Sydney Gilmore, Jr. (primary interviewee) and James Eaves interview recording, 1995 July 26

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Alex Byrd	Mr. Eaves, when we get down to stuff about the mine, you just to help me out because you know I don't know all the right questions.	0:02
James T. "Red" Eaves	Okay.	0:08
Alex Byrd	Okay. Thanks a lot for talking to us today. If you'd start off just by saying your whole name?	0:09
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Sidney, S-I-D-N-E-Y, Gilmore.	0:14
Alex Byrd	Gilmore.	0:19
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Junior.	0:19
Alex Byrd	Junior. Okay. Where were you born, Mr. Gilmore?	0:23
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Wheatcroft.	0:28
Alex Byrd	Wheatcroft?	0:28
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	0:29
Alex Byrd	Wheatcroft, Kentucky.	0:31
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Kentucky.	0:32
Alex Byrd	What county is that?	0:33
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	In Webster.	0:34
Alex Byrd	Webster.	0:34
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Mm-hmm.	0:35
Alex Byrd	What's your birthday?	0:38
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Six.	0:38
Alex Byrd	Six.	0:38
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	26.	0:39
Alex Byrd	26.	0:39
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	31.	0:41
Alex Byrd	31. You know what I noticed, Mr. Eaves?	0:42
James T. "Red" Eaves	What?	0:45
Alex Byrd	All the men that I ask their birthday, they give me the numbers and all the women I ask, they give me the whole date. (Eaves laughs) I don't know if it's [indistinct 00:00:54] I don't know why that is.	0:46
Alex Byrd	Well, Mr. Gilmore, can you tell me, I'm real interested in your growing up in Wheatcroft and how you ended up from Wheatcroft into the Army.	0:58
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Well, I went to school in Wheatcroft, and when I finished the eighth grade, we moved to Earlington.	1:06
Alex Byrd	Okay. What did you do in Earlington?	1:12
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Well, I went to high school there?	1:21
Alex Byrd	At Million?	1:23
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah, J.W. Million.	1:24
Alex Byrd	Okay. Where did you go after Million?	1:30
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Well, after Million, I went to work in the coal mine.	1:32
Alex Byrd	Okay.	1:37
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Started in the coal mine in 1950.	1:38
Alex Byrd	Did you graduate from Million?	1:44
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Graduated from Million in 1950.	1:46
Alex Byrd	Okay.	1:46
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I got a girl pregnant, (laughs) so I had to get a job in the coal mine.	1:49
Alex Byrd	(all laughing) I was just about to ask you why'd you have to get that job?	1:55
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. I got a girl pregnant, go in the coal mine.	2:02
Alex Byrd	Which mine did you go into?	2:03
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Pleasant View.	2:04
Alex Byrd	Pleasant View? All right. That's the same as—How'd you get that job?	2:05
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Well, my dad-in-law and daddy got the job for me out there.	2:11
Alex Byrd	They had already been working?	2:16
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. They was working here.	2:17
Alex Byrd	Had your father been working in the mines while you were coming up?	2:20
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Father worked in mine all my life. Only place I known to work.	2:22
Alex Byrd	Okay. What did you know before the mines before you got in them?	2:27
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Nothing. Just see people going. Well, I used to go around the mine when I was little and small, and when the guy would get off work and bring their horses and things in, we used to ride them to the stable.	2:30
Alex Byrd	Okay.	2:41
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	So they could feed them.	2:43
Alex Byrd	Okay. About time you got out of high school, went over there to Pleasant View—	2:43
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I delivered papers when I was going through high school.	2:50
Alex Byrd	Okay.	2:50
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Used to deliver Courier Journal.	2:50
Alex Byrd	Okay. The Louisville paper.	2:57
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Mm-hmm.	2:58
Alex Byrd	What was it like? You had never—I mean, you knew your father worked in the mine, then you show up in the mines at 18.	2:58
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	See, I always wanted to go in the mine. When I was little, I used to get there run in the house, play mines all the time. I had my own little mines I had done built under my house.	3:10
Alex Byrd	Okay.	3:19
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Had my little, line it out like a coal mine. (laughs) I'd get off from school out there, I'd get out there and work all day in the mine, supposed to been, and come in and eat in the night. My mother used to have to bathe me. (laughs)	3:19
Alex Byrd	Okay.	3:30
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. About all of that.	3:30
Alex Byrd	Was it anything like you imagined once you showed up there?	3:30
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	3:40
Alex Byrd	What was your first job in the mine?	3:42
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I was a timber man.	3:48
Alex Byrd	Okay. For those of us who—I know what a timber man was now, but only because I just spoke to a man.	3:48
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I'm going to tell you something about that. The first day I worked in the mine, we had a big fall. I didn't even know the way how to get out the mine, but I got scared and I left the mine. I asked a man named Uncle Bud Cox. He'd been working in the mine, he's a timber man. He had a mule he used to haul timber. I didn't know how to get out, so I asked him how to get out. He told me to follow him, because they told me to ride a belt. I didn't know what a belt was and I hadn't been in the mine I guess it was about four hours. I quit, and I went home. I stayed home about two days, wouldn't go back. Finally, my dad and them talked me into going back. I went back, and I said, "I got to do something better than this." I timbered I guess for about five months.	3:51
Alex Byrd	Okay.	4:47
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I learned how to drive a shuttle car.	4:47
Alex Byrd	After that?	4:47
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Mm-hmm. Once I started driving that shuttle car, everything was all right then.	4:47
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah. Hauling coal.	4:47
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Shuttle car, you transfer coal to the belt so they can—	4:48
Alex Byrd	Okay. The belt takes it up to the top?	5:02
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	5:02
Alex Byrd	Okay. What's a loader than, Mr. Eaves?	5:02
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	That's what you load the shuttle car with. They shoot the coal, drill it, and shoot, it then the shuttle car pick it up and put it on my car and I take it to the belt, and the belt on out.	5:02
Alex Byrd	Belt takes it out. Okay. How many men? Did you work with folks that you knew when you were down there?	5:12
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Oh, yeah. Yeah, just about everybody you knew, all but the boss man.	5:17
Alex Byrd	Okay.	5:20
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Later on, got to knew them.	5:21
Alex Byrd	I mean, were there Blacks and Whites in the mine?	5:24
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Yeah.	5:26
Alex Byrd	What were there?	5:28
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	The first man I started working with was a Black, name was Claiborne Woodridge. You remember him?	5:30
James T. "Red" Eaves	Who's that?	5:33
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Claiborne Woodridge from over there, Pistol daddy.	5:35
James T. "Red" Eaves	Oh, okay.	5:37
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	You probably don't remember.	5:38
James T. "Red" Eaves	[indistinct 00:05:39]	5:38
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Claiborne Woodridge. That was Pistol's daddy. Pistol's a mine inspector now. You know him.	5:40
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah. We worked together.	5:49
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. I worked with him and an old man, Cotton. He was a White fellow. We all got along good.	5:50
Alex Byrd	Folks tend to get along?	5:58
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. I never had no trouble, at least when I was there, coal mine.	5:59
Alex Byrd	Was it any different in the mines than it was in the town?	6:04
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Yeah.	6:10
Alex Byrd	what was?	6:10
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	In the mines, take the White fellows, you get along better. You catch them out in the store, where we used to go get our groceries at, they'd be with their wives and would hardly say anything to you. You get in the mine, you got along good. I guess they was afraid you'd talk to their old lady or what, but White fellow wouldn't say nothing to you at the company store.	6:13
Alex Byrd	What did y'all say about that? Did you talk amongst yourselves?	6:37
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No, we didn't. We just go on, and if they didn't speak to us, we didn't speak to them. Just keep on going.	6:44
Alex Byrd	You just noticed.	6:44
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Keep on going.	6:44
Alex Byrd	Did everyone do every kind of job down underneath, Whites and Blacks did all kinds of jobs?	6:50
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Oh, yeah.	6:54
Alex Byrd	Okay.	6:54
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	You work with Blacks, I mean with White and some job White work by themself.	6:55
Alex Byrd	What kind of job would that have been?	7:02
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	A loader, if you're a White man be running the loader, you got the hoist man on the loader or pull your cable, the machine man.	7:03
Alex Byrd	Okay.	7:09
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	My daddy was a machine man, he'd run machine, but he had a White guy hustling for him.	7:10
Alex Byrd	Okay. How long did you stay in the mine when you first?	7:14
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Well now, I worked in the mine for about a year and a half the first time. I got tired and moved to Detroit.	7:22
Alex Byrd	Okay.	7:28
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I was working at a frozen food factory up there in Detroit, Michigan.	7:28
Alex Byrd	Okay.	7:32
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Okay. My mother was passed away. We decided to bring her back to Hopkinsville to bury her.	7:33
Alex Byrd	Okay.	7:41
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	After we brought her back to Hopkinsville, I didn't have any people up in Detroit, so I went back in the coal mine.	7:43
Alex Byrd	Okay. You moved back. How'd you end up in Detroit the first place?	7:49
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I just got tired of working the mine, so I go up there with my mother.	7:53
Alex Byrd	You had people up there, that's how you—	7:57
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	My mother. Mm-hmm. I moved up there with her. After she passed away, I moved back and went back in the mine.	7:58
Alex Byrd	Any difference between living in the big old city of Detroit and Muhlenberg County?	8:06
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Yeah. Detroit was too fast for me. Yeah. You could get in trouble easy up there in Michigan.	8:11
Alex Byrd	A lot of folks in Detroit.	8:22
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. I worked most of the time, so I didn't get a chance to go and I wasn't there long enough.	8:22
Alex Byrd	Okay.	8:34
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No. No.	8:34
Alex Byrd	Were there other folks up there from—	8:34
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	8:34
Alex Byrd	Anyone you knew from around?	8:34
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Well, yeah, but I can't think of the name. The other lady up there we knew, but I don't know her name. She was—Let me see if I can think her name. She had business up there. She had a dry cleaner business, but I can't think of her name. Been so long.	8:35
Alex Byrd	It wasn't like y'all just go up there and get started. There was other people you knew from around here that had gone.	8:48
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	8:50
Alex Byrd	Okay. You worked for a year and a half, then you went up to the frozen food, and then you came back down?	8:54
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Came back here.	8:59
Alex Byrd	Same mine?	9:00
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No, I went to a mine called, what they call it, Slap House. What's Slap House name? We call it Slap House.	9:01
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah. That wasn't the name though.	9:13
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	That wasn't the name of it. Can't think of it myself now.	9:13
Alex Byrd	Do you know why they called it Slap House?	9:17
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No, that's just a nickname.	9:20
Alex Byrd	Just a nickname?	9:20
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. It wasn't Slap House. That's what we all called it, Slap House. That was a good mine too.	9:21
Alex Byrd	Better than—you said good mine?	9:24
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah, better than Pleasant View. Pleasant View had a lot of bad top. Out there, we didn't have much bad top.	9:32
Alex Byrd	Okay. So, safer?	9:34
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. The mules, haul more coal.	9:46
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Atkinson.	9:47
James T. "Red" Eaves	Atkinson.	9:47
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	That's the name, Atkinson. After I think of it a minute, that's the name of it, Atkinson Coal Company.	9:47
James T. "Red" Eaves	[indistinct 00:09:47]	9:47
Alex Byrd	Safer mine.	9:47
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I left from Pleasant View there, used to be the superintendent at Pleasant View picked me to go with him to help open up Agatha.	9:55
Alex Byrd	Okay. Is that still in the county? Still Hopkins County?	9:57
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Yeah.	10:04
Alex Byrd	How long did you work out there?	10:07
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I worked there from 1955. That's when I was drafted in the Army.	10:13
Alex Byrd	Any difference besides it being safer and just a better place to work? Was the coal mining still about the same?	10:18
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No, it about the same.	10:24
Alex Byrd	Where'd you go after you got drafted?	10:27
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Let me see, when I went drafted I took basic training in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Ford Leonard Wood, finished basic, I came to Fort Knox.	10:31
Alex Byrd	Okay. Back to Kentucky.	10:48
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	10:49
Alex Byrd	What was the Army like in the beginning?	10:54
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Oh, it was rough. It was rough in the beginning, but I made sergeant as a US. I called back here and see about how this working, they wasn't working but one or two days. Well shit, I'm sergeant. I had two kids, I said well, "Since I'm a sergeant, got two kids, they got allotment going." I just stayed in because I liked to travel a lot. I just stayed in the Army.	10:56
Alex Byrd	Okay. When you say they had allotment, they'd take part of your check and send it to your kids?	11:13
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. They take part of my check and send it to my kids so I didn't have no. Had me a place to sleep, clothes, three meals a day, hospital and everything paid for. I said, "I'm going to stay in," so I stayed in.	11:22
Alex Byrd	Was the Army any different than what you're, I'm sure the discipline was a little different.	11:32
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Army, after I made sergeant, it alright for me then.	11:36
Alex Byrd	It's got to be all right when you got some stripes.	11:42
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Mm-hmm. Yeah. Got better.	11:46
Alex Byrd	What kind of work did you do in the Army?	11:47
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Well, when I first went in, I was a tank mechanic.	11:49
Alex Byrd	Okay. Would you characterize the kind of race relations in the Army any different than working in the coal mine?	11:53
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Well, yeah. A lot different. Got guys come from big city, you had a little rank, they didn't want you to tell them anything, the White guys. As you go along, you being in the Army, they couldn't be too hard on you because they would get punished.	12:07
Alex Byrd	How'd you deal with that? Did you ever have to deal with folks on trying to buck you because?	12:28
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. I had to deal with it. Well, sometime I come in and the guys didn't make up the beds. I mean, they make up the beds, and the one that give me a lot of trouble when they come in at lunch time and eat because I'd go in and tear the bed up. Then when lunchtime's over, they want to go and take a 15 minute break, they'd have to go in there and make the bed.	12:35
Alex Byrd	Okay.	12:55
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	They'd come to me and want to know why I tore up. I wouldn't tell them, but they finally found out.	12:55
Alex Byrd	Okay.	13:01
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	They said, "Well, we better quit picking on sarge."	13:01
Alex Byrd	These be like, you're talking about privates and folks just out of basic?	13:05
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Yeah, just out of basic.	13:11
Alex Byrd	Okay. How about your ranked superiors? How were relationships?	13:15
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I didn't have any trouble with them.	13:17
Alex Byrd	Okay.	13:17
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No.	13:17
Alex Byrd	How many places did you see? You said you like to travel?	13:26
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Well, when I left Fort Knox, I went to Germany.	13:29
Alex Byrd	Okay.	13:38
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I stayed in Germany I guess about three years. Then I come back to Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.	13:38
Alex Byrd	Okay.	13:44
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I was stationed in Manheim, Germany.	13:50
Alex Byrd	Okay.	13:59
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Got that? I was playing on a German baseball team, and they had baseball just about in every country over there. Belgium, all those places, but they didn't have baseball in Germany.	13:59
Alex Byrd	Okay.	14:10
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	They had two German guys come to America to play baseball, and they came back to Germany and started baseball. They come around to each unit to get a couple guys to help them that know baseball. I was picked, me and another guy. They asked me did I want to play for them. I told them yeah. Reason I got to play for them is because my battalion commander married one of the German guys' sister.	14:10
Alex Byrd	Okay.	14:41
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	He give me a break to play with them. I played with them for three years when I was in Germany, and I came back, that's when I came back to Aberdeen Proving Ground.	14:41
Alex Byrd	Okay. You don't have to, I just use this as [indistinct 00:14:57]	14:56
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I was in Aberdeen Proving Ground for I guess about six months.	14:57
Alex Byrd	Okay.	15:03
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I got orders to go back to Germany, right back at Manheim, right back on the same baseball team, and I played three more years with them. Same team.	15:04
Alex Byrd	I have a feeling they was moving you around for baseball.	15:15
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah, but the only reason all this happened is because the battalion commander was married to these two brothers' sister, the last name was Helmut. That's all I know. It's a German name. I played with them for three more years. Then when I come back this time from over there, I came to Fort Riley, Kansas.	15:16
Alex Byrd	Okay. Big Red One. No?	15:35
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Fort Riley, Kansas. I stayed at Fort Riley, and then I was transferred to Washington.	15:41
Alex Byrd	That's your whole?	15:54
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No, Washington, and then I went back to Germany. After I came back from Germany this time, I came to Utah.	15:57
Alex Byrd	Okay.	16:06
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Tooele, Utah. I didn't like it there, and I volunteered for Vietnam.	16:06
Alex Byrd	What year did you go over?	16:22
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	19, I think it was, I believe it was '68.	16:24
Alex Byrd	About '68. How many tours did you do?	16:33
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Well, I stayed in Vietnam two and a half years. I came back to Fort Campbell, I was a drill sergeant in Fort Campbell in 1971 and stopped drills, you know, they cut their basic training out in Fort Campbell. Then I left there and went to Fort Benning, Georgia.	16:35
Alex Byrd	Okay.	17:15
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	When I got to Fort Benning, Georgia, I was in charge of project transition. That's when they started a school and started putting GIs out the Army, they call themself setting up a school to teach them some kind of training that they could do when they get out.	17:15
Alex Byrd	Okay. That was for when they start downsizing?	17:31
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. When started time for them to get out the Army, they started letting them go to school so they could teach some kind of trade they could do when they get out the Army. It didn't last for about two and a half year, so they stopped it.	17:34
Alex Byrd	Okay.	17:49
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Then I went back to my old outfit as a supply sergeant, and that's where I retired at as a supply sergeant. Came back to Madisonville in 1975.	17:55
Alex Byrd	From there you went back to?	18:10
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Back in the coal mine. 1975 went back to the coal mine.	18:20
Alex Byrd	I'm going to try and take you back to Wheatcroft for a little while more and try and figure out, just have you tell me what kind of place that was to grow up.	18:34
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Man, I was so young, it was all right.	18:44
Alex Byrd	Didn't spend much time? How much?	18:49
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	We had a lot of playing, stuff to do. I remember when we were small, used to steal apples and watermelon, swim.	18:50
Alex Byrd	Did you have to work around the house when you were a youngster?	19:04
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Oh, no. I didn't have much work. No, not that I know. I wasn't doing no work. Most of the time, I was playing.	19:05
Alex Byrd	Playing. How long did you stay in Wheatcroft?	19:16
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I was born in Wheatcroft?	19:16
Alex Byrd	You were born there.	19:16
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. I left Wheatcroft in the eighth grade. I don't know. I finished in '50s, so I went to school four years in Earlington. Say '50 by the time I left Wheatcroft.	19:18
Alex Byrd	Okay.	19:37
James T. "Red" Eaves	Wheatcroft was a mining town.	19:37
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. It was a mining town.	19:42
Alex Byrd	Mining town?	19:42
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	19:42
Alex Byrd	Okay.	19:42
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Usually, when the mines close down, people—	19:45
Alex Byrd	People just take off.	19:48
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Take off, and then it got so that the companies, that's when they started selling the houses. That's where they kept people in these mining towns.	19:49
Alex Byrd	Okay.	19:56
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Back then, when a mining town go down, they just moved them.	19:56
Alex Byrd	Okay.	19:58
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Now, up in the years, they started selling the people that work for the coal mine the houses.	20:02
Alex Byrd	They'd sell the mining house?	20:08
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Sell them out really cheap, didn't they, Mr. Eaves?	20:08
James T. "Red" Eaves	Real cheap. [Indistinct 00:20:12] leaving because there wasn't no work.	20:11
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Wasn't no work, so they just—now they got to start selling the houses, [indistinct 00:20:22].	20:17
Alex Byrd	Okay.	20:17
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	You see that town going down, sold it to the man working the mine the houses. You take about a three room house and get it for 11 or 1200 dollars.	20:25
Alex Byrd	Wow.	20:36
James T. "Red" Eaves	Most of them were box houses.	20:36
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Shotgun houses.	20:40
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah. Box, shotgun, whatever you want to call it. Three rooms, had a road. Most of them are coal miners.	20:42
Alex Byrd	Would the folks pretty much leave the folks living in the mining houses, would they leave the houses as they were or did they improve upon them or they were just living in them?	20:54
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No, they probably didn't for lack of wood.	21:21
James T. "Red" Eaves	I tell you, some of the houses, [indistinct 00:21:22] See, now you must remember, a company got to make money. Them houses running down, [indistinct 00:21:22] people would get wood off of the houses for burning. If they caught you, you pay for it. They might tell you for the whole house.	21:21
Alex Byrd	If no one was living in this house and it was going down, sometimes folks would come and get wood off of it?	21:36
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Mm-hmm.	21:39
Alex Byrd	But you better not get caught. (laughs)	21:41
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Nope. They make you pay for the whole house.	21:42
James T. "Red" Eaves	That's [indistinct 00:21:50] not much you could do about it.	21:46
Alex Byrd	Did the company always have to come out ahead or on top, or were there really times where the coal miners or the folks living in the mining town made a little leeway against the company?	22:00
James T. "Red" Eaves	Well, I'll tell you. If you's fighting the man and they got a double wide shotgun and you ain't got nothing, you know who's going to come out ahead.	22:10
Alex Byrd	19 times out of 20, but sometimes don't the shotgun jam or something?	22:23
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	22:30
James T. "Red" Eaves	You know what kind of chance you got, slim or none.	22:32
Alex Byrd	You just got to say something to get to that.	22:38
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I'm going to say about the same thing.	22:40
Alex Byrd	Y'all didn't much come out on top too much, not against the company.	22:45
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No. Only way you come out against the company, you didn't come out then. You'd get hurt you might gain a little but you still don't come out. That's what happened to me. See now, I got hurt in the mine '79, and I didn't have work since then. Took me from '79 to '82.	22:49
James T. "Red" Eaves	Get your compensation.	23:07
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	To get my compensation and everything. But now, I'm living a good life. By me retiring from the Army, see I got an Army check retirement. By me being hurt in the mine, I'm living me a good life now.	23:07
James T. "Red" Eaves	[indistinct 00:23:22]	23:21
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I still have trouble with my back.	23:22
Alex Byrd	Right.	23:23
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I'm living a good life now.	23:23
Alex Byrd	Back then, if you got hurt in the mines, if you got hurt in the mines in '51 or '52.	23:27
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	You wouldn't have got much then.	23:33
Alex Byrd	Okay.	23:35
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	You do now.	23:35
Alex Byrd	Okay.	23:40
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Back when I started in '50, it was a non-union mine. Now, it's a union. That's a lot of different in the mine. Back when I was working, it was non-union. Things was different when the mines become union. A man could take your job back in them days.	23:40
Alex Byrd	That was one of the differences?	24:00
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. I run the shuttle car, a man come in the mine back in them days, he was a better shuttle car driver than I was, he could take my job. Now union, only way he get your job is you getting ready to get off of it and you need that to bid for your job.	24:03
Alex Byrd	Okay.	24:13
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Back them days, they could take your job.	24:13
Alex Byrd	Did you always have to be a better shuttle car driver?	24:14
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Back in them days.	24:19
Alex Byrd	Or you could be a worse shuttle car driver?	24:19
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	That's back in the union.	24:26
Alex Byrd	Okay.	24:29
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Now since the union, they can't take your job. Back then, we'd take a man like Mr. Eaves was for the loader runner, and if I want to, that's back in the non-union.	24:29
Alex Byrd	Non-union.	24:42
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	If I wanted to help him, wouldn't be nothing said. But now, since it's gone union, if Mr. Eaves is the loader runner and I get off—and I'm driving the shuttle car and I get off my shuttle car to go help Mr. Eaves on his loader, they'll call you a scab. They think, now, union man now, all he do is drive a shuttle car. He ain't supposed to do nothing else. You ain't got no what you call buddy-buddy system like when I come up.	24:43
Alex Byrd	Y'all would help each other.	25:09
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. When I come up in the mine, we'd help each other. If I see Mr. Eaves doing something and he be strained, I go on and help him. Buddy-buddy system. Nowadays, them guys see you doing something like that, they over there in corner "Ha ha, look at them." Instead of getting off and helping, if you get of and help him, they'll call you a scab, won't they, Mr. Eaves?	25:09
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, they will.	25:25
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Call you a scab in a minute.	25:26
James T. "Red" Eaves	A lot of them will do something to you.	25:27
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. They do something to you. Sure do. If you get off and go help you buddy now, man, they call you a scab and get to fighting now because he get on with his buddy and get out in the bath house, and guy talking about you're nothing but a scab. You're down there helping your other buddy. That's just the way the old guys was.	25:32
Alex Byrd	Changed.	25:47
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	These young guys, they don't.	25:47
Alex Byrd	Do one job.	25:51
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	25:52
Alex Byrd	All the way though.	26:43
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. They think one job now.	26:43
James T. "Red" Eaves	I might add, non-union was pretty powerful back in those days. Why it wasn't union, a union [indistinct 00:26:44] bought every mine down in [indistinct 00:26:44] When they bought the mines, it wasn't union. Everything in West Kentucky wasn't union. That time the union come into effect in West Kentucky, had a few scattered mines, but most everything in Webster County all up to Butler County, that's up on other side of Muhlenberg. Most all of it was private. Now of course Muhlenberg was a pretty strong union. They had union mines up there.	26:43
Alex Byrd	Right.	26:50
James T. "Red" Eaves	Say down in here, law enforcement was against organized labor. You couldn't get fined. Of course, if you picket, the county judge and sheriff would stop you. You wouldn't be allowed but two men to picket. Two men around there, they're liable to beat the hell out of you doing anything. I remember the turning point was about I guess 2000 people out of West Virginia, Muhlenberg, [indistinct 00:27:38] down there and picket the mine West Virginia on. They stopped the whole production. Of course, when everybody went back home, they started right back up. You remember that, don't you?	26:50
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No, I was in the Army then. Yeah. Yeah. I don't remember that because I was in the Army at that time. When I left and went to coal mine—When I left, when I was here, it wasn't but usually one man around here out of West Kentucky Coal Company. They went union a year before I went in the Army. I believe it was 1954.	27:56
James T. "Red" Eaves	'54-'55.	28:14
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. '54-'55 when they went, because I went in the Army in '55 and they were just beginning to go union.	28:14
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah.	28:22
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I stayed in the Army 20 years and six months, so when I come back, everything was organized as a union mine.	28:24
James T. "Red" Eaves	All the old miners that worked West Kentucky, they put them in unions, some of them [indistinct 00:28:39] They had never worked in a union mine. They wanted them in the union, so they [indistinct 00:28:51] rough on them too.	28:31
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Union mine was better than scab because your benefits were better. You got more benefits. Your wife.	28:50
James T. "Red" Eaves	That hospitalization means a whole lot.	28:59
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Oh, sure did.	29:02
James T. "Red" Eaves	That hospitalization now, I go I pay five dollars because of the prescriptions up to $50. When I pay $50, then all my medicine is free. If you go to the hospital, as many times I been to the hospital, I never paid a thing.	29:16
Alex Byrd	That's union benefits?	29:30
James T. "Red" Eaves	That's union.	29:32
Alex Byrd	Well, when you were first coming up into the mines, how did you do all of those things that Mr. Eaves just talked about that nowadays the union helps take care of? You said your wife was pregnant. How would you? Would you just pay cash for all of that? How'd you get by?	29:37
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	When I come up, my wife had two kids and I ain't never know here to go to the hospital. The doctors always come to the house.	29:57
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah.	30:03
Alex Byrd	Okay. Was this a company doctor?	30:04
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Yeah. Had a company doctor used to come. What's that doctor's name? It wasn't Earl. I forget his name now. [Indistinct 00:30:15] it was Dr. Cleveland used to come, Black doctor and people's working in the mine, he used to come. I guess he just come and cut the baby's naval string or something because you had the babies at home.	30:06
James T. "Red" Eaves	You see, back in those days, they had always some women in the neighborhood delivered babies. I forget what did they call them. What did they call them?	30:27
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Midwife or something like this?	30:40
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah. Midwife.	30:41
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	30:41
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah. Yeah.	30:41
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	They'd come help others have babies. You take some of them people at 13 and 14 babies, and mostly when I come up, that was common to me. Yeah. One family have 12-13 kids. I just lucky my mother just had two, but she wasn't around a coal mining town all her life.	30:44
Alex Byrd	The doctor, the company had a doctor and that's how you did your healthcare.	31:10
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Back in them days, people didn't go to the hospital.	31:14
Alex Byrd	You said the company doctor was a Black doctor.	31:21
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Well, sometime Black. I think Doctor Cleveland was about the only Black doctor around that time. Rest of them was White. Doc Collins was our doctor down in Wheatcroft. He's a White doctor.	31:23
Alex Byrd	Okay.	31:32
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	That's his name, Doctor Collins.	31:35
James T. "Red" Eaves	Now, a lot of wives would go to Hopkinsville, and they had two Black doctors. Doctor Moore and Doctor Brooks.	31:36
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Because my mother got sick in Wheatcroft, and we took her all the way to Hopkinsville so Doctor Booth could take care of her.	31:48
Alex Byrd	Okay. Folks knew where the doctor.	31:51
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	She was from up around that way.	31:53
Alex Byrd	Okay.	31:53
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	We took her up there.	31:57
Alex Byrd	What things did the company either provide or pretend to provide before the days that the union came that took care of?	32:06
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Well, back in them days, they had a company store. I guess you heard that record, how it go, you know—	32:16
Alex Byrd	Owe my soul—	32:25
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Owe my soul to the company store, and that was true.	32:28
Alex Byrd	Worked 16 hours—	32:32
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	That was true. I worked in the coal mine back then, I guess I had about four years in the coal mine altogether. I didn't know when payday comes, and I'm going to tell it to, I didn't know when payday comes. Everyday was payday to me because we could go to the company store. You might think I'm telling a tale, but it's true. Ned probably told you the same thing. But you could go to the company store and get a $10 book or whatever you could get. If you a good worker, you could get you a $10 book every day. I was a good worker. We was working one or two days, but I'd get about three days, four days a week because I work overtime.	32:36
Alex Byrd	Okay.	33:14
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I work my job, come out in the evening and somebody didn't show up, I'd go on and work again. I could get money. We used to get $10 or $20 every day. You could get a $10 book and sell it for $8.50.	33:14
Alex Byrd	Okay.	33:26
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Got a guy behind the store buying them from you. I never was broke. Then, my first car, a White guy needed a washing machine, so I bought him a brand new washing machine and he paid me the car for the washing machine. I bought it through the company store. You could get anything you wanted back.	33:28
Alex Byrd	He wasn't a miner.	33:50
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No, he wasn't a miner. That's the way to do it. Buy them books and people that wasn't working in the mine, them guys was buying them books and they'd make some money off of it. We'd sell them for $8.50 which we lose about $2 and a half. They sell them to make a little more money.	33:52
Alex Byrd	If you didn't sell the books, they were for use in the store?	34:10
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. That's what I said. You could go to the company store and get anything you want. They took care of their men. Go to the store and get your food, your house.	34:17
James T. "Red" Eaves	You could always tell a guy from West Kentucky the clothes he wore. They had some of the best clothes in there in [indistinct 00:34:36]	34:28
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Them dogs, they got them shoes. Yeah, boy.	34:28
James T. "Red" Eaves	Military suit, or any kind of suit you want. If they didn't have it—	34:28
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	They'd get it for you.	34:47
Alex Byrd	They'd get it.	34:48
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	If you didn't go up to the store and see a washing machine or something the didn't have, they'd tell you to come around and they'd get it for you. Car, they'd get you a car. I remember—	34:51
James T. "Red" Eaves	I'd like to add one thing too. I built my garage to put my car in, you saw my garage. I went over and talked to Chris, "I want to build a garage," he said "Well, you go [indistinct 00:35:17] and get anything you want and have them send me the bill."	35:03
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Send them the bill.	35:12
James T. "Red" Eaves	I ordered all the materials I wanted to build my garage.	35:12
Alex Byrd	There was a convenience to it.	35:12
James T. "Red" Eaves	It was convenient.	35:12
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	See, back in them days, Earlington was dry. You couldn't drink nothing in Earlington, and we used to go to a little old town called Mannington or Dawson Springs and get drunk and be heading back home and the police would pick us up and put us in jail for drunk. Or transporting, if we go get us some beer and bring it back up, they'd get you for transporting beer from a wet county to a dry county. Police put you in jail, and all you had to do was get up the next morning and call the company store, "Tell Mr. Chris I'm in jail." (Byrd laughs)	35:31
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	He'd call up there and tell the men let you out. You'd come out, you'd go to work and pay your fine. You know what, you could go up there and get anything you want, but take payment out by how you work. They didn't set no $50 to $100 a month. If you work, they take out $5, $10 just so you make some kind of payment.	36:01
Alex Byrd	Okay.	36:20
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	They pretty good to you. Now, if you didn't work, you couldn't get nothing. Had a woman up there, we call her Joe Black.	36:23
James T. "Red" Eaves	What was her name?	36:32
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Oh, shoot. Ms. Victor?	36:36
James T. "Red" Eaves	Victor. Yeah.	36:38
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	She kept that down. That was her job, she kept that down. She see you coming, if you didn't work, you start shaking her head. When a man named Chris, you can get anything that you want from him.	36:40
James T. "Red" Eaves	He didn't care if you worked or not.	36:51
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	We used to go up there after lunchtime if we couldn't get nothing. As long as Mr. Joe, we called her Joe Black, Victor, as long as she was in there, them guys would stand over there and talk. As soon as she go to lunch, here they come. Mr. Chris would laugh, but he'd let you have anything. He didn't care because he know they going to get to work. They going to get it anyway.	36:54
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah. He'd let you have it.	37:16
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	He'd let you have anything. Let me tell you what got me started, I was married. I was living in a little old house, little small house, but it was a fellow that came to Earlington and he got married to Ms. Essie. You remember Ms. Essie, Eaves? I never do remember that man's name. He married her and worked in the mine?	37:19
James T. "Red" Eaves	I may remember the name, but I can't—	37:37
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I can't think of the name, but Ms. Essie and he got ready to leave. He had a car, a house, and a house full of furniture. He decided he was going to leave so he went up to the store and told Chris he was getting ready to leave, get rid of his house. I was a good worker, and Mr. Chris called me and asked me, know I had got married asked me did I want a house. I bought the house, the car, the furniture, didn't pay nothing down. Just Mr. Chris called up asking me did I want a house.	37:40
Alex Byrd	Did you want it.	38:06
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Did I want a house, car, and furniture and I told him yeah. I signed my name on a piece of paper, the next day I moved in. Bought the house and all of that, car. Sure did.	38:09
Alex Byrd	Did you know by the time you went to the Army all that was taken care of? How'd you know when you were finished?	38:22
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	When I went in the Army, I turned mostly everything over to my brother-in-law.	38:28
Alex Byrd	Okay.	38:31
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I let him have the house, car, and I don't know what he done with it now.	38:31
Alex Byrd	You didn't have to worry about anything.	38:33
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No. I just did it because he was working in the mine and Mr. Chris know that I just let him have it.	38:39
James T. "Red" Eaves	[indistinct 00:38:43]	38:41
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	38:41
James T. "Red" Eaves	Did it together, you know what I mean.	38:41
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	When I went in the Army, I couldn't pay for nothing. I wasn't getting but seven, eight dollars a month.	38:50
Alex Byrd	Okay.	38:56
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I mean, that seven or eight dollars, by the time I took some out to make allotment out for my kids, I was drawing $35-40 a month. I was smoking, I'd go smoke, buy me some cigarettes that the Army didn't give you that and go buy me some beer, I was broke. Clothes, food, and a place to sleep, by me being in the Army, I had that. That's one reason I stayed in. All my medical and everything was taken care of, my wife, my kid. When I was in the Army, if my kid got sick—	38:58
Alex Byrd	Just take them to base.	39:25
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Take them to Army base. You could take them over here to the medical center and the Army would take care of it.	39:30
Alex Byrd	Okay.	39:33
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. That's one reason I stayed in. I was having trouble with my wife too. I'm trying to go up there and get me some money so we going to separate, I'm trying to get me some money to have ball, she trying to get money for the kids clothes. I was in between.	39:34
James T. "Red" Eaves	Those women can get that money.	39:52
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	39:53
Alex Byrd	They could get it all.	39:53
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. We be working, you come in, them women went up there and got what they want. They let them have it too. Whole life. Then you go up there and got to get something, "Well, your wife got this and that." Well, you're in trouble then. You better make sure your buddy got some money. Back in them days, good to have a buddy that wasn't married. Yeah.	39:55
Alex Byrd	You was in the Army, you needed a friend that was single.	40:16
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Oh, yes. I mean, in the coal mine, man single, you could get a little money, you was tight.	40:24
Alex Byrd	You was talking about the coal mines that the wife could come up and get your money from the coal mine?	40:28
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Oh, yeah.	40:32
Alex Byrd	Oh, I thought he was talking about the Army.	40:33
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No. They didn't get your money in the Army.	40:36
Alex Byrd	Oh, in the coal mines.	40:36
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No, you make out your money to them in the Army.	40:39
Alex Byrd	Okay.	40:39
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	You make an allotment and the Army takes so much from you, your money, and they put so much in the allotment.	40:39
Alex Byrd	Okay. In the coal mine.	40:46
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	In the coal mine, you'd be at work and your wife go to that company store and get whatever she want. They let her have it.	40:51
James T. "Red" Eaves	Especially if they know she had kids.	40:57
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	41:05
James T. "Red" Eaves	Better have money [indistinct 00:41:06]	41:05
Alex Byrd	You said especially you had kids?	41:05
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	41:05
Alex Byrd	Wow.	41:06
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	They going to make sure you take care of them kids or go to jail, one.	41:06
Alex Byrd	They kept an eye one—	41:13
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Back then, I mean, we wasn't making much money. These laws and things stickier on you back then than they is now. These people right now got kids, they don't do nothing to them. Back then, we had to pay or we went to jail. All right.	41:14
Alex Byrd	Someone was telling me, this was in Muhlenberg County, about what they call, I don't know if they call them Possum Hunters? Something.	41:30
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Oh, yeah.	41:40
Alex Byrd	Explain that to me so I can see if it was the same thing.	41:42
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Well, I guess you's talking about when you're hunting.	41:48
Alex Byrd	No, I'm not talking about hunting possum.	41:49
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Uh, oh.	41:49
James T. "Red" Eaves	We had that word, it was something—	41:49
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I don't know about that.	41:49
James T. "Red" Eaves	Something similar to the Klan—	41:49
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Oh, okay. I don't know about that.	41:49
James T. "Red" Eaves	They had a guy mistreated his family, this is a White man.	41:49
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Okay. Okay.	41:49
James T. "Red" Eaves	And some Black guys in the area.	42:06
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Oh.	42:07
James T. "Red" Eaves	A guy mistreated his family, or what, they'd find him, take him out in the woods and beat the shit out of him.	42:12
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Beat the shit out of them, okay. Okay.	42:12
Alex Byrd	Tell him to stop.	42:12
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Okay. Yeah. I don't know about that.	42:13
James T. "Red" Eaves	I used to remember. Yeah.	42:22
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I didn't know about.	42:28
James T. "Red" Eaves	[indistinct 00:42:29] live in the community, participating.	42:28
James T. "Red" Eaves	If he go home, and damage his kid, his old lady, something like that, shit, they'll lay in wait on him, and they'd get his ass too, man. It didn't take a lot of time up. They'd whoop his ass like they whooping a baby.	42:28
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I ain't remember that.	42:28
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah. I remember. See, I'm a bit older.	42:28
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Yeah. I don't remember that.	42:28
Alex Byrd	The company then, if there are any domestic troubles like what Mr. Eaves was talking about, if there were men who were mistreating their wives and stuff, would the company get involved?	42:55
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No. No. No.	43:03
James T. "Red" Eaves	Like I said, she goes to the sheriff, something that serious they go to the sheriff. [indistinct 00:43:16] ain't nobody. Unless they whoop them extra hard where he couldn't work.	43:04
Alex Byrd	Okay.	43:23
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	When I come over, if I done something wrong my wife or kids, my daddy would call me and talk to me.	43:32
James T. "Red" Eaves	Back in those days, the community was pretty close together. If somebody died in the neighborhood, the men would get together that morning, take some shovels, and dig the grave and bury them.	43:47
Alex Byrd	Okay.	43:56
James T. "Red" Eaves	That's one thing about a coal mining town. Just about everybody knew everybody.	43:57
Alex Byrd	It was a tight community.	43:57
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Yeah. We did it.	44:02
James T. "Red" Eaves	We'd help each other.	44:02
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Help each other.	44:02
Alex Byrd	Was it ever dangerous in the coal mining town being in that tight community?	44:08
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Danger.	44:11
James T. "Red" Eaves	Man got killed, everybody there [indistinct 00:44:17]	44:14
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Danger.	44:14
James T. "Red" Eaves	Looked like one guy got killed back then, seemed like it was one out of your own family people were so close together. [indistinct 00:44:34] biggest killer in the coal mines back then.	44:21
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	44:36
Alex Byrd	It was dangerous most in the mines, but I'm wondering whether the coal mining town itself? Was that?	44:37
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Yeah. Down in the Wheatcroft.	44:43
Alex Byrd	What you have to watch for in coal mining?	44:48
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Down there in Wheatcroft, somebody get killed down there just about every week, weekend. You got them guys that wasn't working, they get to gambling, and they wasn't working that's all they doing is at the gambling table. They gamble all week, some little guy would get broke and they'd be trying to take a coal miner man, take his money. Coal mine will kill you.	44:48
James T. "Red" Eaves	All of them [indistinct 00:45:18] They'd shoot them too.	45:14
Alex Byrd	They shoot the coal miner?	45:20
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No, shoot the man.	45:20
Alex Byrd	Oh.	45:20
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Shoot, somebody said all they had was a knife or gun on them, and they'd shoot you and didn't care. The police back in them days, the police scare of them guys. Them guys get killed down, that's Wheatcroft now. You get guys, somebody get killed just about every—Somebody didn't get killed in a week it's a good day.	45:25
Alex Byrd	Crazy.	45:42
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Somebody get shot and you go get the police, first thing he'd ask you, "Is he dead?" Because he'd be scared to go out there.	45:45
James T. "Red" Eaves	He wouldn't go.	45:53
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No, he wouldn't go.	45:55
James T. "Red" Eaves	He wasn't going.	45:55
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Sure wasn't. Wouldn't do nothing to it.	45:55
James T. "Red" Eaves	If he made it back to the, in other words, he killed a man in town and he made it back to the camp where he lived, nine times out of ten, police won't go in there.	46:01
Alex Byrd	They're not going to go in the coal mining camp.	46:06
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	You had a lot of guys round there wasn't working, and them coal miners working, them guys would lay out there fool with them coal miners' wives. Taking their money, take—	46:10

Alex Byrd	Okay.	0:01
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Close the tape a minute now.	0:03
Alex Byrd	No, I'm saying that—Let me pause—	0:04
Alex Byrd	[INTERRUPTION 00:00:05]	0:05
Alex Byrd	There we go.	0:05
Alex Byrd	If there were places that were dangerous in the camp, then were there places where folks would try to keep their children away from or—	0:06
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Oh, yeah. We had a good time place called the Jingle. That's where you'd go dance, drink. But like I said, it was—Everything was dry, but people used to go there. You know, a guy would go out, bring it in, then they'd sell it. Something like a bootleg place, in a container. We had that same thing in Arlington. What's that place in Arlington? It was a park. Mr. Lou Dixon used to run. But you know what?	0:23
James T. "Red" Eaves	He had one of those houses that people would go to and drink. Then one time, it was somebody that wasn't long distance. A get together, something like a shoe fly.	1:02
Alex Byrd	Shoe Fly?	1:08
James T. "Red" Eaves	Shoe fly. And people would get there, go there and drink, gamble. And then the next week, it would be somebody else's house. We just rotated around. You see? When that played out, then somebody would just start selling it regular. There in Lisman. A lot of times, the police knew it.	1:14
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. They used to be out. They paid those police off to keep them from coming and getting them. You paid them so much, they wouldn't bother you. Only thing they—	1:31
Alex Byrd	Were these things mostly organized—I mean, were like the Jingles or the park, or any shoe fly, from time to time, were those interracial things or was it just Blacks or—	1:44
James T. "Red" Eaves	No. Blacks.	2:10
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No. Blacks.	2:10
Alex Byrd	Just Blacks?	2:10
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Mm-hmm. Just Blacks.	2:10
James T. "Red" Eaves	Every once in a while, you might find—They might bring one White guy with him. You know? But most of it's always Blacks.	2:10
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	It's mostly Blacks.	2:10
James T. "Red" Eaves	But you know, White and Black got along in Arlington and in Charleston. Better than many places in West Kentucky.	2:20
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Sure did.	2:20
Alex Byrd	Some other places just didn't get along?	2:20
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No. Uh-uh.	2:20
James T. "Red" Eaves	No. They just didn't associate period.	2:20
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Mm-hmm. Yep. Sure didn't.	2:20
Alex Byrd	Do you think that might have been because—I mean, were there just Blacks in higher positions in those towns, or what?	2:28
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah. You'd find some White guys, but just regular guys. You know? Pretty decent guys. Then you'd find some, you could look at their neck and tell that they were a redneck. You see? And they worked with you because they had to. They didn't have no other choice. And when they got through working, they'd go their way and you'd go there. And sometimes you'd see them on the street. By themselves, they'd speak. But if the wife was with them, they'd look the other direction. But now if your wife was with you, they'd always want to be up in your face, talking to you.	2:47
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. They'd come to you as long as you were with your wife. They think you're supposed to talk to them. But when they're with their wives, they don't want you.	3:27
Alex Byrd	Did bands and stuff come through here then?	3:27
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Oh, yes. Yes.	3:27
Alex Byrd	Bands and like, tent shows and that kind of stuff, that y'all were going to?	3:39
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No, we used to get—	3:40
James T. "Red" Eaves	I went to hear Ray Charles for 50 cents.	3:40
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	B.B. King.	3:40
Alex Byrd	Ray Charles, B.B. King.	3:40
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yep. Uh-huh.	3:40
James T. "Red" Eaves	B.B. King, I guess he was in Hopkinsville in [indistinct 00:03:45].	3:40
Alex Byrd	Okay.	3:40
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Well now, he was here in—They were all at the park in Arlington.	3:40
Alex Byrd	Yeah, he came to their—	3:45
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah.	4:01
Alex Byrd	—He came to the park?	4:02
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah, in Arlington.	4:04
Alex Byrd	Weren't you just telling me that?	4:04
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	4:04
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, Ray Charles and B.B. King, all of them. Yeah.	4:04
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Bobby Blue Bland, all of them came to us. And Z.Z. Hill was in [indistinct 00:04:11].	4:07
Alex Byrd	This was back in the '50s?	4:11
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Well, see here. See, they weren't popping then. But you couldn't get them here now.	4:13
Alex Byrd	Okay.	4:15
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No, no. Shoot, ain't no way in the world you can get them here now.	4:16
James T. "Red" Eaves	They had a big park there in Arlington, and it was an extra large building. And they'd get all those popular bands in there.	4:18
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Sure would. Cost you about a dollar.	4:31
James T. "Red" Eaves	The first time I heard Ray Charles, it was 50 cents.	4:31
Alex Byrd	Fifty cents. Well, did y'all listen to radio at all?	4:36
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Oh, yes. We didn't have no TVs back then. That's all you listened to, the radio.	4:39
Alex Byrd	What shows would you get on the radio then? Did you get Ray Charles and B.B. King or anybody be—	4:42
James T. "Red" Eaves	No.	4:47
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No. Uh-uh.	4:47
James T. "Red" Eaves	Well, here's the thing about it, shit, didn't but a few people have radios.	4:47
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Sure didn't.	4:51
Alex Byrd	Okay.	4:51
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Uh-uh. It wasn't but a few people—	4:51
James T. "Red" Eaves	First TV I ever owned, I couldn't even see nothing on it.	4:51
Alex Byrd	You didn't get no stations?	4:51
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No. Nothing but static. You might hearing them talking. You'd try to figure out what they're doing.	4:51
Alex Byrd	But you couldn't get no picture?	4:51
James T. "Red" Eaves	Well, I was sick too.	4:51
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	They came out with these cable and stuff, and then it made it better.	4:51
Alex Byrd	Well what about all these—I mean, like now, in and around Muhlenberg County, you can't ride on any street, or anywhere around here really, without all these streets named after these country music singers or something. Bluegrass or—Did that music play? Did Black folks listen to that music? Moses Rager and—	5:15
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No, I—	5:37
Alex Byrd	—all those folks?	5:37
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	—I didn't. Uh-uh.	5:37
James T. "Red" Eaves	No. Typically, this place always has been with the Blues and Jazz. Because I'd hear the guys say the fellows coming out of the south. Now see, those people grew up out down that way, like B.B. King. And said, "When I die, I decide."	5:37
James T. "Red" Eaves	He first started off in Memphis, Tennessee. But if he made it to Kansas City and got through, he was ready for the world. That's meaning your trying out parts. Kansas City, that was a pretty popular back in those days—	6:10
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	In those days.	6:24
James T. "Red" Eaves	—that Blacks were coming out to—I have a paper of this older guy that wrote those songs back in those—Old man Dawson. I don't know if you remember him or not, Bruce, but I have a paper from him and this woman, singing religious songs. Then if you made it through Kansas City, you were ready for the world. Mm-hmm.	6:36
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	You were ready.	6:57
Alex Byrd	But were they local guys? Any local Black bands or—	6:57
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah. Yeah, we had a—	7:01
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Jimmy Church.	7:02
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah. We had now—	7:04
Alex Byrd	Jimmy Church?	7:04
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah. We had a Black friend, a Burton Greene, about where you were staying. I guess that was before your grade.	7:05
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Well, you know Danny Crowe them had one there?	7:12
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, that's right. Danny Crowe them had [indistinct 00:07:16].	7:13
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Danny Crowe them, that's the same—Yep. Danny Crowe and—what's his—	7:17
James T. "Red" Eaves	And before then, they had one in [indistinct 00:07:22].	7:19
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	7:19
James T. "Red" Eaves	Do you remember the Morton guy, when we come through today?	7:19
Alex Byrd	Yeah. I remember the town Morton guy.	7:19
James T. "Red" Eaves	And that big old fat guy that played the piano. And let me see, this guy played the saxophone. I don't know, it's been long ago. They made music. I remember one time, we had a hall up there [indistinct 00:07:46]. It was on a hill. And they took a wagon and mule, put this piano in the wagon, and took it out of the church.	7:26
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	The church. Mm-hmm.	7:49
James T. "Red" Eaves	And carried it to this hall, man.	7:53
Alex Byrd	That's serious.	8:01
James T. "Red" Eaves	Huh?	8:01
Alex Byrd	That's serious. I get it. Were these guys, Jimmy Church and Danny Crowe and folks like that, were they just performers?	8:01
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah.	8:04
Alex Byrd	Or did they have other jobs as well?	8:05
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No, they had other jobs.	8:07
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah.	8:07
Alex Byrd	Okay.	8:07
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Like Danny Crowe them, they were teaching school, but he was teaching music.	8:09
Alex Byrd	Okay.	8:12
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	And he played with that little band, him and—I'm trying to think of this—What was the man's name who played with Danny Crowe?	8:13
Alex Byrd	Who played with Danny Crowe?	8:22
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Mm-hmm.	8:22
James T. "Red" Eaves	I never did know too many of them, but I remember him pretty well.	8:22
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah, because he left here and went down to the Job Corps and made him up a band. He used to come around here and play all the time. Now what's his name? But Danny Crowe, I think Danny Crowe played the sax.	8:26
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, he did play the sax.	8:36
Alex Byrd	Would this have been—Danny Crowe and Jimmy Church, is this in the '50s and '60s, or is this like—	8:38
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Mm-hmm.	8:41
Alex Byrd	Okay.	8:41
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Jimmy Church still has a nice band. His son has it now. Jimmy Church was from around Hopkinsville, down that way.	8:43
James T. "Red" Eaves	You know they used to have a band up there in Muhlenberg County, Burt Jones and—And one of the guys that played in that band, a little small White guy, and he died of—about six months ago. He got a big black lung surgery or something. I think he got way up there. He lived—Because he built a church and put it up under that thing, and right after that, he died. I just can't think of his name. But I remember Burt Young, well.	8:50
Alex Byrd	So his name was Burt Young?	9:34
James T. "Red" Eaves	Right.	9:35
Alex Byrd	He was in Muhlenberg County?	9:35
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, Muhlenberg. He runs the cleaners up there too. He cleans clothes.	9:35
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Well now see, Jimmy Church's band is still going, but his son has it now.	9:36
Alex Byrd	Okay. And that's in Hopkins—	9:40
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Mm-hmm. His son has it now.	9:43
Alex Byrd	Well what would you do, coming up around here in the '40s and '50s, if you're going on a date? What were the different places you could go and what were the things you could do?	9:45
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Movies.	9:56
James T. "Red" Eaves	No, it wasn't—	9:56
Alex Byrd	Movies?	9:56
James T. "Red" Eaves	—any place you could go.	9:56
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	That's the only place you could go, really.	9:56
James T. "Red" Eaves	I mean, not really.	9:56
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	But-	10:01
James T. "Red" Eaves	[indistinct 00:10:02].	10:01
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Yeah.	10:02
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah.	10:03
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	If you weren't old enough to go to these bootleg joints, the only place you could take her is the movies. But then when you got old enough to go—You know, it's always three or four little houses, seven—	10:05
James T. "Red" Eaves	To go to the movies back then, you had to go upstairs.	10:16
Alex Byrd	So y'all had one movie theater?	10:19
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah, and you had to go upstairs.	10:20
Alex Byrd	Okay.	10:20
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	But not go downstairs.	10:20
Alex Byrd	You said, "You could not go downstairs"?	10:20
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Uh-uh. You could go upstairs.	10:21
Alex Byrd	Did anybody ever try to go downstairs?	10:29
James T. "Red" Eaves	No.	10:30
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No.	10:31
Alex Byrd	Okay.	10:32
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No. That's one thing, if the—The Black people, if they didn't want you to go nowhere, they wouldn't go. That's just like now, you think—I could go out here to this American Legion, White American Legion, because I'm a soldier.	10:32
Alex Byrd	Right.	10:47
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	You know? Or VFW, I could go to them.	10:47
Alex Byrd	Right.	10:49
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	But do you think I want to go? I don't want to go nowhere I don't want to be. That doesn't want me. I just wouldn't go. I can join that VFW out there right now, because I'm a soldier, see?	10:50
Alex Byrd	Right.	11:00
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	But I wouldn't. Don't want to. No, I don't want to go nowhere don't nobody want me. Where I can go—All they're going to do is go out there and drink.	11:00
James T. "Red" Eaves	You know what? I may be wrong, but I don't feel comfortable around those folks.	11:09
Alex Byrd	I'm having a little trouble picking you up, Mr. Eaves.	11:15
James T. "Red" Eaves	Huh?	11:17
Alex Byrd	I'm having a little trouble picking you up.	11:19
James T. "Red" Eaves	I ain't supposed to be in it no how, for that part.	11:20
Alex Byrd	No, but you're saying things, so I have to get you down. You've got to talk a little louder.	11:22
James T. "Red" Eaves	I don't feel comfortable around them now. Like if I'm—maybe even one or two, then with a bunch of them, I don't feel too comfortable.	11:27
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I don't either.	11:39
James T. "Red" Eaves	I'd rather be with my own race.	11:39
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Mm-hmm. You take these White guys. I mean, they think they're nice, some of them do. But they will forget sometimes and want to go kicking on you. And they think that's funny, I think.	11:45
Alex Byrd	When you say kicking on you, do you mean picking on you?	11:58
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah, they're kicking you—mines. Mm-hmm. Well, we saw a bunch of them at the mines do that, but—	11:59
Alex Byrd	It seems like there used to be a lot more kicking going on in the world then.	12:08
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	12:12
Alex Byrd	I'm always hearing people talking about kicking people. We don't mostly kick people now, no matter what.	12:12
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No, not now.	12:14
Alex Byrd	But that was—I mean, you'd be walking—	12:28
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Every White guy, they were good at that.	12:28
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah. Yeah, they were. I remember I was out to that place right beside the mall. What's that little old eating place that's right beside the mall? The first one that's there.	12:30
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Mm-mm.	12:30
James T. "Red" Eaves	It's in Madisonville now, I think.	12:30
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Oh, Jerry's? Are you talking about Jerry's?	12:37
James T. "Red" Eaves	No, across the road over there.	12:40
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Oh. Okay. I can't—	12:42
James T. "Red" Eaves	It was that place in that corner.	12:46
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. I can't think of the name of that place. Yeah, okay. I know what you're talking about.	12:46
James T. "Red" Eaves	I was in there one day and I wasn't feeling too well no ways. And a couple of them walked up there. I knew him. Been knowing him all my life. He's a little older than I am. He didn't kick me with his foot, but he kicked me with his knee. And I told him, "I'll smack your damn brains off. Don't you never do that to me." He said, "I was just playing." I said, "No, you don't play with me."	12:54
James T. "Red" Eaves	And every time he sees me, he got that shitty ass look on his face. But see, Al Worther, they used to just kick him just because he could. Told him, "I was just playing, man." And no man ain't got no right to put his foot in my ass.	13:09
James T. "Red" Eaves	Now I had a brother. He'd get mad at me, sometimes he'd kick my ass, I'd be two feet—He was about six years older than I am. I couldn't do nothing with him.	13:30
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I know—	13:40
James T. "Red" Eaves	One day, he kicked me, then I fell on a wire and came back up. I just stole on him, but I didn't miss his eye. And he went home and told mama. Said, "Red hit me with a wire." See, he never did tell them what happened.	13:52
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Tell them what happened. Mm-hmm.	14:05
James T. "Red" Eaves	And I was scared too. Then my old man whooped my ass about it. And I told Lolee, I said, "Next time, I'm going to get—" I got a shotgun. We had an old shotgun in the house, an old stock gun. I was going to have me a load put down there. I said, "And I'm going to get that and shoot you." He never did kick me no more.	14:06
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	But we had an incident out there at Pleasant View.	14:26
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, I remember that.	14:27
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Remember Big Lee?	14:28
Alex Byrd	What happened?	14:28
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Well, he didn't mind and a White fellow kicked him. Big Lee didn't—	14:31
Alex Byrd	Just kicked him in the butt?	14:34
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Big Lee said, "That's all right." Well, Mannie Girth his word. "That's all right, Mannie Girth. I'll get you." He wouldn't bother him. Big Lee could have whooped the White guy. Big Lee said, "I ain't going to bother you. Just forget it. I ain't going to bother you." So went to the company store on payday, and this White fellow and his wife went to the window to get him some store books. And when this White fellow bent over to sign for his store books, Big Lee walked up there and pushed his wife back, and—	14:34
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I mean, it's a bunch of Whites and Blacks lined up in the line, to get the money. Big Lee pushed his wife back and kicked that White guy in the ass. Pow. You could have heard it all over that corner store. But Big Lee was bigger than the White guy, and the White guy was scared of Big Lee. And when he turned around, he wouldn't bother the guy. He got scared. And he tried to have Big Lee arrested.	15:03
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Because you know, Big Lee kicked him in front of his wife and everything. Sure did. And that stopped those White guys from kicking at Pleasant View. Sure did. Big Lee said, "I told you I would get you, Mannie Girth." Kicked him right there in the corner store. And I mean, you could have heard that all over the store. Pow. And the guy—	15:24
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Like I said, Big Lee could have whooped him in the mines, but see, he had two or three White guys around there with him then. And was going to help him. See? They put him up to do it. That's just like they do in the mines. They White guys will get together. If ain't about two or three of you, you're working down there on the run, they'd get together and whoop you. Because I remember a kid named Flu Ellen. You remember him?	15:43
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, I remember him.	16:06
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Boy, they whooped him so bad, he got on disability.	16:07
Alex Byrd	In the mines, they did this?	16:08
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. They whooped him, he got on disability. Now if he got better—They say the fool went back to work. And then after he got hurt again, he like not got on disability. But he's on now again. Sure did. They just whooped that boy so bad. And I was a supply man, I'd hear them.	16:09
Alex Byrd	This was after he came out of retirement or before?	16:25
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Mm-hmm. I was supply man. And boy, before I'd get there, I'd hear them whooping him. He'd be hollering, and then soon as they'd see me come up with the supplies—Well, they could see me before I could get to them. They could see my light coming, and then they knew I was a Black guy. "Here comes the supply man." They'd quit whooping him. But I could hear him all up and down through there.	16:26
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	And I told Flu Ellen then. I said, "Flu Ellen, you ought to go to the boss, man." And all he—"Go to the big man," that's what I told him. And the boss man, he's right with him. Flu Ellen, at lunchtime, he'd try to ease around there by himself and eat, to keep those guys from whooping him. He was the only Black down that run. And I mean, they took a cowboy, and you could hear them popping that man. Shoo.	16:42
James T. "Red" Eaves	Is that right? Okay, now. Over there around Butler County and Crescent, and right between—	17:01
Alex Byrd	Mr. Eaves was fixing to say something important, and you're looking over there again. Let me just—See, because I'm looking at this meter whenever he talks, and I'm not getting anything. So I'm going to bring it right back after you say what you say.	17:18
James T. "Red" Eaves	I said, "Listen, when—" You can put it back on there. Up in Muhlenberg County, a lot of these mines didn't have but maybe one or two Blacks working in them. And they were rednecks. We wore coveralls, and I got a short nub .38 on a shoulder skivvy. I wouldn't change clothes up there. I'd put that gun up under this arm, and I when I made the mines, because you hear them make cracks—Because talking never did bother me. But I always said if one ever put his hands on me, that's where I was going to leave him.	17:32
James T. "Red" Eaves	But I never did have no trouble. You see nigger wrote up everywhere in the mines, and all that there. And buddy, I didn't give them no break. I'd shut one down in a minute. If I didn't shut the mine down, I'd shut a piece of machinery down. And I didn't have many trouble.	18:18
James T. "Red" Eaves	And Pistol, my buddy, he went out. Right out here at Ziegler Mine. And he told a guy to do something. Guy told him, he said, "I don't take orders from no nigger." Well, the safety man was with Pistol, and he told him, said, "Well, if you don't take orders from him—." Said, "You might as well go outside." When he got outside, they had his check. Paid him on. All the rest of them, that stopped them right there.	18:40
James T. "Red" Eaves	And then the general manager from Island Creek, told them guys over at Crescent—Told the superintendent, that's the man that runs the mine. Said, "If a fellow of mine, an inspector, comes out there and tells you to do something, then I don't give a damn if he's Black, White, blue or pink. If you don't do it, you ain't got no job here." See, and that eliminated it.	19:18
James T. "Red" Eaves	See, when the big White man speaks, these small ones, you ain't going to have no problem out of them. But see, if he doesn't speak out, you ain't going to have nothing but trouble. See? But then I'd go up there, and after I got to know them, I took my pistol off and started leaving it at home. Because I know a White man. If he gets the ups on you, he'll destroy you if he can.	19:46
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yes, sir. Whites playing up there, right where I live. We had a hole. You know what I told you? When we're coming the back way, we used to go over there and swim?	20:16
Alex Byrd	Mm-hmm.	20:27
James T. "Red" Eaves	Well, every time we'd swim in there, if it was six or seven of us, we didn't have any problems with the White guys. But if it's one or two, you had problems. And one guy down there, he was bullheaded. He wouldn't run. And he picked up a stone and threw it there, and hit one of them on the arm. And it broke it. It broke it, and his daddy told him, said, "I know that boy's daddy and I know him." Said, "Y'all didn't have no business fooling with him in the first place." So that eliminated that. That stopped it. Yeah.	20:29
James T. "Red" Eaves	You know any Drakes live over in Drakes live over in Madisonville?	21:13
Alex Byrd	No.	21:16
James T. "Red" Eaves	One of them lives out on Broadway. It was his daddy, and he's a—He was one of the loaders in the mines too. He worked down there in one of those camp mines.	21:17
Alex Byrd	I know Eula Drake.	21:25
James T. "Red" Eaves	Eula?	21:30
Alex Byrd	Yeah.	21:30
James T. "Red" Eaves	Well, that was Eula's half brother.	21:31
Alex Byrd	Okay.	21:32
James T. "Red" Eaves	So that's—Eula and Rosie. Yeah. And—	21:33
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	That's Eula's brother.	21:35
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, that's Eula's half brother.	21:36
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Well I mean, when I was working out there at Pleasant View—	21:36
Alex Byrd	I'm going to have to bring a couple of mics.	21:40
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	—out there at 5-9. I was working out there, and I was supply man. I used to have to go under some timbers, and it was so dangerous. Water and stuff. I was scared to pull under it. I used to go to the boss man and ask him about fixing it, and they wouldn't fix it. So me and Pistol—The one he just got through talking about, Pistol Pete, the inspector, I went over to his house and all. He was just staying right down the street from me. And I was telling him about it.	21:41
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I had told him, "Well next time you come out there, don't—" I wouldn't let them know that I had been to him. I said, "The next time you go out there, you go by and check that place and see if you can't get them to fix it, because I'm scared to pull on it." And I said, "The boss man been getting on me because I'm scared to pull on it, but it's going to fall."	22:17
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	So one day, Pistol came in and he went down on the run, and he wrote them up. But I told him, "Don't tell them now, that I—" But he wrote them up. And the next day—Then they—	22:37
James T. "Red" Eaves	It was fixed too, wasn't it?	22:48
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	—It was fixed. And you know what? And my boss man asked me did I say anything, because they knew me and Pistol—Because we were just like sisters and brothers. We were all raised up together. My mother used to keep me, and his mother used to keep us. He asked me did I go to him, and I told him, "No." He said, "Why did he just happen to go out?" I said, "I don't know why he just go—" But I did. And if I would have told I did, they probably would have fired me.	22:53
Alex Byrd	They would have gotten rid of you?	23:12
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah, they would have gotten rid of me.	23:12
Alex Byrd	Y'all didn't come up—I mean, when were you made—You were inspector in the late '60s? Is that when they made you inspector?	23:15
James T. "Red" Eaves	I started early '70s.	23:24
Alex Byrd	Early '70s.	23:24
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Were you the first one?	23:24
James T. "Red" Eaves	No, Pistol was about two months before me.	23:25
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Okay, then. And then Ned. But Ned came up—was Ned a—No, Ned wasn't no—	23:25
James T. "Red" Eaves	No, Ned, he was foreman at that time.	23:25
Alex Byrd	No, he was a foreman.	23:31
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I mean, Sims.	23:31
James T. "Red" Eaves	Well, Sims wasn't in our squad then.	23:31
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Okay.	23:31
James T. "Red" Eaves	Him and Dallas both weren't in our squad.	23:31
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Okay.	23:31
James T. "Red" Eaves	See, they went up in the eastern part of Kentucky.	23:31
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Mm-hmm. Well Dallas dead, ain't it?	23:37
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, Dallas dead.	23:43
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	But Sims not, I don't think. But you don't know.	23:44
James T. "Red" Eaves	Sims not. Sims is retired.	23:44
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah, but you don't never see him much no more.	23:44
James T. "Red" Eaves	Well, you know his mother's dead.	23:44
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah, I know his mother's dead.	23:44
James T. "Red" Eaves	And Edmond stayed up there by himself.	23:44
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. I ain't seen him since—	23:44
James T. "Red" Eaves	I don't think him and Edmond got along too well.	23:44
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No. Uh-uh.	23:44
James T. "Red" Eaves	Because he always—	23:44
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Sims older than Edmond. I believe.	23:59
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah.	24:00
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah, he is. Mm-hmm.	24:00
James T. "Red" Eaves	Because when—After Jay died, she had a pretty good insurance on him, and Edna wanted her to mix her money with his.	24:01
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	His. Yeah. Uh-uh.	24:02
James T. "Red" Eaves	And she wouldn't do it. But—	24:11
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Because I ain't seen Sims in I don't—You know Sims was married to my sister. That's his first wife.	24:17
James T. "Red" Eaves	I didn't know that.	24:23
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Mm-hmm. Yeah. Sure was. His first wife was my sister. They didn't stay married long. Sims went—Yeah, he did his week off, then he married her. I think Sims went in the Army, and him and my first sister got a divorce.	24:23
James T. "Red" Eaves	But is that the first time he was married?	24:36
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Minnie Lee. Mm-hmm. That was my sister. Mm-hmm.	24:38
James T. "Red" Eaves	Now is she the one married to that—two brothers down there in [indistinct 00:24:46]?	24:40
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No, no. She's—My sister's dead now.	24:47
James T. "Red" Eaves	Oh.	24:51
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No. After Minnie Lee and Sims got divorced, she married a Vandeveer, and they left here and went to Muncie, Indiana.	24:51
James T. "Red" Eaves	Oh, okay.	24:53
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	And that's from way—They were young.	24:53
James T. "Red" Eaves	How many times Sims been married?	24:57
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	About four or five times. He married Lou Della. Let me see who else it is. Yeah, he's been married four—Yeah.	25:00
James T. "Red" Eaves	And this other woman that he married, she lived in Providence and she worked out there at the [indistinct 00:25:16].	25:09
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. What's her—	25:15
James T. "Red" Eaves	Cathy.	25:15
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Mm-hmm. That's her name.	25:15
James T. "Red" Eaves	General Electric, or what do you call it out there?	25:16
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. What is her name? Him and Bernice-	25:17
James T. "Red" Eaves	Right.	25:17
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	—Yeah, him and Bernice never was married, I don't think.	25:26
James T. "Red" Eaves	No.	25:30
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	But Sims been married about four or five times.	25:30
James T. "Red" Eaves	I think he's been married to Bernice too, didn't he?	25:30
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Mm-hmm. I think that's why he's staying up there now. Somebody said he was married to a White woman up there in Eastern Kentucky. I don't know, but I ain't seen Sims in I don't know when.	25:38
James T. "Red" Eaves	I had saw him over at clinic, probably about six, eight months ago. And the first time—I ain't seen him since his mother died.	26:06
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	He done got fat.	26:06
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, he got fat.	26:06
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No, I haven't seen Sims in I don't know when.	26:07
James T. "Red" Eaves	You know [indistinct 00:26:09] it wasn't clean. Told me, he said, "You know Number 9 and Number 11, they connect underground. They've got a loading point and everything under there." And he told me how nasty it was. I told him I'd check it out. I went over there and it was nasty, so I shut the whole area down. They gave him a shovel and told him to start cleaning it up.	26:11
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah, because he told it.	26:48
James T. "Red" Eaves	They didn't know he told it. But anyways, somebody had to clean it, and he was the only one there at the time because—	26:51
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Oh, okay.	26:55
James T. "Red" Eaves	—And he told me, he said, "Yeah, man, I'll never tell you nothing else."	26:58
Alex Byrd	Before y'all came on, you and what's the other guy? Pistol?	27:04
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	27:08
Alex Byrd	I mean, before y'all came on as mine inspectors, what would y'all do in the mines when you saw something that wasn't right, that you wanted to be fixed?	27:08
James T. "Red" Eaves	Well what I would do—I was on the safety committee at the mines. The union elected three safety committees and three pit committees. Your safety committees would look out for safety, and your pit committee would go about working out complaints. I worked out of district office, like Jim Dunlap, for about six, seven months. Then I worked up as a boss, part-time, so I had pretty good influence up there where I worked because me and the superintendent are pretty good friends. I'd tell him something needed to be done and he would get it squared away.	27:20
James T. "Red" Eaves	He was a pretty decent type guy. He wanted coal. He wanted you to run coal, but he would give you something to work with. And he believed in safety. One time in particular—I don't know who the safety man was down in West Kentucky, but he worked for the company. The guy was bolting roofs, and your roof bolts are supposed to be four feet apart. Well, he was putting them six and seven feet apart so he could help them get out of the place.	28:17
James T. "Red" Eaves	I told him one day, I said, "You're not pinning this place right." Well, the safety man from West Kentucky went in there and inspected the place, and this boy didn't want to go back in there and re-pin it. The safety man told him, he said, "You go back in there and re-pin it or go home. Which one do you want to do?"	28:58
James T. "Red" Eaves	Then about two months after that, a small piece of rock, wasn't much bigger than this, fell on him and paralyzed him from the waist down. It was just the way he was bent over. He went in the hospital. And I didn't have nothing personal against him, because when I'm working in a mine, if it ain't safe, I'll make it safe—	29:22
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Make it safe.	29:48
James T. "Red" Eaves	—myself. And every time I'd go to the hospital, he'd start crying. Well, that was his own fault.	29:49
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Sure was.	29:49
James T. "Red" Eaves	And he died. I guess from the hospital, maybe—It wasn't about, a couple of—Three years after he got hurt, he dies. But see, when you're bolting that roof, that's for your own protection, as well as anybody else.	29:58
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. It's for yours and the other men too.	30:13
James T. "Red" Eaves	That's right. Sure is right. But he—I had—	30:16
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	A little mistake, that top will come in, but—	30:21
Alex Byrd	Yeah, it'll come down.	30:23
James T. "Red" Eaves	It doesn't care on who it falls on.	30:23
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Doesn't care who it falls on. It ain't got no name or nothing, just comes down. So that's just like I'm telling you about the man I started with, Claiborne Woodridge. That's how he got hurt, a big piece of rock fell on him. He didn't kill him, but he never did do no good after that. It helped kill him. Yeah, didn't do no good after that rockfall. But see, those times in the day, we weren't putting up any pins.	30:26
Alex Byrd	No? This in the '40s and '50s, no pins?	30:49
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No, you weren't putting up any pins. You weren't putting up 2x4's.	30:52
Alex Byrd	And just—	30:52
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Then you had to go look for you one that's good and put it in—But see, timber nowadays is different from when I first started in the mines. We used old props. They'd go cutting. Those things would be crooked, you're trying to find a straight—You've got to go through the whole thing to find a straight one. But now, they make them. Yeah, they got a [indistinct 00:31:14]. They just cut regular timber now for you, man. They're just as square and pretty. Just like that post I got out here on my carport there.	30:57
Alex Byrd	And they're pinning them too?	31:23
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah, they're pinning—	31:24
Alex Byrd	Or pinning them—Okay.	31:24
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No, wasn't no pins. No. See, when I went in the Army, I didn't know what no pin was. When I came back, that's when I found out what a pin was.	31:26
James T. "Red" Eaves	And see, a lot of these timber, they just used in the main—A certain area in the mine that's going to be there a long time, they use treated timber.	31:36
Alex Byrd	Okay. They did then?	31:43
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	So we'd—	31:43
James T. "Red" Eaves	No, now.	31:43
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No, now.	31:43
Alex Byrd	Okay.	31:47
James T. "Red" Eaves	And those treated timbers, buddy, they'll be there from now on.	31:49
Alex Byrd	Okay.	31:50
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Mines are changing now. You don't even have to have no shooter, no drillers, now.	31:57
Alex Byrd	You didn't tell me that.	32:04
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No.	32:05
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, I did.	32:06
Alex Byrd	You didn't tell me the shooters and drillers were gone. Are they gone?	32:06
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Shooter, driller, machine—	32:09
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah.	32:12
Alex Byrd	I didn't hear you.	32:12
James T. "Red" Eaves	Because I told you—I remember telling you this too, that when I was in the mines, they turned cross cut, on an angle. But now they turn them on 45.	32:12
Alex Byrd	Okay.	32:14
James T. "Red" Eaves	And they have a bell on to this loader. You don't use a shuttle car.	32:26
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No shuttle car.	32:31
James T. "Red" Eaves	But I remember telling you that. They turn them 45. In other words, all your places just look like that. They're not going to turn out just like that. They turn them on a 45, just like that.	32:35
Alex Byrd	And just go through?	32:49
James T. "Red" Eaves	Just go through. On an angle, you have to make a short turn. Yeah.	32:49
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah, they've got a thing now, it's a—I forget what you call it, but it eliminates the driller, the machine man, and the—	33:00
James T. "Red" Eaves	The shooter.	33:07
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	—the shooter. And then he don't even have to get on the thing.	33:07
Alex Byrd	Well what is he running from?	33:22
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Don't know. He'd be sitting on another breakthrough, that thing be digging that coal out of there, but he need to be sitting on his—	33:22
Alex Byrd	[indistinct 00:33:24]?	33:23
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Remote. But you don't see many Blacks running those things.	33:23
Alex Byrd	Okay.	33:23
James T. "Red" Eaves	Now, they had a—Up there, they had those miners—	33:23
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	That's what they call—	33:23
James T. "Red" Eaves	—with remote controls.	33:23
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	33:35
James T. "Red" Eaves	And it's something just like a big barrel on each side of the loader, and that thing just goes around, just like that. Just goes around and around. And has bits sticking up like that, all around it. And it just eats that coal down. It falls in a pan. That pan has a conveyor chain in it, and it dumps it into the car.	33:35
Alex Byrd	There's this car that takes that back?	34:02
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	And you watch, sooner or later, they're going to eliminate that car. Yeah, they're going to eliminate them. Because see, when I first went in there, in the mine, we used to just—When I first went in, we used to build a ramp and you'd dump the coal on the belt. You'd lose—Half of it would go off on the ground.	34:03
Alex Byrd	Yeah, that's right.	34:16
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	They'd have big boards behind it to keep it from falling, and half of it would fall on the ground. And then they had what you called then, a belt man. And that gentleman had to work, buddy.	34:18
Alex Byrd	Because he was putting on the—	34:29
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Well, no. That's what them—Well, he's got to—	34:31
Alex Byrd	—[indistinct 00:34:33].	34:32
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	—shovel it and put it back up on there. Some of those foremen come out there and get mad at the car driver, because they want you to put coal in. If you pull 35 and 40 places a day, you're jumping. And all you've got—You'd go up there and we'd be spending coal and half of it—But when I got back in the mill, they had a thing that they put on the end of the barrel now. It doesn't spill much coal. They call it a—What you call that? A Roscoe.	34:33
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, a Roscoe.	34:57
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	That's what you call them now.	34:58
James T. "Red" Eaves	Well see, that Roscoe, you can load it from the end or on each side.	34:59
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah, each side. It don't spill nothing.	35:04
James T. "Red" Eaves	Because you have a conveyor chain in it. You can go up there and dump your coal all in one, and it will hold it and keep moving.	35:07
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Keep moving.	35:19
James T. "Red" Eaves	But this, see this long war money now. They have a—In other words, you take this. If this is a block of coal, they will run some entries this way and over one—to come down this way. Then a loader, a machine, will go on the back side. Then that air will go through here and circle on around and come out. All right?	35:22
James T. "Red" Eaves	Now this is your loader. It's not a—I forget now what you call it. It's something similar to a loader. But this car starts here, and gets all this coal. When he gets to this end, he goes back there, and he gets through the back point until he gets all that coal. When he gets about halfway up here, he'll stop and set a row of [indistinct 00:36:20] right here and then let that top down. Let it break.	35:51
Alex Byrd	Just fall?	36:22
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, just let it fall. That takes the weight off another tire. Then they'll start right back—	36:25
Alex Byrd	And pick up the coal.	36:30
James T. "Red" Eaves	—And they'd get that block of coal. They don't leave nothing.	36:33
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Nothing.	36:35
James T. "Red" Eaves	Don't leave nothing.	36:37
Alex Byrd	They drop it as soon as they pick it all up.	36:38
James T. "Red" Eaves	That's right.	36:40
Alex Byrd	Soon as they pick the coal up.	36:40
James T. "Red" Eaves	They let the top down.	36:41
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Just like—	36:50
James T. "Red" Eaves	And it breaks, just like you're talking now. That's right.	36:50
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	—It's a lot of difference in just going in coal mining. You think of coal mine, you've got that air set up just right. Everything. And you've got to check for gas. You even have gas in a coal mine. You've got a gas in the coal mine, one of the deadliest gases it is. That's what you call black damp.	36:50
James T. "Red" Eaves	When I was working as an inspector, I'd go up on a unit. I'd go up the way the air is going on the unit. And I'd walk across the face air where they're working. When I'd get over to the last open crosscut, I'd take an air rating and see how much air was going through the unit. Well, when I'd do that, sometimes I won't cross the place, depending on how it looks. I've got my methane monitor in my bosom. It's a little old thing, about like a, what you turn a TV on with.	37:04
James T. "Red" Eaves	I can press a button and it tells you how much gas is in a place. Then a loader, if he's in gag, he's got 1.5%. That loader kicks on, kick off.	37:44
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Kick off.	38:04
James T. "Red" Eaves	Kick on.	38:04
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	kick off.	38:04
James T. "Red" Eaves	When they get to 2%, that loader was going to go off. Machine or nothing won't run.	38:08
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Won't run.	38:14
James T. "Red" Eaves	It's got too much gas in it.	38:15
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	It's too much gas.	38:15
James T. "Red" Eaves	And I have been going up on a unit and our unit would kick on and off, I'd know what it was, but the mine foreman, he didn't know what it was. He said, "I can't understand why that loader's kicking on and off." I knew exactly what it was that.	38:17
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah, you did it. Yeah.	38:29
James T. "Red" Eaves	So I went up there and I got 2% again, and I shut him down. And he fired the man that was in the union of mine. And I told him that he had mine foreman papers, that he had worked another mine for several years. If he took him out, [indistinct 00:38:48]. And put him on the loader. And no sooner than I shut that unit down, he sent him out to the mine. [indistinct 00:38:56].	38:34
James T. "Red" Eaves	But see, if a man—Now if a roof falls, that's something you can't prevent. But most of the things in a coal mine is the human error.	39:01
Alex Byrd	That's what causes most of the trouble? Human error?	39:09
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah, human error. We had a fellow—Now, remember I told you. We had a fellow been working in the mines I don't know how long. Snoop Brown. He'd been working in the mines all his life, long as I'd known him. And he knew it was wrong. I don't know what made him do it. He was getting ready to retire, and he said, "I'm going to work about four or five more months and then I'm going to retire."	39:09
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, that's right.	39:33
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	And he went up there—But he knew it was wrong. On a cutter, got a long blade on it. He's cold. Laid down on it, trying to warm up, and it—His holster went back and hit a button. Started that loader and that thing cut both of his legs off. It's a wonder he hadn't died.	39:34
James T. "Red" Eaves	Just like I told them, if the mine rescue hadn't been as good as they are today, he would have died that day.	40:28
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Sure would have. That boy that was teaching one of those boys that first aid stuff, and he stuck his finger in his—	40:28
James T. "Red" Eaves	Artery—	40:28
Alex Byrd	Yeah, I remember you—	40:28
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	—on the other one, and he rode with him all the way to the hospital, and held it. White guy. Now this was a White guy. Wasn't no Black one, this was a White guy. That's his buddy-buddy. He held him, and that's what kept him.	40:28
Alex Byrd	Yeah, I remember that.	40:28
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Mm-hmm. And he was getting ready to—	40:28
Alex Byrd	This wasn't that long ago neither, right?	40:28
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	And he was getting ready to retire. But it was his fault. But it was clearly his. Wasn't it though, Mr. Eaves?	40:28
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah. He liked to hunt, he liked to play ball.	40:28
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Played base—Now he was a big baseball player.	40:29
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, he was a good baseball player.	40:29
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	He was the best home run hitter around here.	40:30
James T. "Red" Eaves	And he could have made it to the pros.	40:33
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	He could have made it to the pros if he could—	40:33
James T. "Red" Eaves	[indistinct 00:40:35] legs.	40:33
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Because he tried to get me. You know, I played with some baseball teams around here, down in Mayfield. And because I was Black, they wouldn't let the team play. Sure did. I played with a baseball team there in Mayfield, Kentucky. And because they were Black, they wouldn't let me play.	40:37
Alex Byrd	This is when you were coming up or here recently?	40:58
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah, back in the '50s. Yeah.	40:58
Alex Byrd	When you were coming up?	40:58
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. And they wouldn't let me play. And see, I played with the Memphis All Stars, down here from Nashville. We played the Harlem Globetrotters, up in Hopkinsville. I remember that just as good. Yep, sure did.	40:59
Alex Byrd	You played basketball and baseball?	41:06
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah, I played basketball. I wasn't no good in basketball.	41:06
Alex Byrd	Right.	41:06
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I didn't get to playing any basketball until after I went in the Army. I wasn't no good in it.	41:06
James T. "Red" Eaves	I'll tell you something else too. Down there in Mayfield where you're talking, Clothiers.	41:12
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	41:19
James T. "Red" Eaves	Used to go down there and play baseball. And I was playing with Clothiers at that time. And that grand stand would be full of Whites.	41:20
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Sure would.	41:27
Alex Byrd	To watch the Black folks play or—	41:28
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Yep.	41:28
Alex Byrd	[indistinct 00:41:31]?	41:28
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Mm-hmm. Sure was.	41:28
James T. "Red" Eaves	Mayfield had a pretty good ball club themselves down there.	41:28
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Sure did.	41:28
James T. "Red" Eaves	Called the Blacksmiths.	41:37
Alex Byrd	So this was a Black semi-pro team?	41:37
James T. "Red" Eaves	No, it was just—	41:38
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No, it was just a team. Uh-uh, just a team.	41:39
James T. "Red" Eaves	At this time, because I was working in the mines, we just played on weekends.	41:41
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Weekends. Mm-hmm.	41:41
Alex Byrd	So this was one of the things that y'all—or one of the [indistinct 00:41:49]—	41:41
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Irvine and Carrollton used to play. If you didn't have enough players, they'd get a player from Irvine and Carrollton, and we'd play together, and go. See like, Big Bend and Crawford, on the 8th of August. Oh, man, we'd have some ball games up there. We used to go everywhere and play baseball.	41:54
James T. "Red" Eaves	You couldn't walk up there the 8th of August, it'd be so many people.	42:04
Alex Byrd	That many folks?	42:04
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Mm-hmm. We had a good team. It was a bunch of people down here, because I mean if you could—If you could in those days, but you couldn't.	42:04
James T. "Red" Eaves	And I'll tell you what, they had some Black guys would come back home.	42:15
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Come home. Right.	42:15
James T. "Red" Eaves	One they called Shotgun Wales.	42:15
Alex Byrd	Shotgun Wales?	42:15
James T. "Red" Eaves	Shotgun Wales, and another one called Big Red. He was an [indistinct 00:42:28]. Boy, he could hurl that ball.	42:26
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Old Big Jim.	42:27
James T. "Red" Eaves	I had to bat at it.	42:31
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Old Big Jim would bump it.	42:32
James T. "Red" Eaves	I had to—Yeah. I always had to bat at that.	42:33
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Gripper Daniels.	42:34
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah.	42:41
Alex Byrd	What was the team?	42:44
James T. "Red" Eaves	John Malbert.	42:44
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Old Gripper Daniels them would—John Elvis. John Elvis threw so slow, you looked like you swung about three or four times before the ball gets to the plate.	42:45
James T. "Red" Eaves	That ball looked like it humped up in the back.	42:49
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. You'd be swinging and it—	42:49
James T. "Red" Eaves	You'd swing over it or under it one.	42:49
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	And Gripper would throw so hard. And his first ball, he'd throw it right at your head.	42:57
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah. You know, Gripper, he was dirty balling then.	43:00
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. And you better not go out there. He might have his pistol on him, and he'd shoot you. But that first ball, right at your head.	43:07
James T. "Red" Eaves	And smack you in a minute, when you'd come sliding in.	43:15
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. He was dirty. Yeah, he'd throw that first ball right at your head, and then you'd be scared to swing. Because the rest of them, you're trying to get out the way. That's what he was, Big Jim, the Bumper. Because Big Jim was bumping every time. Jimmy Hughes was a big hitter, but he was scared. Jimmy, Big Jim Bumper, and his feet—He wore about a 12, 14. Boy, when he'd kick that leg up, you couldn't see nothing but the feet.	43:16
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah. He had a big foot too.	43:34
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Boy, when he'd come down there—And could throw. I bet he threw about 95 or 100 miles per hour. And that first ball was right at you.	43:42
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah. Because you know sometimes the game would get tight, 1-1 or one and nothing, you could hear that ball hit that wrist. Pow. Boy, those guys, soon as all them out—And the coal company backed them. Got them all brand new suits.	43:43
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah, suits and—Yeah. Bats and things.	43:57
James T. "Red" Eaves	The suits we wore had William's Powerful Coal in the back of it.	43:58
Alex Byrd	That's what the baseball suit said?	44:03
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	44:05
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah.	44:05
Alex Byrd	What did it say again?	44:05
James T. "Red" Eaves	William's Powerful Coal.	44:06
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah, they got—	44:13
Alex Byrd	Can you say that into the mic so I can make sure I got it?	44:13
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	William's Powerful Coal.	44:13
Alex Byrd	All right. Just want to make sure.	44:13
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. They look out for you. Mm-hmm.	44:15
Alex Byrd	Were all these guys miners, who played on the team?	44:19
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah.	44:21
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yep.	44:24
James T. "Red" Eaves	The mines, on the 8th of August, they would shut down for that day.	44:24
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Shut down.	44:24
James T. "Red" Eaves	The mines wouldn't operate.	44:24
Alex Byrd	Wow. And then you were saying, you'd go and the grand stand would be full of Whites, watching you?	44:30
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	44:32
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, it'd be full of Whites. Of course, for the 8th of August, it would be Blacks all over West Kentucky. They'd celebrate that day like you do now for the 4th of July.	44:33
Alex Byrd	What was the day again? Eighth—	44:44
James T. "Red" Eaves	Eighth of August.	44:45
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Eighth of August.	44:47
Alex Byrd	Eighth of August?	44:47
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Mm-hmm.	44:47
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah.	44:48
Alex Byrd	Why did they celebrate 8th of August again?	44:50
James T. "Red" Eaves	Well see, the 4th of July was the White man's day, so they adopted the 8th of August for the Black man's day.	44:53
Alex Byrd	They still [indistinct 00:45:01]—	45:00
James T. "Red" Eaves	And all in West Kentucky, Paducah. Country Kentucky.	45:00
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah. Up in a little old town, I think they call Waverly, all through there.	45:05
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, and Allensville.	45:07
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Ours around here, most, we go to Carrollton. That's what we—	45:07
Alex Byrd	For the 8th of August?	45:07
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah, 8th of August.	45:07
Alex Byrd	So the mines shut down?	45:20
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, the mines shut down.	45:22
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yep.	45:22
Alex Byrd	And y'all would play baseball and have picnics and all kind of stuff back then?	45:24
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	But see, now you know what? Nowadays, it be a bunch of Whites up in there now, 8th of August. Up in the park.	45:29
James T. "Red" Eaves	Oh, yeah.	45:32
Alex Byrd	Blacks folks around here still celebrate 8th of August?	45:33
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	45:36
Alex Byrd	Okay.	45:36
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Shit.	45:36
James T. "Red" Eaves	But see, I go through down there because I can't cope with the youngsters now. See, I'm an old man. I may go down there during the day and get me a sandwich and keep moving, but now they got this music so loud, they give me the headaches.	45:37
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	And they don't play no baseball or nothing up there no more.	45:53
Alex Byrd	They don't play baseball?	45:56
James T. "Red" Eaves	No.	45:56
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Don't do nothing but drink and eat. And fight.	45:58
James T. "Red" Eaves	And fight.	45:59
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	And gamble. Usually somebody gets to fighting up there just about every time, it seems, every 8th of August. When we came up, we didn't fight much. Played baseball and ate all of our good barbecue and drank beer.	46:00
James T. "Red" Eaves	My son had a party. Had a birthday party in Lexington the other night, and I went up there this past Friday. And about 200 people there. Where he lives, they have a place in there where people live there can have a party. And it was about 200 people, Black and White. I guess it was about as many of one as it was the other one. I didn't hear a cross word, Black and White was there. They were drinking and having a good time. No disturbing or nothing.	46:15
James T. "Red" Eaves	And I saw the times when something like that couldn't happen.	46:58
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No. You get rid of all these old White people.	47:05
James T. "Red" Eaves	And tech people. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.	47:07
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	You get rid of all these old White people, things would be a lot different.	47:10
Alex Byrd	So what was wrong?	47:10
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah, you take now, these—	47:10

Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah, sometime they—	0:00
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah.	0:00
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	And they turn around and look, trying to—That looks just like my wife.	0:00
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah.	0:03
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	She look like a White woman, don't she?	0:05
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, she does.	0:08
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	And we'll be eating sometimes, you see White people walk in—	0:08
James T. "Red" Eaves	Oh yeah.	0:08
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	—and see her, and they be peeping around. And you hear someone, "Is she Black or White?"	0:08
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah.	0:09
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah, we hear them, because Robert said, "Look, look." They be looking at her. And I have been riding down the road in that Lincoln, me and her. She be setting on this side, and a bunch of White guys in a truck pull up beside me and think she White.	0:19
Alex Byrd	Yeah.	0:31
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah.	0:31
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Sticking their finger out, giving me that look, giving me this, "Is she Black?" Then they try to, you know. Yeah, they give me the finger and everything, mm-hmm.	0:36
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Watch it, and old bee. Yeah, it's a wallop.	0:36
James T. "Red" Eaves	Should I hit him?	0:36
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	No, he'll go out, don't even make it try to sting you. Get out of here. Get over there. Get on out of here.	0:51
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	That's a little baby one there. No, hey knock them down, where my paper at?	0:53
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	0:59
James T. "Red" Eaves	You know what? I'll tell you something else, though. You may not pay it no attention. If I allow these Black guys, they marry these White girls—	1:03
Alex Byrd	Can't hear you Mr. Eaves. I'll have to bring you the mic.	1:33
James T. "Red" Eaves	That's all right. I—	1:33
Alex Byrd	No, because I want to hear.	1:33
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	There he is. There you go. He got him here. The thing hard to kill, ain't it?	1:33
James T. "Red" Eaves	A lot of these are. A lot of these Black boys is marrying these White girls. And you know, they have some beautiful kids.	1:35
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Sure do.	1:35
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, they have some beautiful kids, too. Yeah, they do. Yeah. And this happening now pretty rapid. You take a, in the next century, you can't hardly tell a Black from a White.	1:35
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Mm-hmm.	1:55
James T. "Red" Eaves	Because it be can be so many, you see, that will have a White mother and a Black daddy, or a White daddy and a Black mother.	1:56
James T. "Red" Eaves	Now see, this boy of mine, he's biracial. Yeah, of course, you can tell him by him being a Black guy, you can tell it because he got the features of a Black guy. His lip's a little thick, you see? But his hair is neat, and he's about 6'3". And when he was in high school, man them girls just run him down. That's right, yeah.	2:06
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Look at my wife. Her eyes the same color as these White people's eyes.	2:36
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, yeah.	2:36
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	With the blond hair and everything. [indistinct 00:02:40], oh yeah.	2:39
James T. "Red" Eaves	The basketball couch had a daughter, you know? And she was just going to my marry my boy, you see? And the girls that he liked, he'd go upstairs with them, see? The one that he didn't like, he'd sit downstairs on the deck, in the living den with them (laughs).	2:41
Alex Byrd	That's how come I didn't see them.	2:56
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah. Yeah, she told her mother that she wanted to marry Mike. And I told my old lady, "Mike ain't even got no business trying to marry her." I said, "He ain't even got a job." Never did when he was in high school. He told me, he said, "Dad," he didn't want her nohow.	3:00
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Well, I ain't got nothing against this mixed marriage. You know, you got some of these little old White girls, I don't know, 2 or 3 of them, married to these Black guys. And they getting mad at them, and they just hit them.	3:19
James T. "Red" Eaves	Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.	3:27
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	And that's what's I'm talking about.	3:27
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, that's—	3:27
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	They didn't care what they at when they say it.	3:27
James T. "Red" Eaves	No.	3:27
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	That's what piss me off. I see, like back in the 40's and 50's, them White girls used to look at niggers then.	3:35
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah.	3:39
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	But you know, Black guys then, but they'd get caught.	3:43
Alex Byrd	Mm-hmm.	3:45
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	The first thing they hollered, "Rape." And it wouldn't be rape.	3:45
Alex Byrd	Yeah.	3:48
James T. "Red" Eaves	And you had—	3:49
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	They would say "rape," to keep them from messing they up, yeah.	3:50
James T. "Red" Eaves	And then have to leave town.	3:54
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yep.	3:55
Alex Byrd	The guys would have to leave?	3:55
James T. "Red" Eaves	Oh, yeah.	3:56
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	That's right.	3:56
Alex Byrd	Hm.	3:56
James T. "Red" Eaves	That bug is kind of rough, ain't he? Yeah.	3:56
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	He ain't dead yet, is it?	3:56
James T. "Red" Eaves	No.	3:56
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	He's hard to kill.	3:56
Alex Byrd	I believe he's trying to die.	3:56
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	He's hard to kill.	3:56
Alex Byrd	You getting—	3:56
James T. "Red" Eaves	I know I been awful small, and they hung two guys over there in Madisonville, on account of a White woman.	4:15
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	You need to talk to Petey about that. He ain't going to like that.	4:28
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, and—	4:28
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	He's one of them that knows everything. Where's that thing coming from? Get out of here. Oh, it's a gnat. Get on out of here. Yeah, they hung something there.	4:28
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, Nathan Bard and Fleming, I believe it was. But I was too young to remember then.	4:45
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Old Petey know about that. Old Petey's 75 years old. He know about that.	4:58
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, yeah. Well, see, I'm that old. But see, I grew up there in White Plains.	4:58
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	You 75?	5:03
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah. And I was where I could get over there, walked to Madisonville then, see, and—	5:03
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I didn't know you was that old.	5:05
James T. "Red" Eaves	Wasn't no car. Yeah, 75, born in 1920.	5:06
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Well, you and Petey the same age.	5:07
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah. And, huh?	5:07
Alex Byrd	I'm sorry. I though I might have those guys names in Madisonville. I might have it written down.	5:17
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Have you talked to Donnie Nickels?	5:25
James T. "Red" Eaves	No, I ain't. Well, the last time I tried to find Donnie, I didn't even know where to look.	5:28
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Well, he's, yeah in the apartments.	5:31
James T. "Red" Eaves	Oh, he's still staying in these apartments?	5:31
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yeah.	5:31
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, okay then.	5:31
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	What is it? Wyma?	5:31
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, Wyma apartment, yeah.	5:31
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	He used to get work.	5:31
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah.	5:32
Alex Byrd	Do you remember anything about that, what happened in Madisonville, Mr. Eaves?	5:44
James T. "Red" Eaves	All I know is they hung them about a White woman. She said they raped her, see? And the boy had been going with her all the time, see?	5:48
Alex Byrd	Mm-hmm	5:59
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, and I guess that was 60 or 65 years ago, see? Because I used to hear people talk about it. And the guy that—one of them had a wife. I remember her, and she was a good looking woman. And the judge said, "Anytime a man got a wife like that, and run after a woman, one so evoking, said he should be hung."	6:00
James T. "Red" Eaves	She was a good looking woman. And, during 47', I believe 47' or 48' one, I went to her house. She lived in Lulaville, yeah, but she had kind of got older, you see? But she was, these men that they hung, they was kin to those Dulins up there in Muhlenberg.	6:38
James T. "Red" Eaves	I remember one of the guys called Pete Dulin. He was kin to them, and he had a sister. And up there in Graham, they used to be a lot of Black people up there because they had a mining camp up there, you see?	7:08
James T. "Red" Eaves	And I don't know how they got tied up with these women, but anyway, the women said the raped them. This woman said the guys raped her, you see? And they'd been going with her. Everybody know they was going with her, you see?	7:23
Alex Byrd	Mm-hmm	7:34
James T. "Red" Eaves	But they just wanted to stop him.	7:37
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Do anybody live in Graham now?	7:38
James T. "Red" Eaves	Mm-mm.	7:38
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Except for you, ain't it?	7:38
James T. "Red" Eaves	Mm-mm.	7:38
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	They done all moved out?	7:38
James T. "Red" Eaves	No, now Bibbs, she teaches in Graham. And her two daughters teaches in Graham, see? But, ain't no Black up there.	7:46
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	They done all moved to the same city probably, ain't they?	7:55
James T. "Red" Eaves	In Greenville, yeah.	7:55
Alex Byrd	Do you remember anything happen in Hillside? I read when folks were telling me about that, what happened in Madisonville, were telling me something that happened in Hillside in Muhlenberg county. I'm trying to think of the year. Maybe I'll have to bring it to you later.	7:57
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, son. I don't even remember hearing something. Do you?	8:15
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Remember? Hillside, Muhlenberg county.	8:15
James T. "Red" Eaves	Muhlenberg.	8:15
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Oh, Muhlenberg. I don't know nothing about Muhlenberg.	8:15
James T. "Red" Eaves	I don't even remember nothing about Hillside.	8:29
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I don't know nothing about Muhlenberg county.	8:30
James T. "Red" Eaves	But say, you take Greenville, they've got up, did a whole lot of domestic work, see? And a lot of those guys was going with those White women, you see? And, they'd get into it with their husband, then they'd get out and get them another woman. Well, these nigger boys out there, cutting their yard, and doing housework. And some of them look pretty nice. And they just turned to them, you see?	8:34
James T. "Red" Eaves	And one guy in particular, he was going with this woman, and they lived upstairs over this restaurant. And this Black boy went up there with her, and them people hear the whining, see? He may have putting that ride to her or something. She's whining and taking on.	9:11
James T. "Red" Eaves	Well, they hear her downstairs, you see? And one of them said, "That boy doing something to that woman." Well, he got out. He left Maryville and went to Lulaville. And the next evening, he was back in Greenville.	9:38
James T. "Red" Eaves	And her husband told them guys, said, "You is a damn liar. My wife wouldn't fool with no Black man." He said, "I don't want to hear no more about it." And the boy live in one place today, his son. And you can tell he's a biracial, yeah.	9:55
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah, and I had a cousin that lived in California. He was growing up in Lulaville, I mean in Greenville, at that time. And he knowed her, and knowed the boy. And every time he'd come in, he'd go by and holler at him and her, see?	10:15
Alex Byrd	Yeah, yeah.	10:31
James T. "Red" Eaves	But see, nature's going to take it's course, you see? If one don't get it one way, she's going to get the other one, see? Yes, sir.	10:36
James T. "Red" Eaves	But you know, let me tell you something else, too. You'll be surprised that people live in these fine mansions, and don't even sleep together.	10:44
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yep.	10:56
Alex Byrd	A shame, yeah.	10:58
James T. "Red" Eaves	It's got a big front only—well it's about—	11:04
Alex Byrd	You from around this way? I grew up in Texas, in Houston, but I married into a family in Muhlenberg county, so my—	11:14
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	You in the army?	11:22
Alex Byrd	No, but my dad was in the army. That's why we moved around so much. But I was born in Hawaii. And then we went to Fort Carson, and then we ended up in Houston.	11:24
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	She got a son that's White.	11:32
Alex Byrd	Mm-hmm. Her son just left Houston.	11:34
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Okay.	11:36
James T. "Red" Eaves	Yeah.	11:36
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	He went for Fort Ord, California.	11:39
Alex Byrd	Okay.	11:40
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Yep, then I got a sister got a son in Houston, Texas.	11:41
Alex Byrd	Well, I'm going to get there. When am I going? In August.	11:42
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	You're daddy still living?	11:47
Alex Byrd	Yep, he's retired and he lives in Midland, Michigan.	11:51
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	Oh.	11:54
Alex Byrd	So, my mom and dad were divorced, so he lives up that way with his wife. Well, this has been great. I sure appreciate—	11:55
Sidney Gilmore Jr.	I enjoyed talking with Mr. Eaves. [crosstalk 00:12:04]	12:04
Alex Byrd	And I hadn't even interviewed Mr. Eaves yet. Y'all starting to talk— [indistinct 00:12:11]	12:04
James T. "Red" Eaves	Well, I told them, I said, "Well, you can get me anytime, see?"	12:14

Item Info

Title:

Sydney Gilmore, Jr. (primary interviewee) and James Eaves interview recording, 1995 July 26

Date:

July 26, 1995

Creator:

Contributor:

Byrd, Alex

Description:

Name: Sydney Gilmore, Jr.; Date of birth: 1931-06-26; Place of birth: Wheat Croff, KY; Occupation(s): coal miner; armed forces; Residence: Madisonville, KY. Name: James T. Eaves; Date of birth: 1920-04-05; Place of birth: White Plains, KY; Occupation(s): coal miner; federal mine inspector; Residence: White Plains, KY
Informant ID: 1010; Informant ID: 1011; Interviewed by: Alex Byrd.

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Location:

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Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

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

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Provenance:

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

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Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

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

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Interview number: 650
163f6cbb-d849-49ef-a781-3f19655ad928
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143a204b-35b4-47c8-a9b3-fc5dbd405ee7

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Sydney Gilmore, Jr. (primary interviewee) and James Eaves interview recording, 1995 July 26

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1. Sydney Gilmore, Jr., administrative file, 1995

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Sydney Gilmore, Jr. (primary interviewee) and James Eaves interview recording, 1995 July 26

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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