Alberta Wilson interview recording, 1994 June 20

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Alberta L. Wilson	Now, before you start, how you want—	0:02
Paul Ortiz	Mrs. Wilson, could you tell me a little bit about the area that you grew up in and where you were born?	0:06
Alberta L. Wilson	Well, I was born in Tuscaloosa County, November 11, 1916. And my mother died when I was about five, so my grandmother raised me.	0:15
Alberta L. Wilson	And time was real hard because it was a way back. Her husband died then when I was nine, my grandfather. And so the time was real bad.	0:32
Alberta L. Wilson	And my grandmother, she was a midwife, Ann Taylor. She waited on mostly White, than she did Black, but then they wasn't calling them Black, they was calling them Colored, you know.	0:48
Alberta L. Wilson	And so time was real bad back then. Then I went on, later years I went to school and I finished the 10th grade at Holly Springs School in Northport, Alabama.	1:07
Paul Ortiz	Holly Springs?	1:26
Alberta L. Wilson	Yes, Holly Springs School.	1:27
Paul Ortiz	Do you have memories of your grandmother?	1:33
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah, I can remember her pretty good. She was real active because she was a midwife, and she always tried to help peoples. Then when I went to Holly Springs School and then we had to go to town school, had to go to Northport High School down in town, so she didn't want me to go there. And so then, after I couldn't go on high school, I got married then when I was 16. February 1, 1933.	1:38
Paul Ortiz	Did you grow up in a farming family?	2:29
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah, I grew up in a farming family. We farmed, yes.	2:32
Paul Ortiz	Did you share crop or rent?	2:40
Alberta L. Wilson	Share crop.	2:43
Paul Ortiz	Did your family work primarily for one employer, did you move around?	2:50
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah, because my grandmother and my father, Jimmy Taylor, had this place rented or something. I really don't know much about it, but I know we farmed and I had two brothers. But my father gave me to my grandmother and my mother died when I was five. So she farmed, we farmed. I had to work in the field hard.	2:58
Paul Ortiz	What kinds of crops were you on?	3:23
Alberta L. Wilson	Cotton and corn and raised everything. Cotton and corn and potatoes and peanuts. I guess that was about all.	3:27
Paul Ortiz	And you were out in the fields from age five?	3:38
Alberta L. Wilson	No, I didn't go in the field at five. I went in the field, I'd say about eight or nine years old. I'd say about nine, of course, after my grandfather died.	3:42
Paul Ortiz	Do you have sisters and brothers?	3:54
Alberta L. Wilson	My mother had two. I had two brothers, my mother had three children. Well, she had four. The baby under me died when it was just four months old. But my two brothers, I had two brothers. Joseph Taylor and JW Taylor. But these was my whole brothers and my father married again. I had one sister, Esther Taylor, Esther Rae Taylor, and Claude Taylor and Clarence Taylor and Jimmy Jerome Taylor. And all of them's dead.	3:58
Paul Ortiz	Did Joseph and JW live with you and your grandmother?	4:55
Alberta L. Wilson	They stayed with me at night, but they stayed with the father during the daytime, working in the field.	5:00
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Now, it sounds like your grandmother had a very busy life.	5:10
Alberta L. Wilson	Yes, she did have a busy life because they would come to get her. Well, folks back there didn't have nothing but wagon and mules. A wagon, they'd come get her, look like it'd be every time four dayer when it was real bad weather, for the midwife, for a baby to be born. So then she would always carry me back the fourth day to see about the neighbor or something, she would say.	5:16
Paul Ortiz	Oh, she would take you?	5:46
Alberta L. Wilson	With her on the fourth day, but I never did go with her when the baby's being born.	5:47
Paul Ortiz	Did she ever talk about any bad experiences she had working as a midwife?	5:57
Alberta L. Wilson	No, she always had pretty good experience, because around where we lived, it wasn't nobody else. And the doctor, we was about 16 miles from town. But when she always would have a case, though, if she couldn't handle it, she was under Dr. Harding and she would always call him if she couldn't handle it. And people liked her because a lot of the midwives, they wouldn't do that, but she did.	6:08
Paul Ortiz	Well, what kind of relationship did she have with Dr. Harding?	6:40
Alberta L. Wilson	He was over her, helping her, because the birth certificates, she always had to send them back in to him.	6:43
Paul Ortiz	I see. And he was the doctor for Tuscaloosa County?	6:50
Alberta L. Wilson	That's right, Tuscaloosa County.	6:54
Paul Ortiz	Was he White?	6:58
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah, he was White, he was White.	7:00
Paul Ortiz	Do you by any chance, know his first name?	7:03
Alberta L. Wilson	I don't know his first name, all I remember was Dr. Harding. I don't know his first. Well, if I knowed it back then, it's been so long I can't remember. But he was the only Dr. Harding there.	7:05
Paul Ortiz	How old were you when you began school?	7:21
Alberta L. Wilson	I began school when I was seven.	7:28
Paul Ortiz	And how many months out of the year did it go?	7:36
Alberta L. Wilson	We didn't go but about three months out of the year, looked like. But then it got better the later years.	7:43
Paul Ortiz	Oh, it got better as far as the time?	7:56
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah, the time.	7:58
Paul Ortiz	Now, it started when you were seven, you went to school three months out of the year.	8:00
Alberta L. Wilson	About three months out of the year.	8:05
Paul Ortiz	And then when did it improve?	8:06
Alberta L. Wilson	It improved then, let me see, in the first, second and third. It got better then, when I was in the fourth and the fifth. Because where we was living at, we was on this side of the river, North River. And then my father let me go across the river because that's where his sister lived. And I went to staying with them, going to school, and it was better and more months. I guess then, we didn't go the whole term, because Black peoples had to go to the field, childrens did. And we didn't start the school and it wouldn't ever start hardly in September. It would be near October and we would go to, I'd say about six months maybe.	8:09
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember, was that because of the location of the school, that you were able to go to school longer, or was there any kind of—	8:59
Alberta L. Wilson	Well, really, we would go longer because it was a better school and it was a larger school and everything.	9:09
Paul Ortiz	I see. Was that Holly Springs?	9:17
Alberta L. Wilson	That was Holly Springs.	9:17
Paul Ortiz	Holly Springs. Do you remember the teachers and what kind of school it was?	9:19
Alberta L. Wilson	Well, my first teacher was named Miss Susie Jones, she's dead now. That was my first teacher. And she don't seem like she know—Well I know, just like we had the old Baby Ray book, and I had to learn all that before I went to school.	9:27
Paul Ortiz	Which book?	9:47
Alberta L. Wilson	The name of it was Baby Ray book.	9:48
Paul Ortiz	Baby Ray book.	9:50
Alberta L. Wilson	I had to learn all that before I went to school. And it's because my grandmother said she couldn't read, and she'd had me reading the Bible to her. And looked like I was on up and this teacher, Miss Susie Jones, she'd have me teaching the children. She'd sit up and sleep. She didn't know too much, but well later years, then she went back to school. She's dead now.	9:51
Paul Ortiz	Was she an African-American teacher?	10:20
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah, that's all I ever had.	10:22
Paul Ortiz	Okay. And you began Holly Springs in which grade?	10:26
Alberta L. Wilson	I say the fourth, because over in the school where we was, across the river then, I think I went to about the fourth grade. Get the phone, Florence. I think that's all the way it was there, because you couldn't go no higher. And then Professor Jones was my second teacher. He was a professor, they called them then, over schools.	10:31
Paul Ortiz	Like a superintendent?	11:04
Alberta L. Wilson	He was just everything. We didn't have that then.	11:06
Paul Ortiz	Now, when you started, when you were able to go to school for a longer period of time, did your grandmother hire other people to help her work in the fields, or was—	11:12
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah, they always would hire somebody to help them. She didn't work in the field that much because she always tried to hire somebody to do the work. And then my father and my brothers would help a lot, from their work and come and help her.	11:25
Paul Ortiz	She would actually hire somebody?	11:41
Alberta L. Wilson	Well, she would hire them because she had a son, stayed up here in Walker County, Bobby Taylor. And he would always help her. That's where we would get our help from, was from him, because he worked in a mine and he didn't have no children. He'd always try to help her with me.	11:43
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember much about the neighborhood or the area in Tuscaloosa County, as far as your neighbors? Was there a lot of mingling with people?	12:04
Alberta L. Wilson	They did pretty good, it wasn't that many around in where we stayed. But see, all my grandmother, all we'd know to do, we'd go to church, but she wouldn't go. I always had to go with her sister. She would go sometime because she didn't go as much as her sister did. It wasn't that much over where we lived, so then peoples would come and try to set up Sunday school at the school where we could go to it. And so it just wasn't that much over there. But peoples, they done pretty good. But back then, things were so bad, I guess in all places, some of them, it was my grandmother's, because some of them would be bad, they'd want to fight and different things. But everything went on pretty good.	12:22
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember the name of the church?	13:20
Alberta L. Wilson	Pole Bridge Baptist Church, where I went. That's where I joined at.	13:23
Paul Ortiz	Could you spell that?	13:29
Alberta L. Wilson	Pole, P-O-L-E B-R-I-D-G-E. Pole Bridge Baptist Church.	13:30
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Would you have revivals?	13:36
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah, we'd have revivals starting in August. We'd run it for a week, sometimes for two weeks.	13:41
Paul Ortiz	Did you enjoy the revivals?	13:57
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah, I enjoyed it very much. It was good.	14:01
Paul Ortiz	Would the children get together? Was that a time for the kids to get together?	14:06
Alberta L. Wilson	Yes, that was time for us to get together, at revival. That was good. That's how we would meet up.	14:12
Paul Ortiz	Where did you meet your friends, primarily?	14:32
Alberta L. Wilson	Well, sometime my brothers, sometime a lot of their friend boys would come to the house. And then if they had sisters, we'd meet together. But what it was, my grandmother was old timey and she wouldn't let me go that much, no.	14:40
Paul Ortiz	Okay. I was going to ask about medical care, but what would happen when people in the community got sick?	15:00
Alberta L. Wilson	Well, when they got sick, it was the old doctor stayed—Well, how come I call him old doctor? (laughs) Stayed at Samantha, Alabama, Dr. Norris. And when he would come to anybody, looked like he would give them all time, the same pills, but I can't remember what was the name of them. He'd say, "Well, you just got a fever and having chills, and I'm just going to give you these pills." Look like that's what he'd give everybody. But then later on, things got a little better. The White doctors looked like they didn't want to wait on you. And so then it got a little better and then they'd wait on you a little better. But a lot of time, they didn't want to wait on you, it looked like.	15:11
Alberta L. Wilson	Because there in Tuscaloosa, we couldn't hardly go. Well, they had a little place they called Blue Front. That's the only one in the town part that we could go if we wanted anything to eat, because we couldn't go nowhere. And they had a drug store in Tuscaloosa, I forget the name of it, but a Black person couldn't even go in it.	16:01
Alberta L. Wilson	And I got sick when Florence was a baby. We were still down there and I got sick, and my husband and his brother went to the drugstore. Well, the doctor, Dr. Shermer, told them for me to go and get some oranges and give me some orange juice. He said, "Don't go buy no juice already in the can, get fresh oranges."	16:28
Alberta L. Wilson	And so they went to the drugstore. Well, I don't know, because I was there in the bed sick. And they said the man, the drug owner started in, asked them, what did they want? And he said, "My wife is real bad off sick. And Dr. John Shermer told me to come here and get some oranges for her, and squeeze them and make some juice." And so they stood there and looked. And so they started on in.	16:54
Alberta L. Wilson	"Well, you can't come in unless you pull your hat off." So his brother said, "Well, I ain't going to." Started with my husband, his brother said, "Well, I ain't going to pull my hat off, not to come in a drug store." They told him, "Well, if you want oranges, you're going to have to pull it off." And so they pulled it off and they got the oranges.	17:24
Alberta L. Wilson	There was a lot of rough things happening with those peoples but it got better well later years, it get better. But look like the peoples out in the country treated us better than the peoples in town.	17:45
Paul Ortiz	In Tuscaloosa?	18:02
Alberta L. Wilson	Yes.	18:05
Paul Ortiz	What other kinds of rough things would happen?	18:05
Alberta L. Wilson	Well, what was so bad, you just had certain places you couldn't use the bathroom, and a lot of places you couldn't get water. Because on one side, on another side, they had Colored up there and then one that had White only. And so you couldn't. You had little children with you. Well, they don't know no better. They couldn't get no water, you had to go to the Colored one.	18:09
Alberta L. Wilson	And so it was a store in Fairfield, Elmo's Ten Cent store. Well, the woman knowed me because I'd go in there lots and buy little things. Then when my grandson, I guess he's just a little boy, this happened in '62. I went in the store and I told my grandson, I said, "Come on, I'll get you some water." Earlier, they had then the Colored and White fountains.	18:34
Alberta L. Wilson	So when I went in there, the fountain wasn't out in there. So I asked her, I said, "Where is the fountain so I can get my grandson, let him get some water, my little baby?" She said, "Oh, we took them out." I said, "Well, okay. Well, I won't buy nothing else in here." And I said, "I'm going to tell everybody else, 'Don't come in here and buy nothing else.'" So I never did go back in no more.	19:06
Paul Ortiz	That's in Fairfield?	19:33
Alberta L. Wilson	That was in Fairfield, but it's not there now. It was Elmo's Dollar and Ten Cent Store, but it's not there no more. They had to close down because people stopped trading with them.	19:34
Paul Ortiz	That's interesting. In Tuscaloosa, was there a Black business section there? Do you remember Black store owners?	19:50
Alberta L. Wilson	Let me see. I don't know no Black store owners, but all I know was undertakers. And, well, it was a Black owner at the barber shop, Mackenzie Barber Shop. That's all I remember about it. It used to be a Black hospital at Stillman, but they closed it down.	20:01
Alberta L. Wilson	Because see, when I got real sick, my appendix burst when Florence was a baby. And I guess I may have been about the first or second one, I had to go out to Druid City Hospital, to the White hospital. But they had a little place where they could keep us, because that's where the doctor operated on me at. And then it got better where we could go in town, but they were segregated. We wasn't together, just a little place off.	20:29
Paul Ortiz	But there had been, you said, a Black hospital?	21:00
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah, it was a Black hospital. I don't know what was the name of it. I guess it must have been Stillman Hospital.	21:06
Paul Ortiz	Stillman?	21:18
Alberta L. Wilson	Yes.	21:18
Paul Ortiz	Going back to your grandmother and the farm, did she have a good relationship with the person who owned that land, do you remember?	21:29
Alberta L. Wilson	Yes, she had a very good relationship with her. What it was where she was living at, this lady, Ms. Mary Hagler, she owned that land. But see, as she got older, then she rented out to Mr. Barnes, another White man, for him to handle it after she got old. Because she just had a daughter and her daughter didn't want to tend to nothing like that.	21:42
Alberta L. Wilson	Well, I tell you what happened, see Ms. Mary Hagler, her husband's father was my grandmother's father, but they was brother and sister, White. How it was, my grandmother, her mother come from Africa once, a slave. And she stayed with the folks, Wylie Hagler now. So she then had a house full of children by him, sure did.	22:13
Alberta L. Wilson	Florence got the papers now about them, they was all in the house together. But I can't understand it myself, because I don't see how his wife got all them White children and they stayed there together, I can't understand it.	23:04
Alberta L. Wilson	But that's the way it was, and so then I can remember a little, but I was just little. I can't remember too much, I don't know about that part. But now, Ms. Mary's brother, he would come down to my grandmother's house and he would give her money. And she went to call him "Mister," and he said, "No." And I can remember this good. He says, "Don't call me that because I'm your brother." He said, "Don't call me no Mr. Hagler." And so, see, we all was kin to the Haglers down there, and so they treated us pretty good.	23:17
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember your grandmother or any other people in Tuscaloosa County talking about slavery?	23:57
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah. Now, this lady, my grandmother didn't talk about it that much, because her mother, I guess her name was Katie, Katherine. I guess she soon died, I don't know. But anyway, there was another old lady there. When I was little, I used to go to her house and her name was Ms. Mary, but I don't know what—We just called her Aunt Mary, I don't know what she went by.	24:13
Alberta L. Wilson	But I talked with her, she come from slavery, she was a slave. And she could tell us lots about it, but I guess I should have wrote a lot down. I didn't write it down. But she come here from over there. She said when they was bringing her through Virginia, it's just a lot of them. And says she see pretty white cotton, and says, she said, "Ooh, that's so pretty. What is that?"	24:45
Alberta L. Wilson	The White people told her, "Don't you worry about what it is, you'll soon be out there in it." And so she would tell about know how they brought them away. But now, she was African already. And so when she got here, then all her children then was children from over here. Because when they brought her, she was just a young girl and she didn't have no children from there. I used to like that, sitting here, tell about it. Because she talked about how she was little over there, about how they didn't have nothing to eat, and how they'd just be out in the woods and everything, just eating most everything they could get.	25:15
Paul Ortiz	And where was that at?	26:06
Alberta L. Wilson	That was in Africa, but I don't know what part. Because she said when they brought her, like they'd have them up, selling them, put them up on a stand or something and sell them. And she said there's a lot of them come over with her. And she said a lot of them died because they had so many of them up together and they died. So they'd just throw them off in the ocean, that was what it was. It was pretty bad, she said.	26:07
Paul Ortiz	Oh, I'm sorry.	26:50
Alberta L. Wilson	Go ahead.	26:50
Paul Ortiz	What were race relations like in Tuscaloosa County?	26:54
Alberta L. Wilson	Race relations? Talking about the White and the Black?	26:59
Paul Ortiz	Yeah.	27:03
Alberta L. Wilson	It wasn't too good. Like I said, out in the country, some houses you'd go to, like my grandmother went there, some of them was pretty good and some of them wasn't. Now, when I was coming up, some of the Sellers, it was Tom Sellers and his wife. A lot of the children, we played together and we got along pretty good. And then you take, named Ms. Dean, because my grandmother had to wait on her sister or something with a baby. So one of my brothers then, JW, used to live. They wouldn't live across the river then, they was over on the other side and they stayed close to Ms. Dean. And so she told—A lot of people know my mother, but I can't remember nothing about her.	27:05
Alberta L. Wilson	And so they told him, said, "Well Evelyn, when your sister come home up there from Birmingham, say you bring her to see me, because I want to see her." And my mother said, "She was a Colored woman, but she was a prettiest woman I had ever seen in my life. And say y'all want to see her daughter." So my brother carried me to see her. And so she said, "You look all right but you ain't as pretty as your mama." So a lot of them was pretty good and then some of them, they don't want you around.	28:05
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember any violence?	28:42
Alberta L. Wilson	Well, let me see. I don't remember two much because we wasn't around them.	28:48
Paul Ortiz	Did you hear people tell stories about who Ku Klux Klan activity in Tuscaloosa County?	29:00
Alberta L. Wilson	I don't remember talking about none of that, but all I can remember my grandmother way back, I guess before I was born, they call them then, night riders. And my grandmother's sister and husband, they call them then well-to-do Negroes, you know.	29:07
Alberta L. Wilson	And so they had a lot of land and they never did have to buy nothing, I said, but flour and sugar maybe, or coffee. They just had plenty. Excuse me, had fine horses and the things.	29:24
Alberta L. Wilson	And so my grandmother said the Night Riders would come, they had a smokehouse outside the back with the meat and stuff in it. Said they'd get all what they want and what they didn't want, they'd throw it away, throw it out. Just raid them, but wasn't nothing they could do about it. So they'd tear up everything from them. Then what I said, well-to-do peoples back then, they call the Negroes well-to-do.	29:41
Alberta L. Wilson	Because it wasn't many of them that did had a lot of land and had stuff to keep from buying so much stuff. And he would always hire peoples to work. He had about two, I know he had two, about three houses he had beside his home house. And so they didn't like that.	30:12
Paul Ortiz	Did this activity take place before you were born?	30:42
Alberta L. Wilson	That was before I was born. My grandmother used to tell me about it.	30:45
Paul Ortiz	You married in February 1st, 1933?	30:48
Alberta L. Wilson	That's right. And we moved then. We stayed there, I think five or six years on his brother's place, Charlie Wilson. Then we moved up here in '40. Let's see, in '41.	31:03
Paul Ortiz	1941?	31:22
Alberta L. Wilson	Yes. And he went to working in the mine.	31:26
Paul Ortiz	How did you first meet your husband?	31:28
Alberta L. Wilson	At church.	31:32
Paul Ortiz	You hadn't went to school together?	31:38
Alberta L. Wilson	No. Well, they didn't live there. They moved from Paris, Alabama, down there where we lived at. And so that's how I met him at church.	31:40
Paul Ortiz	What kind of work were both of you doing from the time that you married, to 1941 when you moved? What were you doing at Tuscaloosa at that point to make a living?	31:58
Alberta L. Wilson	Farming. Farming, that's what we did.	32:12
Paul Ortiz	Okay. And his brother owned the land?	32:18
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah, he owned the land, Charlie Wilson.	32:21
Paul Ortiz	What made you decide to move to Birmingham?	32:32
Alberta L. Wilson	Well, my husband always had worked in the mines before we got married. Well, he farmed just a little bit. Then when he get through farming, his father, he'd go back and work in the mine at Paris, Alabama. And so then we got married, then he didn't want to farm no more. He wanted to come back and go back in the mine. So that's really, we come, moved back, moved up here.	32:37
Paul Ortiz	But otherwise, was the farming venture going well?	33:02
Alberta L. Wilson	Wasn't making that much. And then what we was doing, working with his brother, working on halves and wasn't making nothing and he didn't want that, mm-hmm.	33:09
Paul Ortiz	Were you doing any other kind of work during this period of time?	33:22
Alberta L. Wilson	Talking about for that time?	33:26
Paul Ortiz	Yeah.	33:28
Alberta L. Wilson	No, nothing but just farming.	33:28
Paul Ortiz	What kind of change was it, moving to Birmingham?	33:35
Alberta L. Wilson	Well, it was a big change. I really didn't want to come. I had been there all my life, down there, and I just wanted to stay on. But after we come on, it was better. When we come, the oldest child, he was just started the school. But Florence and my younger boy, they wasn't even old enough to go because the baby boy then, he was just going to be three his birthday and Florence wasn't old enough to go. Back then they had to be seven before they take them in school. I think after my youngest one, they went to take them at six. And so then we left Westfield over there, we moved out here.	33:41
Paul Ortiz	So Westfield was the first area that you moved to?	34:30
Alberta L. Wilson	No, we first moved to Ensley, but we didn't stay there a year. And then we moved to Westfield where he'd be closer to his work, because he working then, number eight and nine long.	34:35
Paul Ortiz	And that was for TCI?	34:53
Alberta L. Wilson	TCI, yes. But now they call it US Steel, but it was TCI then. So, later years after we moved out here, I went to working at S.T. Jerrell milk powder plant.	35:00
Paul Ortiz	That was when you were living at Westfield?	35:15
Alberta L. Wilson	I started in Westfield, then it was on out here.	35:17
Paul Ortiz	And could you—S-T—	35:21
Alberta L. Wilson	Jerrell, J-E-R-R-E-L-L.	35:25
Alberta L. Wilson	S.T. Jerrell milk powder plant. That was that dry milk powder stuff, it's still on the market.	35:29
Paul Ortiz	And so you started working there about 1942, '43?	35:42
Alberta L. Wilson	Let me see. No, I started way later than that, because we stayed in Westfield 10 years. And I didn't start working there until I said moved out here in '49. I said I started working there about '48, '47 or '48.	35:52
Paul Ortiz	Did you do any kind of work outside of the home before then?	36:07
Alberta L. Wilson	No, because I had to beg my husband go to work then. And then after I got laid off from there, I went to selling Avon.	36:12
Paul Ortiz	What was life like in Westfield in the '40s?	36:27
Alberta L. Wilson	It was pretty good, because what we were doing, we were staying at a rented house, belonged to the company and it wasn't that much of month. And so then, well later years, they told my husband, the company did, that they was going to tear down in Westfield, all the houses. And peoples had to get somewhere to stay, so that's when we bought our here. We just bought the land and then we built.	36:31
Paul Ortiz	Where would you go to buy your food?	37:11
Alberta L. Wilson	In Westfield?	37:16
Paul Ortiz	In Westfield.	37:17
Alberta L. Wilson	Commissary. Number eight commissary in Wyland.	37:18
Paul Ortiz	Would you pay in cash for the groceries?	37:21
Alberta L. Wilson	To buy groceries?	37:30
Paul Ortiz	Yes, to buy groceries.	37:30
Alberta L. Wilson	In cash, yes. He'd get paid every two weeks.	37:31
Paul Ortiz	Did they have a credit system in that commissary?	37:42
Alberta L. Wilson	The later years, they went to selling clothes. And then they went to selling furniture, like appliance and things. And they had a credit for you to get close and things. Well, anything you wanted to get, if you could stand the credit to get it, if you had enough credit to get anything.	37:46
Paul Ortiz	Did you do any other? Did you raise a garden to supplement?	38:13
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah, we raised a garden in Westfield and my husband raised hogs and we had chickens and had a potato patch. Because his mother went to staying with us when his father died, so she liked things like that.	38:19
Paul Ortiz	Okay, so she came over from Paris?	38:38
Alberta L. Wilson	No, she came from Tuscaloosa. His father, they had been left Paris and he had bought a little home down there, out in the country, Northport.	38:39
Paul Ortiz	When he was working at the mine in the '40s, did he talk much about his work and the conditions, his coworkers?	38:58
Alberta L. Wilson	Well, he didn't talk that much about that because he said it was a lot of hard work. He didn't talk so much about it back then, but after he come here, later years, they made him, I don't know what you would call it. Oh God, what did he called it now? But he was over about three or four, working under him.	39:12
Paul Ortiz	Like a foreman?	39:43
Alberta L. Wilson	Yes, they called it tonnage work or something. And I know he was over about four and I don't know what they called him, but he was over them. He wasn't a foreman or nothing. I can't think now what they called it, but he would have so many under him.	39:45
Paul Ortiz	Oh, he was in charge of weighing the coal?	40:05
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah, he was in charge of them for to work good, what I mean, and load so much coal.	40:22
Paul Ortiz	Like a check way man or something?	40:22
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah.	40:22
Paul Ortiz	Do you know if he participated in any kind of labor union activity?	40:28
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah, when they first brought it out, I don't know what year that was, but John L. Lewis owned the mine years ago, he's dead now. He brought in the union because it used to, wasn't no union with the mine, but John L. Lewis is the one that brought it in, made it UMWA. All of them miners, then when they brought that in, a lot of times they had a lot of fights, different ones trying to work, scabbing or something they'd call it. And John L. Lewis had them, they always would call, if he's Black or White, they call your brother. And like me, the wives, they'd say sister.	40:33
Alberta L. Wilson	But I didn't understand like in church. Because when my husband died, I was supposed to get his check because it would be more. So then they called me from Big Stone Gap, West Virginia, and said, "Sister Wilson, is this you?" I said, "Yes." Said, "Well, you ain't going to get nothing because we can't find no John L. Wilson. What's his social security number?" We got some here and I read it out to him. He said, "Okay, Sister Wilson. Don't worry, you'll get it." That's what they called us, so that's what they used to call one another. I don't know why they did that, but that's the way it was.	41:25
Paul Ortiz	Did you participate in it? Did they have an auxiliary, a women's auxiliary?	42:18
Alberta L. Wilson	No, they didn't have that. It was just the men's, the group for the men's.	42:22
Paul Ortiz	I see. Would you say in Westfield during those years, there was a community of people, or was it more disjointed, or was it—	42:36
Alberta L. Wilson	It was a community of peoples. It was three Black churches and two schools. And then the White stayed down on one end and then the Black on the other. White stayed around down from one commissary there in Westfield and they stayed on one side. And then I guess Mr. Van was the—Well, he was the mayor of Westfield, what you would call it then, but he was over everybody, Mr. Van was.	42:47
Paul Ortiz	And is he the same one who later became mayor of Birmingham?	43:37
Alberta L. Wilson	No, just another man. That was his name.	43:40
Paul Ortiz	You mentioned three Black churches. Do you remember the names of those churches?	43:45
Alberta L. Wilson	One was Bethel Baptist Church and the other was St. Luke Methodist Church. I'm trying to think, I forget the name of the other. I can't think of it right off. I know Bethel Baptist.	43:50
Paul Ortiz	Was it an Episcopal church?	44:21
Alberta L. Wilson	No, it was a Baptist.	44:22
Speaker 3	What?	44:28
Alberta L. Wilson	What's the name of the church? Excuse me, where Reverend William pastored?	44:28
Speaker 3	Hopewell.	44:28
Alberta L. Wilson	Hopewell Baptist Church.	44:34
Paul Ortiz	Hopewell?	44:36
Alberta L. Wilson	Yes.	44:42
Paul Ortiz	Oh, I'm sorry.	44:43
Alberta L. Wilson	That was all in Westfield, they had to tear down all them churches when they had them move away from there.	44:44
Paul Ortiz	And which church did your family attend?	44:49
Alberta L. Wilson	Bethel Baptist Church in Westfield.	44:52
Paul Ortiz	And in your opinion at that time, I assume that that Lawrence and your other children are going to school in Westfield. Did you have much interaction with the school and did it seem to be a—	45:04
Alberta L. Wilson	It was pretty good. I belonged to the PTA and I would go to that. They had pretty good schools there.	45:22
Paul Ortiz	What was the name of the elementary school there?	45:32
Alberta L. Wilson	Westfield number one and Westfield number two.	45:38
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember the teachers, your impressions of what they were doing in the schools?	45:50
Alberta L. Wilson	They seemed to be doing pretty good, but I can't remember too much. I mean, I can't remember they names. You're talking about forty some years ago, I can't remember their names. I done forgot. But they seem pretty good. But after I went to work, I didn't be around them that much, but I can't remember their names. Done had so much strike, I can't remember back so many names.	46:02
Paul Ortiz	Did they teach the basic subjects?	46:34
Alberta L. Wilson	They taught pretty good, but a lot of subjects they just left off. Because when Florence finished school and then she won a scholarship, integrated scholarship to Cleveland, Ohio. And then when she went to college, there's a lot of things they had left off.	46:38

Paul Ortiz	Okay. Mrs. Wilson, you're talking about there was perhaps subjects that the schools in Westfield left out.	0:04
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah, but she would have to tell you because I can't remember all of it. But I know she said it was something they left off.	0:10
Paul Ortiz	Did people interact in Westfield? You mentioned that it seemed like a community.	0:26
Alberta L. Wilson	Well, they would have baseball. I know he had talked of Willie Mays, that's where he started was in Westfield.	0:34
Paul Ortiz	Did you know his family?	0:45
Alberta L. Wilson	I just know his father, but I can't remember his father's name. I don't ever remember his mother. I don't know. I don't think she stayed there. I think she stayed in Fairfield.	0:47
Paul Ortiz	Ah.	0:56
Alberta L. Wilson	Because his father had married again, but they'd have baseball then they'd have different little things for the children, you know different little selling ice cream, different little stuff. And so that's about all. Just go to church. That's about all.	0:57
Paul Ortiz	And then every once in a while, a baseball game.	1:20
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah, they would have that. Play different teams. But I can't remember who they played because I never go to them, you know, that much.	1:22
Paul Ortiz	Did you ever go into downtown Birmingham during those years? Forties?	1:33
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah. I would go and carry the children. See back then it was on Fourth Avenue in Birmingham. Well, they call it was Blooming then because it was gang of Cafes on Fourth Avenue. Blacks run it. And then it was a famous theater in the Carver and you know those. And then it was a big drugstore on the corner, Brock's Drugstore. And you could imagine it was pretty nice. There was a lot of Black restaurants and things. But see then when segregation started come up then why all of them went out of business just about.	1:40
Paul Ortiz	Were there Black-owned businesses in Westfield?	2:36
Alberta L. Wilson	Was a barber shop. Willard's Barbershop.	2:40
Paul Ortiz	Willard's.	2:48
Alberta L. Wilson	That's all I know was there. Oh, and he had the barbershop and a cleaner was all together.	2:49
Paul Ortiz	Oh, okay.	2:56
Alberta L. Wilson	And that's all the little business was Black. That all was there.	2:56
Paul Ortiz	Were there any other kinds of businesses in Westfield?	2:58
Alberta L. Wilson	Nothing but just the commissary. The Westfield commissary.	3:03
Paul Ortiz	This is interesting because, well I've never, until I came here, I never knew that Westfield existed.	3:14
Alberta L. Wilson	And where are you from?	3:22
Paul Ortiz	Well, I'm originally from Washington state, but I'm going to school at Duke University. But when I looked over the existing books, they would talk about Ensley and Bessemer, Fairfield. But there's no—	3:23
Alberta L. Wilson	No Westfield.	3:36
Paul Ortiz	No.	3:37
Alberta L. Wilson	Well, see what happened when, I don't know all the community things was added. They tore down all these houses. Let me see. When you're coming through Fairfield and coming around where the Westfield High School, well see all them big things you'll see pile up real high, looked like black coal or something. Well see that's where the mine used be and then turn right that's where all the houses and things was in Westfield. But see now all that's gone.	3:38
Paul Ortiz	And is this on Valley Road? Could you drive up or is this on the other—	4:15
Alberta L. Wilson	That's on the other side of Valley Road.	4:20
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	4:21
Alberta L. Wilson	Like you're going back up this way when you get up there before you go across the railroad, it's a big old white church on the left going that way. Where you was to turn now see that would go on round by, come back in Fairfield and would go round by where Westfield used to be.	4:22
Alberta L. Wilson	And I guess we didn't think it was on now about it because see, I don't know. I don't know what they doing there now, but it's just nothing but look like—Well they're making something out of it because then it wouldn't be there. The steel works there. That's what's piled up there. I wish my friend would've been down here because he could've tell you all about it because he works for U.S. Steel.	4:43
Paul Ortiz	So sometime in the late forties or early fifties, you were told that you had to leave.	5:09
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah. And we moved out here in '49 in October 29 in '49.	5:19
Paul Ortiz	How did you first learn that you'd have to leave?	5:30
Alberta L. Wilson	Well we moved out here in '49 and I guess we bought out here in about '47 I guess. I'm not sure because I had to look at my old book if I got it. But anyway, they come around and told them they had to move. But now we was up to what they call up on the number one side back up this way towards the highway.	5:34
Alberta L. Wilson	And most of them had to move. And then down on number two side, they stayed longer than we did.	5:58
Alberta L. Wilson	But all of them finally had to move because they tore down all the houses. And I don't know what that is they mixing down there. I wish I'd thought about it. I would've got it from my friend because he knows because see he worked it in the plant but they still working there making—I don't know what that is they're making.	6:05
Paul Ortiz	How did you react to finding out that you had to leave?	6:27
Alberta L. Wilson	Oh, I was glad.	6:43
Paul Ortiz	You were.	6:44
Alberta L. Wilson	Oh, I was glad because we was going to move. You know, buying us a home. You're going to move in a home. Because see I was working in the milk powder plant then and so we moved out here in '49 in October. Mr. Bush and them started on the house about in March I guess.	6:45
Alberta L. Wilson	And me and my mother-in-law, we used to walk down the railroad and come down here to the building. I was glad.	7:13
Alberta L. Wilson	But see when we moved here, one little old house was right over there. It's tore down now, where the woods at. Wasn't nothing here. And we was thinking we was buying the corner lot, you know. But see then, later years peoples went to buying and building up and then we tried to buy two more lots next to it, but they asked too much for them and we couldn't get them. Where they built the turnaround out there. And so they really have built up out here.	7:21
Paul Ortiz	So moving to Hueytown what was in a sense an upwardly mobile kind of move.	7:59
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah. Then we moved out here. It was quieter because see above us there in Westfield, it was a man stayed up above us. Well, I just said I guess he run what you call, I don't know what kind of house. But anyway, they gamble and be drinking and then they'd walk down the streets, you know, loud and everything. And I was glad to move out because it was quite out here. And when we moved out here, see it was two buses used to come out here. But see, when peoples went to moving out here, building, moving out and then the buses, peoples had to get cars in order to go to work. Because they had cut out one of the buses. So after peoples then went to buying cars going to work, then they cut the buses out. We didn't have no bus then. So we didn't.	8:13
Paul Ortiz	Did you used to ride the bus?	9:06
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah, I used to ride a bus. When I was working at the milk powder plant, that's what I had to do. I had to get up every morning real early. I get the bus about 6:30 from out here and when I got to Fairfield I had to get another bus to go on to my job because I was working over on the south side in Birmingham. So it was pretty bad till later years. Then we got a car and I went to driving then.	9:11
Paul Ortiz	Was that a segregated bus?	9:43
Alberta L. Wilson	Oh, yeah. Had to go to the back.	9:45
Paul Ortiz	Did you ever have—	9:50
Alberta L. Wilson	Had Colored up on a little plaque up, Colored.	9:51
Paul Ortiz	Did you ever have any experiences having problems with the bus driver or know anybody that had problems?	9:56
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah. I didn't have none, but my nephew came here from the Navy, from overseas, and see he wanted to go—	10:11
Alberta L. Wilson	Well, when he came to Birmingham, he wanted to get him a overcoat. So we went on and coming back, the bus got real crowded.	10:19
Alberta L. Wilson	And so with White, the Black know to go to the back. So he sit down up above the Colored sign, and I told him, I said, "George, don't do that."	10:28
Alberta L. Wilson	And he just sit there.	10:45
Alberta L. Wilson	So the driver, he kept looking back at him but he was a funny color and he had curly hair and he had funny colored eyes. And I guess that bus driver must have said, "Well I don't know who that is, what that is."	10:51
Alberta L. Wilson	So he was, you know, light and had funny hair, gray looking eyes or something.	11:08
Alberta L. Wilson	So anyway, he just sit there and I kept telling, I motion for him to come on back. So, he wouldn't move.	11:13
Alberta L. Wilson	But, you know, he didn't bother him. He didn't bother him. (laughs)	11:22
Alberta L. Wilson	So we come on to Fairfield and got off. See, I didn't want no rap there on the bus. And he said he just wished he had a bother in him, but he didn't bother. (laughs)	11:30
Alberta L. Wilson	Sure did.	11:39
Paul Ortiz	How did that make you feel during that incident?	11:44
Alberta L. Wilson	I was afraid. I was afraid. Yeah. I really was afraid.	11:47
Paul Ortiz	Did the bus drivers doing that route did they carry any weapons?	11:55
Alberta L. Wilson	I don't know because I never did go that much on a bus. See when it first started here in '61, '62, well I said '63 too, my husband got laid off from the mine and he was used to making big money and so we went to Somerset, Kentucky.	12:01
Alberta L. Wilson	We stayed up there almost three years and that's when this was going on so bad. I wasn't here a lot of time. But now before we went there, me and my little grandson, he was just about two, just a little boy. And I'd have him by the hand and we was over there in Bessemer one day. And I see these White guys with bats, not bats, the handle what go in an ax. They had them in their hand, you know. And so, L. Green, this 10 cent store. See, it was a big one and one of the doors was not closed and they had a place for Black to eat and White. Go around kind of in a circle like. And so that day then, I see them with that, and I didn't know what it was with them like that.	12:21
Alberta L. Wilson	I had come back from Kentucky that's on a visit and then I'd go back and forth. And so one of them said, "We going to beat the goddamn hell out of them." Said, "Let them go in there to eat now we'll fix them." And so I got my little grandson by the hand. I said, "Come on baby, come on."	13:22
Alberta L. Wilson	And so we come on. And so they said after then they was in there going to beat the Black peoples up if they were sitting—They were sitting up there where the White sit. And so they was going to beat them up.	13:40
Alberta L. Wilson	And so here was a lots going on right through that. So one day then Florence come home on her husband from Phoenix, Arizona. So I carried him to Birmingham. He just want to look around. We were in Woolworth and he said, "Mom, while we in here, I want to go around, so let's go sit and get us something to eat." I said, "Okay." Because it was going on so bad but I thought it had got a little better. That was in '63.	13:53
Alberta L. Wilson	So we sit down to eat, and so one White lady waiter, she said, "Is you going to wait on them?" And she said, "Yeah, I'm going to wait on them." Say, "You must don't hear nothing on the radio, do you? Or what they saying, said we got to wait on them." She said, "Well, you going to wait on them then I'm not going to wait on them." And so she waited on us though. And so my son-in-law, he said, "Mom, I didn't know that was like that here. I thought that was over with." I said, "Well, I thought it was over with too. I said, but you see they didn't want to wait on us." But she did go on and wait on us. So it was rough.	14:26
Paul Ortiz	Actually, I should back up to and ask if, did you have any, you or your husband have any family who are working around the Birmingham area before you moved to Birmingham?	15:10
Alberta L. Wilson	No, his brother was working in the mine here for before we moved here. But I never did hear him about nothing. He was a preacher. I never did hear him about nothing. But I tell you what it was like. We know the places we could go and places we couldn't go and that's the way it was.	15:25
Alberta L. Wilson	Because one time when I was working in at the milk powder plant and some kind of my back went to bothering me and over on the south side I had heard people talk about chiropractor doctors, you know, how they could help you. So I see this sign up and so I went to the door and he asked me what do I want?	15:50
Alberta L. Wilson	And I told him, I said, "My back hurt me bad and I just come see could I get waited, take a treatment." "I don't wait on Colored folks." I said, "Well, I didn't know." I said, "You didn't have no sign up." And I said, "I was hurting so bad. I said I can't hardly walk." And I said, "I just thought you, you know, would wait on me. Give a treatment if just give me one." He said, "Well, you can come on in, I'll give you one but you can't come back."	16:20
Alberta L. Wilson	So he did wait on me but he told me not to come back. So I had been in up to a lot of different things.	16:52
Paul Ortiz	What was your work experience at the milk powder plant?	17:03
Alberta L. Wilson	Oh, it was good. It was good. Because see all we had to do my cousin what work there, she's in New Jersey now. But anyway, see the conveyor would bring down the milk powder boxes. All we had to do is close them. To close inside and close them up. And so looked like they was coming so fast. And I told my cousin, I said, "I can't work here, I'm going to quit." And she said, "Hush your mouth. Keep on working. So you don't have to close all of them. So just close what you can and go on but you'll get faster." And so I did get faster.	17:13
Alberta L. Wilson	And so then I asked the head man, Mr. Stack, "Could I run the conveyor?" You know when you sent them out from where we was, we just close and top to seal them. And so he said, "Oh brother, you think you can do that?" And I told him, "Yeah so let me try."	17:51
Alberta L. Wilson	So some of the other girls had been working that was young, done been to college to a year or two. And so when I went to run it then, Mr. Stack would let me do it then. And I was running, running. So then when payday come, when they paid off, they put there in envelope all down the line on the conveyor.	18:13
Alberta L. Wilson	And so the other girl see my, "Oh, Alberta got a raise. What'd you give her a raise for?" So Mr. Stack said, "You know what?" Said, "Alberta did just like me." Said, "She can run that conveyor as good as I can. And say, "Y'all say y'all finished college, can do things." Said, "But y'all ain't never tried to run it." And they said, "Well let us start then." (laughs)	18:34
Alberta L. Wilson	So it was pretty good there.	19:00
Paul Ortiz	How did you come to start working there?	19:06
Alberta L. Wilson	Well, I just know about—Well, I would buy Jerry milk powder all the time and so I was asking, my cousin lived over there by it. And I asked her, I said Reagan, well that was when they was on Second Avenue before they moved out on Finlay. And I said, "Do you think I could get on that?" She said, "Yeah, let's try." So when I went there and got on and then my husband was in the mine. But see they was just journey or this union was going on. They would strike a lot. And so if I hadn't been working there, I don't guess we could've had the home because we started off with us paying the small interest. Every month it'd get larger and so I could pay house notes and we'd done pretty good. Sure did.	19:09
Paul Ortiz	Was there a tension in the house during those strikes and during the time that you began?	20:05
Alberta L. Wilson	It would've be pretty bad sometime, but we made it.	20:14
Paul Ortiz	When you moved to Somerset, Kentucky, did the entire family move?	20:26
Alberta L. Wilson	Oh no, but they was grown and gone.	20:30
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	20:32
Alberta L. Wilson	My husband went up there on a job.	20:32
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	20:35
Alberta L. Wilson	For Burger's Construction Company.	20:35
Paul Ortiz	And you went up there also.	20:44
Alberta L. Wilson	Mm-hmm. They taken that tunnel out of King's Mountain, where the train went through? They was doing something to that there and just a lot of different works they was doing there. Because a lot of people was there.	20:51
Alberta L. Wilson	We was in the northern part and that was the coldest weather there. But we enjoyed up there. Those years we stayed. We'd come back and forth and when I would be here and then he would come home because some more peoples was working with them. And see things was going on bad then because see he was a farmer over a grease truck they call it. And he always had to have a helper and he had a helper, a White guy.	21:06
Alberta L. Wilson	And one day this White guy didn't want him to tell him nothing to do. Well, he had to tell him because he didn't know. And so then one day another guy told him, said, "Watch out." Because he had told him something to do and he was fixed to hit him with some kind of big old steel wrench. And I guess he would've killed him. But they fired him, this guy. And he begged for the job back. Well say one thing. He just didn't want John telling him what to do. So Mr. Burgess told him, said, "Well, if you going work for me, that's who I got here. And I brought him from Birmingham and he going to tell you what to do. See if you don't know he have to tell you."	21:43
Paul Ortiz	Ah-huh.	22:31
Alberta L. Wilson	So after that then didn't happen no more. And most of the places where we was there in Somerset, the White and Black was all together.	22:35
Paul Ortiz	So it was a lot different.	22:47
Alberta L. Wilson	A lot different.	22:49
Paul Ortiz	Than here.	22:51
Alberta L. Wilson	Than here. It was a lot different. Because we would go to different little towns on the weekend and it was much better. And the White people's, what him and his wife lived up from where we was born at, they would have us for dinner and it was good. Was much better than here at that time.	22:51
Paul Ortiz	Ah-huh. Who made the financial decisions and those kinds of decisions in your family?	23:17
Alberta L. Wilson	Well, he would make it and then because when he made it that he was going up there, going there and I said, "Surely, you ain't going to go off there." He said well the place he was working at then and working for Donahue Construction Company. Well see he was used to in the mine and he had got laid off and they just wasn't paying nothing. So he said, "No, I'm going where I can make more money." And so I agreed for him to go and so he went on up there.	23:28
Paul Ortiz	Did you work together for the normal budgeting decisions or was that something that he primarily controlled for normal expenses?	24:01
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah, we kind of worked together with it. We done pretty good.	24:15
Paul Ortiz	When you were in Westfield and then in Hueytown, where did you get most of your news from?	24:27
Alberta L. Wilson	He always take the place with Birmingham News.	24:31
Paul Ortiz	Did you ever subscribe to the World or the Times or?	24:42
Alberta L. Wilson	We used to get the Birmingham World. We'd get it sometime but I think it went out now. Ain't nothing but the Birmingham Time, I don't think. But we just get that every week. Birmingham Time.	24:47
Paul Ortiz	Did you and your husband, were you involved in any kinds of other political activities during those years in Birmingham?	25:02
Alberta L. Wilson	Well, just Christian Union. We belonged to that in Fairfield. And he belonged to the SCLC. He did, but I never did get in it. He belonged to it and then he was a masonic. That's about all. Because see he would work all the time, wouldn't have time for many things.	25:15
Paul Ortiz	You mentioned the Christian Union.	25:44
Alberta L. Wilson	Mm-hmm.	25:46
Paul Ortiz	And what was that?	25:47
Alberta L. Wilson	That's just industrial club they call it. That's just nothing but taking up money and have different little things like different little parties or teas or something. That's a Christian something more so.	25:50
Paul Ortiz	Did you vote during those years?	26:11
Alberta L. Wilson	Oh, no. They wouldn't let you vote. I started voting at, I think it was in fifty-something. It was in fifty something when we started. Because see then we had to go and take a test before we could even vote.	26:16
Paul Ortiz	Do you know people that took the test or tried to take the test?	26:38
Alberta L. Wilson	Well, see they would come carry us in different ones, so many in a car and we had to go to Birmingham and take it.	26:42
Paul Ortiz	Who would carry you?	26:52
Alberta L. Wilson	Blacks. Some of the older peoples from out here would carry us. Would carry us. And then you had to answer. You had to answer so many questions but it ain't like that now. But you had to answer so many questions before you could vote. And so when they asked me about the counties, how many states had the two counties they're the same place or something and I told them, "Jefferson County." "Oh, that's good." And so it was really something about voting. They didn't want us to vote. And then like now when they find out if it's one the Black people's like to vote for and then the White won't vote for 'em that year. This man is like that now that way. They don't look like they don't want us like somebody we want, they don't want.	26:55
Paul Ortiz	What kind of changes have you seen over time and around Birmingham?	27:54
Alberta L. Wilson	Well, I've seen a lot of changes because just like the buses that have changed and the water fountains things. And then that's like to eat. We can go anywhere and eat when we used to couldn't do it. And I see those changes.	28:03
Alberta L. Wilson	And of course, used to be a cafe in Bessemer, I forget the name of it now. It had a bright star. Lord, a Black person, if you start in there they'd beat you to death. But now, you know, you can go in there.	28:24
Alberta L. Wilson	It used to be rough. Because I used to be so crazy about hamburgers. To in Bessemer one day. I forget the name of it. It was just a little place. I don't know what year it was. And so I went to go in the front door, want to know what I wanted. I said, "Well, I just stopped to get a hamburger." Said, "Well, if you want one you have to go around to the back door." See that's where we had to go to the back door. So I got there and I didn't go back then no more.	28:47
Paul Ortiz	So it sounds like you were a person who would push sometimes.	29:24
Alberta L. Wilson	I did. And the children used to say, like we'd be in a car one day going to town and around about on 16th Street in Birmingham. We was on First Avenue. I don't know where I was going but I was going to turn right. I guess I must have been going see somebody at the hospital.	29:33
Alberta L. Wilson	And the police—a car passed, I didn't run the light and the car passed right by me running the light. I already had then passed the light. It was on for me to go. So he stopped me and so I asked him what was it? And so children went get together, I showed they talk. I said, "Well, I just asked him what happened." And he said, "Old girl let me see your license." And so I showed him the license. He motioned that I could go on, but I don't know what he stopped me for.	29:52
Alberta L. Wilson	And one time, I was going to work over the milk powder plant, driving, and I was supposed to turn right and this White man in a car and his wife, and the bus driver seen it all. So he come by and pushed me, carried me clean on over to the fence.	30:31
Alberta L. Wilson	And when they got him when he did stop there and stopped when he got out and said, "What you doing hitting me?" I said, "Hit you?" I said, "You carried me clean over to the fence." And he said, "Well, I know what I'm going to do when the police come, I'm going to tell him you hit me."	30:56
Alberta L. Wilson	And his wife said, "Woo!" Said, "How can you say that?" Said, "You the one that hit her. Carried her on over to the fence." "Well I know what I'm going to say." And so I told him, I said, "You know what?" I said, "If I had to cook for you, I'd spit in your food." (laughs)	31:12
Alberta L. Wilson	He looked at me but he didn't jump on me when I told him that.	31:30
Alberta L. Wilson	Well, I don't know how come my grandmother used to say, "It's best just to say what you're going to say and be done with it." And that's the way I did.	31:33
Paul Ortiz	And so that's where you got that kind of spirit from, do you think?	31:40
Alberta L. Wilson	That's where I got it from her. So she tell me, say just speak up and that's what I do. And I don't know how come a lot of White mens some of them was like that.	31:49
Alberta L. Wilson	One day I went to Bessemer that show you how some of them was. I went to Bessemer then we didn't have nowhere to go to a bathroom. So my cousin had had done told me, said, "Go in the courthouse, they got a right nice bathroom." Say, "When you go in, let's go keep on round, you go to it," you know, for Black. So when I went on round past them, they were sitting at a desk, about three of them.	32:00
Alberta L. Wilson	They say, (whistles), went to whistle at me. So I just kept on walking. Said, "Mmmm!" say, "Where did she come from?" That's what one asked another. So didn't sit down. So when I went back then I didn't come back that way. I went on back out the other door. (laughs)	32:25
Alberta L. Wilson	It is funny like that. But see a lot of Black women, they was falling for it. But I didn't fall for it.	32:41
Paul Ortiz	Were you able to maintain contact with your family and with your husband's? Well your mother-in-law moved in with you.	32:51
Alberta L. Wilson	She moved in with me in '46.	33:04
Paul Ortiz	Ah-huh. Were you able to maintain contact with other relatives in Tuscaloosa County over these years?	33:05
Alberta L. Wilson	Oh, yeah. They visit us. Would come to the—All of them dead now.	33:16
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Well I've learned a lot Mrs. Wilson. This has been a really educational experience for me. We have some biographical information, and actually, I still have to collect your daughter's. She promised me she would fill it out, turn it into me. I still have to give her. But this will be part the file that will go into the archives. And I don't know if she explained to you, but the project we will have we'll deposit the tape that we've done with some background in your family on some other information at basically two places. One at the Duke University Archives and the other at the Civil Rights Institute Archives. The primary purpose really of this whole really of this project of the Behind the Veil project is to get students and scholars interested and excited about African American history.	33:26
Paul Ortiz	And we found in the past that oral history is one of the best ways to do that.	34:43
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah.	34:47
Paul Ortiz	Because when people hear people telling stories and giving their experiences, it's much more lively than simply reading about it. And so we include this, we put this information in the file because this will be the first information that a younger student or perhaps a scholar would look at. We would keep it in a manila envelope. So they would pull it out and they would see this full name, maiden name, address, and then go from there and then listen to tape. So now you've given me some of this information and I'll try to go through this as quickly as possible. I have, let's see, Wilson and what is your middle name?	34:49
Alberta L. Wilson	Lee? I just signed L though.	35:46
Paul Ortiz	Okay, you just went L.	35:48
Alberta L. Wilson	Okay.	35:49
Paul Ortiz	And your first name?	35:49
Alberta L. Wilson	Alberta.	35:54
Paul Ortiz	And your maiden name was?	35:59
Alberta L. Wilson	Taylor.	36:01
Paul Ortiz	Taylor. And I have your current address. What is the zip code out here?	36:08
Alberta L. Wilson	35023.	36:11
Paul Ortiz	And this will be considered Hueytown?	36:17
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah. Fresh used to write Hueytown or either Bessemer but we used Hueytown since we got in the city and we used Hueytown all the time.	36:22
Paul Ortiz	Okay. I have your home number and on your tape you would like your name who appear as Alberta L. Wilson.	36:36
Alberta L. Wilson	Mm-hmm.	37:06
Paul Ortiz	Okay. You gave me your date of birth. You were born 1916.	37:06
Alberta L. Wilson	November 10, 1916.	37:06
Paul Ortiz	Were you born in the city, Tuscaloosa or—	37:12
Alberta L. Wilson	Tuscaloosa County.	37:21
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	37:22
Alberta L. Wilson	Out in the country but still it was the county. Tuscaloosa County.	37:22
Paul Ortiz	You're the first person that I've talked to so far that's been from that area.	37:25
Alberta L. Wilson	Sure enough?	37:29
Paul Ortiz	Yeah, I've talked with people that have come up from Dallas County and Wilcox too.	37:29
Alberta L. Wilson	I hear tell of that but I don't know where it's at.	37:37
Paul Ortiz	And what was your husband's full name?	37:42
Alberta L. Wilson	John A. O. Wilson.	37:45
Paul Ortiz	And do you know his date of birth?	37:55
Alberta L. Wilson	April. What would April be the fourth month?	38:01
Paul Ortiz	Yeah.	38:03
Alberta L. Wilson	The fourth and the 14th, 1909.	38:04
Paul Ortiz	And he was born in Paris?	38:13
Alberta L. Wilson	He was born in Veroy, Alabama.	38:15
Paul Ortiz	How do you spell that?	38:19
Alberta L. Wilson	V-E-R-O-Y.	38:24
Paul Ortiz	Okay. And for his occupation I'll put a miner.	38:27
Alberta L. Wilson	It's miner.	38:28
Paul Ortiz	And this is the information about your parents. Your mother's name?	38:37
Alberta L. Wilson	Florence. You want her—Florence Goodman Taylor.	38:43
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Do you remember her maiden name? Was that her?	38:51
Alberta L. Wilson	That was a maiden name. Goodman.	39:01
Paul Ortiz	Oh, okay. And her date of birth?	39:02
Alberta L. Wilson	Oh, I don't know that.	39:09
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	39:09
Alberta L. Wilson	See she died when I was five and then the Bible, her mother married again? No, her stepfather married again and that old woman burned up the Bible.	39:09
Paul Ortiz	Oh. I see.	39:25
Alberta L. Wilson	Never hear to all that. So all of her folks was gone and I ain't got nobody to ask nothing.	39:26
Paul Ortiz	But she passed in about 1921 then? About.	39:32
Alberta L. Wilson	I guess I was just going to be five in November when she died.	39:38
Paul Ortiz	Okay. And now your husband passed in? I forgot to put that down.	39:42
Alberta L. Wilson	He passed in '84. The 26th of August in '84.	39:55
Paul Ortiz	Okay. And your mother was also born in Tuscaloosa County?	39:56
Alberta L. Wilson	Ah-huh.	40:09
Paul Ortiz	And did she have an occupation?	40:22
Alberta L. Wilson	About my mother?	40:26
Paul Ortiz	Yeah.	40:27
Alberta L. Wilson	No, I don't know nothing she had. Because see her and my father was farming.	40:28
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	40:34
Alberta L. Wilson	So all I know.	40:34
Paul Ortiz	And your father's name?	40:39
Alberta L. Wilson	Jimmy Taylor.	40:41
Paul Ortiz	And do you remember his date of birth?	40:42
Alberta L. Wilson	September, but I don't know now what date. The 21st of September. And he was 78 when he died. Now he died in '67. You had to count back to see what—Yeah, that he died in '67.	40:55
Paul Ortiz	Oh. Again, he was 74?	41:11
Alberta L. Wilson	78, because we buried him on his birthday.	41:14
Paul Ortiz	So he was born in 1894. Right?	41:21
Alberta L. Wilson	I done forgot. All I remember how old he was. I used to know the day of, I mean, when he was born. But I don't forgot how to count back. Because see they used to help me keeping up with so many old ones when they was born and everything to, I just forget. But I know he was 78 when he died. We buried him on his birthday, 21st of September, 19—	41:28
Paul Ortiz	Oh, so he was born in 1891, I think.	41:52
Alberta L. Wilson	Okay.	41:55
Paul Ortiz	Seventy-seven. Yeah. Okay. And his place of birth, was he also from Tuscaloosa County?	41:56
Alberta L. Wilson	That's right.	42:05
Paul Ortiz	And I should put farmer for his—	42:14
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah. That's farmer.	42:16
Paul Ortiz	Okay. You told me your sisters and brothers, and this is where the information can be approximations because they asked for birth and death in place of birth.	42:25
Alberta L. Wilson	What you want now?	42:55
Paul Ortiz	Joseph Taylor. His—	42:56
Alberta L. Wilson	His birthday? March 3, 1911.	42:59
Paul Ortiz	Okay. And he passed then—	43:02
Alberta L. Wilson	I forgot what year he passed. I forgot we was in Kentucky. We had to come back, I can't remember because I had so many deaths with the brothers. I done forgot when he passed. What year it was.	43:26
Paul Ortiz	How about J. W. Taylor?	43:42
Alberta L. Wilson	He was October 2, 1911. I mean 1912.	43:47
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	43:51
Alberta L. Wilson	And he passed December 26, 1986 in Washington, DC.	43:55
Paul Ortiz	Okay. And they were your two full brothers?	44:13
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah, my two full brothers.	44:15
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Did you have a full sister?	44:17
Alberta L. Wilson	No.	44:19
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	44:20
Alberta L. Wilson	All them others, we had the same father but not mother.	44:23
Paul Ortiz	Okay. And what order were you born in? Were you younger than your two brothers or—	44:29
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah. Yeah.	44:34
Paul Ortiz	And could I get your children's names?	44:39
Alberta L. Wilson	My children's name?	44:42
Paul Ortiz	Yeah.	44:43
Alberta L. Wilson	Johnny L. Wilson Jr.	44:43
Paul Ortiz	And his birthday is?	44:52
Alberta L. Wilson	November 24, 1933.	44:55
Paul Ortiz	'33.	44:56
Alberta L. Wilson	He live in Hammond Indiana. Works for U.S. Steel and Florence is next. July 9, 1936.	45:05
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	45:23
Alberta L. Wilson	And Howard Wilson. October 15, 1938.	45:28
Paul Ortiz	And do you have grandchildren?	45:43
Alberta L. Wilson	Yeah.	45:45
Paul Ortiz	You can just give me the number. You don't have to—	45:49
Alberta L. Wilson	Just give you the name?	45:50
Paul Ortiz	Well, no, just how many.	45:53
Alberta L. Wilson	Oh, just four.	45:55
Paul Ortiz	Yeah, you don't have to.	46:01
Alberta L. Wilson	Okay.	46:02
Paul Ortiz	I know it's—	46:04
Speaker 3	Yeah, it's good.	46:07
Paul Ortiz	We're going over this. Oh, you still owe me.	46:08
Speaker 3	I know.	46:09
Paul Ortiz	This is the fun part (laughs).	46:13
Paul Ortiz	But the people will thank—	46:18
Alberta L. Wilson	I tell you what about them children, because they may come across and read that. I got two, I don't know what you call them children. My oldest son had two children by a girl before he got married, you know.	46:24
Paul Ortiz	Oh.	46:38
Alberta L. Wilson	And they named Taylor Logan. She stay in California. I forget the name of California. And then the boy, he's in the service. He's in some parts of Texas. And see if I don't put them down there may be something about it that make me have six grandchildren.	46:39
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Yeah. This is a pretty open-ended thing. I mean, we could put four or six.	47:02
Alberta L. Wilson	Well you can put six.	47:12
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	47:13
Alberta L. Wilson	Six grandchildren.	47:13

Item Info

Title:

Alberta Wilson interview recording, 1994 June 20

Date:

June 20, 1994

Creator:

Wilson, Alberta Taylor

Contributor:

Ortiz, Paul

Description:

Name: Alberta Taylor Wilson; Date of birth: 1936-07-09; Place of birth: Tuscaloosa, AL; Occupation(s): manufacturing; agriculture; sales; Residence: Hueytown, AL
Informant ID: 749; Interviewed by: Paul Ortiz.

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Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

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

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Provenance:

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

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

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Interview number: 202
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Alberta Wilson interview recording, 1994 June 20

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1. Alberta Wilson administrative file, 1994

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Alberta Wilson interview recording, 1994 June 20

Transcript

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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