Bessie MacDonald interview recording, 1994 July 12

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Bessie Collins MacDonald	— the younger one, and the youngest one that [indistinct 00:00:05] died.	0:01
Michele Mitchell	So he was the baby?	0:01
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Mm-hmm— father— My grandmother was when she was young. She was living— where was she living in Louisiana? I don't want make a mistake. She was living in Marksville, Louisiana when she was young and she met Nel Sneed, that was her husband, Nel Sneed. Well, Nel Sneed had a lot of Indian relatives but I don't know about them. Well, he had a lot of Indian blood in him. He was a very independent man and he had his own mules and own cows and horses and everything. He farmed. He and my grandmother farmed.	0:13
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Well, when my uncle Fred, his first child, was 12 years old, that's when Ned Sneed, he was riding on Atchafalya River levee, it was a beautiful, big levee. The sheriff came up to him and told him that some White man, I can't call his name, said that he had him a debt, he owed him something. My grandfather had never ran a credit account, he always rented the money and bought his stuff, you know what I mean?	1:12
Bessie Collins MacDonald	In those days, White people didn't like for Coloreds to be at all independent, you know that? So he was kind of independent of that credit business. He'd just buy his sugar by the half a barrels and stuff like that. He never bought nothing from the grocery store, from that grocery store. When steamboat came up the Red River landing, that's when he went out and got all the goods he needed, you know what I mean? Like his cotton, he [indistinct 00:02:34] but had to go get sugar. Well, he was out riding one day, he had a beautiful trailer and beautiful horse. Everybody—	1:59
Bessie Collins MacDonald	The maid, the aide that help away from me right now, her hair reminds me of what they say her grandfather's horse was. It had a lightish tan to it. If she comes here, you'll see it. Anyway, he told my grandfather that since White man said he owed him something, "Get out, get down off this horse, nigger. I'm going to chase it." My grandfather said, "Who says I owe him something? I don't want nothing."	2:51
Bessie Collins MacDonald	So they all— So the man grabbed the old trailer bridle and when he grabbed those to his horse's bridle, that's when he took his rifle that was on his— He was riding with his rifle, not for any other person, he was just a man that liked to have his guns. He was riding on the horse and able to shoot, boy, because he could see anything, alligators, anything on that river. When the man did that, he cussed him and called him a nigger, and cussed him out good, want to be, I don't know what, the independent nigger or something like that. That's when he took his rifle and hit him. When he hit him, he knocked him down with it because my grandfather was a strong man. He broke his neck and the man died.	3:25
Bessie Collins MacDonald	He went home and told my grandmother what he had done and she had— Now, listen, she had a wooden leg, she was a crippled lady, she had a milk leg during childhood. You know back then years and years ago, that was before my mother was even little but, I mean, a big girl, she have must have been around seven years old then, six or seven. Because my uncle Fred was the oldest child and he was 12. She had three— My mother was the third daughter. Blanche was her name.	4:26
Bessie Collins MacDonald	She begged him to get on her knees. He wasn't going to leave because he's a man that loved his guns. He had a back rack place that he kept it and he went in there and was cleaning up his guns. My grandmother said she asked and said, "Nels, what are you doing?" He said, "I'm getting my guns ready." She said, "Nels, I told you that these people are going to come out here with bloodhounds" and White had— The Ku Klux Klan, they were very popular way back then in those days. This Ku Klux Klan gang was all going to be there, "And you will not be able to fight a whole group of men, I don't care how many guns you have, and the bloodhounds will find out where you are." So she says she got on her knees and she prayed that he would go. So said, "Nelson—," telling my son, "Go out there, Fred." He'd get that horse and see, he's going to get hisself on there and leave there.	5:22
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Sure enough, that night when my daughter's oldest son, which would have been my uncle, said he— Well, he did and nothing happened to him, but he was a big, old man. Anyway, he got on the horse and my grandfather, who was Nel Sneed, got on. She made him get on the horse and ride over.	6:32
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Sure enough, that night as soon as it was dark, a whole gang of them came to the house looking for him, went all through the house. My grandmother said she didn't know what they were going to do because it scared her. They looked everywhere, under the bed, in the shed, everywhere they looked and they had the bloodhounds trailing around. The bloodhounds lost the scent, they didn't know where he was. Because when he got on the horse and he rode through a bayou, they lost the smell of the horse. So my uncle Fred took him over there and then he came on back home. Took him away and they ain't never heard—	7:04
Bessie Collins MacDonald	So she told him, she said, "Nel, don't start a riot or get [indistinct 00:07:51] with us because there's going to be no way that he can escape and all until they save your life." She told him, when he was going to leave, then she said, "And I don't want to him murdered" in front of their children." She said, "Because that's just what we'll do. You'll be murdered right here in the front of these children."	7:46
Bessie Collins MacDonald	So he went on home and took my grandfather through [indistinct 00:08:18] son, took him across this bayou and led him off somewhere, I don't know where, in Louisiana, there's a wooded area. Then he came on back. Now I don't know what ever become of the horse. I don't know where— I guess Fred rode back with the horse and left it there and I guess eventually, they got it.	8:10
Bessie Collins MacDonald	But anyway, he got his— my grandmother begged him to leave and to never ride back. Then Fred stayed there and worked around the ground that year that belonged to— I don't know who, the Narry, a man by the name of Narry owned the property that my uncle Fred rented there. So Fred went and paid the rent and pull the land, pull it for the coming year.	8:39
Bessie Collins MacDonald	The year after that, Mrs. Twin was a lady by the name of Twin that owned the printing press next to where my grandmother lived, on this land right there, you see? So Mrs. Twin sent for my grandmother and told her, said, "Mary, I got in yard. You can't stay there. I'm trying to rent that land and raise me up," she said, "in my yard." In those days, they had a great, big pasture and they used to build little huts and things in their yard so that people could live there because if they didn't have houses owning, they could live on that and then they could pay some much, but rent the land, the rent for the house rented that, you see?	9:19
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Anyway, my grandmother said that— Well, Mrs. Twin had a priest that used to come out to the house. Because way out in country, transportation was very poor. He used to come out there once a month and say mass and pray. She sent for my grandmother. She made all the children come in and listen to the mass. Because after she invited him to come there and stay, Fred was only 12 years old so she said that he could build a fire and keep up the ashes in the fireplace and cut the wood.	10:18
Michele Mitchell	This is your uncle Fred?	11:12
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Huh?	11:12
Michele Mitchell	Your uncle Fred?	11:14
Bessie Collins MacDonald	No. Yeah, my uncle Fred, my grandmother's oldest child lived there. And she lived in the house with her in Mrs. Quinley's house. She was a very kind woman. She was kind to my grandmother. I guess my grandmother had been washing and ironing some of the sort of petticoat women would wear then in those days.	11:14
Bessie Collins MacDonald	So my grandmother went and spent that year there. Fred took up her things and she worked some with Mrs. Quinley. So that's why I'm Catholic today, it was from that time on, my grandmother— Fred stayed there for a certain length of time and then he moved from there and out from Red River. He moved to across the Atchafalaya River on the Collins Plantation and that was my father's son, with my father. See? I was born on his plantation. Fred worked his round for a while, for him.	11:43
Bessie Collins MacDonald	But in those times, you either rented or worked on half, and White people did not— You had no schools to go to. The only schools you went to were the Protestant schools where they would have not too long ago to go to school because if it was cotton time, to hoe cotton, plant corn, everything, well, the school had to close, these children had to go work. You see? I was twelve— seven years old before I ever learned to write a little bit. Leland University used to be on St. Charles Avenue. Well, right now— Well, Leland University used to be on St. Charles Avenue. That's where that White girls' school— what is it called? On St. Charles and— Uptown.	12:55
Michele Mitchell	Yeah. I can't think of—	14:01
Bessie Collins MacDonald	That was some of— Negroes owned some of the richest property in New Orleans, you know what I mean. You know where the [indistinct 00:14:11] temple used to be?	14:05
Michele Mitchell	Mm-hmm, yeah. Mm-hmm.	14:15
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Yeah, I used to dance on the [indistinct 00:14:16]. All of that there used to belong to Negroes. You know where the D & Sons Company— Let me see, what street is that on— Where [indistinct 00:14:37] Hospital used to be.	14:15
Michele Mitchell	Okay.	14:38
Bessie Collins MacDonald	You know where that used to be?	14:38
Michele Mitchell	Yes, ma'am.	14:38
Bessie Collins MacDonald	It's not the one, the last place it was. But there's a D. & Sons company right now have a building, a big building, big, that's built from the land that was— The building it was part, the land? Then the [indistinct 00:15:09] Hospital. I think that was on— Is it Bienville Street?	14:44
Michele Mitchell	I think so.	15:16
Bessie Collins MacDonald	I think it was.	15:16
Michele Mitchell	Mm-hmm.	15:16
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Because it was Bienville Street. Mm-hmm. I think it was Bienville Street. You might have to look that up, see where it was. Because New Orleans used to belong— On St. Charles Avenue, that's where New Orleans University used to be. Mm-hmm. And all that was Negro-owned property, and it all got away from them.	15:18
Michele Mitchell	All that was Negro-owned property?	15:56
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Yeah. All of that was. All of it got away from them, crooked business.	15:57
Michele Mitchell	Crooked business?	16:00
Bessie Collins MacDonald	I said through crooked business. They didn't sell it or nothing, but they just lost it. So that's all I know.	16:01
Bessie Collins MacDonald	But you had a hard time and you worked. You picked the cotton. You know you're not supposed to plant cotton— In 10 acres of land here, you plant cotton this year, then not supposed to go back plant cotton or that plant no more. Because cotton don't give the soil nothing back to it, it takes anything away. It don't fertility, I guess you'd call it. So next year, if you want to have less trouble than anything and nothing, you'd better plant corn, cowpeas or soybeans and all of that. That binds the stuff and you plow all that into the soil to restore the life that cotton takes out of it. That's the way you—	16:12
Bessie Collins MacDonald	The boll weevils tore— [indistinct 00:17:30] up and then people used to sing a song. I'll tell you about the police— The boll weevil said to the farmer, "You'd better let me alone because I'll eat up all your cotton store and all your corn." The old bird told the farmer, "You'd better let me alone." They were throwing pass the wind and something, well, they killed the boll weevils. It's said that the boll weevils told the farmer, "You'd better leave us alone because we're going to eat up all your cotton and then we're going to start in on your corn." Oh, Lord. God forbid.	17:25
Michele Mitchell	When did you move to New Orleans? Did you move to New Orleans?	18:16
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Oh, what, TV?	18:18
Michele Mitchell	Mm-hmm.	18:23
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Oh, not necessarily. Do you want to see it? You want to see the news?	18:26
Michele Mitchell	Oh, no, no, no. I'm asking you if you moved to New Orleans, because you were out in the country, right?	18:28
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Yeah, mm-hmm. I lived in the city, that's where I first learned to turn the time on the clock was— When Leland University had a school there on St. Charles Avenue and they had a little school that they took a few children in to teach them how to read, write, you know what I mean, to give the students a little training and teaching. That's where I learned my ABCs.	18:33
Michele Mitchell	Really?	19:10
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Mm-hmm. Learned how to tell time on a clock. Mm-hmm.	19:11
Michele Mitchell	When did you come here, to New Orleans?	19:21
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Oh, I'll tell you, I didn't come— Let me see. When I left the country? Oh, my aunt, my mother's sister, was working for some very rich people in New Orleans and she had a little house built into that. So my aunt was visiting my grandmother on the Atchafalaya River and I was seven years old and my father asked my mother, asked my aunt then if she would take me, my aunt Mary, that she would take me and let me live with her on this White people's premises. So I've been accustomed of White people all my life because I lived on— That's where I learned to how to read and learned how to write. Little writing that I do and little reading that I do, that's where I learned all that stuff. I began learning it. That's when I used to walk to Leland.	19:23
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Somebody there?	20:42
Michele Mitchell	They just walked right by.	20:43
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Huh?	20:43
Michele Mitchell	They walked by.	20:47
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Oh. Oh, yeah.	20:48
Bessie Collins MacDonald	That's where I learned most of my reading and stuff like that, when I was young, around six and seven years old. That's when I learned to read. My aunt bought storybooks for me and showed it— That was a doctor's wife, that wasn't Mrs. Twin. Mrs. Twin was on Atchafalaya, but that was over in Avoyelles Parish.	20:51
Michele Mitchell	Avoyelles Parish?	21:32
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. When I was born was in Pointe Coupée Parish. That was in the Atchafalaya area, on the Collins Plantation. Mm-hmm. But I went to school in New Orleans when I lived with my aunt. My daddy used to send her so much money, you know what I mean, for taking care of me. That's the way I got my— Because if it hadn't been for that, I wouldn't have known my ABCs or nothing because they had no—	21:32
Bessie Collins MacDonald	My uncle Fred and grandmother and them lived way off in the wooded part and after they started saw milling and all that different stuff, they cut down a lot of those trees and things and made farm land out of it. Because you used to could go in the woods and get muscadine vines by the buckets full and the people made muscadine and cut wild grape, little, bitty grape grow in bunches on trees, anything. Well, I doubt any of that, anywhere around there because they chopped it down and made farm with. I guess they said there wouldn't be much land left that was not planned, you know what I mean?	22:12
Bessie Collins MacDonald	But, honey, I don't know if you know this woman, Sweetly was her name. I don't know where to find it. But she's the one who, a lot of these people, after they was supposed to be free, there wasn't no freedom, you know what I mean. A lot of them claimed that Colored people let over them. And Phyllis Wheatley, I don't know whether it was her, that started roads through, that she used to take so many of them away, teaching them how to get away. So a lot of Colored people left and went up North before— Well, the 4th of July, actually, didn't bring freedom to Colored people.	23:16
Michele Mitchell	No.	24:18
Bessie Collins MacDonald	No. The person that brought the freedom was a war between the states. And you know why the war between the states, really? You know why they did it?	24:19
Michele Mitchell	Slavery?	24:32
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Why the people up there, up North, wanted the Negros to be free?	24:37
Michele Mitchell	Why?	24:43
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Because they said they wanted manifestation without representation. They wanted to keep them as slaves by putting country time for politics for voting for slaves' rights, they let the vote, you see what I mean?	24:44
Michele Mitchell	Mm-hmm.	25:08
Bessie Collins MacDonald	So that's why. So the North got mad about that, by putting all the Black folks on that. That's why the Civil War came about. See, it's because the Whites in the South got tired of them representing the Black and being politics, you know how politics, rules important? Well, that's why. That's why that was and they said it about—	25:09
Bessie Collins MacDonald	That's why that they 4th of July celebration here, I though to myself, I said, "Yeah—" England and France was fighting against the Catholics because they didn't want Catholicism. They didn't believe in the rules of the Catholics or the Church. So they wanted to set up their own form of religion, like the Presbyterians.	25:40
Michele Mitchell	Mm-hmm.	26:05
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Yeah. The Presbyterians— I know of that, that's a known now to me, the Presbyterians. But it was another one, the Methodists, the Baptists, and all of them, they wanted to free to celebrate the type of religion that they wanted. They did not follow the type of the religion of the pope. That's why they came to America, for religious freedom.	26:12
Bessie Collins MacDonald	When they got here, they're the only person that had religious freedom. They didn't even have no freedom. A lot of the Negroes was tied with rope and some of them pulled, but some of them were stole from boys and things brought over. The children didn't know where their parents was or nothing. This history is so messed up.	26:41
Michele Mitchell	Yes, it is.	27:13
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Hmm?	27:14
Michele Mitchell	Yes. Mm-hmm.	27:15
Bessie Collins MacDonald	And politics has messed it up. What do you call that thing? — wanted to be represented but didn't want to be counted as citizens. Preparation but no equalization, something like that. They wanted to be considered a part of the people too, a resident of this area, but they didn't want them considered. They couldn't vote or do anything because they were enslaved. So that's what caused the war of the states. The states got tired of it because the White people that was living in the other part got tired of them having more people on the register or roll.	27:18
Bessie Collins MacDonald	So that's why they called the war, that's why they called it the Yankees and the Southerns. The Yankees got mad and come down here and started a war, not for the love of Negroes, but for the love of the representation. Mm-hmm. Not because they love you, but because of representation. You were represented in the North as citizens, but you're not citizens. So that what you call representation without— some other word. I used to know what it was but I don't, forgot all of that.	28:26
Michele Mitchell	Mm-hmm.	29:14
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Huh?	29:14
Michele Mitchell	I know what you're talking about. Yes, mm-hmm. What was it like being on the plantation when you were little?	29:17
Bessie Collins MacDonald	What?	29:24
Michele Mitchell	What was it like being on the plantation when you were little?	29:26
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Well, of course, my father saw to it, that's why he wanted my aunt to take with her to New Orleans, because he said he never wanted to see me picking cotton. His father owned a big plantation, had his own— I don't know how many Negroes working on them, but he never did want to rest a day. That's why his mother hated him.	29:30
Michele Mitchell	Did she?	29:54
Bessie Collins MacDonald	After she wouldn't give up— After she went told his mother that Nel didn't have the right to tell nobody who to love and who not to love and that he was not going to give up my mother, so that's why his mother disinherited him. He went and lived on the plantation of his— She was really— His brother [indistinct 00:30:24]. You know those Cajun girls in those days were very pretty, had a lot of natural beauty. I mean, I'm talking about the White Cajun girls. My father's brother was married with a wife and had spoiled this Cajun man's daughter, his brother. A beautiful, White girl, they told me, a Cajun girl. Her father went there to kill my uncle, my father's brother. But when he went to shoot at his brother, he stepped in front of the gun and he took the gun and he died. So I always say his mother was responsible for his death because if she hadn't have done that— It was a punishment for her than what [indistinct 00:31:23] have.	29:56
Bessie Collins MacDonald	I tell you this, after I grew up and got to be some size and went to Tuskegee— And Maude, who was my father's sister, well, she always wanted to see or wanted to know me or who I was. She had a Colored lady that worked for her and my mother never did want to want me to fool with her. She took me for a walk one day so Ms. Maude could see me, that Maude Collins. She was married to Dr. McCaleb. Dr. McCaleb was the one that saved my life, surely did that. She stuck a hat pin [indistinct 00:32:17] my head, she'd pull [indistinct 00:32:18].	31:25
Bessie Collins MacDonald	So Maude always wanted to see me. When I got to be some size and moved to New Orleans, we was living with my grandmother and my aunt and all, we were living on General Street. Maude wanted to see me. Ms. Collins then, she had moved on Broadway, see. She had left the farm, she wasn't on the farm anymore. She had moved on Broadway Street. She wanted to see me. So a girl was working in her house told her, "Get me," get me, and, "Bring Bessie to see me." She tried to send Ms. Emma. "Ms. Emma wants to see you."	32:23
Bessie Collins MacDonald	I said, "She does?" I guess I must have be about— Matter of fact, I had gone to Tuskegee and spent— I said, "She does?" I say, "Well, she won't see me because she didn't want to see me then and I don't want to see her now." And I didn't go. I didn't go see her. I wouldn't go see her. I said, "She can't turn her cares off like that." She's done done all her day and I should let her go head home. Because, really, I can be as stubborn as the next one. Well, I can be as stubborn as the next one. But not for McCaleb's— One of my father's brothers had charge of the Cotton Exchange in New Orleans. He died there.	33:13
Michele Mitchell	Really?	34:22
Bessie Collins MacDonald	He died. He died. You know that big, undertaking parlor on— I think it's Broadway and— I know it's St. Charles. But it's either one of the Broad streets, the big place where they take dead people. Well, he was buried from there, from that place. He died though. But Ms. Emma never wanted him to get married, either. He was going with a White nurse but he never married. But they wanted to see me after that, I had gotten grown up and people had been talking about they'd go and see me. But they didn't see me because I wouldn't let them. Now maybe I'm cutting my nose off for spite of my face, but I did. That's the way life was.	34:25
Michele Mitchell	It sounds difficult.	35:38
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Huh?	35:39
Michele Mitchell	It sounds very difficult.	35:40
Bessie Collins MacDonald	It was difficult. It was. It was difficult.	35:43
Michele Mitchell	Mm-hmm.	35:43
Bessie Collins MacDonald	That's why I don't know whether it was Phyllis Wheatley— no, some other woman, but she was a very, very brave woman. She used to get groups—	35:54
Speaker 1	Hello.	36:07
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Okay. You want me? She'll excuse herself if you need me. You need me?	36:07
Michele Mitchell	So that's your aunt?	36:13
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Mm-hmm.	36:15
Bessie Collins MacDonald	What was the last thing I said on there?	36:26
Michele Mitchell	You were telling me about— The last thing I remember is one of your father's brothers who was at the Cotton Exchange in New Orleans.	36:30
Bessie Collins MacDonald	A what?	36:37
Michele Mitchell	You told me how one of your father's brothers was at the Cotton Exchange?	36:38
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Yeah.	36:41
Michele Mitchell	And how he died.	36:42
Bessie Collins MacDonald	At the Cotton Exchange, down at Riverfront where they had the Cotton Exchange, at the Riverfront. I don't— My father's brother.	36:46
Michele Mitchell	Mm-hmm.	36:59
Bessie Collins MacDonald	And he died from there. He was never married. Mm-hmm.	37:00
Michele Mitchell	Then you started telling me more about being in New Orleans when you were young.	37:12
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Huh?	37:16
Michele Mitchell	You started telling me more about being in New Orleans.	37:16
Bessie Collins MacDonald	When I was young?	37:19
Michele Mitchell	Mm-hmm. How difficult it was, that it was difficult being here?	37:22
Bessie Collins MacDonald	For little children, for growing up, yeah. No, after I got to be a big girl, it didn't worry me because—	37:26
Michele Mitchell	It didn't.	37:38
Bessie Collins MacDonald	No, uh-uh. Because I was with an old group of people at that time. Tulane— I mean, Leland— New Orleans University had and so did Strake's. Strake's College used to be on Bienville Street and I associated with the people at that when I was a young girl. I had a good time because I was a good dancer. When I went to Tuskegee, I learned to dance all kind of dances and I could— Oh, I was a good—	37:39
Bessie Collins MacDonald	When my husband and I got married, and I would go dances and stuff, and I knew more people in New Orleans than he did and they would all come and ask me for a dance. You know how the men touch on your back, men you're dancing? And he would get so mad, he didn't know what to do. Lord, I used to have a lot of fun. I had a lot of good times, though.	38:13
Bessie Collins MacDonald	I had lots of good times. I couldn't no fault of it. But the older— We've come a long ways. You know one thing? We've come a long ways because White people don't have nothing on us now. I'm telling you it's as many poor White that don't have nothing. Like around where I live, they don't have nothing on us. You know but their opportunities are greater, you know what I mean? Politically, their opportunities are greatest. But we go by good what Huey P. Long said, "Drop down your bucket where you are. Don't let nothing running from one. Don't dump them on the side of the fence to get to the other, because the other side is no larger than the side that you're on." He said, "Drop down the buckets where you are because a rolling stone gathers no—"	38:42
Mrs. Reed	Hello?	39:56
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Hello, hello. Look at, this is my good friend.	39:57
Mrs. Reed	What's my name, Mrs. McDonald?	40:05
Bessie Collins MacDonald	I'm not going to— [indistinct 00:40:10] your real name.	40:08
Mrs. Reed	Reed.	40:15
Bessie Collins MacDonald	That's Mrs. Reed. That's Mrs. Reed. And this is—	40:19
Michele Mitchell	Michele Mitchell.	40:21
Mrs. Reed	Okay.	40:25
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Yeah. This is— you know what? She's a friend, a good friend of mine, as well you're a good friend of mine.	40:25
Mrs. Reed	So I'm not going to interrupt much longer because I know y'all are busy. I'll be back.	40:33
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Okay.	40:37
Mrs. Reed	Are you dry?	40:40
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Well, you can stay with us.	40:40
Mrs. Reed	Are you dry?	40:40
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Yeah, I'm dry.	40:40
Mrs. Reed	Okay.	40:40
Bessie Collins MacDonald	I'm dry. Heard what I said?	40:41
Mrs. Reed	Okay, I'll be back. I'll be here [indistinct 00:40:42] tonight.	40:41
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Alright.	40:42
Bessie Collins MacDonald	What was I talking about?	40:42
Michele Mitchell	You were telling me about how—	40:57
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Oh, we used to have the nicest parties, nicest parties. We'd have a girl, Betsy [indistinct 00:41:10], used the play the piano at her mother's house, a group of us used to get there and have like a ball, like in a ballroom. Girls and boys, we used to lots of fun. We knew how to enjoy ourselves without the empty feelings, you see?	40:59
Bessie Collins MacDonald	But I'm going to tell you one thing. They've got lot of really ignorant White people. Whole lot, still got a whole lot, Cajun. Because I lived in Covington and I know there was a lot of White people that didn't know as much as I know, and a whole lot of them— you know what I mean, just Cajun-looking. You can see White people when they're poor. You can look at them and tell when they're poor. But you can look at Colored people and you can't tell somebody they're so poor or not.	41:33
Michele Mitchell	Mm-hmm.	42:05
Bessie Collins MacDonald	You know that?	42:13
Michele Mitchell	Yeah.	42:19
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Because that's something about them. They're not going to believe but, but you know we niggers got something that's naturally [indistinct 00:42:25]. We got— They might beat us on the head, but they can't— That's something, Booker T. Washington, [indistinct 00:42:37], said he's going to, "Lift up the veil of ignorance in front of our eyes." And you know something else he said?	42:22
Michele Mitchell	What?	42:40
Bessie Collins MacDonald	"Never worry about somebody digging a hole for you because they'll always fall in it themself." Never dig a hole for somebody else. Never dig a hole for nobody else because you'll always fall in it yourself. And never go from this place to the other because a rolling stone gathers no moss. Stay and build it because looking for something like that, you're never going to find it. You've got to work toward it to accomplish it. Just going, running from place to place, that goes to show you, if you're working for a company and you work for a number of years, you can get a pension. But if you don't, you don't get nothing.	42:40
Michele Mitchell	Mm-hmm.	43:42
Bessie Collins MacDonald	See, after you leave and go somewhere else or move, maybe get 15 cents more an hour. But on the other hand, you'll have lost out because you were building up something, some kind of future by hiring you. You know what I mean? For your interest or your security that you pulled. But if you go this place and you lose all that. You see?	43:42
Michele Mitchell	Oh, yes.	44:02
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Well, I tell you—	44:06
Bessie Collins MacDonald	I used to know another little thing that they said. "Don't let nobody tell you what to do with your life, do it yourself."	44:06
Michele Mitchell	You think so?	44:43
Bessie Collins MacDonald	It's better to follow your own advice than to let somebody else tell you what to do. Once you made your mind up to something and you go and drop it. I forgot that little thing.	44:43
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Make up your mind what you want to do and work hard toward it. And don't let nobody change your mind. You make your decision, look through the thing and see what it is you want, and work toward that thing. That's what I believe in, work toward that end. Because look at Booker T. Washington, [indistinct 00:45:40]. And look what this man, that great scientist who made peanut oil and peanut butter.	45:17
Michele Mitchell	Mm-hmm.	45:51
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Yeah, you see what I mean? He's got a big laboratory in Tuskegee. He made medicine from the different vines and stuff and cross-pollination with plant. I could've been very smart if I hadn't been so ignorant. Oh, Lord. Because a lot of the things he used to try to teach us when I was at Tuskegee, a lot of thing he tried to teach us, we thought, that's the greatest way to tell a man he's crazy.	45:51
Speaker 2	Oh, you got— Okay.	46:26
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Huh?	46:26
Speaker 2	I was just—	46:26

Bessie Collins MacDonald	What?	0:02
Michele Mitchell	You went to Tuskegee?	0:02
Bessie Collins MacDonald	No, this is orange. I've eaten my dinner already.	0:04
Michele Mitchell	Oh, okay. But you were telling me about Tuskegee.	0:08
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Oh, about Tuskegee. Oh, I said at Tuskegee, I went to night school and worked in the day. That's where I learned how to iron and ironed shirts. I ironed Dr. Booker T. Washington's shirts and everything.	0:13
Michele Mitchell	You ironed them?	0:32
Bessie Collins MacDonald	I was living on the campus, you see? And all of the students who was on the campus going to school and going to night school, well, they used to work in the daytime doing things around on the campus, like cleaning, like the maids come and clean up. Well, I pay [indistinct 00:00:54] if I go and if I was staying [indistinct 00:00:58] education, you see? (singing) I wouldn't take nothing [indistinct 00:01:13] in my own life. There's no such thing as you can't.	0:33
Michele Mitchell	You don't think so? No?	1:23
Bessie Collins MacDonald	No, I don't think so. Once you determine, I don't think so. It might not just fall in your lap [indistinct 00:01:35] like you planned it, but if you keep working toward it, you can. You can accomplish it. There's no such thing as you can't.	1:25
Michele Mitchell	But have you had difficult experiences with White people?	1:48
Bessie Collins MacDonald	What?	1:52
Michele Mitchell	With White people, has it been difficult ever?	1:52
Bessie Collins MacDonald	With me?	1:55
Michele Mitchell	Mm-hmm.	1:57
Bessie Collins MacDonald	The only difficult— Well, when they used to segregate the bus, the bus was segregated. You get on the bus and they had the screen we used to set by, set behind the screen. I sat behind the screen and the other part where White people were setting and that man would come and move the screen, put behind. And I'd look up at it and say, "What in the hell you mean? Put that screen back."	1:57
Michele Mitchell	Really?	2:32
Bessie Collins MacDonald	[indistinct 00:02:33] I said, "What in the hell you mean, putting that screen back there?" I said, "It says Colored." And I said to him, and I know what I was doing. I said, "Well, you put it back. If you don't, I will." I've always been frank. Mm-hmm.	2:37
Michele Mitchell	You weren't afraid to do that?	3:08
Bessie Collins MacDonald	No, I wasn't afraid to do it. Uh-uh. I'm not afraid of anything. If I know I'm right, I'm not afraid of anything. And they said we were so religious that the Civil War had become about— and [indistinct 00:03:35] time after the Civil War stopped, in the churches, the Catholic Church, we had sections that was set off for us to sit in. Yeah. Not now so much, but now, they had restricted areas where you had to sit. They weren't supposed to be there, but they just [indistinct 00:04:06] for religious freedom.	3:10
Michele Mitchell	Mm-hmm.	4:03
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Yeah, but it was just there like everything else. Religious freedom. Religious freedom for those who had the pull and the money. [indistinct 00:04:25] My great-grandmother told me that wealthy White children during slavery, when the lady on the [indistinct 00:04:45] a healthy-looking Black woman had gave birth and everything was brand new, some of the White children that birthed sucked the Black nanny's titties. Both of them, nurse and Black nanny's titties. And how is it that they didn't want to set in the seats in the streetcar with them, but yet and still, they can go to New York or anywhere and leave the children there. Ain't that stupid?	4:10
Michele Mitchell	Yes.	5:19
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Does that make any sense?	5:19
Michele Mitchell	No.	5:21
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Does that make any sense?	5:22
Michele Mitchell	No.	5:23
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Because when I had babies, I wouldn't leave them. If I got to go, somebody [indistinct 00:05:29] some of my relatives to leave them with. I wouldn't send up my babies with anybody. [indistinct 00:05:39] babysitter. It had to pay for help on it, you wanted someone, a nurse. And they'd go there and just take up anybody that needed work and go there and do it, and yet segregation [indistinct 00:05:54] Now I tell you, now today, they can't tell what's going on. Well, that's what you call throwing a brick and hiding your hand.	5:24
Michele Mitchell	Uh-huh.	6:11
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Huh?	6:11
Michele Mitchell	Yes.	6:11
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Throwing the brick and hiding your hand. That's what you call throw the brick and hide your hand.	6:12
Michele Mitchell	Yes, yes.	6:29
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Throw the brick, girl, and hide your hand.	6:34
Michele Mitchell	But how did you feel about the church with the separate area?	6:38
Bessie Collins MacDonald	How did I feel? It didn't phase me one minute because I wasn't too [indistinct 00:06:45] about them. But if there was a vacant seat and I felt like sitting, I'd go there and sit.	6:44
Michele Mitchell	Yeah.	7:02
Bessie Collins MacDonald	I never had any trouble with it. If there was a vacant seat, I sit there and sit. Because I didn't want, getting mad when I went to church. When I get— I said there's no sense in me going to church and I'm going to pray and I'm going to let me make me mad. I'd go and I'd sit and I [indistinct 00:07:32] I said, "Because this is where the saints sit, and the sinners was in the front." That's what I [indistinct 00:07:48] I said, "This is where the saints sit, but the sinners are all sitting up there in the front." You want to find out where the sinners are, just look up in the front of the church. I'm talking about the Catholic Church in those days. Mm-hmm. Lord, the funniest things.	7:03
Michele Mitchell	Which church did you go to?	7:53
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Oh, I go anywhere now to church. I mean—	8:30
Michele Mitchell	Oh, okay.	8:31
Bessie Collins MacDonald	That was kind of— I go to any church and sit down. If I [indistinct 00:08:43] I just go there and sit. If they tell me to move, I just say, "What you mean?" Look innocent and say, "Now what in the world do you mean?" But they don't hardly say that no more to you. They'll look at you hateful, but that doesn't phase me one way or the other.	8:31
Michele Mitchell	No?	9:12
Bessie Collins MacDonald	No. [indistinct 00:09:16] When I got my teeth in my mouth, I can look as hateful as anybody in the world.	9:24
Michele Mitchell	Mm-hmm.	9:27
Bessie Collins MacDonald	I can look at you for an hour and not even blink my eyes. But they can look at you and tell when you scared and look uncomfortable. I don't ever feel uncomfortable. I let them feel uncomfortable. Did I tell you this little joke about, they said Booker T. Washington told us in a lecture one time, said that one day, it was just so hot. Summer day in Alabama, these hills and things around there. Said he was walking and had to walk a long way. And said a White man passed him in a buggy and he stopped for some reason. So he asked him, "Sir, will you give me a lift? Please, give me a ride." And the man said, "Do you expect me to ride a nigger?" So he [indistinct 00:10:55] that man. He said, "No, I'll drive you. I asked you for a ride. I didn't ask you to drive me. I asked you for a ride and I'll drive you."	9:32
Michele Mitchell	Mm.	11:08
Bessie Collins MacDonald	That's the way he answered. He [indistinct 00:11:09] And the man give him and ride and he drove him. When he got out, he said, "Thank you." When he got out of his buggy. So don't take every little thing that they say [indistinct 00:11:32] If you study [indistinct 00:11:36] you always get back at them.	11:08
Michele Mitchell	That's true.	11:41
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Huh?	11:41
Michele Mitchell	Mm-hmm.	11:41
Bessie Collins MacDonald	You can always get back at them. We don't have to be mad.	11:41
Michele Mitchell	Did you like Tuskegee?	11:50
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Oh, I love it.	11:52
Michele Mitchell	Did you?	11:54
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Mm-hmm. It's a beautiful place. It's a beautiful place. People have accomplished a lot of things. Tuskegee is a person that— They used to have a place where the boys went to night school, where they dug that red clay from back around those hills and a pit that they made brick and everything else. They made bricks and they made everything. Booker T. Washington had a saying, "Educate your hands as well as your mind." That God gave you everything he had and give it to you to use, so educate your hands as well as your mind. Have to educate your hands as well as your mind to do something.	11:55
Michele Mitchell	Did you ever meet him?	12:58
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Huh?	13:00
Michele Mitchell	Did you ever meet him?	13:00
Bessie Collins MacDonald	What?	13:01
Michele Mitchell	Did you ever meet Booker T. Washington?	13:03
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Where?	13:06
Michele Mitchell	At Tuskegee? Did you ever see him?	13:07
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Ever see what?	13:10
Michele Mitchell	Booker T. Washington.	13:13
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Oh, I lived there. Oh yeah, I lived there.	13:16
Michele Mitchell	So you knew him?	13:17
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Sure, I knew him.	13:18
Michele Mitchell	Really?	13:20
Bessie Collins MacDonald	[indistinct 00:13:22] That's where I learned to iron his shirts when I was about 16 years old. The boys' uniforms, a lot of them wore uniforms and we did too. Sometimes we'd march. That's when I was living in Tuskegee. But they never did have boys and girls living in the same dormitories. They didn't [indistinct 00:14:05] live in the same— They had certain areas where our places we lived, the campuses and things. I would have the [indistinct 00:14:24] campus that we go to. You know what I mean? But boys weren't walking around all hours of the night into campus, around campus grounds. They never believed in common sex like they do now.	13:22
Michele Mitchell	Mm-hmm. You told me last time—	14:47
Bessie Collins MacDonald	What?	15:02
Michele Mitchell	Last time I saw you, you told me that you had typhoid?	15:02
Bessie Collins MacDonald	What?	15:07
Michele Mitchell	You had typhoid.	15:07
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Yeah, I had typhoid fever and lost all my hair. I had typhoid fever and yellow jaundice and I was yellow every piece of me. Yellow cotton. Yes, I did. And I lived good. My grandmother— The doctor said that I would never live to see morning. And I [indistinct 00:15:40] behind my grandmother [indistinct 00:15:42] cooking in this pot, that they [indistinct 00:15:47] to make its own juice. So she stayed up all night long and set me up over balls of willow leaves from the tree and set me over the [indistinct 00:15:57] on the ironing board covered me over to sweat the fever because giving you ice and everything. It wasn't doing no good. She rubbed me with the quinine lard and set me up.	15:09
Bessie Collins MacDonald	The next day, when my uncle went to get the doctor, the doctor took my grandmother into the room and they said, "Hattie, now what did you do to bring the fever down on Bessie?" They had fed me so much quinine and [indistinct 00:16:32] I guess it was [indistinct 00:16:34] fever. They were packing me with ice. But my grandmother said she sweated that fever off. I don't know. She was a very good Christian and she prayed very hard and God was good to her. Yeah, that's true.	16:09
Michele Mitchell	It's amazing. You said that your great-grandmother was Indian?	16:59
Bessie Collins MacDonald	That was my grandmother.	17:05
Michele Mitchell	Your grandmother?	17:07
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Yeah, my great-grandmother was the one that raised the peanuts. That was her mother, my great-grandmother.	17:08
Michele Mitchell	Okay.	17:17
Bessie Collins MacDonald	An Indian woman. She was the one that raised the peanuts out in the yard, out in the garden and put them on the drain pump to dry. They put them in the sun when they take them out the ground. I had a distant cousin who was living— Said he was my cousin, but I don't know where they wind up. He used to steal— We used to eat the peanuts and eat the green pears off of the trees and peaches because we lived there [indistinct 00:17:56] the same house and the people had big horses. [indistinct 00:18:01] the year around this time, [indistinct 00:18:03] was not fairly ripe.	17:19
Bessie Collins MacDonald	So my great-grandmother say, "Listen here to me. Don't you dare. I told you not to eat that." And we said, "Grandma, we didn't eat that [indistinct 00:18:24]" She said, "Don't lie to me. I know you've eaten those peanuts because I see some of the hulls. You going to keep on lying, when you get to be saying your prayers and praying, God ain't going to hear you because he ain't going to hear nobody who telling me no lies. He ain't going to listen to you. Because you lied, so you better stop lying because God is going to turn his back on you, because you lied to your grandma." Scared the daylight out of me. To this day, I never did lie to my mother never. If I said no, even though I know I was going to be punished. My great-grandmother told me, "Take the punishment. You know you did wrong. Don't lie about it." No.	18:06
Michele Mitchell	What was your mother like?	19:22
Bessie Collins MacDonald	My mother?	19:24
Michele Mitchell	Mm-hmm.	19:25
Bessie Collins MacDonald	She was [indistinct 00:19:28] and sweet.	19:26
Michele Mitchell	Yeah?	19:33
Bessie Collins MacDonald	My mother had a beautiful figure. She was a beautiful brown-skinned woman, that everybody say was a perfect figure. Mm-hmm. And my father was a jealous man. He didn't like nobody to look at her.	19:34
Michele Mitchell	Really?	19:57
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Yes, indeed. Where have you been today?	20:23
Michele Mitchell	Where have I been?	20:25
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Mm-hmm.	20:26
Michele Mitchell	To a childcare center and to SUNO. That's it.	20:29
Bessie Collins MacDonald	You ate, huh?	20:48
Michele Mitchell	Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Would you like something?	20:48
Bessie Collins MacDonald	No. No. I don't like nothing.	20:51
Michele Mitchell	No?	20:51
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Mm-mm. I ate my lunch and I drank the juice and [indistinct 00:21:05] is the only thing. I like the orange juice. Okay. You want us to quit?	20:58
Speaker 1	[indistinct 00:21:22]	21:19
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Hm?	21:19
Michele Mitchell	We can stop. We can stop for today.	21:23
Speaker 1	[indistinct 00:21:27]	21:25
Bessie Collins MacDonald	What she say?	21:27
Speaker 1	You're not in the way, Ms. MacDonald. I'm just putting everything up for tonight. That's all. That is it. [indistinct 00:21:42]	21:31
Bessie Collins MacDonald	That's my boss.	21:44
Speaker 1	She tells everybody. I'm not your boss.	21:44
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Yes, you are my boss.	21:54
Speaker 1	The man upstairs is our boss.	21:55
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Yes, you are my boss.	21:55
Speaker 1	That is our boss.	21:55
Bessie Collins MacDonald	No.	21:55
Speaker 1	[indistinct 00:22:01]	21:55
Bessie Collins MacDonald	My sweet boss.	21:55
Speaker 1	I don't have a boss. I honestly don't have a boss. That's my boss.	21:55
Michele Mitchell	We can stop for today.	22:15
Bessie Collins MacDonald	Okay.	22:16
Michele Mitchell	Yeah.	22:17

Item Info

Title:

Bessie MacDonald interview recording, 1994 July 12

Date:

July 12, 1994

Creator:

MacDonald, Bessie Collins

Contributor:

Mitchell, Michele

Description:

Name: Bessie Collins MacDonald; Date of birth: 1897-01-15; Place of birth: Point Coupee, LA; Occupation(s): seamstress; tailor; Residence: New Orleans, LA
Informant ID: 558; Interviewed by: Michele Mitchell.

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Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

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

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Provenance:

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

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Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

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

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behindtheveil
b8e286da-01eb-4d7c-8791-f17d993a6423
ark:/87924/r4jh3rb79
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Bessie MacDonald interview recording, 1994 July 12

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1. Bessie MacDonald administrative file, 1994

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Bessie MacDonald interview recording, 1994 July 12

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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