Jimmie Hammond interview recording, 1995 July 24

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Jimmie Lee Hammond	You know?	0:00
Stacey Scales	Yes.	0:00
Jimmie Lee Hammond	She would have been born 1885. Let me see. 1885 and I was born 1904, and she was born 1884.	0:05
Stacey Scales	Man, that's a lot of history.	0:18
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Way back there.	0:19
Stacey Scales	And did she tell you how it was for you when you were coming up?	0:20
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Huh?	0:24
Stacey Scales	Did she tell you how it was for her when she was growing up?	0:26
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, she come up. Back then, the history. Well, this name come from the [indistinct 00:00:38].	0:29
Stacey Scales	Oh, yes?	0:41
Jimmie Lee Hammond	And that's why her side was called the Knox, because her so-called "who she come along with" was White. He got his arm shot off at Peachtree back in the Spanish War or some kind of war back out there in Virginia and Georgia. I know you read about that Peachtree right there where the Civil War [indistinct 00:01:06] out there. And she used to talk. And I think she was 15 years old or something like that when that happened.	0:42
Stacey Scales	Did she talk about slavery times?	1:17
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, she talked about it a little bit, but she didn't share too much about slavery because she was raised over here. Her momma came over here, but she was raised over here.	1:19
Stacey Scales	And when she was raised over here, did she talk about having hard times?	1:36
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, in a way, she didn't say too much about it, to me, about the time being hard. She said how they'd come along and they used to roll logs and all that, and how they used to go out in the woods and roll logs and things like that.	1:42
Stacey Scales	And Mr. Hammond, were you born here?	2:01
Jimmie Lee Hammond	In Grenada County. Out east of Grenada.	2:07
Stacey Scales	Okay, east of Grenada County.	2:09
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Yeah, out in Grenada County, east of Grenada, about six miles back out there.	2:10
Stacey Scales	And do you remember growing up and do you remember how your neighborhood was?	2:16
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, in a way, you just played, and of course, I remember we stayed in a log house. And when my momma left me, I was about five years old. When my momma left me, my uncle raised me. I was left there to stay there with my grandmother, because she was old and they had to go to the fields, and Mom was gone to another place, and they let me stay there with her for company. And that's why my mother didn't raise me and I got scattered from my mother, and I never got a chance to be around my mother until I was about 34 years old, there about.	2:24
Stacey Scales	Oh, yeah?	3:01
Jimmie Lee Hammond	When she seen me, she didn't even know me and I didn't know her. She was in St. Louis. See, her husband was in the army. She'd come back to get me to stay with her, and they wouldn't let her have me, and so that's when she's in Arkansas or somewhere.	3:05
Stacey Scales	When you say, "They wouldn't let her have you—"	3:21
Jimmie Lee Hammond	My uncle what she left me with.	3:22
Stacey Scales	Oh, yeah?	3:25
Jimmie Lee Hammond	His momma, they left me there with her. And they didn't know people back in them times, how some of them was. He figured she owed him for taking care of me when they asked her to let me stay there with Grandmamma.	3:27
Jimmie Lee Hammond	But my momma left me and after my momma left, [indistinct 00:03:51], I learned more about after I grown up and met her. But see, my momma, she didn't really come along in the slavery part, but my great-great grandmamma did.	3:42
Stacey Scales	What was your first job, Mr. Hammond?	4:05
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Hmm?	4:08
Stacey Scales	The first job you ever worked.	4:08
Jimmie Lee Hammond	My first job? Well, I worked in the field for a long time. And the first job I had was when I run off from home 1924, down here to [indistinct 00:04:24]. I still worked on the farm down there.	4:14
Jimmie Lee Hammond	I never had a permanent job until '26. I went to Grenada and worked at the local lumber company. At that time, you made about $11.88. I don't know why it was cut to the 88 cents, but $11 they lay down, you never know what becomes of the other part of that $12.	4:24
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Stayed there, and left that, and went back to the farm. Left and went to [indistinct 00:04:54] haul gravel then. We had to fill up and went to [indistinct 00:05:01], fill them and went to in the city and hauled gravel.	4:49
Stacey Scales	And how much were you making when you were doing your farm work at first?	5:05
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, the farm went for a long time. When they's farming in the hill, I didn't know nothing about no farming until they come up on my side in '20. First crop I made was '27. No, '26, I made one but I didn't get it because that is the year they brought the Mexicans in to haul the crop and all that in '26.	5:11
Stacey Scales	Oh, yeah?	5:27
Jimmie Lee Hammond	'26? No, '25. '25, they brought the Mexicans in [indistinct 00:05:30] and they stayed here to haul the crop in '25. But we moved out of our house for the Mexicans to have somewhere to stay.	5:27
Stacey Scales	How did you feel them when they brought them in?	5:52
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, I didn't know no different. I was kind of young. I didn't know much. Our whole cotton farm associated with them. The whole [indistinct 00:06:05] one thing or the other.	5:55
Stacey Scales	Oh, yes?	6:08
Jimmie Lee Hammond	They was [indistinct 00:06:11] to me all of that time.	6:08
Stacey Scales	Was it talked about why they had come, the Mexicans?	6:13
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, I couldn't hardly understand nothing they said. They was around, but I couldn't understand nothing much they said. And '26, they all left. Went back to Grenada, and '26, that's when I worked at the local lumber company and made $11.88.	6:17
Stacey Scales	Oh, yeah.	6:40
Jimmie Lee Hammond	And '26 to '27, I'm in and out on the farm. And from '28 to '29 and '30, that's when it was rough and tough. You'd make a lot of days and there wasn't no pay.	6:41
Stacey Scales	So you would work and you wouldn't get paid?	6:50
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, no, we didn't get paid, because there wasn't no money to pay. You'd get about 15 cents a day, a quarter sometimes when you work the fields. I always was a house boy and one thing, and I worked around the club. I always worked in every job, and they always liked to pick me to always work all the time.	6:55
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Back in that time, you'd pick a bale of cotton. The seeds got there where they wouldn't pay the ginner back in the '30s. In some places, they still wouldn't pay the ginner. [indistinct 00:07:27], we had to carry our cotton to Swiftown to get anything out the seed.	7:18
Stacey Scales	Man.	7:32
Jimmie Lee Hammond	And we'd clean up [indistinct 00:07:39], as you know. We called ourselves ginners. I just remember now. But anyhow, we was getting [indistinct 00:07:47]. And they said, "If you went from January until the 1st of March, and you'd get your [indistinct 00:07:56], if you didn't take it all up the 1st of March, you'd get the money [indistinct 00:08:03]. And when the 1st of March come, I got $4.95 out of my two months of work. Some of them would go out there and work two or three days. They wouldn't go back [indistinct 00:08:15]. But I was always doing. Some always doing.	7:37
Stacey Scales	Oh, yeah?	8:19
Jimmie Lee Hammond	So the man gave me that $5 bill and told me to bring him that nickel back. $5 and I had to bring him a nickel back. Now that is kind of close, wasn't it?	8:20
Stacey Scales	That was kind of close.	8:32
Jimmie Lee Hammond	But some of them didn't have enough. They didn't work enough to pay for their room. Because they couldn't see nothing out of it, they'd go out there and they're dead, work two or three days, and go back to the house, and go fishing or something until the 1st of March.	8:40
Stacey Scales	And would the boss man ever try to cheat you out your money and your work?	8:51
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, I don't know about cheating you out of it, but you'd take him the 30—you know what they call the panic in those. The bottom fell out your [indistinct 00:09:07] and there wasn't no money. People worked a long time, but I don't know what the [indistinct 00:09:16] until the business picked back up again.	8:55
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Stock market and everything went down like it was about seven, eight years ago. It went down. At that time, we didn't have no insurance or nothing. But they take everything, got some kind of insurance over it now. That's what hold up the country, insurance on lots of things. [indistinct 00:09:42], well, if the money back there somewhere, they'd get insurance or something depending on one thing or another.	9:19
Stacey Scales	And how did you make it through those hard times?	9:51
Jimmie Lee Hammond	By the help of the Lord. That's all I can say about that. Of course, some folks called it a good time. We didn't know any better. We thought we were having a good time.	9:54
Stacey Scales	And your first public job, you said you had in 1926?	10:10
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Yeah, and in '26, it was at a local lumber company. So we was hauling lumber for building houses.	10:14
Stacey Scales	Oh, yes?	10:30
Jimmie Lee Hammond	And you could have bought a lot for 50 cents an acre at that time. Another fella, he started giving me [indistinct 00:10:32]. I bought a car. I know lots was cheap now, and I want back way after that and paid 400 and some dollars for a lot when I could have got it for 50 cents an acre.	10:30
Stacey Scales	Really?	10:43
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Yeah, [indistinct 00:10:47].	10:44
Stacey Scales	Did you drive very far with those logs?	10:50
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Hmm?	10:57
Stacey Scales	How far would you have to drive to carry those logs?	10:58
Jimmie Lee Hammond	How far would I have to drive?	11:08
Stacey Scales	Yes, sir.	11:09
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, when I was working at that lumber company, I was just hauling to here, to the lumber shed next door. We'd bring the lumber in there and people would buy lumber to build a house, and that's the way they had to limit what to build a house of. [indistinct 00:11:19]. Here in town, that whole town, [indistinct 00:11:22]. At that time, they didn't have no trucks and things to haul nothing.	11:10
Stacey Scales	So you was hauling with mules?	11:29
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Mules and wagons, little one-horse wagons. People bought a stock to build a house. We'd go out there and pick out the lumber and haul that all out there. Now, when you build a house, they'd haul a whole thing. Come in a truck already cut up and made out. But the people at the store, they cut to build a house then.	11:30
Stacey Scales	And how much would you get for your deliveries?	11:55
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, see, I'd get $11.88 a week. Our wages by the week it was.	11:58
Stacey Scales	Oh, okay.	12:02
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Yeah, that means I shared the $11.88 a week. Now, what it was an hour or what it was a day, I don't know. But a lot of that farming, you'd get $1, and they'd come up a little higher, $1.50, $2, on and on. But it didn't done and pick up until the "wage-an-hour bill" was passed. They went and brought about a change.	12:06
Jimmie Lee Hammond	In '36, '37, when [indistinct 00:12:30] began it in '36, but I didn't get on mine until '37, because I was still in the field, and that's when I got on Social Security, in '37 at Phillip Lumber Company in Grenada. I done gone back. I'd been all the way over to Delta and gone back, and I wasn't [indistinct 00:12:47], and they wasn't paying but 10 cents an hour, when I first started then until that "wage-an-hour bill," and it went up, 15, on and on, and on, and on.	12:24
Jimmie Lee Hammond	See, before the "wage-an-hour bill" passed, it was just a day from sunup to sundown. And I done a lot of sunup to sundown since I was grown, but I did a lot of construction work on the plantation there. I was a Caterpillar driver. And they paid $35 a week or something, but you made $12.50 in all the day in the summertime like that. They didn't care how long you worked. You wasn't getting but that $35 a week and board.	13:00
Stacey Scales	Did you get married, Mr. Hammond?	13:35
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Hmm?	13:36
Stacey Scales	Did you get married when you were younger?	13:36
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Oh, I married a heap of times. I've been married about five times. Three of them wives dead. I don't know where the other two at.	13:36
Stacey Scales	Oh, okay.	13:47
Jimmie Lee Hammond	I buried two of them myself.	13:49
Stacey Scales	And what did your first wife do for a living?	13:53
Jimmie Lee Hammond	I don't know. Me and her, we married one year and separated the other.	14:00
Stacey Scales	Oh, okay.	14:08
Jimmie Lee Hammond	And I don't know, because I ain't seen her since—well, we got married in '26. So '24 [indistinct 00:14:16] the next year about March. And the next year [indistinct 00:14:20].	14:11
Jimmie Lee Hammond	And the next one I married, I stayed with her two, three years and she died when me and her wasn't together. So I married another, and stayed with her about three or four days, and she left. And so I married the other, and stayed with her for 33 years, and she died. Married the last, and stayed with her 28 years, was the last one.	14:17
Stacey Scales	You've been here for a long time.	14:42
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, I always never knew nothing but [indistinct 00:14:49]. Well, I didn't get no education. A heap of times, you miss doing things. I missed a whole lot of things by not having. But I noticed a lot of them in my own family, I know they had a better education than I had, and still they're in no better shape. And a lot of them been to jail and one thing and all of that. I been to jail one time, but it was about fighting in North Carolina.	14:43
Stacey Scales	Oh, yes? And did you travel a lot when you were younger?	15:16
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Yeah, I used to do a lot of running around and hoboing. But still, I had a home and a place to go. [indistinct 00:15:24] farming time, haul the seed, and go down. Well, I'd just love to go out there and [indistinct 00:15:24] or something back then. See, I was staying at the Delta [indistinct 00:15:24] back in the hill. I walked backward and forward back up there. Where I had to go, I walked. Back and forward up there.	15:21
Stacey Scales	And when did you realize that there was a difference between Blacks and Whites, Mr. Hammond?	15:52
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, I've been knowing there's a different factor, being ever since I got raised up around White children. I've been around them ever since I was—well, little rompers I wore was some of theirs, but I went with them. Me and them would get together, and play together, and fight the other children together, but I always know there's a difference in them, and I always know my place from their place.	15:58
Jimmie Lee Hammond	I been to places, all St. Louis, and Florida, and everywhere. And when I come back here, I never had no problem out of nobody, but out here, they never believe in being misused. I never believe in being misused. I do you what you tell me and doing my best and all that. [indistinct 00:17:01]. And so I never had no lot of problems out of Whites.	16:30
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Just a heap of times, we had problems. A lot of White folks, we'd bring the problems on ourselves. He'd tell us to do something one time. We go and do something else. But if they told me to do something, I always try to do it.	17:01
Jimmie Lee Hammond	And that's the reason why I had to work all the time [indistinct 00:17:15], because you could always get me to do something when they couldn't find the other. I'd go over there and handle it. [indistinct 00:17:20]. Whatever I could get out of it, I was just glad to get that. So I had no problems.	17:07
Jimmie Lee Hammond	I never had no whole lot of money. I have made a whole lot of money, but not had to hold thousands and thousands of dollars at one time. But in my lifetime, I've made and I've tried to take care of my own self. Never robbed nobody. Never steal nothing. Never try to take nothing from nobody. I want an honest living, you see?	17:29
Stacey Scales	Right.	17:57
Jimmie Lee Hammond	[indistinct 00:17:58] and I went to different places. I left and I never was scared to go back. Of course, if I'm going to owe somebody, I'm going to slip in and slip out. If I owe you and I say, "I'm going to leave," I'm going to make preparation to try to pay you for my room, you see?	17:58
Stacey Scales	Would people help each other in your neighborhood, in your community, when you were coming along?	18:18
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Hmm?	18:22
Stacey Scales	Would the neighbors get together and help each other?	18:22
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, in a way, they would. People were taking the hills before I got grown. Anybody with [indistinct 00:18:38] in the hills, you didn't have no farmland. If you had a little track of land, if you could get you some land, you could get [indistinct 00:18:45]. And you'd make a crop and you'd pay them when your crop [indistinct 00:18:51].	18:25
Jimmie Lee Hammond	I never knew about that boss man until I moved to the Delta, and got a landlord in the Delta back in about 1922. I go to the Delta, 1920, 1921. I think I moved to Greenville. That's my first working on the [indistinct 00:19:12].	18:50
Jimmie Lee Hammond	See, in the hills, if folks had a little track of land and rent land, he didn't have nobody to till it when [indistinct 00:19:25].	19:11
Stacey Scales	Were there every any Black men lynched? Do you remember any lynchings?	19:25
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, yeah. It wasn't what they called it, lynching.	19:35
Stacey Scales	Or hanging?	19:40
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Hanging. Plenty of that went on, but I don't know much about seeing it. I never seen none of it. I just heard it, but I never seen nothing.	19:40
Stacey Scales	What type of things would people say about them?	19:52
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, I hear my Uncle said nothing about it more than saying, "so-and-so done done something, and they're trying to catch so-and-so and so-and-so."	19:53
Stacey Scales	Oh, yes?	20:03
Jimmie Lee Hammond	But we lost lots of [indistinct 00:20:09]. Back in the '20s and '30s, it ain't been too long since that quit, since they [indistinct 00:20:36]. And quitting, I don't think it's all over. Yes, it's so much better, but I don't think it's all over.	20:17
Stacey Scales	And did you travel when you were younger a lot?	20:36
Jimmie Lee Hammond	I never started traveling until about in the '30s. I called myself "hobo," and just ride in a train, and getting pulled off and all that.	20:39
Stacey Scales	Oh, you were hopping trains?	20:50
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Mm-hmm.	20:52
Stacey Scales	And where all did you go?	20:53
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, I went from Memphis, and Texas [indistinct 00:20:57] to Arkansas and Louisiana, [indistinct 00:21:00]. I hoboed about a week straight.	20:55
Stacey Scales	Were you going to meet people or were you just—	21:07
Jimmie Lee Hammond	No, just got tired of it, and the beginning of laid back time, me and some boys decide we want to ride. And I had made plans to make a [indistinct 00:21:21], for the intended ticket the next year [indistinct 00:21:26] planned a ticket to California. Well, I was intending to go that time, but we didn't make it. And I fooled around and got married, and so those other boys went on and they cut off my ticket.	21:16
Jimmie Lee Hammond	And so I stayed married to that girl 33 years, the one that I married when I was thinking of taking the hobo trip. [indistinct 00:21:51] in that plan. If I'd have kept on hoboing, I might not got to live as long. It was pretty rough on lots places, that hoboing. Shooting people off trains, making them jump off the train.	21:36
Stacey Scales	Oh, they would shoot people?	22:01
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Yeah, they'd shoot you over that, because when I got hit in Texas coming off, and so over there, I got pulled off the train.	22:04
Stacey Scales	How did they catch you?	22:11
Jimmie Lee Hammond	They'd come up on the train you on. He already got you.	22:12
Stacey Scales	You'd be in the boxcar, right?	22:18
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Yeah. I'm going to have to go in here. I got a bad stomach. I can go in here.	22:19
Jimmie Lee Hammond	People have done things way back, [indistinct 00:22:34], people have done things out on a limb. It's the same way that they can be taken down. [indistinct 00:22:59]. That's a tape recorder, you see?	22:27
Stacey Scales	Yes, sir.	22:59
Jimmie Lee Hammond	And anything I say, you got. And if turn up and said something about somebody, and you get that somebody on and carry it back, that might be the same somebody that they's already looking for but just hadn't had no way to track him down.	23:03
Stacey Scales	Oh, okay.	23:15
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Yeah, I told all of them different things. That's the reason I said—they always said, "You don't never know who you meet and who you talking to. And sometimes, you can over-talk or over-say and get your own self in trouble." You see?	23:17
Stacey Scales	I understand that. That's right.	23:34
Jimmie Lee Hammond	But that's the reason I said—I never did get no education, but I done said, "In a way, we had a good time. In a way, we had a hard time." In a way, we had a hard time, but the Lord is the one that make the way. We don't make the way. He say, "We must trust upon Him. He will see that yesterday's gone."	23:35
Stacey Scales	Okay. And when you were traveling, was it difficult to travel for a Black man back during those times?	24:03
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, in some places, it is. I was out there in Texas one day, and of course when I was on that train, the first time we was on the first part of the train we was on, one special agent come through there and told us to get back on the next car, because they had a scrum about a White and Black, and all of a sudden it happened one's on the railroad.	24:15
Stacey Scales	Oh, yeah?	24:39
Jimmie Lee Hammond	And so he come at us, said, "Get in back, out the smoke," and got too far back into the double-header with a man that the other party was [indistinct 00:24:49]. Well, that's the one that put us off, but the first part, we was riding fine. We got back on that back part and—see?	24:40
Stacey Scales	Mm-hmm.	24:57
Jimmie Lee Hammond	This train would have run through here now, I'd try to catch it two times. And I was put off before I left the hoboing. Down in [indistinct 00:25:05], they got put off, and when I made my round trying to get back in Cleveland, I got put off.	24:58
Stacey Scales	How'd you get caught?	25:22
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, they got special agents on there. If you get on the train, they come on there and see you, and just check you when you get on and put you off if you—	25:23
Stacey Scales	How would you eat when you were—	25:23
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, just beg for some bread or go to some place and ask. Some of them would give. Some of them wouldn't.	25:24
Stacey Scales	So, how many of you were hopping trains?	25:36
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, it was five of us in my bunch, but there's so many of them on the train up and down the road, so you couldn't see if [indistinct 00:25:49] hardly when a train's getting ready to pull out in a few minutes. People checking the train.	25:39
Stacey Scales	Oh, yes?	25:53
Jimmie Lee Hammond	But there's five in my bunch that got put off in Texas for train hopping, and so five of us got put off.	25:54
Stacey Scales	And how would you get back down here?	26:02
Jimmie Lee Hammond	We stayed a place out there in the mountain. And when a train would come along with a big, long freight, and it get going around them curve and making it's way around here, and caboose way around here, you can catch it anywhere in the curve, because we ain't running fast.	26:04
Jimmie Lee Hammond	But I was going up in [indistinct 00:26:24] hard to catch them when they ain't going up, because I was on the train and was going to get off before it got to Memphis, but the train is running so fast, we had to ride nearly to the yard of Memphis before we could get down. They're running so fast. But out there in the mountains, they don't be running all that fast.	26:20
Stacey Scales	So you would climb up to the mountain? You'd climb?	26:40
Jimmie Lee Hammond	No, we'd be on the railroad at the station. The train had to pass the station, and the station's sitting here, but here it's going around, going around.	26:44
Stacey Scales	Oh, yes.	26:55
Jimmie Lee Hammond	[indistinct 00:26:58], like out in North Carolina. I went out there from Hendersonville. I would go to town. I would cross the railroad three or four times before I'd get to town. Show you how crooked around the mountain [indistinct 00:27:11].	26:57
Stacey Scales	So the best place to catch it is when it's around a curve?	27:12
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Yeah, so the engineer won't see you near the caboose. Of course, they don't have no caboose on a freight train now. I don't know why they done did that, but they used to have a caboose on there.	27:14
Jimmie Lee Hammond	And the best way to ride a train was to ride on them oil tankers. I started out riding on top. I couldn't stand the top-riding, but you get in a boxcar, and if they looking for you, well, they just know you're in there. They'll just sit there in their car until the train stop. When the train stop, you going to come out. Well, he right there when you come out.	27:26
Jimmie Lee Hammond	But if you in a [indistinct 00:27:52], he going to come in there for you yet. But if you ride in one of them tankers, you got a chance to dodge. And of course you get on this corner, you'll see him come around the other corner. You'll keep going around, and if it ain't two of them, they won't be able to catch you, just because when he get to one corner, you headed for the next. But if there's two of them that run up on you, they got you.	27:50
Stacey Scales	So the tankers, were they round?	28:16
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Yeah, them oil tankers on the train. They would haul that oil in them.	28:18
Stacey Scales	But how would you get in there?	28:22
Jimmie Lee Hammond	We wouldn't be in there. We'd be on the outside, but you go around it.	28:23
Stacey Scales	Oh.	28:28
Jimmie Lee Hammond	When they run, they got to run around. Not going to walk around. [indistinct 00:28:29] going up and down the side, like running boards used to be on cars and trucks, and things, you know?	28:28
Stacey Scales	Mm-hmm.	28:44
Jimmie Lee Hammond	But if you see a special agent was after you, and you were on this end and you see that you got to get over them [indistinct 00:28:47] train coupled up, to go around the other. [indistinct 00:28:52], you peep around and see him coming. Well, when he get that way, you way down to other end.	28:45
Jimmie Lee Hammond	As long as it's only one, you can run him all night, if it ain't but one. But if we ever come up another and they hover you up, then you got to jump off or tackle with them.	28:59
Stacey Scales	Now, you said, you would climb on top of it too?	29:09
Jimmie Lee Hammond	I did try it on, but I didn't like that.	29:12
Stacey Scales	You've ridden on the top of a freight train?	29:15
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Yeah, I laid flat down up on there, but I didn't like that. When the train's running, I'm laying down. Some of them could even walk on trains. They did and jump on the next boxcar. I never was no climber. I couldn't climb trees and things, but these weren't getting too high.	29:17
Stacey Scales	So when you would climb up there, you'd stay there the whole trip?	29:34
Jimmie Lee Hammond	No, when I left Morehead, I rode to about [indistinct 00:29:43]. That's when I got down and got in the car. I couldn't—	29:38
Stacey Scales	So you'd ride for a while on top and then—	29:47
Jimmie Lee Hammond	I never did get back up on the top. No, I there stayed down [indistinct 00:29:49]. Never did get back up on the top.	29:48
Stacey Scales	Would people ever try to move their families on the boxcar?	29:55
Jimmie Lee Hammond	A lot of people moved. That's the way a lot of people moved back then, was hobo and train. And then a heap of people just moved in a [indistinct 00:30:10]. So when we moved from [indistinct 00:30:12] to Grenada, from there I went to [indistinct 00:30:15]. That's when we shipped out there. We hauled it to Greenwood and put it in the boxcar, shipped it there to [indistinct 00:30:21]. That was back in the '20s, when we was moving to the Delta.	30:00
Jimmie Lee Hammond	But now, [indistinct 00:30:31]. Well, now, they don't use trains like they used to then. If I wanted to leave here and go to New York, get me a U-Haul truck, fill my van, I'm gone.	30:30
Stacey Scales	And back then, did people run away from plantations?	30:45
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Yeah, plenty of them.	30:50
Stacey Scales	How would they do that?	30:54
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Just get up, and get out, and leave. They just wait until night come and leave. Sometimes the man will find them and get them. Sometimes he'd find him and he wouldn't get him.	30:55
Stacey Scales	And he would bring them back?	31:07
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes they'd hide somebody if they were a man that [indistinct 00:31:20].	31:09
Stacey Scales	Oh, yeah?	31:21
Jimmie Lee Hammond	But he'd check them before they got hired, [indistinct 00:31:22], but if they been done led to another plantation and got hired there, well, the man just paid the damage.	31:22
Stacey Scales	And riding boxcars! Did you ever take the boxcars to a city that you wanted to stay in?	31:32
Jimmie Lee Hammond	No, the only time I was traveling, I wasn't looking for nowhere to stay. When we left, going to Beaumont, Texas to pick cotton, and we just started riding. We didn't think [indistinct 00:32:02]. We'd just ride.	31:45
Stacey Scales	Oh, yeah?	31:59
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Just having fun. Just ride. We seen so many. Everybody you see is hoboing and riding. But after the war, back in World War II, I went to St. Louis and I went to [indistinct 00:32:20]. Left with a ticket on the bus [indistinct 00:32:25].	32:04
Jimmie Lee Hammond	But I was waiting to count my cane before I went there. And they closed down, they bring the soldiers, and then give us a pass for 30 days [indistinct 00:32:38]. I went to St. Louis, because that's where my mother was, up that end.	32:28
Jimmie Lee Hammond	And so, I was going to stay up there. My wife came up there and we was doing all right. I had already bought a lot back there in Grenada, but I hadn't build on it yet. I just bought the lot.	32:42
Jimmie Lee Hammond	And her people were [indistinct 00:32:58] her daddy did [indistinct 00:33:00]. He done got old, and his side, they quit farming and they come up there. They want to live with me. Well, we were in St. Louis, but we still were paying rent on the house we had. Her baby brother was there, and so after they come there, and somebody had to come there and vouch for them. So they called me, and I had to come from St. Louis back there to make a look out for them. That's why I was out of St. Louis.	32:56
Stacey Scales	So was St. Louis different than being down here?	33:27
Jimmie Lee Hammond	A little bit. Not too much. A little bit. I had seen too much difference. When I left here and went to Florida, I seen it's most different when I went to Florida.	33:31
Stacey Scales	Oh, yeah?	33:41
Jimmie Lee Hammond	[indistinct 00:33:44]. After I stayed down there so long, then I'm coming back from Florida up here, then I found it's just about as [indistinct 00:33:52] as it was down there. And so that's why I moved back.	33:44
Jimmie Lee Hammond	But we had bought some property down there and the school was taking it back. And after we got what we could out of it, the rest of it was buying down there, the lots and things were so high.	33:57
Jimmie Lee Hammond	And so I came up here in the city, and they was building all this projects down here. Then I tried to get a location down here, but I didn't, so I went and looked in town for one house, [indistinct 00:34:20]. I put in for a house out there, but I never did get it. I lost that house, but man zig-zagging and walk around. So there ain't but two or three down here, and I finally got this one.	34:12
Stacey Scales	Do Blacks own their houses, would you say?	34:38
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Yeah, [indistinct 00:34:43] get them on the low income. So that's what all these projects build up mostly, all for low income. Some of them, they had jobs. They had to pay down more money, but at that time, anybody could get a house because you only had to pay about $200 down. You'd pay and get a 30-year loan.	34:44
Stacey Scales	Were there places where they wouldn't give loans to Blacks?	35:05
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, some places, they tell me, "They wouldn't allow it." But it look like, at the time I started trying to buy [indistinct 00:35:24], but I think the Blacks could buy just about [indistinct 00:35:27]. You can't buy anywhere you want it. Now, you still can't buy it anywhere. There are places here in Greenwood you can't buy, because you can buy [indistinct 00:35:38]. Everybody has a different place here on the [indistinct 00:35:39]. But I'm always staying up on them. I'm staying around them. I never had no problem with staying around [indistinct 00:35:52], because I worked for them all my days.	35:14
Stacey Scales	How old is the Rising Sun Neighborhood?	35:54
Jimmie Lee Hammond	How old is it?	35:57
Stacey Scales	Yes, sir.	35:57
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, I don't know. How old this quarter or this corner of the country been build in?	35:59
Stacey Scales	No, this area over here. Your neighborhood.	36:06
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, it started some time. Let me see. I lived here in '56. This area must have started sometime after '60, I think, because when I left here and went to Florida, there was nobody buying no houses when I left for Florida. So they never started buying these houses and doing good on things until Civil Rights. Of course, I wasn't here. I never been in none of that. I wasn't here when all that Civil Rights March.	36:08
Stacey Scales	Oh, yes?	36:37
Jimmie Lee Hammond	I was in Florida. I came up here. When my wife died, I came up here in '66, and a lot of that was going on, but I wasn't here. I never been in none of that.	36:39
Stacey Scales	Were there any people talking about that sort of thing when you were growing up? Like voting and civil rights?	36:53
Jimmie Lee Hammond	No, we didn't know nothing about no voting. Some, what you call "big-shot Colored people" might have owned, but I know a White lady made a sign out there in [indistinct 00:37:14]. I bought a house, and build it, and I was going to pay taxes, and she asked me, "Did I vote?"	37:00
Jimmie Lee Hammond	I told her, "No."	37:20
Jimmie Lee Hammond	She goes, "Well, you got no right to pay no taxes. You don't pay taxes until you vote."	37:21
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, I know nothing about that, but I'm doing what they said: "You pay taxes," and that's what I'm going to do. You pay your taxes.	37:27
Jimmie Lee Hammond	But she said, "You didn't have no authority paying no taxes." But I never learned.	37:34
Jimmie Lee Hammond	When I come to vote, I was in Florida when I first started voting.	37:40
Stacey Scales	And you were saying that big-shots voted. Who would be considered the big-shots?	37:48
Jimmie Lee Hammond	People, they don't know a lot of Colored folks already here. There been some Colored folks here [indistinct 00:37:57] this whole country [indistinct 00:37:57] Colored folks knew about everything around here further back than me, that can tell you that "Colored so-and-so owned so-and-so. Colored so-and-so owned so-and-so."	37:53
Jimmie Lee Hammond	But in a long run, [indistinct 00:38:14]. He couldn't pay his bill and he had to go get somewhere. Well, they ruled him out. That's what put us in the Delta.	38:10
Jimmie Lee Hammond	[indistinct 00:38:26] in the hills, but when we was coming in 1918 and '19, you couldn't make [indistinct 00:38:34]. They had big beach crocs in the Delta. And he used to come down there and pick cotton. And he had a brother that was staying down here. And he used to come down here, and that's what got him all down here, in this big farming proposition.	38:26
Stacey Scales	So you remember the Boll Weevil?	38:55
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Yeah, 1918 and '19, after the war. Boll Weevil. Day in and day out up there, we'd pick them up and burn them up. Boll Weevil did eat up everything. And we used to make three and four bales of cotton. We just didn't make a bale. And the other place, two put together didn't get a good bale. And that was what killed the people in the hills and lots of people—	38:57
Stacey Scales	So you would grab it and burn the Boll Weevil?	39:29
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Pick them up and burn them. But everybody didn't leave the hills or nothing. I had plenty of my people still stayed in the hills. But my uncle, he come over down here and he didn't had to come. He could have scrapped around somewhere. And of course, I know a lot of them that didn't come stayed down there. But he come over down and he used to come out here and see this big money. And he got old, and of course, he died in '27. He died in '27, out in [indistinct 00:40:10] when he passed.	39:31
Stacey Scales	Were there any storms here or any natural disasters?	40:11
Jimmie Lee Hammond	There was any storms?	40:19
Stacey Scales	Yes, sir.	40:21
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, hell, we had [indistinct 00:40:22] snow storm here about three or four years ago. You remember that snow storm here that took Morehead on all the way through Memphis one thing? All up there. [indistinct 00:40:36]. Then it got through [indistinct 00:40:37], all up through there. But I never been over there since that storm went through there. An ice storm.	40:21
Stacey Scales	Were there storms when you were growing up or back in the old times?	40:46
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, they had a storm about 1917 or '18. Went out through them hills, blowed everything away and one thing or another. And every time there come a storm through the Delta going on through [indistinct 00:41:07].	40:52
Jimmie Lee Hammond	See, a storm have a course it travel. Like anything else, it travel a course. It went out the way to [indistinct 00:41:19], right out to north of Greenwood, and right out on out through [indistinct 00:41:22], and on out through them hills, Grenada.	41:10
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Of course, the place where I was working in '42, there comes a storm that blowed everything away out at the box factory where I worked in '42. Ain't nobody get killed but a little White boy. Some people were staying and they didn't know what happened to him. And they had five boxcars that blowed over, and when they raised them last boxcar, they find him was mashed up under one of them boxcar. He'd come in on his bicycle, and the storm caught him before he got to the house. It blowed the house where those people was staying, and blowed all them boxcars way out there, all the wind.	41:24
Jimmie Lee Hammond	But I was at home. I ain't go to work on Monday. And on Friday, I get off Monday [indistinct 00:42:11], so I happened to be at home when the storm was.	42:04
Stacey Scales	And did your home get messed up?	42:12
Jimmie Lee Hammond	No, it didn't bother our house. I was still in the back there, looking out in the back. I'm looking out yonder. I hear the wind blowing, but I was trying to make out what it was going on. And I didn't know what happened to the [indistinct 00:42:30]. I was renting from the fellow's old lady who was working at the box factory. [indistinct 00:42:37], and when that twister went off, they was waiting until that twister come back down so they could finish up.	42:19
Jimmie Lee Hammond	And he come up there hollering and going on. And I went around to the door to see what all it was and he said, "It done blow the box factory and it killed everybody over there." Well, the storm hadn't killed nobody, but people just excited from that.	42:44
Jimmie Lee Hammond	[indistinct 00:43:01] from the house over there, and people are running, and hollering, and looking, but there wasn't nobody at that plant got killed. One fellow got kind of hurt a little bit. Of course, he was laying on the [indistinct 00:43:15] kind of crushed him a little. But the hospital I guess full of them, but they wasn't as hurt as they thought they was. They're scared they're dead.	42:57
Stacey Scales	Did people have ways of stopping storms and things like that?	43:26
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Oh, they claimed to, but I don't know. They say you could take a double-head axe and stick it in the ground facing the storm to split the cloud and all that.	43:30
Stacey Scales	A double-headed axe?	43:40
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Yeah, that's what folks said, but I never tried.	43:42
Stacey Scales	And did they have any other methods of doing that that they talked about?	43:50
Jimmie Lee Hammond	No, the only thing I think [indistinct 00:43:57] was praying to the Lord, because He ruled the whole thing, but that just [indistinct 00:44:07]. It's about belief, your ideal and belief.	43:54
Stacey Scales	And when the storm came in 1918 and '19, did it ruin crops or anything like that?	44:17
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, the crops were mostly harvested when it come in the hills. I just remember it was in the colder year I think when that come 1918. But that '42 storm was in March, the 16th of March. They hadn't started no crops then.	44:26
Stacey Scales	Oh, okay.	44:49
Jimmie Lee Hammond	But now they have what you call hurricane. Back in Florida, they have them hurricanes is the one thing, and they do a lot of damage down there on crops in them hurricanes.	44:49
Stacey Scales	And did people have to get together to help each other put things back together after those storms?	45:10
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, I really don't know. Of course, when that storm come in 1918 or '17, when they thought I was at home, they had people who had went through that, out around Grace out there. I know they blow [indistinct 00:45:35] and sawmill and one thing, but I guess he got his labor and put it back together.	45:15
Jimmie Lee Hammond	And I know a fella, Johnny [indistinct 00:45:46]. He didn't go to church that night. All of them went to church and left him at home. He was supposed to have been a deacon, but he didn't go to church that night. And he tell me the storm blow the whole house over and left him sitting up there on the platform on the floor. Blowed everything over. It scared him, so he got up and then went to go out to church.	45:43
Stacey Scales	So did people talk about that like it was a lesson?	46:10
Jimmie Lee Hammond	He ought to have been at the church. Kind of playing hooky and one thing. The Lord could have blowed him away or could have killed him. Just left him there sitting there in the rocking chair, and the Lord just left him sitting there on the platform in a rocking chair.	46:15
Stacey Scales	And he was blessed. When you worked on the farm, did people use the sign—	46:32

Jimmie Lee Hammond	Back then, a Lady's Birthday, that a true what they call. That a true almanac—	0:01
Stacey Scales	Oh yeah?	0:05
Jimmie Lee Hammond	That Lady's Birthday. Course they had plenty more almanacs, one of them things, but everybody, all the farmers, use that Lady put you all them different signs about planting and growing and cutting the holes and different things. Here the sign, what a sign, under the arm or in the neck and so on and so on like that. Or under the [indistinct 00:00:29] plant crops, played in town, plant different veggies, but had to keep the bugs off. Plant it on bug day, the bugs will eat it up.	0:18
Stacey Scales	All right there.	0:40
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Something to show all them signs, we [indistinct 00:00:43] a Lady's Birthday Almanac.	0:40
Stacey Scales	Oh yeah?	0:45
Jimmie Lee Hammond	They had another almanac called MacDonald and I forget the name of the other name, but the almanacs all, you can find some almanacs, but you don't see a Lady Birthday Almanac. I ain't seen one of them in years.	0:46
Stacey Scales	That would be the one that people would use?	1:00
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Mm-hmm. You going sure buy them a Lady Birthday Almanac. I don't know what kind of planting that one fellow said. He don't plant in the moon. He plant his stuff in the ground. He don't get that involved with the signs. He plant in the moon. He in the ground. Some people don't believe in no sign.	1:02
Stacey Scales	Oh yeah.	1:20
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Lots of people believe in signs.	1:20
Stacey Scales	Would those things work?	1:26
Jimmie Lee Hammond	I think some of them things, [indistinct 00:01:30], planting and we can get nothing or planting it wrong. Don't get nothing but a lot of blooms. You plant stuff that, on the ground of the morning, it will grow way up there and you won't have nothing on it. And if you plant it on bloom day, you won't have nothing but a lot of blooms. So any time moon, you plant dark moon, light moon and all that.	1:34
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Fill out, like corn, peas and everything. Plant them on the full moon just before or right after and be full, filled-out good. That's the sign it had.	1:58
Stacey Scales	People talk about spirits and haints and things like that?	2:12
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, they used to talking about them. I never seen them, but I believed in it. But I didn't see it or nothing. I went and I stayed in many place where they said there ain't none, but I didn't see any.	2:16
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Something or other, I don't know what it was for, something, you know don't have to be dead to be disparaged. People can look over yonder and see you. "I see you running out on the highway in." No, I was over at Mr. Hammond's, see. But she can see your spirit. He said if you feeling hard to breathe, you look over your left shoulder you'll see. I've been out at night all times of the night. I make it hard to breathe, I just keep hollering and signing and keep on.	2:27
Jimmie Lee Hammond	My auntie who had raised me, now she could see them. See a man go to the pump and pump water. Dressed up and all like that. She'd had me sleep on the floor on the porch. I didn't never see the crow. She had me trying to lie near her. Course, she sleep with a fan. People born with a veil. I don't know what the name, you could see.	3:08
Stacey Scales	Oh yeah.	3:31
Jimmie Lee Hammond	I always think after I was growing up, big enough to know I never done no getting it wrong until I good and grown by myself. And I always said about her and Simone, waiting to see what it was before I take off.	3:34
Stacey Scales	Right.	3:48
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Give me a man had on a corduroy suit, walking along. Pants started, he whistling, he walked fast and he liked to run himself to death. Nothing but his pants with him. And people have been going along at night, eyes flopping on the bush and the wind blowing up, look like he suddenly stopped and more he looked, and he take off. And it wasn't nothing but a bush in the wind. If I always see something, I always try to know what I run into. What I running from. If you don't know what you're running from, you going to be just running. What you need? You don't know what you running.	3:48
Stacey Scales	That's true.	4:25
Jimmie Lee Hammond	I've been out storm at night, thundering, lighting, raining, sleeting, snowing. When I was younger, probably remember going never was too dark or too cold. You had to go.	4:28
Stacey Scales	There wasn't much that could keep you away?	4:41
Jimmie Lee Hammond	No. We were always talking about spooks and things. I always figured if that live spook didn't get you, you can get by that dead spook. Cause that live spook can trip you. Had to [indistinct 00:04:59], one like me.	4:45
Stacey Scales	All right. Does people talk about cemeteries like they would be there or something like that?	5:07
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Hmm?	5:14
Stacey Scales	Did people say that about cemeteries? Spooks be there?	5:15
Jimmie Lee Hammond	Well, they did say when I went to a cemetery all time of night. You know what I'm saying?	5:18
Stacey Scales	Mm-hmm.	5:25
Jimmie Lee Hammond	We stayed about as close to the cemetery, closer to the cemetery when we had that place where we stayed at. And if you went cross to the highway, you had to go right through the cemetery. No other path to go around, hunting they would try to go around, there's not a ride in them parts. They had a ride, go around the cemetery cause they didn't want the horse to fall in the creek. But, if I had to walk, I be straight on this, walk right on by the tombstone, looked like that pretty there. Hunting rabbit, possum, all in the cemetery.	5:25
Stacey Scales	Oh yeah?	5:57
Jimmie Lee Hammond	I guess try to scare a dead, a dead [indistinct 00:06:00]. That the one I—	5:58
Stacey Scales	Right.	6:00
Jimmie Lee Hammond	I hear people said things wagging the mule, stalling all that. Something get on that and they'd say, "What in the name of the Lord doing?" And they tell you to just leave like that and the new people that went to gate, get out to open the gate. The gate be already open. They drive, get up and go back that next morning. The gate is closed. Could have been a [indistinct 00:06:28] somebody.	6:04
Stacey Scales	That's true. Mr. Hammond, I have to get ready to go.	6:33

Item Info

Title:

Jimmie Hammond interview recording, 1995 July 24

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4t43wb65

Date:

July 24, 1995

Creator:

Hammond, Jimmie Lee

Contributor:

Scales, Mausiki Stacey

Description:

Name: Jimmie Lee Hammond; Date of birth: unknown; Place of birth: unknown; Occupation(s): day laborer; Residence: not recorded
Informant ID: 1135; Interviewed by: Stacey Scales.

Identifier:

RL00170-CS-0747
8a820b79-2dc7-4237-8a3f-63dd5c6b2a9f
behindtheveil
bd22228e-1578-4598-ae65-d6ebe690c5c3
ark:/87924/r4t43wb65
bd22228e-1578-4598-ae65-d6ebe690c5c3

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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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Location:

Mississippi

Format:

Language:

English

Occupation:

Day laborer

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

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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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Jimmie Hammond interview recording, 1995 July 24

Transcript

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1. Jimmie Hammond administrative file, 1995

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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