephones, or anything like that." Being around and talking with a person like that, you get a first-hand experience with someone who lived in that era rather than just reading about it.	3:52
Amelia Thorpe	Of course, my father's mother, Helen Hall, was a country woman all her life. She would talk about doing some things really, really rural and going out to the tobacco fields, and priming the tobacco, and working in the tobacco farms. That was her experience her whole life. Until she got too old, of course, to work in the fields. Then, of course, I remember her as making the best Brunswick stew, and the only time I ever drank unpasteurized milk, milk straight from the cow, and her buttermilk biscuits and that kind of thing. She was very kind and loving, and my dad was her only son, so she liked us especially. Of course, Pearl Page liked us and considered us her grandchildren because my grandfather was her favorite brother.	5:05
Julie Zwibelman	Where did she live here?	6:17
Amelia Thorpe	Pearl Page lived right up on Fayetteville Street. As a matter of fact, my mom was born right up on Fayetteville Street, right next door to—you needn't pay attention to it over there, but Page's Grocery Store right up on Fayetteville Street. You passed by it, and the little house next to it was where my mama was born, but she spent a lot of her adolescence in Granville County. She finished Mary Potter Academy. Of course, my dad's mother and my dad, they were born in Granville County, and they spent all her her life there in Granville County.	6:21
Julie Zwibelman	So, your dad grew up in a rural—	7:01
Amelia Thorpe	In a rural area. Mm-hmm. Yeah. My mom was born in Durham and went to school here for a little while, but then she too went to a rural area. She went to a boarding school. Then she taught school, and then she came to Durham to teach school. That's when she met my dad, in east Durham.	7:04
Julie Zwibelman	Was it real different for your dad. He grew in rural. Did he talk a lot about that?	7:26
Amelia Thorpe	Well, my dad was fortunate enough to go live with his aunt in Henderson. He went to high school at a boarding school too. Henderson Institute. Well, his early childhood, that is, was there on the farm, but as soon as he left Henderson Institute he went to places like New York and New Jersey; Atlantic City. He'd lived up in the cities through young adulthood because my dad was about twenty-five when he married my mom, so he had had some experiences in the city.	7:29
Julie Zwibelman	Did he say that we wanted to return south? Did he like New York and New Jersey?	8:09
Amelia Thorpe	Oh, during that time, of course, it was the Depression, so it was really, really hard up there in New York. I think he got some summer work, maybe, in New Jersey, but he felt like he'd do better to come back, so he came back and did hotel work over in Raleigh before he came to Durham. He worked in the Washington Duke Hotel. Then, during the war, he went to Pennsylvania to work in the shipyard, and I went up there with my mom for a couple of summers to see him, yeah, just be with him.	8:13
Julie Zwibelman	What was your relationship like with your brothers and sisters?	8:44
Amelia Thorpe	Oh, with my sister. I just have one sister.	8:59
Julie Zwibelman	Oh, yeah. It was one sister.	9:00
Amelia Thorpe	Well, growing up, she was six years younger than me, so she was like a little sister; kind of in the way a little bit, but as we grew older—and, of course, now we're good friends. See, of course, the most important thing she did for me was give me my niece and nephew, since I don't have children, and I watched them grow up and become young adults. My niece is a senior at UNC Central, and my nephew is an engineer at A&T. We go shopping, and we go to programs together and yard sales, and talk on the telephone. We belong to a book club together. As a matter of fact, she had a book club meeting Friday night, so I was helping her [indistinct 00:09:53].	9:02
Julie Zwibelman	Do you remember things that you—because of your difference in your ages, do you remember games you liked to play when you were little?	9:55
Amelia Thorpe	Oh, yeah. Well, my dad built us a play house in the backyard, and before she got old enough to really know how to play in the playhouse, she would have to come down and be with me to play. So she'd be down there, messing around, while I'd be trying to really play. It'd be constantly I'd say, "Come on. Let's have a little picnic," and we'd have a little picnic on the back porch, or I'd read to her, or we'd play some kind of little game that she could play. My dad would take us to the beach in the summer, down in South Carolina, and we would have fun down at the beach. Even before, Dad, too, would take over to Raleigh to go to the park and the different statues. There are pictures of us together on these little trips. As a matter of fact, once, when I had a cousin who came down from New Jersey, we took the train, the old choo choo train, over to Raleigh. We did things like that together, even when she was little, and we went to Sunday school together.	10:00
Julie Zwibelman	Was that another real community—were a lot of people in this community all members of—	11:14
Amelia Thorpe	A lot of members of White Rock down there, of course, in this community.	11:22
Julie Zwibelman	Lived around.	11:26
Amelia Thorpe	Mm-hmm. They were members of White Rock Baptist, or St Josephs, or St Titus, so you new people in several denominations. Of course, there's a presbyterian church around the corner.	11:26
Julie Zwibelman	So, was there a lot of cooperation among—	11:44
Amelia Thorpe	Yeah.	11:47
Julie Zwibelman	There wasn't really rivalries or—	11:47
Amelia Thorpe	Yeah. There was some rivalry, but I remember going to, in summer, Vacation Bible School. I went to St Josephs, and then I went to White Rock school. At St Titus, the parents were free about dancing and parties. They had a clubhouse that they would call Parish House, and we could go there for dances. I remember the priest there was very [indistinct 00:12:16]. There was always this cooperative spirit among the churches. Of course, there was rivalry about who belongs to which church, but in terms of doing things and wanting young people to—then I went to the Christian [indistinct 00:12:36] in the Methodist church too because my friends went there and they would come to White Rock sometimes.	11:47
Julie Zwibelman	This kind of goes back to— you said your mom— did you attend the same school that your mom taught at?	12:43
Amelia Thorpe	Yes. Uh-huh. Yes, W.G Pearson.	12:52
Julie Zwibelman	Was that hard?	12:52
Amelia Thorpe	No, I don't remember it being hard because my mom was a real professional. She did not teach me, and she did not cater to me. No, I just went there because it was convenient to.	12:55
Julie Zwibelman	Did you enjoy school?	13:12
Amelia Thorpe	Yeah, I did.	13:13
Julie Zwibelman	Any particular memories of that?	13:16
Amelia Thorpe	Oh, one in—let's see. I remember my sixth-grade teacher because she was my favorite in elementary school. She lived to be 101, and she was a very, very good teacher. She introduced us to [indistinct 00:13:31], and I always will appreciate that. I remember, at that time, we had big May Days. We'd have our white dresses on, and the Maypole would be out in the front yard. Pearson School has a lovely front yard, and the piano would come outside [indistinct 00:13:50] May Day. I remember when they built the new cafeteria because for years we had to have cold lunches, and then they had the new cafeteria. My fifth grade teacher was also the school musician. He was a wonderful musician, and we always had lots of good music when we went to assembly. We had special pageants in the spring, Spring Festival, where most of the children got a chance to be on the stage. I think that's really important for a child to get on the stage. It was a very strict school, but we had a lot of fun there too.	13:18
Julie Zwibelman	Did you learn about African American history, or was it—	14:42
Amelia Thorpe	Well, the thing was Pearson School is named for a leading Black educator in Durham, W.G Pearson. His picture was right there when we walked in the room, and if you went into the auditorium, there were three leading—let's see who they were. Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglas and Carver were right there on the wall, going in, along with Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. I notice that all of this is gone now, and I'm not quite sure why. Well, they just redid the whole school because it's a magnet school and it's just different.	14:46
Amelia Thorpe	We had to learn several of the poems that were written by Black poets. Without it specifically being African American history, it was just taught to us. Of course, we had only one week for African American Week, before we used to call Negro History; the old Negro History Week. In a special instance, I remember we saw a video—not a video. We didn't have any videos. We saw movies, old filmstrips, on the life of George Washington Carver. It always terrified me because his parents were attacked one night by the Ku Klux Klan and someone was taken away. I learned too—anyway, we saw movies like that. As I said, we had to learn poems by Black poets, Paul Laurence Dunbar being one of the people that we had to learn poetry, and others. It was just there by it being a segregated, Negro school. It was emphasized, and at that time I think more poetry was emphasized. You learned more poetry than you do now.	15:41
Julie Zwibelman	Did you have contact with White children ever?	17:13
Amelia Thorpe	Yeah, I did. My cousin's store, Page's Grocery Store, delivered groceries to people all across town, Black and White people. There is still standing a little store on Chapel Hill right across from Lakewood Shopping Center. It was the Rose Florist, and that family had been friends and customers of theirs for years. They had a daughter or a niece, granddaughter, that I played with. I can remember playing with her, running up and down the aisles of the greenhouses. She was probably the first White person that I played with. Of course, after those early times, can't recall any opportunity because the school systems were segregated. Of course, she grew up, and I stopped going with my cousins to deliver groceries, but I did have that common experience with her.	17:16
Julie Zwibelman	You talked about really being scared, I can imagine, at I don't know what age with the—	18:27
Amelia Thorpe	I was in elementary school.	18:32
Julie Zwibelman	When they were showing the filmstrip and everything.	18:33
Amelia Thorpe	Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.	18:34
Julie Zwibelman	Do you remember particular racial incidents that continued that fear?	18:34
Amelia Thorpe	No. No. It was just that filmstrip. No. I was very fortunate. I didn't have any racial incidents. I felt free. In that time, I was allowed to go downtown; to go downtown and in the shops, and there was never any racial incidents. One of the things was we didn't go very far without parental supervision in the first place. We weren't as free as the young people are now. I look at my niece. I look at you. You're just going wherever, and we just didn't. We just didn't. Even in college. I made my first [indistinct 00:19:27] I belonged to—it was called the Christian's [indistinct 00:19:35] or something like that. I forgot, but I made my first friends who were Duke students and they came over to NCCU during—so, that was really my first concrete meeting with White students. You see, for as long as I was a student, even in college, the high schools and so forth were still very segregated.	18:42
Julie Zwibelman	When you say downtown, that was downtown like Hayti area?	20:10
Amelia Thorpe	No, downtown Durham—	20:13
Julie Zwibelman	Oh, actual—	20:14
Amelia Thorpe	Main Street.	20:15
Julie Zwibelman	Oh, okay.	20:15
Amelia Thorpe	No, I never considered Hayti downtown. That was Hayti, but downtown was always Main Street.	20:16
Julie Zwibelman	You did go there a lot during the segregated times?	20:23
Amelia Thorpe	Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, sure.	20:27
Julie Zwibelman	You didn't feel uncomfortable? That was normal for—	20:29
Amelia Thorpe	Yeah, because when you went downtown, you went to shops. You knew you didn't want to drink at a Colored water fountain, so you didn't. What else? You knew that you couldn't use the bathroom, so you went to the bathroom before you left and you came. You just kind of—find that on, in a way. You were very aware that that happened. In terms of the movies, the Carolina Theatre where the new Carolina Building is now? Oh, it's quite lovely now, but when I was growing, Blacks had to go all the way up; up in the roof, almost. Even as children, we would just go there and say, "No. That movie is not worth climbing up those steps," and we just didn't go.	20:33
Amelia Thorpe	This is very interesting. The movies that we went to see were the biblical movies. The most segregated place in town, showed most of the biblical movies—we went to Sunday school, so we wanted to see the movie. We would climb those steps to see the biblical movies, but otherwise we just said, "Oh, no. It's just not worth it," and then we could go over to the Central. There weren't as many steps, and the lady there was really nice. She actually lived on the street, and she would let us in free sometimes.	21:25
Amelia Thorpe	I think we dealt with segregation, the hardest part of segregation, very well as children in that we just didn't do it. In terms of restaurants, our parents, and especially Pearl Page, they cooked better food anyway. I can remember once being with my dad downtown and looking in at that—it was called the Brightleaf Café, and it was in the Washington Duke Hotel. It looked so pretty in there, and I said, "Oh, Daddy. Can't we go in there?" He just said, "Oh, let's wait till we get to Grandma's." I remember, years later, going there and thinking, "Well, I'm here now, but this food isn't really all that good." Of course, it was very important to be able to go there. That was very important.	21:59
Amelia Thorpe	Of course, I marched to be able to go there, but in terms of, as a child, having some kind of racial incident or having someone say something to me, no. Usually, we went in a group. It wasn't until I was much older that I went downtown by myself because it wasn't any fun. When I was going as older, I was a more serious customer, but as a teenager, you like to go—I see most teenagers now in the malls in a group, so we went downtown in a group. Most of the time, when we were very young, we'd be going to the movies, to the Central Theater.	22:59
Julie Zwibelman	Do you remember a particular movie that you—	23:39
Amelia Thorpe	Oh, I remember my girlfriend and I went to see The Great Caruso. Oh, we sat there through two times. Oh, it was such a wonderful movie. We liked that movie so much. I remember when 3D first came out. We went to see The House of Wax. Oh, imagine, we screamed, and just carried on. But those two movies, really, I was so—and, of course, I saw Show Boat. I thought that was so beautiful, but that Great Caruso, we sat there, we said, "We aren't going to leave. We want to see this again." Those, and The Student Prince. That was a beautiful musical too.	23:47
Amelia Thorpe	I can still remember seeing Snow White, I think that was the first movie I ever saw, that cartoon, when I was just a little girl, and the Lassie movie, Lassie Come Home. I remember I liked that, and I continue to like movies, but, geez, it's so expensive now. Oh, goodness. I understand they're going up in price, so I haven't—I think I went to see Little Women. Yes, I enjoyed that, yes. I went to see something else. The Bird Cage.	24:21
Julie Zwibelman	Cool.	24:43
Amelia Thorpe	Yeah. That was with Robin Williams. One of those really silly, funny things.	24:47
Julie Zwibelman	Are there are particular parts of Hayti— that was kind of separate. What do you remember about—where would you go in that area?	25:19
Amelia Thorpe	Oh, well, by the time I could go down the street by myself—my dentist's office is right there in Mexico, past Hayti. It was right there on Pettigrew Street, next to the Regal Theater. Of course, I went to the Regal Theater, and I would walk there by myself. Sometimes, if it was getting a little dark, I might feel uncomfortable, but otherwise it was fine. And I could walk through there on Saturday mornings because over on one side you'd have all the big bands, buskers there, and you'd have an open-air market. It was kind of a hustle and a bustle that was really clever. Of course, the White Rock Church and St Joseph was right there in Old Hayti, so that was just a continuation of this neighborhood for me, but once you turned the—the atmosphere did get to be a little different. Once you turned off Fayetteville Street onto Pettigrew Street, that was Mexico. That's where they built more hotels and lots of shops. Sometimes, it could get a little hectic down there.	25:43
Amelia Thorpe	Of course, I did never go down there alone at night, but, like I say, I walked through there from the time I was able to walk [indistinct 00:27:08], ever since I was twelve years old, because my dentist was there and we went to the Regal Theater. We went to buy ice cream in Dr. Garrett's pharmacy in the Biltmore Hotel. It's really still sad. I see on big new construction going on. I think it's going to be a car dealership. I'm so glad because all of that, it's just been sad to walk through there and you remember. It may have been substandard, but it was productive. It was a place where business and people were, and to see it so desolate all these years has been sad.	27:01
Julie Zwibelman	Yeah. This is kind of going back to when you were talking about this really village atmosphere that was here. Were there a lot of children who didn't—you had your real stable family. Were there a lot of children who didn't have that and were brought into this village atmosphere, or did it seem like most—	28:09
Amelia Thorpe	No. We would talk about it sometimes, my friends and I that I've had for all these years, how really we didn't—"At that time, did we know any children— did we have any friends whose parents were divorced or who only had one parent?" and we didn't. It was just that age; that group of people. They stayed married. They are the ones who have been married fifty, fifty-five and sixty years, and that was how we grew up. Some people who come here from other cities say, "This is the most unreal place," but, in our community, we did not have friends like that because we didn't know anybody. All our parents would stay together until death.	28:27
Amelia Thorpe	Then, this side of town didn't have a lot of—there's another large African American community called Walltown. That's was a very viable community, but I didn't meet anyone from there until I was in seventh grade. I got to be good friends, and we're still friends. That was for the first time. I went over to Walltown because my dad took me over there. Of course, she came from a two-parent family too. You were just—that's just the way it was because those people who got married in the '30s and late '20s, very, very few of them divorced. They were friends in couples. They formed women's groups like mothers' clubs or flower clubs, but they didn't have single-parent support groups because there just wasn't.	29:24
Amelia Thorpe	Many people would've looked at us and said, "Yeah, that was snobbish," but no. We were just working within the framework that we had. We were children. What else did we know except what was there for us, and that's what it was. All these houses who had children, they were two families; two-parent families. On the next street, and the next street, this whole area had become, for my early friendships.	30:30
Julie Zwibelman	How was Walltown different from your—?	31:04
Amelia Thorpe	Walltown still had a school, there was a Walltown School, and some of the teachers lived in that community, but not at the [indistinct 00:31:22]. The thing that this area had was it had the college. At that time, it had the one hospital. It had the library. On this side of town—this side of town was more professional, and the teachers lived on this side. Not entirely, but most of them. The founders of the North Carolina Mutual lived on this side of town, and the later administrators lived—many people who worked at the North Carolina Mutual at that time lived on this side of town too.	31:12
Amelia Thorpe	It's different now because, over time, people can live wherever, and then more people go to college now. They are from different sections of the city, so they live in different sections of the city, but at that time, when I was growing up, most of your professionals and other business people lived on this side of town. That's what made it different.	32:09
Amelia Thorpe	Walltown had a strong—a lot of them were factory workers. They had a strong union. They were a very strong collective in their community rights and community improvement. It's so, so sad to know that as those people died out the drug element came into that area because we had very strong civic-minded people who lived in Walltown. It was a most viable Black community, but the difference is depressing.	32:44
Julie Zwibelman	Yeah. You mentioned the Mutual. What were your general thoughts about the Mutual, or how did it affect the community?	33:32
Amelia Thorpe	It had a great effect on it, and, of course, my thoughts were just a sense of pride that people I knew, people that I could speak to almost daily, if not daily, weekly, had founded it, had maintained it, and who worked there. Several people on this street, supervisors, got a job. Of course, one of the presidents lived right around the corner. The son of one of the founders lived around the corner. This community, at that time, had lots of connections to the Mutual. Every day, if you went to church or you went to the meetings, you saw these people expressing themselves. They were very generous with coming to the schools. In fact, Mr. Fields, who was president of the Mechanics and Farmers Bank at the time, was also a violinist, and he came several times to Hillside School to play the violin for us. There was a lot of interconnection there, and it just gave you a deep sense of pride.	33:40
Julie Zwibelman	Do you remember other speakers who would come to school when you were—	35:11
Amelia Thorpe	Yes. I remember Mrs. Trent Semans came to Hillside, and I thought that was so generous of her because, being a very wealthy woman, she didn't have to spend her time anywhere if she didn't want to. I've always her for being civic and business—yes, she came to speak. In fact, she came to my seventh-grade class. My teacher at that time was very civic course minded. He brought her to my seventh-grade class, and she spoke to us there. She's always been very kind and very generous with her time, and interest, and money.	35:14
Amelia Thorpe	In the church that I grew up in, Mrs. Spaulding was responsible for bringing many, many dignitaries there to White Rock. I met [indistinct 00:36:11] when he came to NCCU, but I met [indistinct 00:36:11] when she came to speak at White Rock. All the people from Africa and different place. Then, our minister at that time, Rev. Miles Mark Fisher, was looked upon by Duke scholars as a scholar, and he was. He brought several professors from the Divinity School to speak at White. We had a wealth of dignitaries and scholars that came to speak, and within the church we had a wealth of people of a wealth of knowledge and experience.	35:53
Julie Zwibelman	Do you remember particular role models that you really looked up to in this community and then also [indistinct 00:37:19] nationally?	37:11
Amelia Thorpe	Let's see. In this community, of course. To this day, I still admire her. She is into her 80s now. Her name is Eleanor Spaulding. She just continues to be a role model and a civic [indistinct 00:37:38] and interested in her community, and still drives her car at night to be as independent as she can. Of course, they have moved now, but Mrs. Josephine Clement. I thought she was a very— I loved the way she talked and the way she carried herself, as well her experience and the way she was willing to share it. Let's see. Oh, there are a whole lot.	37:21
Amelia Thorpe	The first real job I had was as a pharmacist's assistant at the old Lincoln Hospital. I worked for a Dr. Ida [indistinct 00:38:30], and I thought she was just a really fine lady. And she, yeah, she was a pharmacist, and yet she was very down to earth, shared her knowledge with me, and shared her experiences. She was Puerto Rican, and she shared that with me. She was Catholic, and she shared that with me. I really learned a lot [indistinct 00:38:58]. She's deceased now, but we went to lunch together and—	38:20
Julie Zwibelman	[indistinct 00:39:05].	39:05
Amelia Thorpe	Uh-huh. Yeah.	39:05
Julie Zwibelman	How old were you when you [indistinct 00:39:11]—	39:09
Amelia Thorpe	Eighteen. About eighteen.	39:11
Julie Zwibelman	Oh.	39:11
Amelia Thorpe	Yeah. Oh, shoot, I guess I wanted to just start naming folks because that—	39:11
Julie Zwibelman	No, but it's really interesting. Josephine Clement, I'm not familiar with her.	39:18
Amelia Thorpe	Oh. She was, well, one of the first real public women to be president of the school board.	39:27
Julie Zwibelman	Oh, wow. When?	39:27
Amelia Thorpe	That—when was that? '80s, I guess. Before that, she had been a Boy Scout leader in the Scouts. She'd been a teacher at NCCU. She had been active in White Rock Church, and she'd been active with the YWCA. Then, she just decided all these PTA meetings—she had raised six children, so she said, "All these PTA meetings I've been involved with—" and I'm sure she'd probably been a president of a school PTA. She ran for the board, and she became president of the board. She was one of the best presidents that we've had. After that, she become a commissioner; a charter commissioner. She was very pretty, a very pretty lady, and I just would look at her as a girl and think, "She's just so [indistinct 00:40:37]." Even with raising all those children, she was always very dignified and very, very kind; a very kind person.	39:35
Amelia Thorpe	I guess, in my professors, one that I still remember fondly was my psychology professor, a Dr. Carol Bush, because I believe she was the only professor I had who had been a Phi Beta Kappa. She was a White person, and yet she was loved. She was real down to earth, and she took us to concerts and brought us to her house. I just remember her as being a really, really well-rounded person. My niece, last semester, took a course in biology or psychology, so I said, "Oh, yes. [indistinct 00:41:24] that was the old comparative psychology I took." She was talking about how hard it was, and I said, "Yeah, that was one of the more difficult classes."	40:36
Amelia Thorpe	Then, I had a sociology professor, Dr. Hammond that I thought was a really, really great professor. He too is deceased now, but he actually did a lot of writing, and he challenged us. He really challenged us. I had an art teacher, who's still teaching, that brought new ideas to us all. He would say, "Look at that building over there. What's wrong with that building." He was Dr.—no, he was Mr.—oh, gosh. I'm stumped, I can't recall his name, but anyway, I really his class. That's just awful I can't recall his name because girlfriend that lives in Rochester, we were talking on the phone Saturday night, and she called his name.	41:21
Julie Zwibelman	Oh.	43:14
Amelia Thorpe	Yeah. Oh, goodness. I guess there's just too many names up here in my head right now. There were a group of women, they were housewives coming from the turn of the century, my Pearl Page being one of them; Miss Eva Thompson being another one; Miss Laura Bailey being the other one. They all lived in that little area off Fayetteville Street; either on Fayetteville Street or on Dawkins Street. There's Ada Fisher. She was younger, but she kind of grouped herself with those women and Mrs. Daisy Booth.	43:14
Amelia Thorpe	They represented women who had grown very strong out of real hardship. By the time I knew them, of the older women, only Laura Bailey's husband was still living. These women were getting older, and they were still maintaining their homes, doing their business, and are good friends. They just formed a network of good friends, and so I look at them and remember them as being very proud, able to work real hard, even up until they were on up in age. One of them, she was [indistinct 00:45:06]—	43:51

	(Amelia and Julie chuckle)	0:04
	[Amelia Thorpe] One of them, especially,	0:08
	was a very good friend	0:10
	of Pearl Page, Eva Thompson.	0:12
	And way back in the 20's,	0:15
	they were running it really really together.	0:17
	Her husband was a barber.	0:20
	So he had a better steady income, than say, a grocer.	0:22
	[Julie Zwibelman] Mm-hmm.	0:26
-	And he was a barber for White people.	0:28
	So one day Pearl Page needed a loan,	0:32
	and she said, "Well, you take this $5	0:36
	and it came from you.	0:40
	My husband doesn't have to know	0:42
	and your husband doesn't have to know."	0:44
	I thought, "Wow, there's a pioneer in women's lib," right?	0:46
	And, you know, she said, "This is this from me to you."	0:50
	And I thought that was really an example	0:53
	of early humans sticking together	0:56
	and helping one another.	1:02
-	Mm-hmm.	1:03
-	Mm-hmm.
-	And David Grouse would always come over	1:05
	at least once a day	1:09
	to see Pearl Page come to the store	1:10
	and he'd say, "Good morning," or "Good afternoon,"	1:12
	morning and night.	1:15
	Yeah, yeah.	1:17
	I remember the day that she said that.	1:18
	Mm-hmm.	1:20
	And right down the street, at that time,	1:21
	Mr. Flax had a store.	1:25
	There were at least three Jewish stores out there	1:27
	and Mrs. Flax was a good friend of Pearl Page too	1:31
	and she would come by every day, say,	1:35
	"Mrs. Page, I'd just (indistinct)	1:38
	until I can get back.	1:43
	You know, I will.	1:44
	That's a fact, Mrs. Page."	1:45
	And so, they'd say, "Of course, Mrs. Flax.	1:47
	You know you are my good friend."	1:51
	Mm-hmm.	1:53
	But that kind of communication and cooperation,	1:55
	that's what kept community together.	2:00
	Yeah. Yeah.	2:02
	And it was not all Black.	2:04
	Around here (indistinct) 'cause there was Jewish.	2:07
	And the White sales people who came in at that time,	2:10
	and of course	2:15
	the mailman was White.	2:19
	We didn't have one was Black mailmen.	2:20
	But he would come in	2:23
	and one part of Paige's store	2:24
	was the store, was the merchandise	2:26
	and the other side was my grandmother's kitchen.	2:28
	She had her stove there, a big table, fireplace	2:33
	and the mailman could have his lunch there	2:36
	and whomever else wanted to come in and sit down	2:40
	and have their lunch was welcome.	2:42
	They'd come in.	2:45
	Mm-hmm	2:47
	So we had a little,	2:48
	I don't know,	2:52
	just how cooperative and friendly it is.	2:52
	(indistinct)	2:56
-	So there were Jewish stores on Fayette-?	2:58
	On Fayetteville Street.	3:00
	There were two, I know there were two grocery stores,	3:01
	and then there was a Greek restaurant	3:05
	and there was a Chinese restaurant.	3:08
	All of that was gone, you see.	3:10
	The free days.	3:12
	That was part of Hayti.	3:14
-	Mm-hmm.	3:17
	Was there resentment in the community?	3:17
	There was lot of cooperation,	3:19
	but from these outsiders coming in?	3:21
-	No.	3:24
	No.	3:25
	I can't remember.	3:27
	It was always there.	3:27
	See, now it had been there while, I think,	3:29
	by the time I was old enough to know.	3:32
	(indistinct) was really old now.	3:35
	But I had never heard anybody-	3:39
	People liked Chinese food.	3:42
	If they stayed up playing cards that night,	3:43
	"Oh, Chinese place is open.	3:45
	Go get the Chinese food."	3:47
	I never heard any resentment like that.	3:53
	But the same thing that's happening again,	3:54
	because I went to Hayti Saturday	3:57
	and the first big store I got to	4:02
	is a new hair product place.	4:04
	And it's a huge building	4:10
	and it's run by Koreans.	4:11
	At this point, it's who can pay the rent,	4:17
	because the rent for these places is very expensive.	4:21
	But this Korean had a huge building.	4:26
	And there was another Korean dress store	4:31
	in the Hayti area.	4:35
	Yeah. Mm-hmm.	4:39
	I don't think, I'm certain,	4:44
	that we won't ever see again	4:47
	the solid Black business establishment today.	4:50
	Because they were based on segregation.	4:58
	But they have no choice.	5:01
-	Yeah.	5:03
-	And that little moment	5:05
	when there was a choice for people to go back,	5:09
	the prices were too high.	5:11
	So by the time	5:14
	that freeway came,	5:17
	most the people who had those businesses	5:17
	were ready to retire.	5:20
	Oh no.	5:22
	Yeah.	5:23
-	So what do you remember about the coming of the freeway	5:25
	coming in and that whole controversy?	5:28
-	Oh yeah.	5:30
	I was about a junior or senior in college.	5:31
	There was a lot of controversy.	5:35
	Many people, the Baptists,	5:37
	who had started urban renewal and who knew about it	5:39
	got up to warn people	5:43
	and it was going to just destroy neighborhoods.	5:45
	They'd never done anything to help neighborhoods.	5:47
	However, then as now,	5:53
	business and politics.	5:56
	Yeah. You know?	5:59
	So that's what happened.	6:01
	But I remember, he was well respected as a professor.	6:03
	That's when I realized	6:07
	education just doesn't have that clout at all.	6:09
	I don't care if you're a professor,	6:14
	at Duke, or wherever, or NCCU.	6:16
	When you get up and talk about community	6:18
	and political stuff,	6:21
	you don't have the clout that the president of the bank,	6:23
	or the president of the insurance companies	6:27
	and the president or the pharmaceutical companies.	6:29
	You know?	6:33
	You just don't because you're not making money.	6:34
	This is still a capitalistic society	6:39
	and it's who makes the money.	6:43
	But what they don't realize is	6:46
	how do those companies and those places create money	6:47
	if you don't support or educate the schools?	6:51
	And it is unknown fact, Lord,	6:55
	that even our best universities	6:57
	are not measuring up at all.	7:00
	We cannot compete with kids that come in here	7:02
	from Thailand and southeast Asia.	7:07
	And you know.	7:11
	Oh yeah.	7:15
	I think, once we went up having them,	7:17
	they're students or families who can afford	7:20
	to send their children to private schools.	7:22
	Yeah.	7:25
	The private school children	7:26
	can't make up the whole work force.	7:27
	And this is like I said.	7:32
	Our work force, our work force now,	7:33
	it includes your average high school graduates.	7:36
	They cannot perform tasks	7:39
	that they should be able to perform	7:42
	because they can't read.	7:44
	But going back, when you get down to it,	7:47
	nobody's going to educate them kids	7:50
	who has the clout	7:53
	outside of the academic,	7:55
	outside of the academy	7:58
	that people pay up with all the	7:59
	big money making out there.	8:02
	And I saw that.	8:06
	I went to several meetings	8:07
	and saw that	8:09
	during this whole period.	8:11
	And, you know, you just think, "Well, gee.	8:15
	That's the way it works."	8:19
	So you've got 20, 30 years of a wilderness up there,	8:22
	along there, you know?	8:27
-	What was the White Rock Baptist church's role	8:31
	in this whole controversy?	8:35
-	Yeah.	8:37
	White Rock Baptist Church, at that time,	8:38
	was trying to build a new church themselves.	8:41
	We got news	8:44
	and we thought that they felt that the freeway	8:45
	was going to come directly to their site,	8:49
	old White Rock Church way.	8:52
	So we just got caught up in it at that time,	8:54
	having to make plans to move, to buy more.	8:59
	We had some (indistinct)	9:05
	very familiar with White Rock from my mama's side.	9:08
	Yeah. (laughs)	9:12
	You know?	9:13
	The ones that are connected to the NCCU	9:15
	at that time was, or one of them,	9:20
	who was so active	9:22
	with the- being there who was	9:25
	Dean of the School of Library Science.	9:28
	So he was using all of his energy	9:30
	to be on the school board	9:32
	to get these civil rights mandated	9:33
	or complied to.	9:39
	He was the only one on the board with any knowledge of law	9:40
	and historical research.	9:44
	They worked him to death.	9:47
	He died that summer.	9:49
	He was working so hard, he died that summer.	9:52
	And you know, it was just a year,	9:57
	but he was so consumed, he knew,	10:00
	he was so aware that he was the only one who really knew	10:01
	how to do business and make this stuff relevant.	10:05
	But the other people in our (indistinct)	10:09
	their business (indistinct)	10:13
	And Business don't get good business.	10:16
	So yeah. Yeah.	10:18
	So that's right, they did.	10:20
	Yeah.	10:22
	(indistinct)	10:24
	Anyway, White Rock had to leave that building	10:27
	and build it-	10:29
	and they did for a while and cooperated	10:30
	with the state government that had started	10:33
	our services there.	10:34
	And then we had our services at the BN Duke Auditorium.	10:35
	So we did a great transitional period then.	10:39
-	Was there a lot of conflict within the community	10:45
	about the freeway?	10:47
-	Yeah, fairly strong.	10:49
	(indistinct)	10:51
	Yeah.	10:54
	And then, it was seen as something,	10:56
	so many people think, well, the government,	10:58
	but it's just so much bigger	11:01
	than their personal situations or whatever it is,	11:05
	that there very little-	11:10
	The reason that, one of the main reasons that	11:16
	St. Joseph's is still standing is that	11:19
	it was because the site is historical,	11:22
	because a real architect from Philadelphia designed it	11:23
	and also because it was with Duke money.	11:30
-	Mm-hmm.	11:36
-	White Rock was made by the people,	11:37
	and it was not anything historical.	11:40
	And it was right there	11:45
	and it couldn't have been moved.	11:47
	It would've fallen apart if they had tried to move it	11:48
	'cause it was kind of falling apart anyway.	11:52
	But yeah.	11:53
	That was the only building	11:57
	that had any clout, you know?	12:00
	That had any connection	12:03
	to save it.	12:07
	And I'm glad because, yeah,	12:08
	it has made a nice heritage center.	12:11
	And I hope they continue to support it,	12:13
	but it still needs a lot of money	12:15
	to complete its destination.	12:18
	And now, we have to be so careful.	12:23
	We try to support the library	12:26
	'cause they're going to close down.	12:28
	(indistinct) one of the libraries.	12:30
-	Mm-hmm.	12:32
-	Everything gets to be a real struggle.	12:36
-	Yeah.	12:39
-	Yeah.
-	Well, this kind of goes back, but in high school,	12:42
	like your high school was just right,	12:45
	when you were in high school, was really a time	12:47
	that the civil rights wasn't really seen-	12:49
-	Listen, I graduated from high school in '57.	12:53
-	Okay.	12:55
-	That was right when Martin Luther King	12:56
	was making his first speeches.	12:58
	(indistinct)	13:00
	We were being	13:03
	put up for integration.	13:07
	In fact, a group of us were asked to go over	13:11
	the overture when the North Carolina Symphony came	13:19
	to Durham High School.	13:22
	When the group showed up,	13:25
	not one of the White girls showed up.	13:27
	So we didn't get incorporation about (laughs)	13:30
	any kind of integration.	13:33
	We invited them to Durham High over several times	13:35
	to see our National Honor Society installation	13:39
	'cause it was lovely.	13:44
	They had doctor somebody over there	13:46
	as their principal then.	13:49
	He did not even answer our invitations.	13:51
	So we were still basically,	13:55
	we were making some overtures,	13:57
	but they weren't being received.	13:59
	So the big thing that I went through	14:02
	in my freshman year of college	14:05
	was Chautauquas,	14:06
	and that's when all aspects of American education	14:09
	were criticized and analyzed.	14:13
	And I said, "Well, I'm paying money to go to school.	14:17
	I'm not going to school in France or England."	14:20
	You know?	14:23
	Anywhere. I don't want to have to hear all of that.	14:23
	Just teach me, you know?	14:25
	So that was a big-	14:28
	Everybody had something to ask about that.	14:32
	And it wasn't until 1960,	14:35
	or actually, my senior year,	14:39
	they just started demonstrating.	14:41
	So I was out of school maybe a year or so	14:46
	before actual things became settled down	14:50
	and we really started going	14:53
	because when I became 16,	14:55
	my dad asked me not to go.	14:57
	He said he didn't want me to do anymore.	14:59
	He said he thought I was old enough to know	15:01
	why I did that.	15:03
	He never did.	15:05
	And he said, "Please, don't go."	15:07
	And I didn't.	15:09
	And so, that's when I went to the Regal,	15:10
	and then I'd be so glad to go to New Jersey	15:13
	to go see my cousins	15:16
	so we could go to the movie.	15:17
	But I didn't go to a segregated movie,	15:18
	after I was 16.	15:21
-	How did you feel about that?	15:22
-	I felt like I was doing something important.	15:23
	It was a real challenge.	15:27
	I still remember my comrade or my buddy	15:28
	came by to go see the-	15:32
	What is that?	15:34
	The Nile.	15:35
	Not the Nile.	15:36
	Yeah, the Nile River's long back-	15:38
	Ten Commandments!	15:41
	And because I didn't know.	15:44
	They always just knew that I was going to go with him	15:45
	and I stood there and I said, "No,	15:48
	I told you I wouldn't be going, and I'm not going."	15:49
	He was so disappointed.	15:52
	As a matter of fact,	15:54
	one of them tried to organize some of the others	15:56
	not to come to my birthday party.	15:59
	That hurt more than (laughs)	16:01
-	Yeah.
-	Than anything (indistinct) that.	16:04
	And he didn't call.	16:07
	Someone who I had (indistinct)	16:08
	he was driving a car or something.	16:11
	But I just knew that my dad was right.	16:12
	He hadn't ever asked me anything impossible, you know?	16:14
	And he never made a lot of demands on me.	16:18
	So I said, "Yeah,	16:22
	(indistinct) and said, "Yes."	16:23
	And it wasn't hard for him not to do it.	16:24
	Yeah.	16:28
	The more I think about it though,	16:29
	that's when (indistinct) asked me to the movies	16:32
	and all of that. (laughs)	16:34
	So I didn't get to go to the movies that time,	16:36
	but I still ended up (indistinct)	16:39
	But I still feel like I complied.	16:43
	I did as my dad asked.	16:47
	That was very important. Mm-hmm.	16:49
	And it kind of strengthened me in other ways	16:52
	to not to be influenced	16:56
	by others to do things.	16:58
	Yeah, 'cause once you said, "No,"	17:00
	to something important,	17:03
	it kind of lies open to other areas	17:04
	that you could be more casual about.	17:08
	Mm-hmm.	17:12
	But yes, my senior year,	17:17
	all these organization (indistinct)	17:19
	and you know,	17:22
	it gets to be (indistinct)	17:24
	'cause we'd go to march at 10 o'clock	17:25
	or we'd go to march at three o'clock	17:27
	and then it gets to be five o'clock.	17:28
	And sometimes, I'd been waited 'til the last minute	17:30
	to do my lessons	17:33
	and I just couldn't march at that time.	17:34
	But I did.	17:36
	I did.	17:37
-	Yeah. Who was organizing the students?	17:39
-	Well, just people on campus,	17:41
-	Through the college?	17:43
-	Yeah, college.	17:44
-	Yeah. Uh huh.	17:45
	Yeah, 'cause like I say, '57 in high school,	17:47
	(indistinct)	17:50
	We were just trying to make a few courtesy overtures	17:52
	to the students at Durham High.	17:56
	And like I say, when a group of young ladies	18:01
	went to the (indistinct)	18:03
	the group of White girls that were supposed to come too	18:05
	didn't even show up, and we were still there.	18:08
	Yeah.	18:10
	And we all were girls, so you know. (laughs)	18:12
-	Yeah.	18:14
-	Yeah.
	(indistinct)	18:15
-	Oh!	18:28
	Do you remember national leaders	18:29
	just in college?	18:31
	Did it really-	18:32
-	Oh!	18:33
	Well, see, I always have a little ping of regret	18:34
	that I wasn't quite old enough to vote for John F. Kennedy.	18:38
	I doubt he was the greatest and the most wonderful,	18:42
	like those things,	18:45
	but of course I voted for Lyndon Johnson,	18:48
	in that whole era,	18:53
	that whole brief era	18:55
	of the Kennedy administration I was a part of.	18:57
	It really, I guess, it really solidified to be a Democrat.	19:00
	And I just-	19:06
	Maybe he was just saying it,	19:08
	but he was saying the right thing at the right time	19:09
	because Eisenhower, he put me to sleep.	19:13
	And he may have been a good man	19:16
	and he helped us win the war. (laughs)	19:18
	But as a president, he put me to sleep.	19:21
	It was Kennedy, yeah.	19:27
	And then, the most terrible thing,	19:29
	I just couldn't even believe	19:31
	that our president had been shot.	19:33
	It didn't register.	19:35
	Just who are they talking about?	19:37
	And I mourned along with everybody else.	19:40
	I put on my black dress	19:43
	and I went a few days, just kind of in a daze.	19:44
	It was so bad!	19:48
	It was just so awful that this could happen in our culture.	19:50
	And of course, I thought Mrs. Kennedy	19:55
	was the epitome of what a First Lady should be.	19:56
	She wore pretty clothes.	19:59
	She was young (laughs)	20:01
	and I still think you should look your best	20:03
	if you're going to be the First Lady.	20:06
	And then, she had that little accent,	20:10
	like she spoke French	20:13
	and she liked music and painted	20:14
	and art, artwork and furniture, and all of that.	20:19
	I guess there was hope	20:26
	in that whole generation,	20:27
	all of that generation	20:31
	would all be integrated	20:32
	and the whole thing.	20:33
	They dug up all this quote dirt and junk and all that.	20:38
	I just think it's awful.	20:41
	Sometimes, I think our country is too free. (laughs)	20:42
	You know?	20:45
	That they can go and publicize all the ugly things.	20:46
	But I know nobody is without fault.	20:51
	But this poor thing. What did he do, really?	20:55
	He had an ideal there,	20:58
	he captured a spirit,	21:01
	he put some energy back into, well, into politics.	21:03
	And at that time, a lot of food people	21:08
	decided to go into politics,	21:11
	to become lawyers, because the government	21:13
	and that spirit,	21:15
	and his whole family got creative.	21:17
	Yeah.	21:20
	And then, of course, with Lyndon Johnson,	21:22
	he sounded like he was going to fix-	21:24
	He could fix everything.	21:29
	He had power, he had long term experience and power.	21:31
	So he could fix it, and that's all I wanted	21:35
	was somebody to fix all the things that had been so wrong.	21:37
	And then, when Martin Luther King was here	21:42
	it was just like a double whammy.	21:45
	Just violence, just all this violence, all of that.	21:48
	You just never (indistinct) really,	21:55
	didn't realize-because he's a good man,	21:59
	he's got a good soul, that he might get killed, you know?	22:02
	Yeah.	22:05
	You don't want anybody else to get killed.	22:06
	I remember then,	22:11
	the first Black became mayor of Atlanta,	22:15
	Jackson, Maynard Jackson?	22:20
	I know him, and in all manner he's a great guy.	22:22
	He really had that loyalty	22:26
	and had a customary approach (indistinct).	22:27
	(Amelia laughs)	22:31
	But yeah. (indistinct)	22:32
-	How did you know him?	22:35
-	His mama taught French.	22:37
	She was the French department, Dr. Jackson,	22:41
	Irene Jackson at NCCU.	22:44
	That was just incredible (indistinct).	22:46
-	Oh, okay.	22:49
-	Uh huh. Yeah.
	Yeah.	22:50
	Part of his family did live here,	22:52
	his mom and the younger sister.	22:54
	And he went to law school at NCCU.	22:58
	Uh huh. Yeah, yeah.	23:00
	I had a real crush on him.	23:05
	But he liked more sophisticated ladies. (laughs)	23:06
-	Yeah.	23:13
	During this time, was there a real,	23:15
	'cause you said that, in high school,	23:17
	the Durham girls didn't show up.	23:18
	Was there a feeling here	23:20
	that we shouldn't even try to integrate?	23:24
	We're happy the way we things are.	23:27
-	Yeah, well, the whole plan	23:30
	was to keep things segregated.	23:33
	The original Hillside School was on Umstead Street,	23:35
	a very old building.	23:39
	When this plan came in	23:42
	to keep things very, very equal,	23:45
	separate, but equal,	23:47
	they transformed an elementary school,	23:48
	on Concord and made that the new school,	23:52
	and that was to keep everybody happy.	23:55
	The Blacks will go to the new Hillside	23:58
	and Durham High will continue to be the White high school.	24:01
	But it was equal.	24:05
	Durham High had an Olympic sized pool,	24:06
	they had shops and crafts that were equal to any shop union	24:09
	or professional shop union.	24:14
	In fact, that's why White men could get	24:16
	in the unions, elected,	24:19
	because they had been trained at the high school.	24:20
	In fact, Durham High was a junior high,	24:22
	junior college, as compared to Hills High,	24:25
	which was a good high school,	24:28
	good Black, good Negro high school.	24:30
	So it wasn't equal ever,	24:35
	but that had been the plan,	24:37
	where they redo it,	24:39
	an elementary school.	24:43
	They made Hillside High School,	24:44
	the new Hillside High School	24:46
	on Concord Street.	24:47
	In terms of what happened that night,	24:51
	I'm pretty sure that their leaders or their teachers	24:52
	or their principal told them, "Don't show up.	24:56
	We got some kids coming from Durham High,	24:59
	so you all don't have to show up."	25:02
	I don't really think it was in their mind	25:05
	not to want to be the Hillside student.	25:08
-	Yeah.	25:11
-	I read the last summer, sometime,	25:12
	they had a reunion.	25:15
	It was a class that would've been	25:17
	along with my class, maybe.	25:18
	Of course, they were, at that time,	25:21
	everybody, every White kid went to Durham High	25:25
	unless they were super rich,	25:28
	but the mayor's daughter went to Durham High.	25:29
	Oh, one girl said, "Oh yeah.	25:35
	that was the era where we wore our pearls	25:36
	and cashmere sets."	25:39
	And I thought, "You did? (laughs)	25:41
	Yeah, you did."	25:42
	Nobody at Hillside wore their pearls	25:43
	and cashmere sets.	25:46
	So that's who went.	25:48
	But in all honesty,	25:49
	I don't think they would have resented or hated,	25:51
	but they weren't allowed.	25:53
	I think that was just not even be allowed to participate	25:55
	in anything with us.	26:00
	Yeah.	26:02
	It would be interesting to see	26:04
	what their attitude would be now, you know?	26:06
	Yeah.	26:09
-	So did you watch on TV, the Arkansas-	26:12
-	Yeah, yeah.	26:15
-	What was your reaction to that?	26:17
-	Oh gosh!	26:18
	When they put the (indistinct)	26:19
	In '63, I took a trip	26:24
	with a group of NCCU students,	26:27
	leaders, and some faculty	26:30
	and some members of the American Friends Committee.	26:32
	We went by bus to Mexico	26:37
	and that was the week after the week	26:40
	a fellow had been killed and found in a dam	26:43
	down there in Mississippi Bay.	26:47
	We went through all of that.	26:49
	And that was my one experience	26:51
	of confrontation with hostility.	26:56
	We (indistinct) to a bus depot	27:00
	It was hot, it was massive,	27:03
	(indistinct)	27:06
	And we went to this,	27:07
	got off the bus	27:09
	'cause we were hot. We were tired.	27:11
	We just kept walking until we saw these (indistinct)	27:13
	Not even-	27:18
	Just really tired.	27:20
	We had been, when we came out,	27:22
	there was a whole line of highway patrolmen	27:25
	or their deputy sheriff standing there.	27:30
	And this deputy sheriff, one of the students	27:34
	was a (indistinct)	27:38
	She was right in front of me.	27:40
	And this deputy sheriff had his stick,	27:42
	going to come down on her head.	27:46
	And she went into the classic position, you know?	27:49
	But I was too tired.	27:53
	I was too angry.	27:55
	I stood and I looked straight in that man's eye.	27:56
	I just stared him down, you know?	28:00
	Just, in my whole being,	28:03
	"Well, you not going to do it today.	28:04
	Not today."	28:06
	And somehow, just at that moment that I think	28:08
	he would've hit me or hit her,	28:11
	we just stared.	28:13
	Somebody else came in, we got back on the bus.	28:16
	It was just at that moment, and I'll never forget it.	28:19
	And I got back on the bus and sat down	28:22
	and you know how aftershock can go through you?	28:24
	And I thought, "What did you do, Amelia?	28:28
	What almost happened?"	28:30
	So that was my confrontation	28:34
	with the Civil Rights Movement	28:37
	Yeah.	28:39
	Because that, it was still,	28:41
	we went to Birmingham.	28:43
	it was still hostile.	28:45
	Atlanta was hostile.	28:47
	It wasn't until we got to some place in Louisiana	28:49
	that they had already set up the table.	28:51
	You could eat or sit at the booth	28:54
	and they were very formal.	28:56
	Yeah.	28:59
	And the extended thing,	29:01
	the reaction of following people	29:03
	through this whole Civil Rights	29:05
	in Mexico.	29:07
	Cartoons were very negative towards here, with Uncle Sam.	29:10
	It was very negative	29:14
	because they see themselves as the minority people too.	29:16
	They were quite firmly angry about it.	29:24
	(indistinct)	29:27
	But that was a wonderful trip.	29:29
	We lived with those Mexican families down in a small village	29:30
	outside of Mexico City	29:34
	and just really got,	29:36
	I don't speak any Spanish, (laughs)	29:39
	but we got to see how they really live	29:43
	and we got the tour some of those hot spots	29:46
	of Mexico City	29:48
	and went to the American Embassy in Mexico City,	29:50
	the most beautiful place I've been at,	29:55
	and you could just feel very safe in there.	29:58
	So that was my real tough experience.	30:04
-	And how old were you?	30:08
-	I was-	30:10
	How old was I?	30:11
	About 23. Yeah.	30:11
	'Cause I was working in library	30:13
	at the university.	30:17
-	You were talking about your meeting with Duke,	30:24
	with the Duke's Union?	30:26
-	Yeah.
-	That was your first-	30:29
-	That was my first real structured	30:31
	thing with White students	30:35
	because we were all interested	30:40
	in promoting Christian values and activities on campus,	30:42
	everybody was very nice and cooperative.	30:46
	Yeah.	30:50
	We didn't do that very long though.	30:50
	Maybe no more than a year. Yeah.	30:52
	Yeah.	30:54
	I remember meeting	30:55
	over in the Episcopal Students' Union.	30:57
	(indistinct) Alexander students.	30:59
-	Okay.	31:01
-	Uh huh.
	And somewhere else too. Yeah.	31:03
-	Did you have an image of what Duke students would do?	31:09
-	I really didn't know.	31:14
	I had been out to Chapel,	31:16
	but I figured student were students,	31:21
	I knew that Duke was an expensive school to go to.	31:24
	(Amelia laughs)	31:28
	And I knew that, at that time,	31:29
	I still couldn't go there,	31:33
	not only because the money,	31:34
	but it was still segregated schools.	31:36
	But these were a chance	31:38
	to meet other people	31:41
	and people with a like interest.	31:43
-	So when going to NCCU,	31:51
	did you always sort of know that's where you wanted to go?	31:53
-	Yeah. Yeah.	31:56
	Mm-hmm.	31:58
	Yeah.	31:59
	Most of my family that went to college went there	32:00
	and my mama too and my cousins too went to college.	32:04
	My younger cousins have gone different places	32:08
	and three or four of my cousins,	32:12
	younger than me (indistinct)	32:16
-	So did a lot of people from Hillside all go,	32:19
	a lot of your friends.	32:22
-	Yeah. Yeah.
	Uh huh.	32:24
-	Oh, do you remember any,	32:33
	you were talking about the unions	32:34
	and some of the marches.	32:36
	Do you remember any specific march that was memorable,	32:37
	besides the bus one was very-	32:40
-	Oh.	32:42
-	Like a big civil rights,
	other marches during college?	32:45
-	Yeah, we had a real confrontation	32:48
	out on the boulevard by Chapel Hill.	32:51
	Out there at (indistinct)	32:55
	It was at an event, but it was in the boulevard.	32:59
	I don't think it's there anymore.	33:03
	But (indistinct)	33:04
	It really got nasty.	33:11
	I never went there (indistinct)	33:15
-	Did a lot of the other marchers (indistinct)	33:20
-	Mm-hmm.	33:22
	In fact, one evening, after (indistinct)	33:24
	(Amelia laughs)	33:31
-	So were you scared of going to jail?	33:32
-	No, I wasn't scared.	33:34
	I wasn't there when that happened.	33:37
	Yeah.	33:40
	You create that to happen, you know?	33:41
-	Right. (laughs)	33:43
-	So, yeah.	33:45
	Yeah.	33:46
	(indistinct)	33:47
	But they just think that I made it work	33:49
	as a probation officer.	33:52
	I'm in the jails all the time.	33:54
-	Mm-hmm.	33:56
	(Amelia laughs)
-	Yeah. Yeah.	33:58
	It just so happened that I wasn't there.	34:01
	(indistinct)	34:04
-	Oh, do you know a lot of people	34:22
	that were in the Vietnam War,	34:24
	like friends that-	34:26
-	One of the neighbors right across the street	34:28
	was in the Vietnam War.	34:29
	A very brave soldier.	34:32
	He was injured at (indistinct)	34:34
	(indistinct)	34:39
	He retired at the Navy.	34:42
	But he got (indistinct)	34:45
	(indistinct)	34:51
	And he does not talk about it.	34:56
	He doesn't talk about it.	34:59
	I think (indistinct)	35:01
	he probably was used as a (indistinct)	35:04
	and (indistinct)	35:10
	(indistinct)	35:16
	They all had been traumatized (indistinct)	35:21
	First of all, they were so much out of their element,	35:28
	even more when they came from Chicago	35:31
	and had been in one of the most	35:36
	notorious of all gangs, The Cobras.	35:38
	He (indistinct) still was never the same.	35:41
	(indistinct)	35:44
	In the first place, he'd never been in a jungle.	35:47
	And everything was twice as big and the flies, the rats.	35:50
	(indistinct)	35:56
-	Were there a lot, during the whole civil rights movement	36:00
	was the war a big issue too, or not?	36:03
-	Uh uh. The war came a little bit after.	36:06
	Yeah, the war came a little bit after.	36:09
	The war issue came, maybe, in '63.	36:11
-	Okay, so it was later.	36:15
-	Yeah, later.
-	So when did you go out to California?	36:19
-	In 1970.	36:21
-	Okay.	36:23
-	While I think about it,	36:24
	my favorite art teacher was there.	36:25
-	Ah!	36:28
	(indistinct)	36:29
-	Yeah!	36:30
	I knew as soon as our brains slowed down a little bit.	36:30
-	Yeah.	36:33
	(Amelia laughs)
	Yes.	36:35
	I went out California in 1970.	36:37
-	What made you-	36:41
-	I just was ready for a change.	36:42
	I had been (indistinct)	36:43
	and I thought, "Oh, what was going on?"	36:45
	In fact, in '69, I could go and (indistinct) university	36:47
	in California to (indistinct)	36:50
	And it was beautiful,	36:56
	so different out there.	36:58
	And I knew I wanted to go back.	37:01
	So the next year, I did.	37:03
-	Did you see that the racial attitudes were real different?	37:06
-	Mm-hmm.	37:09
	Mm-hmm. Yeah.	37:10
	Everybody was more friendly.	37:14
	You know, the east is more structured-like.	37:17
	And out there,	37:23
	people would just walk up to you, say, "Hi.	37:25
	Are you from-"	37:29
	And I never had anybody do that before.	37:31
	A lot of people thought I was from Texas.	37:36
	So they (indistinct) from Texas.	37:39
	Yeah, but people would just,	37:42
	and when I got there,	37:44
	it was at the end of the Flower Power era.	37:46
	And unfortunately, the (indistinct) was coming in.	37:52
	So by the next time, I had moved	37:56
	down to San Francisco.	37:58
	And I liked San Francisco,	38:01
	but it is just a little more White people, it had assumed	38:02
	some elements than California there.	38:06
	It was getting tired	38:11
	because you had more people coming in from New York.	38:13
-	Mm-hmm.	38:16
-	Yeah.
	But I like it though.	38:19
	(indistinct)	38:21
	and I don't think its (indistinct)	38:23
	(Amelia laughs)	38:24
	So I like that.	38:25
	And as I say,	38:26
	people are just a little more mellow.	38:28
	Uh huh. Yeah.	38:32
	I stayed out there for about nine years.	38:38
-	Oh.	38:40
-	Uh huh.
	Then my dad died,	38:41
	(indistinct)	38:44
	My mom (indistinct) my dad.	38:47
-	What kind of work did you do in California?	38:51
-	Probation.	38:55
-	Oh.	38:56
	(indistinct)
-	And what got you interested in it?	38:58
-	It was a job I could get. (laughs)	39:00
	Yeah, you took what you could get.	39:02
	But then, being a sociology major,	39:05
	(indistinct)	39:08
	I got to know different people.	39:10
	Mm-hmm	39:11
-	Did you like the-	39:13
-	Basically, I like it.	39:14
	Sometimes it gets really (indistinct)	39:15
	It was a lot easier then than it is now.	39:18
	Today, they're killing each other,	39:22
	the drugs and that that they have.	39:25
-	You started the probation work in California?	39:35
-	Mm-hmm.	39:39
-	So what would you have wanted to do?	39:39
	What was your ideal job then?	39:42
	Did you have something you wanted to do	39:44
	that really wasn't open?	39:45
-	No, not really.	39:51
	'Cause I didn't particularly want to be a (indistinct)	39:53
	Yeah.	39:57
	I think that, when that came open,	39:57
	that was the best, yeah,	39:59
	the best thing on offer (indistinct)	40:00
-	And then, when you moved back here,	40:05
	did you continue?	40:06
-	No.	40:07
	By the time I moved back here,	40:08
	as I say, my mom was sick.	40:11
-	Mm-hmm.	40:14
	(indistinct)
-	And now, I'm not really sure	40:18
	if I want to do that kind of thing.	40:19
	Yeah, it was so (indistinct)	40:22
-	How was it different then?	40:28
-	Then, your cases were made up of shoplifting,	40:30
	a lot of shoplifting, auto theft,	40:38
	but as I say, the drugs	40:42
	has now become so prevalent	40:44
	and that changes the atmosphere of everything.	40:47
	Teenage alcoholism was a problem,	40:55
	especially for pregnant girls who were also alcoholic.	40:58
	That was a problem.	41:02
	A lot of just parental differences,	41:05
	which were messy,	41:10
	but not criminal.	41:12
	Yeah, when you get into the criminal element,	41:15
	dealing with life and death.	41:19
-	So in California, was it a diverse group of people?	41:24
-	Oh yes.	41:29
	I miss that to this day.	41:30
	Every day, all the time.	41:32
	I had to deal with Hispanic, Asian, White, Black.	41:34
	Yeah, just all this is a regular thing.	41:42
	You cannot do anything.	41:44
	Can't even walk out the street without being	41:46
	a diverse population	41:49
	and the issues that they're facing are not Black and White.	41:52
	Here in Durham, everything is just, "White!" "Black!"	41:56
	(Amelia laughs)	41:58
	and I think, "Well, why (indistinct)	41:59
	I really like that," you know?	42:02
	But they're getting more,	42:06
	they're getting more diverse	42:07
	and they're going to make themselves known.	42:08
	We're getting a lot more Asians.	42:12
	So it takes a long time.	42:17
	It takes a long time.	42:19
	But they're in power, you know?	42:22
	They're making themselves known	42:26
	and so you have to conform.	42:27
	The only unfortunate part of it	42:30
	is (indistinct)	42:32
	They can manipulate them to stay on	42:35
	for months and months and months.	42:38
	This person can stay (indistinct)	42:40
	That person (indistinct)	42:42
	So that can be a problem.	42:44
-	Was that a problem for you?	42:46
-	Yeah, it is definitely a problem.	42:47
	(indistinct)	42:50
	And of course, the larger the city government,	42:54
	the more corrupted it is.	42:56
	I wasn't at all surprised when the mayor was assassinated.	42:59
	(indistinct)	43:05
	But like I say, the more money	43:06
	that people end up getting ahold of,	43:08
	the more (indistinct)	43:11
	They get corrupt.	43:17
-	Did you live in a segregated neighborhood?	43:20
-	No, no.	43:23
	I lived right on Old Green Street, near Union.	43:24
	I lived in a nice neighborhood.	43:30
	It was called (indistinct)	43:32
	There weren't a whole lot of (indistinct)	43:39
	But I came from (indistinct)	43:45
	I liked it there.	43:47
	I could just walk to the movies	43:48
	or I could walk down the street to go shopping.	43:49
	The whole neighborhood was diverse.	43:53
	You had (indistinct), you apartments, you had townhouses,	43:56
	they had stores, they had grocery stores	44:02
	they had a movie theater.	44:04
	Oh, of course we had bars.	44:06
	(both laugh)	44:08
-	Of course.	44:09
-	Of course, you had bars.
	Yeah. Yeah.	44:12
	But I could walk to the opera house.	44:13
	I could walk,	44:15
	I could just almost walk anywhere I wanted to go.	44:17
	Yeah. Yeah.	44:20
-	Do you like the big city life?	44:23
-	I like that, not much bigger, (indistinct) San Franscisco	44:24
	but I do like an access you have to a lot of things.	44:28
	But Durham has a lot of things.	44:33
	They're getting that big opera house (indistinct)	44:39
	(indistinct)	44:46
	I read something about (indistinct)	44:49
	one of the streets,	44:55
	(indistinct) had the museum	44:56
	on one of the streets that I used to go down,	44:59
	I thought, "Oh yeah." (laughs)	45:02
	Yeah.	45:05
	And we don't have.	45:06

Julie Zwibelman	This is the second tape of the oral history of Amelia Thorpe. Mrs. Thorpe, we were talking about San Francisco, when you lived there. The end of the tape. One of my questions was that this was—when you lived there it was a time of real political upheaval. Were certain things that you really remember or really vivid about that time?	0:01
Amelia Thorpe	Of course. I'll always remember the day that the mayor got assassinated. The other thing was, the Asians [indistinct 00:00:38] just a lot of settlement outside of [indistinct] and they came there with a lot of money and they were buying up a lot of offices and businesses and they were getting into the political side too. The Japanese who left, but really stayed, and the Hispanics were becoming really political nonstop. Then the educational district got caught up in it. Because so many Hispanic faculty and administrators [indistinct 00:01:20] schools, so the different ethnic [indistinct 00:01:26] voices at the time.	0:30
Julie Zwibelman	Do you remember, because I know Harvey Milk was assassinated around the same time—?	0:31
Amelia Thorpe	Yes. I do recall it. I worked for a little while, after I left probation, I worked for a little while [indistinct 00:01:45] in Harvey Milk's area, Cafe Castro. Castro is the street outside of his office. It's right there. That is a prominent gay street. Harvey Milk was in the—not Castro, but the other famous—Haight-Ashbury. That's up near the park, part of the park. One evening he was speaking at a meeting for the Castro neighborhood government I was working in for sickle cell anemia. Our office was right there on Haight. And he said, "Mr. Milk, well let me go over to this meeting." Well, the meeting was in a school across the street.	1:39
Amelia Thorpe	I never have been in a meeting since before or since then where I knew it was palpable to me, the atmosphere was uncomfortable. He was talking about people who had some deals in the neighborhood. I work up there, and I was working, and he wanted the whole neighborhood to be, where people could build there. But I looked to see where the backdoor was and I got on out of there. That's why I wasn't at all surprised, because that wasn't the only thing. People, the news commentators were talking about how every community knew this in San Francisco at that time wound up being some kind of hostility in their vows. And so this [indistinct] for him to be killed, mayor to be killed. It was really very [indistinct 00:03:41] and of course the Moral Right people hated him anyway because he had organized gays.	2:27
Amelia Thorpe	Sometimes I think about it, this whole AIDS issue came up. I know in San Francisco, the gay community, they're so politically astute, powerful. When they re-did a community, they did buildings, they did them perfectly. They did it up in class. Everything I ever saw they did have class. Their restaurants, whatever. And that was greatly different. Greatly different from the old ways of people. [Indistinct 00:04:23] anyway. And then when they come up redo things better and more efficiently than the old ways, they're killed. And they have this money, lots of money.	3:51
Amelia Thorpe	It's just all kind of mysterious, that that's where it started and that's where so many people started dying from AIDS. That we were so afraid to leave our house. But I'm not—I was in the hospital, that he had got out there, of this hospital [indistinct 00:04:53]. And of course the man who did this killing, he had been seen as a person who was unfavored. But people don't pay attention to things, I can't. It's who sees this and brings this to an interest. It happened to have been young Black man or woman on the commission. And he just wasn't paying attention.	4:40
Julie Zwibelman	Harvey Milk was speaking at the meeting that you felt embarrassed? Was it because you were a woman or because you weren't even—	4:42
Amelia Thorpe	Because I wasn't in the neighborhood. I didn't live in the neighborhood. [indistinct 00:05:54] by this time I was—it was beginning to get dark and I said "Get me out of here, I need to go home," because I could see I wasn't going to make any kind of contribution on anything and I didn't want to—I could feel like they were going to say, "Everybody who live here, raise your hand." You know, and I didn't want to be a part of that. Oh that was, it's something though, to see, in a gay area, all kinds of public stuff comes out. San Francisco was a place where people had a thing to talk very freely. But now a person I did admire as a top political figure was Diane Feinstein. I liked her. [indistinct 00:06:53] because she's a hard working woman. I think she's very honest. I admire her.	5:54
Julie Zwibelman	This is a little earlier than the time that were just talking about but you were in San Francisco or Oakland or more of the Black Panthers was really active. What experiences do you have with them?	6:56
Amelia Thorpe	Actually by the time I got to San Francisco, the Panther movement was on its way out. I remember going out [indistinct 00:07:29] and seeing what they [indistinct 00:07:31] Panther office. So I went [indistinct 00:07:36]and this man came out to talk to me—it's almost frightening. And I said [indistinct 00:07:48] just kept walking. But by the time I got up there they were pretty much on the way out. I think it's very sad that Harvey Milk [indistinct 00:07:59] never got above being a [indistinct 00:08:05]. There were—you still saw some people selling the Panther paper. I bought a couple. But the real input—their real influence in San Francisco was pretty much over.	7:22
Julie Zwibelman	What were your attitudes about them going in?	8:27
Amelia Thorpe	When they first organized, I thought they were great. They were going to do something to help, you know, get dollars to, really, people who had not received any services for whatever reason. Just getting people to be more confident. We had a [indistinct 00:08:48] and they were discarding food, Just doing something, not so much hate. I don't believe in hate. But give them consciousness of their own being, their person, to be proud of their person, so they won't want to be in a situation where they'll be beat up by police, or want to shoot up drugs. I thought that they had a good target, that they had good ideas.	8:30
Amelia Thorpe	What I didn't know at first was the real background of a lot of them, personally. And lots of them were just not capable of carrying out what they had, these ideals. The ones who had survived, they did, but they survived because they got out of it. But the ones who were like [indistinct 00:09:48] just didn't have the ability to follow through on [indistinct 00:09:53]. They wanted to, they really did. And the others, they made good on the political heyday. They really did. Perhaps that's what they were in there for. But they were the only ones that survived, the ones that were playing the game. People like that. Unfortunately, they [indistinct 00:10:28].	9:24
Julie Zwibelman	Going into California, while you were there, when you were political did you consider yourself real politically minded? And where did that—	10:36
Amelia Thorpe	When you work in probation, your views—that's political talk. I did belong to the NAACP. [indistinct 00:11:04] people who'd been there a lot longer than I [indistinct 00:11:05]. That was about the most political thing I did. I also belonged to a probation group [indistinct 00:11:23] political. The most [indistinct 00:11:28] organized ourselves and did workshops and seminars where we could grow and [indistinct 00:11:42].	10:45
Julie Zwibelman	Is there—as far as the police when you were a probation officer—	11:41
Amelia Thorpe	Mm-hmm.	11:53
Julie Zwibelman	What was your reaction to the police? Did you think that they were fair?	11:54
Amelia Thorpe	In a big city like San Francisco, we have a lot of police, and they are basically—they come from [indistinct 00:12:07] and they are just big bullies, completely. Now, that's a lot of fights with minorities to ignore that height requirement and all that weight, because they wanted Asians and Hispanics to be and they—of course, they are not, but they thought that those people would be more compatible to the neighborhood. And Blacks. Than all of them being Irish background or [indistinct 00:12:50] Caucasian.	11:55
Amelia Thorpe	Some policemen were okay and others you could just—those kids were not lying when they say they would beat them up. Once, three weekends I think, I and a partner rode with the policemen on their duty and one of them—this big, beefy sergeant, he would not let us get out of the car. And we said to him, "What can we learn anything sitting in this car? We need to know what—" "Listen here, ma'am. I'm responsible for you." You know, macho. "Nothing going to happen to you when you in my car." What do you do to somebody that—he's got a gun on his pocket. That's bad too. So we sat in the car. Oh, how could we learn anything like that. We was glad because next week we had another rotation. We could go with them on that call. We could actually go up into the situation. Because this macho guy, too, we should see how he treats his wife, or if he still has a wife.	12:54
Julie Zwibelman	When you went on the other— Were there particularly eye-opening scenes that you saw when you went on rotation?	14:15
Amelia Thorpe	Oh, you see how some people live in this city. [indistinct 00:14:25] walk in the door and go up three steps to these apartments that are up over shops and it's just a feeling. It's just a weird feeling that you get. And some of the people you can tell that they don't go anywhere. They never been anywhere. And they're just [indistinct 00:14:50]. Their whole outlook is within that room, in that little block, if that much, but most just up in those apartments. And one of them get called is if those people were making too much noise or—so I didn't have to go, we didn't get a call—we had one call where there'd been a robbery and [indistinct 00:15:16]. But no calls where there had been a murder.	14:19
Amelia Thorpe	But it was interesting. And when I would go out to visits, for home visits, going up where people live in these old hotels. Oh, Lord, no wonder everybody died in the San Francisco Fire. There's no way to get out of there. And it's old and it's raggedy. Sometimes you hear about six and eight people, children and families, get killed in hotel fires [indistinct 00:15:55], pin-up houses.	14:48
Julie Zwibelman	Did you feel like these same things were going on in Durham? Or did you feel like this was real different from Durham?	16:04
Amelia Thorpe	It was different from the Durham I grew up in, but the Durham now—I can take you to the same kind of places and for the size of the city, just as much dope. And just other kinds of criminal dealings, and people living in dumpsters.	16:13
Julie Zwibelman	While you were in California you knew that Durham—	16:40
Amelia Thorpe	Was changing, yes. It's really sad. It's the same thing that's happened in all cities. They build all the beautiful housing on the outskirts and line up all around the city. Beautiful developments and the businesses and all of that. But the inner city is supposed to die. And there's times they want you to come back through downtown Durham but there's nothing down there. People who go and see the movies down there at night at the Carolina Theatre, they've gotten robbed or—the other night I had been calling for the Democratic Party and we got out to jumpstart the car for a lady that parked her car right in the alley there.	16:42
Amelia Thorpe	Fortunately, the man let us get to the car, because this kind of stuff, here was this man standing there asking for four dollars. But it's just, you can't go down there without that happening. Somebody said they're from New York. "I heard that gunshots in New York are way down, and here they're way up, especially a couple weeks ago, someone was getting shot every day."	17:39
Julie Zwibelman	To go back, with NAA experience, you started that in California? Is that your first experience?	18:28
Amelia Thorpe	No. I had joined as a kid. I think that was a part of getting involved in [indistinct 00:18:41] NAACP [indistinct 00:18:41].	18:32
Julie Zwibelman	That was another—	18:41
Amelia Thorpe	Mm-hmm.	18:42
Julie Zwibelman	Were there any other groups like SNCC or any other—	18:50
Amelia Thorpe	SNCC didn't get a hold here. SNCC was, I think, further south. In fact, I think up in St. Augustine, there was a chapter of SNCC. I think there was. I kind of forgot. But they didn't come here.	18:54
Julie Zwibelman	How did the issues change between when you were in Durham and then California— NAACP.	19:25
Amelia Thorpe	Here it was during the Civil Rights [indistinct 00:19:46]. There was not that in the NAACP, in California, they used to work, it was all the individual people who were against minorities [indistinct 00:19:51]. It'd become more of a personalized thing than a general laws because [indistinct 00:19:57].	19:43
Julie Zwibelman	As a woman in the NAACP, was there any— was it harder? Were the men kind of the leadership?	20:05
Amelia Thorpe	At that time men were still very much [indistinct 00:20:14]. But in California it was [indistinct 00:20:16] women that [indistinct 00:20:16]. I think in North Carolina still there's a lot of male [indistinct 00:20:16].	20:12
Julie Zwibelman	Are you still involved?	20:12
Amelia Thorpe	No, I'm not. [indistinct 00:20:16].	20:12
Julie Zwibelman	Are you tired? Should we keep going?	20:16
Amelia Thorpe	I'm okay.	20:16
Julie Zwibelman	You're okay?	20:16
Amelia Thorpe	Yeah.	20:16
Julie Zwibelman	Okay. I don't want to talk you out. Another thing that I was real interested in—when we talked on the phone you said that you were Buddhist?	20:18
Amelia Thorpe	Yes.	21:08
Julie Zwibelman	Can you tell me a bit about that and coming from your background in the Baptist church?	21:08
Amelia Thorpe	Yes. I had this long relationship with the Baptist church and [indistinct 00:21:24]. I knew I was growing out of it so I knew I needed a new experience. In California [indistinct 00:21:30] I heard of, certainly, Buddhism and I'd never heard of the form of Buddhism, which is the Buddhism of monks [indistinct 00:21:35] and the founding of this was in Japan. Of course, it had its links to traditional Buddhism which is from India, and Japanese Buddhism however, the [Indistinct] was the leader, the founder of this specific form.	21:17
Amelia Thorpe	And you have, from your home and bedroom, morning prayers [indistinct 00:22:09]. The whole idea is for personal enlightenment and to be the best person you can be, and we meet mostly in the community center, in Cary, which is the North Carolina community center. We had over five or six hundred people throughout [indistinct 00:22:39]. We had [indistinct 00:22:43]. We had a beautiful [indistinct 00:22:50], we had a new cultural center, nature center. [indistinct 00:23:00]. Of course we very strongly depend [indistinct 00:23:09].	21:59
Julie Zwibelman	How did your family react to this?	23:15
Amelia Thorpe	Well, listen, by the time I became Buddhist my dad was sixty, my mom was really older [indistinct 00:23:23]. Of course, my sister supports it, she just says, but she still belongs to churches. And my niece went to a Buddhist activity in Washington once. In high school they studied some form of Buddhism. They studied it as [indistinct 00:23:49] so it's not foreign. My friendships, they're good, and I've met some very interesting people. [Indistinct 00:24:01]. Our new organization is [indistinct 00:24:09] we just don't [indistinct 00:24:14]. We no longer have a priest here—we do have a priest here, but now, we have a [indistinct 00:24:33] for all of the members to encourage each other and to give some focus to our practice and leave our attachments.	23:19
Julie Zwibelman	[indistinct 00:24:50].	24:50
Amelia Thorpe	I was in—when I moved to San Francisco, a friend back in Washington asked for [indistinct 00:24:53] called. That's when [indistinct 00:24:53] this lady called everyone out to dinner and [indistinct 00:25:15].	24:51
Julie Zwibelman	Are there a lot of other African Americans in this—	25:19
Amelia Thorpe	Not a whole lot but quite a few, especially in larger cities like San Francisco [indistinct 00:25:23] a lot more African Americans than back here in Durham, and, of course, in Washington D.C. or New York, in Chicago.	25:22
Julie Zwibelman	How often do you go to—	25:46
Amelia Thorpe	We meet once a week for local activities and then we meet once a month for community activities that our community does. Would you be interested in coming to the meetings?	25:48
Julie Zwibelman	Yeah! I think that'd be great.	25:53
Amelia Thorpe	Oh, okay. I'll give you information.	26:12
Julie Zwibelman	Great, great.	26:18
Amelia Thorpe	Mm-hmm.	26:18
Julie Zwibelman	That's great. Well, I think we're at a good point. Is there anything else you think that [indistinct 00:26:35] a whole lot of things but [indistinct 00:26:44].	26:26
Amelia Thorpe	Okay. You want to get it out of the way? Sure. That's fine.	26:47
Julie Zwibelman	That way we can follow up and I [indistinct 00:26:48].	26:47
Amelia Thorpe	[indistinct 00:26:48].	26:48
Julie Zwibelman	And sort of talk about after you came back to Durham. Is that [indistinct 00:27:05]?	26:48
Amelia Thorpe	Yeah.	27:00
Julie Zwibelman	Is there anything else you think while we're on these subjects that we've been talking about that—	27:07
Amelia Thorpe	No, I'm good. [indistinct 00:27:13].	27:09
Julie Zwibelman	Yeah. Drive you crazy.	27:13
Amelia Thorpe	Well, you want any more of the historical things. It's just that I never thought that I would be—to be historical, to be able to talk from this at a historical point of view. That's one part of my whole community that changed from, that I could be a historical, as it was since I was a child [indistinct 00:27:54]. Hopefully you'll continue to develop [indistinct 00:27:58].	27:13
Julie Zwibelman	Did you see it as a pretty dramatic change from—	28:07
Amelia Thorpe	Yes. [indistinct 00:28:13]. Like I say, even if it was a sub-standards from something to nothing. But I think [indistinct 00:28:25] old Victorian-type homes. There were some lovely homes going up Fayetteville Street approaching Pettigrew, beautiful. And you see so much new construction now. [indistinct 00:28:45] rehabilitation on some of those houses [indistinct 00:28:49].	28:13
Julie Zwibelman	[indistinct 00:28:52].	28:52
Amelia Thorpe	[indistinct 00:28:55].	28:55
Julie Zwibelman	How integrated do you feel like this neighborhood is, as far as your interaction with people?	29:02
Amelia Thorpe	With the college being more integrated now I see more students coming here and talking and going up the street. And I believe there seem to be one or two white students or families around here—and for a year and a half I had a Japanese young man living here, from Japan. He wanted to come to North Carolina.	29:07
Julie Zwibelman	[indistinct 00:29:36].	29:36
Amelia Thorpe	He might be. Yeah. He would've stayed longer but he was from the place that had the earthquake [indistinct 00:30:00]. So his mom and dad came over, his sister—but [indistinct 00:30:02] would-be students who would want to move maybe [indistinct 00:30:18].	29:36
Julie Zwibelman	[indistinct 00:30:22].	30:22
Amelia Thorpe	Living around here, yeah. I don't see many young couples, because they have so many other opportunities. [indistinct 00:30:38]. However, our [indistinct 00:30:48] they have moved to Atlanta, you know, they had gotten older. Their house is available. There will be a lot of beautiful houses becoming available now that crossed Fayetteville but in this larger community, there are a lot of nice house becoming available.	30:22
Julie Zwibelman	Well, thank you for [indistinct 00:31:19].	31:00
Amelia Thorpe	Thank you for coming.	31:19

Item Info

Title:

Amelia Thorpe interview recording, 1996 October 28

Date:

October 28, 1996

Creator:

Thorpe, Amelia

Contributor:

Zwibelman, Julie

Description:

Name: Amelia Pride Thorpe; Date of birth: 1940; Place of birth: Durham, NC; Occupation(s): pharmacy assistant; librarian; juvenile probation work; Residence: Durham, NC
Informant ID: 1271; Interviewed by Julie Zwibelman.

Format:

Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

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

Series:

Related Resources:

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Provenance:

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

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

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

Identifier:

RL00170-CS-0044
RL00170-CS-0045
9bd500da-ab45-426d-be30-bcd6e139a071
behindtheveil
a9ee8ea0-6094-4e3d-bfc6-3a05bc18acb6
ark:/87924/r43b67h3s
a9ee8ea0-6094-4e3d-bfc6-3a05bc18acb6

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Amelia Thorpe interview recording, 1996 October 28

Transcript

Item Info

1. Amelia Thorpe administrative file, 1996

2. Amelia Thorpe interview recording, 1996 November 11

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Amelia Thorpe interview recording, 1996 October 28

Transcript

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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