Emmett Cheri interview recording, 1994 June 23

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Kate Ellis	Hey, I'm just going to give the date. This is Kate Ellis interviewing Emmett Cheri on June 23rd at about 2:00 PM. And so we can begin. So, Mr. Cheri, how long have you been in New Orleans? Did you grow up here?	0:01
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I grew up in New Orleans. Yeah. That's approximately 70 years ago.	0:21
Kate Ellis	Seven. Really? So you were born about 70 years ago?	0:27
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	70 years ago.	0:28
Kate Ellis	Okay. And where did you grow up?	0:34
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I grew up in New Orleans, in the Seventh Ward. In the Tremé.	0:35
Kate Ellis	Oh, yeah.	0:39
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Those the two places. I was born in the Seventh Ward, but I practically grew up in the Tremé, which was the Fifth and Sixth Ward.	0:39
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	0:48
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Also went to church in the Sixth Ward. I was married in the Seventh Ward to different Catholic churches. I'm a Catholic, and I was married at Corpus Christi Church.	0:49
Kate Ellis	Oh, yeah.	1:01
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And that was in 1952.	1:02
Kate Ellis	That you got married in?	1:06
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I got married in '52. I'm the father of six children. Five children, excuse me. Five children. Oh my God. And—	1:08
Kate Ellis	Who else did you grow up with? Who did you grow up with in your household?	1:20
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, my sisters and brothers. We grew up together until 19—We were all together up until 1941. I have two older brothers. I got two younger sisters and a younger brother. Well, my youngest brother's deceased.	1:23
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay.	1:42
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And my father passed when at a tender age, a very young age.	1:42
Kate Ellis	Your father did?	1:46
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And my mother also was very young when she passed, but my father died when I was about 11 years old.	1:47
Kate Ellis	Oh.	1:51
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And my mother died in 1952, the same year I got married.	1:53
Kate Ellis	Oh, yeah. How did your father die?	1:56
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	My father died of pneumonia in 1936.	2:01
Kate Ellis	Wow.	2:03
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	He turned 41 and let's say a month that he turned 41, 28 days later on, he passed.	2:06
Kate Ellis	That is really young.	2:12
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	My mother died of a stroke in 1952.	2:14
Kate Ellis	So how old were you in 1952, about?	2:19
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	In 1952, I was 28.	2:20
Kate Ellis	Okay. Yeah.	2:20
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, I wasn't quite 28 because I'm born on Christmas Eve.	2:29
Kate Ellis	Oh, you were?	2:32
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah.	2:33
Kate Ellis	You mean on Christmas Day?	2:33
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	The 24th of December.	2:33
Kate Ellis	Oh, really? Do you remember what your father did?	2:38
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	My father was a printer.	2:40
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry?	2:41
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	A printer.	2:42
Kate Ellis	Oh.	2:42
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And my mother, well, I knew, before any of us was born, my mother was a hand cigar maker. She made handmade cigars.	2:46
Kate Ellis	Oh, handmade cigars? She didn't work in the, what was it? The trellis?	2:56
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Was it El Trellis? I think it was El Trellis. I'm not sure which one. I don't remember offhand which one of the tobacco companies that she worked for, but I know that's just all she done. She made all handmade cigars.	3:00
Kate Ellis	Oh.	3:14
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Only for the elites.	3:14
Kate Ellis	Right. And she did that before she had children?	3:14
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Before any of us were born.	3:19
Kate Ellis	And he was a printer?	3:21
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	He was a printer.	3:23
Kate Ellis	So where did he work?	3:26
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	He worked for the Unity Insurance Company. That's where his business was, the Unity Insurance Company.	3:27
Kate Ellis	The Unity Insurance Company.	3:32
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Which is no longer in existence.	3:34
Kate Ellis	And that was, where was that located?	3:37
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That was located on Rampart Street, on South Rampart Street, New Orleans.	3:39
Kate Ellis	Okay. So he was sort of in the center of things.	3:41
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Right.	3:43
Kate Ellis	Or my understanding is that that was—	3:47
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, that was a famous street at that time.	3:49
Kate Ellis	Yeah, and it was a fairly active kind of Black business community at that point.	3:51
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. Right.	3:55
Kate Ellis	And so you grew up in the Tremé.	3:55
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I grew up in the Tremé.	3:55
Kate Ellis	What do you remember about that neighborhood when you were growing up? What was it like there?	4:01
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	As a matter of fact, that neighborhood was a wonderful neighborhood. It was a friendly neighborhood. Like I said before, it was a mixed neighborhood.	4:04
Kate Ellis	Mixed? Oh, that's right you told me—	4:14
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Between White and Black. We didn't have any separation of the races. There was as many Whites as they were Black in the same neighborhood at that particular time.	4:16
Kate Ellis	Did they tend to get along?	4:23
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, we all did. We got along very well. As a matter of fact, on each corner within that area, they had little corner grocery store that was operated by Italians. And they all got along very well. And it was during that period of time, it was during the Depression era that I can remember. And most of these stores had what they would call a book that they would let the household or the mother and them would charge on the book. And after pay day they would go and pay off the amount that was charged on the book. And that went on for a number of years. And each one of these stores had a way of, that they controlled just about all of the children in the neighborhood. I mean, we weren't allowed to go and purchase just anything we wanted to. They were only allowed to get just the necessities that were—	4:24
Kate Ellis	Oh, really? The stores, so if you were to go shopping for your mom there—	5:17
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Because see, it was almost just like a family. All of them knew one another. Everybody in the neighborhood knew one another. So therefore, I couldn't go to the store and just buy something like candies, cake. No. That wasn't allowed. So you was only allowed necessities that you need for—And other than that, you had no other problem. We had no problem. Like I said, we went to church together. The only thing, we did not go to school.	5:19
Kate Ellis	Now, when you went to church together, did you sit in separate sections in the church?	5:43
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Some of the churches, yes. Yeah. Some of the churches you had, you only had just the rear pews for Blacks. Other churches you sit wherever there was a seat available. And like St. Louis Cathedral and all those big cathedral, you didn't have any special seating in that one. And there were certain other churches, but mostly we had our own churches and there was churches all around the area. And you had different churches for White, different ones for Black.	5:53
Kate Ellis	So it was the church that you went, what was the church that you went to growing up?	6:23
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, the church I went to was St. Peter Claver.	6:28
Kate Ellis	Saint—	6:29
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	St. Peter Claver.	6:29
Kate Ellis	St. Peter Clayburn? Oh, was it on Clayburn?	6:35
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No, no, no. It's just on St. Phillip Street.	6:36
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay. Thank you. And was that a Black church?	6:38
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That was a Black church?	6:42
Kate Ellis	That was a mixed, okay. So that one happened to be—	6:43
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That was a Black church.	6:46
Kate Ellis	Separate. But some churches you knew of weren't—	6:46
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. Some of them. You had St. Augusta, which was located on St. Claude Street. Or Governor Nicholls Street. That was a mix.	6:47
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	6:52
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	But more primarily, there were predominantly more Blacks in the area around St. Peter Claver. Now at Corpus Christi there, it was, well, that's predominantly more—Well, that's a hard one. Because of that part of the city, it was a rather difficult thing for you to distinguish who was Black and who was White.	6:56
Kate Ellis	Oh. Now tell me which part of the city this was?	7:18
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That's in the Seventh Ward.	7:20
Kate Ellis	Okay.	7:21
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	It's around Corpus Christi Catholic Church. And it was rather difficult for you to tell.	7:21
Kate Ellis	Because there were so many—	7:29
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, so many. Well, yes. So many of them that you couldn't tell whether they were White. There were Black kids in families, such as my family. I have a brother and a sister, and a brother that passed is as fair as you are.	7:30
Kate Ellis	Oh, really? You mean when you said the brother that passed, you mean the brother that—	7:42
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Died.	7:45
Kate Ellis	That died as opposed to—	7:47
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Youngest brother. Well, I have an older brother too. I have an older brother and my youngest sister there. Both of them are very, very fair.	7:47
Kate Ellis	Really?	7:53
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And I have, well, I don't know if you heard of Father Cheri. Well that's my nephew.	7:55
Kate Ellis	Oh, I have heard of Father Cheri.	7:59
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. He was pastor over at St. Francis, where you were at. Well, that's my nephew. That's my oldest brother's child. And I have pictures I could show you of them, but I mean, you know.	8:01
Kate Ellis	Well, I'd love to see pictures, maybe a little bit later on we can look at some pictures.	8:13
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. I'll show you some pictures of my neat nephews and his family. And I have, like I said, my mother passed on and she was very strict.	8:14
Kate Ellis	Strict.	8:29
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	See, my father died. My mother was left with six small children. As a matter of fact, my youngest brother hadn't even been three years old. And she educated six of us.	8:30
Kate Ellis	She did?	8:41
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	She never remarried and she did that. She educated all six of us.	8:42
Kate Ellis	Now, how did she educate you? I mean, she sent you to school?	8:46
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Sent us to school and disciplined us. I mean, we had restrictions. It's not like these kids are today. We had to be there. Once I left school in the afternoon, I had to be at the house, and I had certain chores to do, even though she wasn't at the house. Then my oldest brother took over as the man of the house, even though he wasn't but three years older than I am. But he still—	8:50
Kate Ellis	So he was about 14 or something?	9:10
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	My brother was 14 years old when he took that, that's right. Exactly 14 years old.	9:12
Kate Ellis	Wow. So what did your mother do to support the six?	9:16
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, my mother worked for Lemene Pano Fello Funeral Home.	9:21
Kate Ellis	Say it again?	9:22
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	The Lemene Pano Fello Funeral Home.	9:27
Kate Ellis	I'm going to ask you to spell that.	9:28
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	What? Lemene? L-E-M-E-N-E. L-E-M-E-N-E. Lemene. Pano, P-A-N-O. F-E-L-L-O.	9:32
Kate Ellis	Okay. Funeral?	9:42
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That's a funeral home.	9:44
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay.	9:45
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	They were located on Rampart Street at that particular time. Now they are located out there on the Veteran's Highway.	9:46
Kate Ellis	Oh. So what did she do?	9:53
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	She was a cook.	9:53
Kate Ellis	Okay. So she started to work there once your father passed?	9:54
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	It was about a year or so, I think a year after my father passed. I think.	9:57
Kate Ellis	So that's what she did to support the family. Did you get help from anybody else?	10:02
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No.	10:08
Kate Ellis	That was it, huh?	10:09
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No, in most cases, everybody thought that my father left my mother well off.	10:10
Kate Ellis	Oh.	10:14
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah, see but what had happened, they didn't realize is that they lost everything during the depression from what we can understand. Everything, the banks folded and everything else, and they lost all of that.	10:15
Kate Ellis	I see. So we had had some savings.	10:24
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, well, my—	10:27
Kate Ellis	I mean, in other words, he had done fairly well for himself—	10:28
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Before.	10:32
Kate Ellis	It sounds like, what you're saying?	10:32
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yeah. Before the crash of '29. Yeah. Yeah. He was a veteran of World War I.	10:33
Kate Ellis	Okay.	10:41
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah.	10:42
Kate Ellis	I see. So we had—	10:43
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	This is from what I've gathered from my mother talking everything and explaining certain things to us.	10:45
Kate Ellis	So she didn't, nobody in the family let on that you didn't have—	10:54
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No.	10:58
Kate Ellis	What people thought you had.	10:59
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Right. No one. No one.	11:00
Kate Ellis	Was that a matter of pride, in some sense?	11:02
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No, I wouldn't exactly say that. I don't really don't know what it—Really, when you mention that word of pride, I know my mother had a lot of pride, but I mean insofar as that it wasn't. No, no. It was just one of the things about it, my father was a very intelligent man, and he had certain things that was done and certain things that was related that we found out later on that was untrue in a certain sense to us. And a lot of things that we really couldn't understand because for what I can understand, like I said, he was a printer, but he was also a part of the Unity Insurance Company. Now, whether he was a stockholder or what was he with it? Now that, I don't know. I do know that my grandfather had his own funeral home, and also he had the printing shop. So that's how my father was a spinoff for my grandfather who was a printer and a funeral director.	11:05
Kate Ellis	Your grandfather was?	11:57
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. He had his own funeral home.	11:59
Kate Ellis	I see.	11:59
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	But I didn't know him, he passed away before I was even born. So that's why I don't know. All this more or less is hearsay things that we seen. And we've had the paraphernalia from the funeral home and the printing shop and stuff like that. But what happened to the precious? We don't know. And because we were very young at that time. And not any of us had a linkage to become a printer or to follow my father's footsteps.	12:02
Kate Ellis	None of you did follow?	12:26
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No, none of us. Not any of us followed in my father's footstep.	12:28
Kate Ellis	Yeah. What else do you know about your grandparents?	12:32
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Frankly, I don't know anything about my grandparents. As a matter of fact, we tried to find out something about them. My sister do have all these records about when he was married, who he was married to, and I think just when he was born. Oh, we figured that out. When he was born, when he died, how old he was. And certain things like that. But I think they denied us for going any further.	12:41
Kate Ellis	Oh, who did?	13:03
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, the city. You see, he was, I didn't think they allowed us to go any further in the records, from what I can understand. That's what she said. We tried to inquire about it, and they told us we had to have an attorney or something that we could go into to open the books to do this to search for those records.	13:05
Kate Ellis	Why do you think that is?	13:20
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	You see, the reason for this is, as for what I can understand, during that period of time, during the reconstruction era, well, my grandfather, I think, was married to the White woman.	13:20
Kate Ellis	He was, I'm sorry?	13:29
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Married to a White woman.	13:30
Kate Ellis	Oh.	13:31
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Okay. We do know of this.	13:31
Kate Ellis	So your grandmother was a White woman?	13:33
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Was a White woman.	13:34
Kate Ellis	Okay.	13:36
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And she had, what was it, eight children or 10 children, something like that.	13:36
Kate Ellis	By him.	13:40
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	By him.	13:40
Kate Ellis	Your father being one of them.	13:42
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	One of them. And I know of her, but other than that, that's about the only thing that we can figure out. See, that's what I'm saying—	13:45
Kate Ellis	That's all you know about them. And that was during reconstruction.	13:53
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. Well, they wouldn't let us go any further to check on trip when we went in. See my sister did get a little bit further into it, but then it just—	13:56
Kate Ellis	Do you know how your grandfather died?	14:02
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No. No. No, I really don't.	14:08
Kate Ellis	Do you ever wonder about it?	14:09
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, not really. Not really. Because I felt as far, didn't have any interest in me. But my sister and she had, I was only hoping that I could have had that, she has all of that. When certain portion of the family changed their names. They didn't exactly change the name, they just changed the spelling of their name.	14:11
Kate Ellis	Some portion of your family.	14:33
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yeah.	14:34
Kate Ellis	Because why?	14:34
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, I haven't the faintest idea.	14:35
Kate Ellis	Oh, they just—	14:35
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	They just did it.	14:35
Kate Ellis	But that's the kind of thing that you managed to know.	14:35
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	But it was in the paper. All this was this documented, it's all them records. We have all this on record.	14:42
Kate Ellis	Your family records.	14:46
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah, there was—And she was able to get all of them.	14:47
Kate Ellis	So, and this was in New Orleans that your grandfather was in?	14:50
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yes. My grandfather was from New Orleans. Well, that's the part we were trying to find out. Was he originally born in New Orleans? Was he born of slave parents? Or what? This is what we were trying to find out.	14:51
Kate Ellis	Oh.	15:03
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Because I do know that he was a big man here. From what I can understand from the places I've worked and everything else, that he was crowned by Queen Victoria for the Masons. It wasn't given to him, but he represented the Masons at that time. And he was crowned by Queen Victoria.	15:05
Kate Ellis	Oh, wow.	15:15
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	So they had all of this done in the Masons hall and all this stuff.	15:21
Kate Ellis	Is that information still there?	15:27
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I don't know. I can't say for sure. But I do know that you see, the elder people are dead now. My uncle and all of them, they passed on that would know all of that.	15:30
Kate Ellis	They're the ones that might know.	15:38
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That would know all of this.	15:38
Kate Ellis	And your father would've known, and he passed.	15:41
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, definitely. But the only thing about my father that I can remember my father always telling us that he didn't want any of us to become a Mason.	15:46
Kate Ellis	Huh.	15:51
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And his father never allowed any of his sons to become Masons.	15:51
Kate Ellis	Why?	15:59
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That's one of the things that never was explained to us. So we all became Catholics. Every one of us became Catholics. And during that period of time, a mason could not become a Catholic. You see? So therefore, this was the way it was.	15:59
Kate Ellis	Wow.	16:05
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, like I said, it was beautiful to listen to some of the things, the conversations that were said and taught to us by others.	16:05
Kate Ellis	About your family?	16:18
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	About my family. I had, well, there was several elderly people that knew my grandfather, and they would picture him. The man walks around with the derby and the cane and the broad stickpin. Very elegant fella. And well, they claim he was a playboy and all this sort of stuff.	16:24
Kate Ellis	Oh.	16:44
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. Well, they tell me I'm more or less like him.	16:46
Kate Ellis	Oh, really?	16:50
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. He had a great personality that sort of stuff. Which I would love to have met him.	16:52
Kate Ellis	Yeah, I bet.	16:59
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	See my grandfather. And as a matter of fact, I only wish my father would've lived long enough that we could have learned a lot more about his family. I had an uncle, an uncle that lived around month to be about 84 years of age. But seems just everything you asked him, it was something he looked like he'd just forgotten completely about it.	16:59
Kate Ellis	Really? You'd ask him things and he would sort of—	17:18
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	It seems as though he didn't even didn't know anything about it. As a matter of fact, we have tried to find out, we asked him about his mother. What was her name? And he didn't know his mother's name.	17:20
Kate Ellis	That's curious.	17:29
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. We found out what her name was, research. We found out what her name was, but he didn't. A lot of things that you question your people. Well, I have an uncle now here. He should be about 80 years old. But he come up along the young, around about 1918 or something like that. Or 1914, I think he was born, I think he was born around 1914, between 1914, 1918. And I know my father was teaching him the trade.	17:30
Kate Ellis	Because your father was lot older than he was?	18:04
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yes.	18:06
Kate Ellis	Yeah. He was that much younger.	18:06
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	My father was teaching him the trade. I do know that he was with my father. He worked in the office while we went to school. He was with my father. But later on, during the war, I think he went in, after the Unity Insurance Company I think folded. He went into, he was in the service, then he worked for the government afterwards. And that's where he retired from.	18:08
Kate Ellis	This is your uncle?	18:28
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That's the one that's living, yeah.	18:29
Kate Ellis	Oh, he's still living?	18:29
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yes.	18:31
Kate Ellis	Where is he now?	18:31
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	He's here in the city of New Orleans, in the uptown area. And then I had the other uncle, the oldest one, which was my dad's oldest. He was supposed to be the oldest child. That's the one that was about 84 when he passed. And I questioned that, but all he ever done was drive limousines.	18:32
Kate Ellis	Really?	18:54
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That's all I known him to do, was to drive a limousine.	18:56
Kate Ellis	Right.	18:58
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	So he said he drove the hearse for his father. So I really don't know any—	19:00
Kate Ellis	Oh, for your grandfather.	19:04
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	My grandfather, for his father, yeah.	19:05
Kate Ellis	What do you know about your mother's family?	19:08
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, I know my mother had two sisters that I do know of. And I had a great aunt. And I never met my grandfather on my mother's side, or either my grandmother, but I met all of her uncles and all of her cousins.	19:12
Kate Ellis	Where were they from?	19:30
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, my mother was originally from Paincourtville, and her father was from Donaldsonville. Now that's one side, that's on Bayou Lafourche. Now one side, her father was on one side of the bayou, and mother was on the other side of the bayou. Just like you crossed over from one side together. Donaldsonville was on one side. And Paincourtville was on the other side. That's down Bayou La Fish. So that's where my mother was from.	19:30
Kate Ellis	By what?	19:52
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Bayou Lafourche.	19:52
Kate Ellis	How do you spell?	19:52
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh God, no. No, I don't know if I'm—	19:52
Kate Ellis	Bayou Lafourche?	19:52
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Bayou Lafourche.	19:52
Kate Ellis	Yeah. Okay.	19:52
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I'm not quite sure. That's the French term. I'm not—	20:01
Kate Ellis	I don't, yeah. I couldn't know. But yeah.	20:04
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I'm not quite sure. I didn't—	20:09
Kate Ellis	Do you know what people did in her family?	20:10
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, from what I can understand, my grandfather was a railroad man, and her mother was just a housewife.	20:13
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	20:19
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Now what my great uncle done, I don't know. I really don't know. But I know they were still out there in the, it was in the country, so—	20:19
Kate Ellis	Yeah. So when did your mother come to New Orleans? Do you know?	20:29
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I really haven't the faintest idea.	20:32
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	20:32
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Actually, when did my mother get married? Now, let's see, my brother was born in '22, and I think my mother came here. She was married, what, two years before they had a child? I'm not, I think she was married in 1920. So I'm not sure if my mother came here in 1919 or 1920. So I'm not quite sure of that, so I don't know. But then I had one aunt that lived in Chicago and she passed away in Chicago. I had one aunt that lived up town, and she died four years before my father did. So I do know her. That was my favorite aunt.	20:37
Kate Ellis	Really?	21:11
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yes.	21:12
Kate Ellis	But you were young when she passed.	21:12
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. Yeah. But she was the favorite aunt.	21:15
Kate Ellis	Huh.	21:15
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah, she was a beautiful person.	21:15
Kate Ellis	Really? Let me go back to what I was thinking about asking a minute ago. What about your family? So what's the question that I had? Well, where did you go to school?	21:20
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I went to school here in New Orleans. I went to Joseph A. Craig Elementary School.	21:39
Kate Ellis	What was it called?	21:41
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Joseph A. Craig.	21:42
Kate Ellis	Oh, yes, the Craigs. Yeah.	21:43
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Albert Wicker High and McDonogh 35.	21:44
Kate Ellis	What was the second one that you said?	21:54
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Albert Wicker.	21:56
Kate Ellis	Okay.	21:56
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Albert Wicker Junior High.	21:57
Kate Ellis	Oh, yeah.	21:59
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Which is no longer in existence. They do have an Albert Wicker, but it's an elementary school now.	22:00
Kate Ellis	And then you went to McDonogh 35?	22:04
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. At that particular time, that was the only senior high school in the city of New Orleans, public for Blacks. Which you did have Xavier, Godette. And what's the other one? There were three.	22:06
Kate Ellis	Straight?	22:23
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	There were three of them. There was Godhead, Gilbert's Academy.	22:24
Kate Ellis	Oh, yeah. Okay. So you went to McDonogh 35.	22:27
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	35.	22:30
Kate Ellis	Now tell me, you grew up, you said in the Seventh, or the Sixth Ward.	22:34
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	In Fifth and Sixth Ward. Yeah, Tremé.	22:38
Kate Ellis	So that's downtown?	22:39
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That is a downtown. Yeah. That's in the downtown area. Anything below Canal Street, they always call that downtown.	22:42
Kate Ellis	Downtown.	22:44
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Anything above Canal Street—Don't ask me why, how they call it north and south, because that should be east and west, but they call that north and south.	22:44
Kate Ellis	I know, when I first got here somebody was explaining that to me.	22:56
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I never figured it out yet.	22:56
Kate Ellis	Yeah. [indistinct 00:23:00]	22:57
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Don't ask me why.	22:57
Kate Ellis	What I've heard about McDonogh 35 is that that was where kids from the uptown area and kids from the downtown area first kind of met and came together. It was like the one place—	23:04
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, yeah. That was the only, even though it's across the river in Algiers, all of them went to McDonogh 35. They didn't have any high school. They had elementary schools over there, but they only had one junior high. Well, they had two junior high. They had Hoffman and Albert Wicker High. See the kids from uptown went to Hoffman and those downtown was at Albert Wicker, which was on Canal and Tonti. Which is Pan American Insurance Company is on those grounds now.	23:11
Kate Ellis	Oh.	23:36
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And Gilbert's Academy is De La Salle is on those grounds. And Godettes is where Howard Johnson is on the grounds now.	23:36
Kate Ellis	Oh, really? Geez.	23:48
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yes.	23:48
Kate Ellis	And where was McDonogh 35?	23:49
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	McDonough 35 was on Rampart and Erato.	23:52
Kate Ellis	So that was sort of near you?	23:52
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Not Erato. I'm sorry. That was not Erato. That was—I can't think of the name of that street offhand.	23:55
Kate Ellis	But it was a part of Rampart that was sort of downtown?	24:05
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No, that was in the uptown area.	24:08
Kate Ellis	Oh, it was.	24:09
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That was right by the L&A Railroad. It's the street before Julia Street. And I can't even think of it offhand.	24:10
Kate Ellis	Oh, well. So how did you get to school every day?	24:17
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Walked.	24:21
Kate Ellis	You walked?	24:22
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I walked every morning.	24:22
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	24:22
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Every morning and every evening.	24:26
Kate Ellis	With your brothers and sisters?	24:27
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, no, not really. I didn't walk with my brothers and sisters. As a matter of fact, my brothers was a couple of years ahead of me in school. So while I was in Albert Wicker High, they were at McDonogh 35. By the time I got to McDonogh 35, they was graduates. You see, you only went to the 11th grade.	24:28
Kate Ellis	Oh.	24:49
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	We didn't have 12 grade during that period of time.	24:49
Kate Ellis	[indistinct 00:24:51] So you were saying earlier that you grew up in an integrated neighborhood.	24:56
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Right.	24:59
Kate Ellis	Where Whites and Blacks got along.	24:59
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah.	25:01
Kate Ellis	And it just happened that you went to different schools together.	25:01
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah.	25:05
Kate Ellis	But you had White friends?	25:06
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yes.	25:07
Kate Ellis	As you were coming up?	25:07
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yes. I played with them.	25:08
Kate Ellis	Did you ever talk about the fact that you went to separate schools? Did you ever sort of—	25:13
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No, more or less, I think that was instilled into you as a child. Your parents told you what you could do, what you couldn't do.	25:20
Kate Ellis	What did your parents tell you? What do you remember?	25:28
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I really, truthfully, like I said, I don't remember my mother. She never actually said really anything as far as I could understand. But again, from being in the streets and being with others, other people where you knew the difference and you understood what was going on you and you had that respect for your—Well, that's the only thing they would tell us. We had to respect for our elders, regardless to what color they was.	25:30
Kate Ellis	This you knew.	25:59
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That's one thing. Any one of them could chastise you or reprimand you for anything. So therefore, that's one of the things you do to show that respect.	26:00
Kate Ellis	Could Black adults and parents reprimand White kids?	26:11
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Sure.	26:13
Kate Ellis	So there wasn't sort of—	26:14
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, there was no difference. It didn't make any difference. It didn't make any difference, if you were caught doing something wrong, no matter what color you was or who had, as long as it was an elderly person that caught you, don't care what color you was.	26:15
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	26:27
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	You was chastised.	26:27
Kate Ellis	Do you remember what other White families and Black families did for a living? How they were able to, I mean—	26:29
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, most of them, like I said, the ones that I knew they were either firemen—	26:39
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry?	26:42
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Firemen.	26:42
Kate Ellis	Fireman?	26:42
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Or policemen.	26:42
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	26:42
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Or they had a little store, or I had some of them I knew that had taken in sewing. But that's about, I didn't know anything else personally. I only knew, like I said, most of the men, I knew that most of them were firemen or policemen. So I didn't know whether they work department stores or what.	26:53
Kate Ellis	Right.	27:10
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Salesmen, I don't know. I didn't know.	27:10
Kate Ellis	So as far as, it's interesting what you're saying about how there are certain things you just kind of knew. I mean, it's interesting to me in a sense, and in some sense indescribable how kids learn the rules as far as what you do and what you don't do. And I think I've sort of asked other people, well, do you remember what you were told? And it's sort of like, I don't remember really necessarily being told anything, but you just kind of—	27:18
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That's right.	27:46
Kate Ellis	Is that sort of—	27:46
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That's right. Really. You were really not told, because I imagine that during that period of time it was, you just move along with the group, you followed what others were doing. So I guess you understood that.	27:48
Kate Ellis	Do you ever remember a time of questioning it? Of asking, like, say you were, I don't know if you ever did, but say you were going to ride the street car with your mother and you had to sit in the back, of course. Do you remember ever saying why?	28:05
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Not really. Let's put it this way. During my time, you wasn't too good at questioning your parents.	28:20
Kate Ellis	Okay.	28:27
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Okay.	28:27
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	28:28
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	You only asked certain questions and they had be the right one. Because you were not allowed to be in the same conversation with the elder. So there's this, that's why a lot of Black families as well as White families there, they've lost a lot. Because the older people didn't confide into their children.	28:32
Kate Ellis	I see.	28:57
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Like we do today, we let them know just about what's going on and what's here and what's there. They didn't do that.	28:58
Kate Ellis	Yeah. I see exactly what you mean.	29:03
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That was not for you to know. You have time for this. And strange as it may seem, we didn't have as much pregnancy as they have today, and—	29:06
Kate Ellis	Have as much pregnancy, you said?	29:16
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That's right. Because they didn't explain nothing to a child, they never explained nothing to a young girl. And the fathers never sit down and talk to the young man. But today they have all this. And yet I can understand why it's like it is.	29:17
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	29:30
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	We never had the problems like we have today. We did have fights. Yeah, we fought them. We fought each other. We fought, the Blacks and the Whites fought against each other. Different parts of the city, they afforded one another. We played together, just like any typical American kid, we was all the same. And we had restrictions. We had certain things that we know were supposed to do. And what we couldn't do, we had police officers that patrolled the area, which we didn't have any Black policemans at that particular time. But still, we knew most of the policemans that was in that particular area.	29:32
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And we knew what we were doing wrong. It didn't make any difference what color you was. But you knew what you were doing wrong. And you'd try to get away with it. But most of the time you did. But if they caught you, then sometime they would strap you and they'd bring you home.	30:06
Kate Ellis	You mean the police would?	30:20
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But you didn't want him to bring you home.	30:21
Kate Ellis	Because you'd get it worse from your parents?	30:24
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, you had better believe that.	30:26
Kate Ellis	Let me stay at the precinct.	30:29
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, they wouldn't take you there. They would never take you to the precinct unless you had to do something real.	30:31
Kate Ellis	Really bad.	30:35
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	But he would spank you, not to try to hurt you in a certain sense. But just to let you know that he was an authority over. My father would probably would've killed me if I'd have went to jail.	30:36
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	30:48
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, he was a dad. He didn't believe in that. There's no need for that. He always just said he'd do the best he could. He would always try to provide for us. And he did. That's the way it was. I can't complain about my life. I had a wonderful life and a wonderful child's life. The only trouble that I got into is the trouble that I put myself in, and I've never had to go to jail or picked up by an officer. And then I learned from some of the elder people. But being around certain areas, I've learned certain things. They taught me while I was young, those elderly people that was doing certain things, that they knew it was wrong. And they would tell me that if they would catch us doing it, that they would kill us, they would break our legs. It wasn't worthwhile for us to do it.	30:49
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	A lot of things that they would tell us, I didn't understand what they were saying until I reached this age now. But at that particular time, I didn't even know what they were talking about.	31:38
Kate Ellis	Like what? What do you—	31:46
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, they were using drugs.	31:46
Kate Ellis	Elderly, older people were?	31:48
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	The older ones, yeah.	31:50
Kate Ellis	And in your community?	31:50
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Right. But it wasn't like these kids are today. You didn't even know that. You didn't even see that. You didn't even know that they were doing this.	31:52
Kate Ellis	What kind of drugs?	32:00
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, the one that after I reached a certain age, he was using heroin. Because he used to tell me, he used to tell—	32:01
Kate Ellis	He was an older person in your community?	32:07
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yeah. Very good-looking guy. He used to always tell we all, because we could never figure it out why I had some fella like that with Kara. But he used to tell us all the time that he would pay $3 for something to eat and never use a spoon. So we could never figure out what that was. So then we went to the—Well, which we call it [indistinct 00:32:25] we used to use was the Daygo grocery store. There was Italian grocery store. And we had to go over there. We asked Mr. Tony what he was talking about. And most of the time he would chase us out of the store because his sons and all is playing around there and stuff. We just stood up there and asked him. So then he told us what it was.	32:10
Kate Ellis	He told you, how old are you? About how old were you when he told you?	32:47
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, I must have been around about, what? When he told me that I must have been about 12 years old.	32:47
Kate Ellis	And he said to you, this man is using—	32:52
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, he just told us what it was. It was a drug. He didn't us what it was. He just told us that he was—	32:54
Kate Ellis	He said it's a drug.	32:58
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	He's a drug addict. Well, we knew they had addicts. We knew they had drug addicts. Because you've heard it so much. Well, that's what it was.	32:58
Kate Ellis	Wow.	33:03
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	But we didn't know what he was using. Well, we've heard of, we knew of the cigarettes, that these guys were smoking marijuana. Well, we knew what, but they didn't call them marijuana at that time. It was known as weeds. So we knew what that was.	33:08
Kate Ellis	And these were just people in your community?	33:19
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That was, yeah, we lived in the neighborhood.	33:21
Kate Ellis	Did you see them doing it? Or was this something that you knew people were doing?	33:25
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No, no. We didn't know. This is what they told us.	33:26
Kate Ellis	Right.	33:27
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	But no, I've never, like I said, I have never witnessed any one of them ever use them.	33:30
Kate Ellis	Right.	33:33
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I've never even seen any of them smoking a cigarette. Only from what they've told us.	33:33
Kate Ellis	The older people, they actually told you what they were doing?	33:41
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	They told us.	33:42
Kate Ellis	And they told you not to do it.	33:42
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Not to do it. That's right. And what they would do to us. We were small and they wanted us to stay in school. I know that at Joseph A. Craig School, I can remember we had a principal, which the school right across the street is named after her. Mary Dora Cargill. She was a principal.	33:42
Kate Ellis	What's the last name again?	33:59
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Cargill.	34:00
Kate Ellis	Cargill. Oh, right.	34:01
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	She was principal of Joseph A. Craig school. And these men would congregate on that corner, and if they were making noise, she'd come to the front of that school and clap her hand. And that was the end of it.	34:02
Kate Ellis	They'd leave?	34:15
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	You had better believe it. They all had that respect for her.	34:17
Kate Ellis	Now these were men. When you say men, you mean men in their twenties?	34:19
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yes. I'm talking about full-grown—	34:23
Kate Ellis	As opposed to men as in their forties or something.	34:26
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	This was elderly fellas for 21, 23 years of age.	34:28
Kate Ellis	Sure. That's where they'd congregated.	34:32
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Because sometime where they'd congregate on the corner and they were making a little bit too much noise and they could hear it because we had no air conditioning at that time. So the windows would be open into the schoolroom in there. I wouldn't exactly say it was anything obscene or no obscenity, but it was just, yeah, they were making too much noise. And they would probably disturbing the kids. And they were displaced without any problems. And also they wouldn't, you had shrubs all around the school, well-kept. And they wouldn't allow you to go in there and no, the elderly, no sir. You don't destroy nothing. And if you drop a piece of paper on that ground, you pick it up. That's the way it was during that time. Compared to what it is today. I told my sister, I passed around that neighborhood Saturday because we were singing out at Armstrong Park.	34:34
Kate Ellis	You were? On Saturday, you were?	35:30
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Saturday we was at Armstrong Park. We done that—	35:30
Kate Ellis	Oh, so the Tremé Festival?	35:33
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. That was at Juneteenth.	35:33
Kate Ellis	Yeah. I went there later on.	35:35
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah, we sang for that. Around about four o'clock.	35:36
Kate Ellis	Okay. So I missed you. So anyway.	35:39
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And so now where the Armstrong Park is, exactly where they had the building, that's where my mother's house was.	35:44
Kate Ellis	Oh, you mean in that block area?	35:52
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Right there. Right on Dumaine, I lived on Dumaine and Villere.	35:56
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay.	36:00
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Right opposite the Sanderson's Club. And that's, they tore that house down for that, to put up the park.	36:00
Kate Ellis	Oh, wow. So you were just saying that when you were with, I think you were said you were your sister singing at the park this Saturday.	36:12
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah, I just visited the area, the Tremé, the old Tremé where I was living at. And I seen, oh my God, the dilapidated houses and all of them boarded up. And the people. The people are so different and so strange. And I don't believe the original people that was born and raised in the city of New Orleans.	36:14
Kate Ellis	So it was different.	36:31
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh my God. Like night and day.	36:33
Kate Ellis	Describe some of the differences.	36:35
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Everything, the upkeep of the house, upkeep of the neighborhood, the people. You didn't have that kind of a setup where you see people hanging all over. We didn't have that. There were people that set out, because during that, like I said, during that period of time, there was no air conditioning. Very few people had money enough to buy a fan. So it was hot like that, they would be outside. And at one time, yeah, they could keep their front door open and they would sit in their front door and their open windows and something like that. But oh my God, today is, gee whiz. They'll throw trash, there's a refuge right there.	36:39
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And they'll throw the trash on the street. I've never seen that. They destroy everything. Those on it has fallen apart. It never was like that. I actually, I don't understand that. But we had respect and we all tried to outdo one another.	37:15
Kate Ellis	Really?	37:32
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, definitely. In our neighborhood, everybody tried to, we had the steps and see whose steps was the cleanest, whose steps was the whitest. I mean, this was a challenge and it was a pride thing that you had. But look at that neighborhood now. My goodness gracious. Even where the funeral home was, it's all dilapidated. And even if you wait till the funeral home moves out there, that's a terrible neighborhood.	37:33
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, they tried to bring it back. This is what Juneteenth and all this is all about, to bring back the old Tremé. But there's so much of that drugs that's being distributed around in that area right now, it's just terrible. And you have the pastor from St. Peter Claver, which is trying to do the best he can right now.	37:57
Kate Ellis	To revive the neighborhood?	38:22
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah, to revive it. But who you going to get to come back into it?	38:27
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry?	38:28
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Who would come back into that area? Or who would go back into that area and the way it looks right now, who would try to invest anything into that area? You want to invest 30 or $40,000 into an area that it's not even worth $5.	38:29
Kate Ellis	It's too bad because it's right across from the French Quarter.	38:43
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, it's not far from the Quarter, but you have the Tremé, which is a beautiful area. It's an old area. It's got history to it. It's got a lot of history to the Tremé. Congo Square had a heck of a lot. You see where you have it right now, where Tremé is, they had Beauregard Square and you had Congo Square, which is one of the same for what I understand. They had a big beautiful swimming pool there, which at that particular time, the reason for them closing it is because of the integration. But before that time, there was a big swimming pool in there.	38:47
Kate Ellis	They closed the pool up during integration?	39:21
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. See it was strictly for Whites at one time, you see. There was McDonogh, but that was McDonogh 22 or McDonogh something that was a school that was on St. Ann and St. Claude. That was the White elementary school. But right opposite, there was the park, which we called the Beauregard Square or Congo Square. That was, the pool was there. And they could go swimming in the summertime, play ball and do everything. We weren't allowed to just go into, well you could walk through the park, but you cannot stay, you could stop and watch them do it, playing or swimming. But you were not allowed to go into the pool or something like that. And that was right where the municipal auditorium is right there?	39:24
Kate Ellis	Right, yeah.	40:04
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	It was right behind the municipal auditorium. And then they closed that pool and then they closed and one out there in City Park.	40:05
Kate Ellis	They closed those pools when? During integration?	40:10
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	During integration, yeah.	40:10
Kate Ellis	Because they didn't want—	40:10
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	They didn't want the Blacks into the pool.	40:10
Kate Ellis	So they just closed the thing?	40:10
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I'm not sure, I know that the pool, the one that in City Park was closed under the administration of Schiro. But I don't know when Beauregard Square, I don't know if it was under his administration. I didn't know.	40:24
Kate Ellis	What did you make of it when you'd go by the park and you'd see White kids swimming and you knew that you couldn't? I mean, how did you—	40:33
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, you felt a little, it felt different. You wonder why, why you couldn't, but you never questioned it. See, they did have a pool. They did have a pool, but it was not a pool—We didn't have a pool out in this area, but they did have a pool up in the uptown area at Thomy Lafon School had a swimming pool. You see?	40:42
Kate Ellis	So that was sort of the Black swimming pool?	41:03
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. Oh, yeah. But we didn't, now they had one at, I don't know if they had it at the Y, but I do know that they had it up at Thomy Lafon. But we didn't have anyone down in this area.	41:06
Kate Ellis	In your neighborhood?	41:13
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No, no swimming pool.	41:14
Kate Ellis	Even though there was a large Black population in the area.	41:15
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yes. Yes.	41:17
Kate Ellis	So you said you sort of feel different. You said—	41:21
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	You felt a little different. Yeah. Well, there was nothing much you could do about it. And if you went up there to Thomy Lafon, which was up there where the pool was, more or less, you had to fight most of the time. Just like little gang fights you.	41:23
Kate Ellis	Oh, really?	41:38
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yeah. You would have, because it was up and around the Shakespeare Park along there. So you just had a little fighting to do. Which was the normal thing. If the White fellows would come from the Irish channel and they'll come to us down at say St. Claire or Legion Fields, around what we used to call the fire station. White guys there went around them all the way back up there. They'd have to do some running	41:39
Kate Ellis	So the White guys would run back?	42:03
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Would run the other White fellows if they come from out of—	42:05
Kate Ellis	Oh, like the White Irish fellows.	42:07
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Right. Any one of them. If they come from a different area.	42:09
Kate Ellis	I see. It was like a territorial thing.	42:12
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Right, right, right. Didn't make any difference. But wait, it wasn't like these kids are now, going out there and shooting one another. No. Now they did have a few cuttings, and stabbings or something like that. But nothing fatal. But like it is today, you can't walk outside just your house.	42:18
Kate Ellis	Yeah, yeah.	42:32
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	But then you had all your theaters. Now that's another thing. The theaters, they were all in the neighborhood, but the Whites sit downstairs and you sit up. You could go to the theaters on Canal Street, but you still had to walk up millions of steps and they didn't have what you would consider just an all Black theater. Or an all White theater. Only one was the Saenger Theater.	42:34
Kate Ellis	The—	42:57
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	The Saenger Theater, which is on Canal Street right now. The Saenger. I don't know if you heard of it. Well, the Saenger Theater was the only one that was predominantly White and it didn't allow no Blacks in at all. During that period of time. But all the rest of them, the Orpheum, the lower states and all the other theaters that all around the city that the Blacks was up and the Whites were down.	43:00
Kate Ellis	How was that? I mean—	43:24
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, that's the way they had it set up.	43:25
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	43:27
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	They didn't want you to be together.	43:27
Kate Ellis	Right.	43:30
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Sit together. But it's all right if you up above, as long as they were separated in a sense.	43:30
Kate Ellis	Did you ever go to the theater with some White people and then just get inside and you go to the top part and White friends go to the bottom?	43:34
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I don't remember if I ever went to the theater, we walked to the same theater and then one went up and went. I don't remember. I don't remember. As a matter of fact, I really don't remember. I know Charlie Caruso and them, I don't remember if they went to the—Which theater they went to. I know if they went to the one on Rampart Street or the one on Clayburn Street. Really. I can't even remember that.	43:47
Kate Ellis	So when you went to the theater and you'd go to the top part, did you have the same kind of feeling that you had when you went to the swimming pool? You know how you're saying—	44:10
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Not really. Not really. Not really. It was just, "Hey daddy, let's sit." We knew that the Whites was downstairs. The Blacks was upstairs. So I really didn't, I didn't have nothing. We know we was seeing the same thing, so I didn't really, that had no bearing. Nothing like that.	44:22
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	44:37
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Sometime I would question the fact that what's the difference? What's the difference? I mean, we all have the same books, we have the same teaching. And I think why, many times we used to wonder about that, why? We played together. Sometimes we wonder why.	44:42
Kate Ellis	Why you had to be separated.	44:57
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. Well, a lot of things, when you were small, real small, you was wondering, why she this color? Why is it I'm this color? Why is it you had this texture here? Why I have this kind of—And then it fades away.	45:02
Kate Ellis	Those questions.	45:13
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	They do fade away, because who are you going to question? You couldn't go to your parents and ask them questions like that. So it just faded away.	45:14
Kate Ellis	You said something earlier when we were talking on the phone, that was interesting to me. That you didn't, as you were just saying, you didn't think that much about it when you were growing up. But then when you were older, you said that you started to think about it. I don't know if you think you started to think about it more, but you sort of made it, I almost got the feeling from what you said, that you were more conscious of it again or something. I guess what I'm asking is, was there a sort of shift in the way that you thought about segregation or what you noticed about it?	45:23
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, you said a shift in the way I feel. Let's put it—Today I'm 70, or will be 70. You'll look at it and you'll say, why in the world that things couldn't be like it is today than it was yesterday? You see what I mean? What I'm trying to say is that, what's the difference? There is no difference as far as the race is concerned. We be together now and you haven't done anything. You haven't caused any complications. So why is it during that period of time that had to change the races? Then when I was reading, during reconstruction, you had that. What we having to take, you had that during reconstruction. So then you had another period, you had period of slavery, then reconstruction. Then you had segregation, and then now you've got the desegregation.	46:00

Kate Ellis	—miss what you just said. You had just said that wouldn't the world be a better place—	0:00
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Better place.	0:05
Kate Ellis	—wouldn't it have been a better place then if you had what we had today.	0:05
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. Right. Because people, at that particular time, there was so much hatred, I guess, to those people. Like I said, we didn't carry—I'd never had to carry that kind of a hate. But I—	0:07
Kate Ellis	For the White people? So—	0:21
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, some of them. Well, let's put it this way. You figure New Orleans, like I told you over the telephone, we lived in all four corners of the city of New Orleans. This was not like Baton Rouge or Shreveport, or any of the others where the Blacks were on one side of the tracks. We lived all over the entire city of New Orleans. Therefore, you could understand you had White people all over. So naturally, we all were together, which we had a problem with most of the people from Northern Louisiana and all, because they didn't appreciate the way we were, and the way we got along.	0:23
Kate Ellis	You mean like White New Orleans—	0:51
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Whites. No, Whites didn't allow it. They didn't like the way things were going there.	0:51
Kate Ellis	So, the Whites would come in from out of town to New Orleans?	0:55
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, they would have their say, as you know, about, "Hey, you shouldn't let this one be here. This Black person shouldn't be here. This Black person shouldn't be talking to you," all this kind of stuff like that. Those things was crazy.	1:02
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Look, but this is one of the things, like I said, a person that was originally born and reared in the city of New Orleans during that period of time, I'd say from 1918 up until 1950, original people in there, we didn't have no problem. I could go next door there and tell the lady "Look, my mama said she need a cup of sugar."	1:12
Kate Ellis	And she was a White woman.	1:35
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	She was White. Or they'll come over there and ask my mother for it. It didn't make any difference. I done remember the lady, that was the lady that was next door to me when her husband took sick, my mother was over there. They were over there. They helped one another. They lived together. But now? Well, I can understand more the White people had moved out of the neighborhood after certain people moved into a neighborhood. Well, I don't fault them.	1:36
Kate Ellis	You don't? Why not?	2:02
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, you look at some of the people that come in here. Look at that area. What I was telling you about.	2:04
Kate Ellis	The Treme, that area?	2:08
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That's right. Look how they discredit it. They cared less about it.	2:10
Kate Ellis	And when you say "they," you're talking about Black people?	2:15
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Black people. Black people. I'm talking about Black people.	2:19
Kate Ellis	You feel that's—	2:21
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That's what's in that area. There isn't any White people in there. It's not to say that when the White people walked out of there, that they left that in that condition. No. When they walked away from there, those were beautiful homes, well-kept homes. And then when they walked away, that's because you take the projects, they have one of the beautifulest thing, especially this one that's right over here, the Desire Project.	2:22
Kate Ellis	What's it called?	2:48
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Desire.	2:49
Kate Ellis	Desire Project. Uh-huh.	2:50
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	The one that have all the problems there. They had the most beautiful things in the world in there. The flooring in that place, it was out of sight.	2:51
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm. You saw all this as it was coming?	2:59
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, I—	3:00
Kate Ellis	As it developed and was—	3:00
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, gee. I remembered every one of them. Now, the Lafitte Project was the best. Now this one here, well, it's about one of the only projects that's left in the city of New Orleans that's halfway decent.	3:03
Kate Ellis	Lafitte?	3:14
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Lafitte. That's right. But all the rest of them? My God. They're just out there. Who destroyed it?	3:15
Kate Ellis	Who do you think—	3:26
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	The people destroyed it.	3:30
Kate Ellis	Why do you think that is?	3:30
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I haven't the faintest idea why. If they have a hostility, you don't take it out on that. You take out your frustration elsewhere. Don't destroy it.	3:31
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I walked into one of them there, I questioned one of the fellas about the house in the project. And I asked him, I said, "Why is it children have a wall with a hole in it like that?" He tell me both of the kids went to go through the door at the same time, but they couldn't go through. So, he went through the wall. And I questioned him, "Well, what did you do about it?" "I didn't do nothing about it." Now, would I want him to be in my house? Would I want his family to be living in my house? No. If he did that, I mean, he wouldn't care whether he walk through the walls.	3:41
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	These are the things that, when you look at it, a lot of people want to say that, "Hey, they didn't give this to the Black person. They didn't do this for the Black person." But you're not stuck—	4:15
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	This world doesn't know anyone, anybody, anything. You got to get out there and do it. I made a living for myself. My mother struggled and educated six of us. I struggled and I sent all five of my kids to school.	4:24
Kate Ellis	Did you? Wow.	4:39
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Every one of them. Every one of them. They all got college degrees.	4:42
Kate Ellis	Wow. That's—Yeah.	4:43
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And there was no other one. My wife never worked. My wife never worked.	4:47
Kate Ellis	Really?	4:51
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	In the 30 years that we stayed together, she never worked.	4:52
Kate Ellis	Well, what was your occupation when you got out of high school? What did you do?	4:58
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, when I got out of high school, I went to the service. And when I got out of the service, I worked for Lights Egan Funeral Home for the first portion of it.	5:00
Kate Ellis	You did what?	5:07
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I worked for Lights Egan Funeral Home.	5:07
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh. What was the name of the funeral home?	5:09
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Lights Egan.	5:11
Kate Ellis	The Lights Egan?	5:12
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah.	5:13
Kate Ellis	Okay. Uh-huh.	5:14
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	After that, then I went with a little parcel service. Then I went into the trucking industry. I worked for Herrin Transportation Company and MacLean Trucking Company.	5:17
Kate Ellis	MacLean.	5:29
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That's where I retired from. MacLean Trucking Company.	5:30
Kate Ellis	Oh. Uh-huh. Did you drive the trucks?	5:32
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yes. I was an 18-wheeler [indistinct 00:05:37]	5:34
Kate Ellis	Really? You probably traveled a lot.	5:37
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, at that time, when I first started out there, they didn't allow Blacks on the road either.	5:41
Kate Ellis	Oh. What year was that that you started?	5:45
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	1956.	5:48
Kate Ellis	And they didn't allow Blacks on the road?	5:49
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No. Well, you see, there wasn't accommodations for Blacks on the road. You went, but you was on your own. Most companies didn't want you to go through the back doors and all this kind of stuff.	5:50
Kate Ellis	The companies did not want you to do that?	6:01
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No, no, no. Because that could create a problem.	6:03
Kate Ellis	What do you mean?	6:06
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, you're driving a truck and you pump truck, then you have to come through the back door to get something to eat or something like that. You wasn't allowing in none of the truck stop to do anything.	6:06
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Until when it was in 1970. Yeah, 1968 to 1970 when they let you on the road. You was going on the road, and then you didn't have too much problem about it.	6:18
Kate Ellis	1960s?	6:25
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	1968 to 1970.	6:25
Kate Ellis	That's when you started.	6:25
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I started running on the road.	6:25
Kate Ellis	And that's when it became possible.	6:25
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. Well, you could go—Right. You could go into—	6:40
Kate Ellis	For Black people to—	6:42
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. You could go—	6:43
Kate Ellis	—go to through the front door.	6:44
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	—in the front door and go into—	6:45
Kate Ellis	And use the facilities.	6:47
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Use the facilities and [crosstalk 00:06:48]	6:48
Kate Ellis	Stay in a hotel or motel.	6:48
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Right. Well, whatever it was. Then you were served.	6:51
Kate Ellis	But until then—	6:51
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	In some places, they still had a little problem. But the majority of the places, you didn't have any problems.	6:53
Kate Ellis	Do you remember having problems?	6:57
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No, I don't. No. No problem.	6:59
Kate Ellis	You weren't given, but there were problems [indistinct 00:07:02]	7:00
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, there were problems. Well, when they first started that, when they changed it over here in the city of New Orleans, where you were allowed to go into any place, any one of the restaurants, anything. You had a little problem once in a while.	7:01
Kate Ellis	They would—	7:10
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	You would run into some of the fellas.	7:10
Kate Ellis	They'd insult you.	7:10
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, even the other White fellows called them rednecks. They didn't believe in—You had a problem with them, but most of the time, you would go into a place like that, you would be together with White and Blacks. We would go into the restaurant, various, some of them. They would give you a little stare, some of them.	7:10
Kate Ellis	A little stare, you said?	7:35
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, they would stare at you. Some of them wouldn't even serve you. Especially the one that was out here on Frenchmen and Gentilly. And she would use derogatory remarks.	7:36
Kate Ellis	Would she? When you'd go there?	7:45
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yes. Indeed, she would.	7:45
Kate Ellis	What'd she say to you?	7:45
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	She'd call you all kinds of names. She would call you a nigger just like that. "We don't serve niggers in here," and all that.	7:45
Kate Ellis	And you—	7:50
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Right in front of them.	7:51
Kate Ellis	This is a restaurant.	7:52
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah.	7:52
Kate Ellis	And you'd go in there with White people.	7:53
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yeah.	7:55
Kate Ellis	And what would you do when she did this?	7:56
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Nothing. Most of the time, you just would ignore her. Just go on about your business. Okay. That's your restaurant, you have that. Because they have the sign up, too, they had the right to refuse service to anyone. You know—	7:57
Kate Ellis	And they exercised that.	8:08
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Their right. So, it didn't make any difference. And we would walk right. We'd all go someplace else. It didn't matter.	8:10
Kate Ellis	Now, was this in the 1960s that you're describing this?	8:15
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. No, this was right after integration.	8:22
Kate Ellis	I see. Right.	8:22
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	This wasn't—This was before '60—	8:23
Kate Ellis	And before, like in the '50s.	8:26
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. That's what I'm trying to tell you.	8:26
Kate Ellis	Did you experience more of that, more insults like that when there was a segregation? Did you have more experiences of having Whites kind of—	8:29
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No. No, not really. No. No. No. There was only a selected few that would come—You see, one of the things about it that most people felt as though that was a slap in the face, and they would fight no matter what. It would be a slap in the face to call you out of your name. They'd call you that. That was room for a fight. Rather than go through all this thing, no, they didn't do it. They didn't. They did it more afterwards than they did before.	8:47
Kate Ellis	[indistinct 00:09:16]?	9:14
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	The only ones that would call you like that would be the police officers.	9:16
Kate Ellis	The police officers?	9:18
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. They'd either call you boy or they would call you a nigger or something like that.	9:23
Kate Ellis	What? When you were coming—when you were growing up?	9:35
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yeah. When I was coming up. Oh, yes, yes, yes. The police. They had little respect for the families.	9:35
Kate Ellis	For the family. You mean for the Black family?	9:36
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Black family. Oh, some White families, too. Oh, yeah. It all depends which area they was in. They didn't have the respect. Really, truthfully, most policemens was ignorant. They were ignorant. They didn't have any education.	9:38
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	But because they were White, they got the job. This family member know this family member who know this chief and then that's put them right on. They couldn't even pass the test. But that's the way it was in the city.	9:51
Kate Ellis	Just to clear, so you're saying that when you're coming up—Because when you were first talking earlier about growing up in your neighborhood when you were young, the policemen knew people in the family.	10:05
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	They knew. They knew.	10:15
Kate Ellis	I sort of got the feeling that there was a sort of friendly relationship there, in a sense. I mean, you knew who the police were, they knew you.	10:18
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yeah. Well, most of the police was living right there in the neighborhood that you were in.	10:25
Kate Ellis	Are these the same policemen you're saying that had no respect for—	10:30
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Some of them.	10:35
Kate Ellis	—Blacks.	10:36
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Some of them.	10:36
Kate Ellis	[indistinct 00:10:36].	10:36
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Some of them.	10:36
Kate Ellis	So, some of them were—	10:36
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Some of them.	10:36
Kate Ellis	—insulting—	10:37
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yeah. Some of them.	10:38
Kate Ellis	—when you were growing up.	10:38
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Right. Right. Not all of them. Just like it is today. Not all of them. Some of them were very respectful. They'll come to you and talk to you just like—They wanted you to respect them and they'll respect you, too. But others cared less.	10:39
Kate Ellis	Right. And others—	10:50
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	They just came along and it didn't make any difference what they'd said or who'd they say it to.	10:55
Kate Ellis	They would call you boy or they'd call you—	10:57
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, anything. It wouldn't make any difference. It wouldn't make any difference to them.	11:00
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm. Well, related to that, did you ever grow up feeling that you needed to watch yourself around police in particular because otherwise they could hurt you? I mean, my—	11:04
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yes. Yes. You know how to conduct yourself around the police officers.	11:36
Kate Ellis	What did—How did—	11:41
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Some of them. Some of them.	11:41
Kate Ellis	No, I understand—	11:41
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Some of them. Some of them. Sometimes they were very nice. And if they were by themselves—Well, we never really didn't take advantage of any of them. But there was one policeman—But they had a bunch of guys. They were pretty rough, but mischief and everything else. So, we called him Sergeant Robita.	11:43
Kate Ellis	Robita. Sergeant—	12:01
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah.	12:03
Kate Ellis	He was [indistinct 00:12:05].	12:04
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I think that was his name. And we had Mr. George. We used to call him Mr. George because he was always the police officer at the dance. Every dance that would give, a public dance, Mr. George would be at the dance. Well, at 12 o'clock, see, y'all dancing at 12 o'clock on a Sunday night, and Mr. George would be the first one to leave. Mr. George would board the street car and forget about it.	12:05
Kate Ellis	Oh, really?	12:27
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	But he was a nice police officer. If you didn't have the money, most of the time, he'll give you that little money to go into the dance.	12:30
Kate Ellis	Really?	12:34
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	50 cents or whatever it was. He'll give it. He'll pay for you to go in, even though he didn't have to pay. All he had to do is just walk up there and let you go into the dance. But he would give you the money. Let them go in there. But he was a real nice—	12:35
Kate Ellis	So he was a nice guy.	12:46
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	He was a real nice guy. Now, Sergeant Robita was not a bad guy. He had the baseball team and everything around there. But it was just that these guys was just a mischief.	12:46
Kate Ellis	The policemen?	12:55
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	The policeman was nice. But—	12:56
Kate Ellis	They [indistinct 00:12:58].	12:58
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	—the fellas in the neighborhood were just a mischief.	12:58
Kate Ellis	And so they would [indistinct 00:13:01]	12:58
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	They would antagonize him.	13:01
Kate Ellis	They would antagonize the Black people.	13:04
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, definitely. They'll throw a rocks at him. They'll do all sort of things.	13:06
Kate Ellis	At Black mans.	13:08
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No. At the policemen.	13:10
Kate Ellis	[indistinct 00:13:12].	13:10
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No. The Black mans would take and throw the rocks, you see. The policeman was very—He was all right.	13:11
Kate Ellis	The policeman was nice. Sergeant Robita.	13:16
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah.	13:16
Kate Ellis	I see. But some—	13:16
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Black dudes was [indistinct 00:13:21].	13:16
Kate Ellis	They were [indistinct 00:13:22].	13:16
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Little Black kids.	13:16
Kate Ellis	They would antagonize him.	13:16
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Antagonize him, and then that would make him—get him.	13:25
Kate Ellis	Okay. But tell me about the other side, about policemen who might abuse you. When I was asking a minute ago about, when I said, did you ever feel that you had to conduct yourself in a certain way around policemen because they could take advantage of you. So, you knew that. You had friends, or you knew people, Black men, who would sort of be mischievous and sort of push that. But as far as, I guess what I'm trying to get a sense of is what did you—I guess I get the feeling that you kind of almost knew—	13:27
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. You knew not to antagonize the policeman or not to do anything that would set him off. Oh, you mean whether he would be abusive to me or if I done something? I never had the experience of that, so therefore I reckon [indistinct 00:14:21]	14:07
Kate Ellis	I guess what I'm asking, in a sense, was there a code of conduct in some sense among Blacks, at least with some policemen? I guess I'm asking what that was.	14:21
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well—	14:37
Kate Ellis	Even if it was never said, what did you know that you needed to do or not do around a policeman?	14:38
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, one of the things about it, you knew that you had to respect him for one thing. Okay? When I'm saying that—The only thing that when you were close enough to a policeman, doing things such as using obscene language.	14:44
Kate Ellis	You wouldn't do that around them?	14:57
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	You wouldn't do that around them—You wouldn't disrespect, say something to some elderly person or to a White person, especially a young lady.	14:59
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh. A young White woman.	15:06
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. A young White woman. No, you wouldn't. You knew better.	15:08
Kate Ellis	Right. At that time, you and I would not probably—	15:10
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No way.	15:14
Kate Ellis	—be in the same room.	15:15
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, I wouldn't exactly the say we wouldn't be in the same room, but we wouldn't be in the public.	15:16
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Like this? This wouldn't have no prayer, [indistinct 00:15:23] then.	15:23
Kate Ellis	We would never talk in public.	15:23
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No, no. We would never be together in public.	15:23
Kate Ellis	So, if a White woman passed you on a street in your neighborhood—I mean, I know that you—	15:25
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	She could speak to you. It wouldn't be no problem. There wouldn't be no problem because figures, though, that you probably would call by name and call each other, so they know that you were a part of that neighborhood.	15:28
Kate Ellis	So, we might know each other.	15:37
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	We'd know each other. But it's for you to go out of the neighborhood and to speak to someone, or to bump into a White woman or something of this nature, then you could have a problem.	15:41
Kate Ellis	Right. So, when you left the neighborhood—	15:51
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Once you left the neighborhood—	15:54
Kate Ellis	—that's when you had to be careful.	15:54
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	—that's when you had to be careful about who you talked to, where you went, and what you were doing. Yes.	15:55
Kate Ellis	What would you do? I mean, would you just look away?	16:01
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, I don't know. It was an everyday thing, I guess. You knew how to conduct yourself, and they knew how to conduct themselves. They wouldn't put themselves in a position where you would come in contact with them, or you wouldn't put yourself in a position to come in contact with them unless you just had to.	16:05
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	There was points where if the fellow that was delivering groceries and stuff like that, you'd come in contact. But some of them wouldn't allow you to come inside their house. Some of them wanted you to go no further than to the front door. Some didn't even want you to come to the front door. They wanted you to go to the rear, had all this kind of stuff. But you knew this because when I was in school, I worked in the grocery store, and I had that kind of a problem.	16:25
Kate Ellis	What kind of problem?	16:49
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, one day I bring the groceries there and they'd tell me bring them to the back. I bring them to the back, said put them in the kitchen. I'd do that. And the next time, they wouldn't even let me come to the—	16:49
Kate Ellis	Oh, really?	16:58
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Same people. Yeah. Excuse me.	16:58
Kate Ellis	Wow. So, when you went back, you had gone into the kitchen, delivered the groceries, next time you went back to the house—	17:04
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Either the man would be in there. He said, "I told you, I don't want you coming into my house." Now, the wife done already told me to what she want me to do. She didn't want me to come to the front door. She wanted me to come in the back, tell me over the telephone, and then put the groceries on the table.	17:09
Kate Ellis	Right. So this was her husband?	17:21
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That's her husband, would come—	17:22
Kate Ellis	The next time.	17:23
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	—the next time, he'll come in there when I stand at the door, then I'd knock at the back door. Then he'd come and, "Well, boy, you know better than that." Put the groceries on the table. Well, see. You had to understand this. Most of the time, I would go back to the store and I would tell the owner about it. Then he'd say, "Well, you don't pay no attention to him, do you?" I'd say "[indistinct 00:17:42] man."	17:23
Kate Ellis	Yeah. Was the store owner White or Black?	17:42
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Mm-hmm. He's White.	17:44
Kate Ellis	He was White. So, he just thought—	17:45
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	He was White. Most all of those grocery stores was all owned by Italians. We had one German that had a grocery store. But you don't let that bother you. Most of the time, you just overlook that. And—	17:48
Kate Ellis	But there was a kind of—Go ahead.	17:49
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, that's what it is. Some of them, I used to go tell early in the morning, and they had their milk and donuts and stuff like that. I would deliver that to them.	18:07
Kate Ellis	To White folks.	18:14
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. Very few Blacks I delivered to. Very, very few Blacks. Most Black people didn't buy that much bunch groceries in the first place because they didn't have the money. Mostly, this was more or less the ones that had husbands that was working, and whatever they were doing, they would get paid at least maybe once a month or every two weeks or something like that. They would make enough groceries to keep a home over until the next payday. See, then I would deliver that to them, because everything was in the little stores. They didn't have these supermarkets or nothing like that.	18:15
Kate Ellis	They didn't have those big, giant—	18:47
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, no, no. It was all just little corner grocery stores. They had four—On each corner, there was a grocery store.	18:48
Kate Ellis	Did the shop owners treat you pretty well? I mean, were they—	18:56
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Shop owners?	19:01
Kate Ellis	—respectful?	19:01
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	What do you mean? The department stores, like? Or.	19:02
Kate Ellis	No. Well, I mean the little grocery stores where you worked and—	19:03
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Little grocery stores. Like I said, little grocery stores, they treat you because they all know you.	19:07
Kate Ellis	Right. What about the department stores?	19:09
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Now, the department stores was another thing. Only thing that you were allowed to do in the department store was be a porter. You were not allowed to be a salesperson. Now, I've heard in certain stores that didn't allow them to try on any clothes or try a hat on and anything of that nature. But I've never experienced any of that. I worked for a shoe store in the business district. I worked for that just before I got into the service because it was hard. It was very hard to find a job.	19:10
Kate Ellis	Really?	19:41
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yes. Indeed. At that time, I was making as much as an average man was making, $10 a week.	19:42
Kate Ellis	Really? An average Black man, you mean? Or an average—	19:49
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	An average man.	19:52
Kate Ellis	—man?	19:52
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Period.	19:53
Kate Ellis	In New Orleans was making $10 a week.	19:53
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	$10 a week.	20:07
Kate Ellis	Around when? Around what year was that?	20:07
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, this was 1938, '39, '40, '41. And in 1945, man, I was making $25 a week. And that was top salary.	20:09
Kate Ellis	Really. And that was doing what?	20:10
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That was 1945. Right after World War II.	20:12
Kate Ellis	And what were you doing?	20:15
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	At that particular time? I was working for Lights Egan at that time. But in the beginning, I was working for Red Goose Shoe Store.	20:16
Kate Ellis	Okay. The Lights Egan. That was the funeral home.	20:26
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	In 1938, 1939, I was working for Red Goose Shoe Store. I was making $10 a week. In 1945, I was working for Lights Egan Funeral Home. I got out of the service in October the 24th of 1945, and I went to work for them in November of '45 because I wanted to keep active [indistinct 00:20:41]. And instead of going back to school, I didn't know why I didn't go back to school, which I don't have any regrets. And then sometime I do.	20:27
Kate Ellis	Depends what day it is.	20:51
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Many a times I sit down here, I'm doing nothing since I retired. I say, "Oh, I should go and register to go back to school, and why don't I go to—" I went over to Suno once, and then I decided, I said, "Oh—" I never was ashamed. I always felt as though I was competitive enough that I can be competitive enough to challenge any young student that's in there. But it was just—I don't know. I gave it up. I'm 70 years of age, and I know that my thinking capacity reaches full this high. I don't believe that computer can work any longer.	20:54
Kate Ellis	Well, let me ask you about World War II. Where did you go during World—Were you stationed overseas?	21:33
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yes. I was in the European Theater. I landed in Glasgow, Scotland, then I was in South Hampton, England, and then I landed in the Normandy Beachhead. Then we went all the way in through St. Lou, Reims, Paris. Long way. Belgium.	21:40
Kate Ellis	How was that? I mean—	22:02
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Really, when I sit down here and I talk to a lot of people, I can show you some pictures. I never realized anything.	22:05
Kate Ellis	What do you mean you never realized anything?	22:12
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I never realized it was any danger. I felt as though this is just a game. I didn't know why. I realize it later on, that this is really the reality. But I just thought this is was a game.	22:13
Kate Ellis	Yes. But many people did die.	22:24
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yeah. I left and then see the destructions and everything else. Then I went in. But I think the part is, when I was in Metz, France, they changed us from one unit to another. I was driving a truck, and I fell off the mountain. Came right straight down off of the mountain [indistinct 00:22:46] ice—	22:29
Kate Ellis	In the truck.	22:45
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. And I stayed there, cold, freezing. Well, they came and they got me. And I told them, I said, like if I had a job, I told them I quit.	22:47
Kate Ellis	Say again? If you had a job—	22:58
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Like I had a job. I was quitting this job, but I'm in the service. Then I told them I wasn't driving the truck anymore because I fell off that mountain, off that icy mountain. You know what? I didn't have any experience in driving on ice and snow and all of that stuff—	22:59
Kate Ellis	Yeah. Certainly not from New Orleans.	23:17
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Never had seen it, so.	23:17
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	But then I left from there, went into Tulle, France. From Tulle, France, I left and then I went into—What was it? What place was that? I don't remember. I should remember that one because we went down to like, it was a little river, but it wasn't very deep. They were shelling us. I never will forget the lieutenant that was in charge of the company. He was so scared. He was a rich man. He was a very rich man. He didn't want to die.	23:17
Kate Ellis	Really?	23:49
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No, he didn't want to die. Which I didn't [indistinct 00:23:50]	23:49
Kate Ellis	Was he White? Was he White?	23:50
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. Oh, yeah. We didn't have any Black officers. It was a segregated army. The army was segregated, and then we had no Black officers. This was one of the things that really affected us.	23:51
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Now, when I first got into the service, we had a problem because every soldier in my outfit had a high school diploma. So, we wanted to know why we didn't have an officer. The first thing, they put us in like a quartermaster corps, a labor union, and, well, decided, "Hey, wait. I don't need to know the nomenclature of an ax handle. I don't need to know the nomenclature of spade."	24:00
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm. Of a what?	24:30
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	A spade. That's a shovel. Anybody with common sense—I mean, a kid that just come up knows what end to put in the ground. I don't need you to tell us that. I don't see no reason for that.	24:31
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	But before, in the beginning, when I first was drafted, and they had me up on Melpamine and Drieds at the center, induction center, giving your orders when you're leaving and when were you going. They separated me from the rest of the group that was going to the Army and the Navy. They didn't have any Blacks in the Marine at the particular time, or the Air Force or nothing. But it was just the Navy and the Army.	24:41
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	So, they put me into the Navy section. I told them, I said, "No, I'm not going in the Navy." So he told me, he said, "The only way you can go to the Army, if we get somebody else to volunteer to go in the Navy." He said, "Well, because we're going to take you in the Navy. We have to meet our quota." And so, that's when another argument, I turned to him and I said, "Not me." I said, "My parents was enslaved, but I'm not going to be a slave." I said, "And I know what the Navy is all about. All I can ever be in the Navy is to be a servant."	25:06
Kate Ellis	Really?	25:37
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	As a matter of fact, I told him, I said, "I don't even serve myself. My mother serves my dinner to me." So, that's why—It's true. Then finally, somebody come along and said to me, said, "Okay, okay. You can go ahead to the Army." So, I went over into the Army. But that was an experience then.	25:38
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And that way, after I got into the service, I stayed in there for a while. I had a little problem just before going overseas. Every morning I wake up, I'm on KP. For what? I mopping the floors, washing the dishes, peeling potato. Well, anyway, now this is not right. So, I went to court.	25:52
Kate Ellis	To the Army court.	26:13
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	They had a summary court marshal. This trip, they gave me 14 days.	26:17
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry?	26:26
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	They gave me 14 days.	26:26
Kate Ellis	14 days.	26:26
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	14 days of hard labor. That's what they gave me in the service. 14 days, because I went to court because I wanted to know why I was going to KP doing extra duty.	26:27
Kate Ellis	So, just by complaining, they gave you 14 days.	26:27
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. Oh, in the 92nd article of war, they can charge you with anything. They could charge you with smoking.	26:27
Kate Ellis	Is that right?	26:42
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Anything you do.	26:43
Kate Ellis	So, just the fact [indistinct 00:26:45].	26:43
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	All right. So I got through that. Well, right after I finished the 14 days, I made PFC. I made PFC right after that. It's crazy. So, I was on guard duty. Had a second lieutenant out of Rome, Georgia. He called us all in, and he made us leave our rifles. He locked up all our rifles, and he gave us all pickax handles.	26:46
Kate Ellis	Pickax handles?	27:09
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. We [indistinct 00:27:10] with a pickax handle. So, here he comes to the post I'm on. Well, nobody's never told me how to salute an officer with a pickax handle. So, I just put the ax handle down and saluted him. They charged me with willfully leaving my arms in the barracks. Yes, they did. It stuck.	27:10
Kate Ellis	It stuck. This went on your records.	27:27
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yes. Well, they didn't go on my record. They just [indistinct 00:27:31].	27:29
Kate Ellis	Well, when you got stuck—	27:32
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, I mean, I was convicted. They took my stuff away from me, and then they gave me 14 days, which I didn't do anything. But the only one thing they would have me taking one piece of coal from this bin, put it into that bin, and I'd [indistinct 00:27:45] backwards.	27:34
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, at that time I was young, and then I had a bunch of friends, and they would go out there and get pitchers of beer, and we'd sit down there and have more fun out there moving—	27:46
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Then this same particular officer, we were going through the gas chambers, and one of the fellas just snapped. I mean, he totally snapped.	27:55
Kate Ellis	What do you mean? He [indistinct 00:28:09].	28:08
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	He just went off. He just went berserk going through the gas chamber. I don't know if it was the mask that he had on. But you had to test to see how long you could stay in that gas chamber, you understand?	28:09
Kate Ellis	Right. Uh-huh.	28:19
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And he—	28:19
Kate Ellis	He couldn't take it.	28:19
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, no. He was jumping [indistinct 00:28:24]. This officer kicked him and disranked him.	28:23
Kate Ellis	Kicked him?	28:25
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yes, he did.	28:26
Kate Ellis	When this guy was-	28:29
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	When that guy was acting—This other fellow that was—I don't know where his guy was from, but I didn't know who he was, but a Black guy. He didn't look like it. Really, he didn't look like a Black American. He didn't even talk like one. He had a funny accent with him. He was a smooth, but he was a real, real Black, Black man with nice black hair on him. Big guy. Well, handsome looking guy. [indistinct 00:28:53] when he swung at that officer, our sergeant stepped in there and he hit him in his eye. I thought his eye had come completely out when he hit him, but he missed the lieutenant, so that we all had to go to court because they had charged us with mutiny.	28:30
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Finally, when they got the court, when they had brought it all up there, they did something to this officer. But then they shipped us right over.	29:09
Kate Ellis	Right over to—	29:18
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Overseas. We went right overseas right after that incident. We went over.	29:18
Kate Ellis	You were gone.	29:21
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	We didn't stay. We didn't stay a second. They shipped us out. After I got over there, like I said, I didn't take things real serious. When I got to Schiedam, Holland, and that's when I was shot, in Schiedam, Holland. I was with the Schiedam, Holland. And then I didn't know anything else after.	29:26
Kate Ellis	You said you were shot there?	29:46
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah, I was shot in Schiedam, Holland. And I didn't do anything else from then on.	29:46
Kate Ellis	Really, that was the end of your.	29:46
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That was the end of my war because they brought me to the 25th General—Well, it was the 25th Field Hospital. Then from the 25th Field Hospital to the 25th General Hospital in Tongeren, Belgium. When I left from Tongeren, Belgium. I went to Antwerp, Belgium; from Antwerp, Belgium. I went to Munich, Germany, and two other places in Germany.	29:46
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Then the general post decided—Well, I was wounded in the foot during then, swole up on me so big like that, and I felt—Well, it really was hurting me so bad I couldn't even take my shoes off. Oh, God. I cried. That's when they shipped me back here. They wouldn't let me go any further.	30:04
Kate Ellis	Let me just clarify something from what you just told me about in the gas chamber. During that training, when the guy went berserk, the officer who kicked—	30:22
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	[indistinct 00:30:31].	30:31
Kate Ellis	—him was White, and the person who went berserk—	30:31
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Was Black.	30:34
Kate Ellis	—was Black. Uh-huh.	30:35
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. But see, we [indistinct 00:30:39]	30:36
Kate Ellis	Did you think that there—I mean, that sounds like—Would you say that there was a certain amount of—	30:39
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yes.	30:43
Kate Ellis	—racial abuse?	30:43
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yes. Yes.	30:43
Kate Ellis	And because the White—	30:43
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Racism and—Oh, yes. Yeah.	30:43
Kate Ellis	—officers were in a position to do that—	30:43
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. A lot of them lost their lives.	30:43
Kate Ellis	A lot of Black soldiers did?	30:43
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Killed a lot of White officers.	30:44
Kate Ellis	Oh, a lot of Black soldiers killed White officers?	30:55
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yes. Oh, yes.	30:59
Kate Ellis	In Europe, you mean?	31:00
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Not my officer, but one right next to them. No. Not any of the officers that we had because he didn't come with us when we went overseas. The second lieutenant didn't come. But we had officers other than that. But I mean, in the other company there—	31:03
Kate Ellis	In Europe.	31:15
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. In Europe.	31:16
Kate Ellis	When you were finally over in the war zone or whatever, then—	31:17
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	They'd kill them. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.	31:21
Kate Ellis	What would they say? Would they say, "Oh, he was killed by the enemy"?	31:24
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Most of the time, no, no. Few of the soldiers that was executed and everything else for killing officers.	31:26
Kate Ellis	For killing a White officer.	31:32
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yeah. I had several of them that was friends where we went in service, that moved from one company to another that was charged and had dishonorable discharges. I think the government just rescind the discharge and give them an honorable discharge. But they had dishonorable discharges.	31:33
Kate Ellis	Wait. Killing a White officer?	31:49
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yes. Indeed. Yes. Yeah. Oh, they caught quite a few of them.	31:50
Kate Ellis	Well, why in heaven's name would the—I mean, if a soldier took—	31:55
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, certainly, when you're abusive, you—	31:58
Kate Ellis	No, I was going to ask. My question wasn't why would they kill the White officer, but why would they—You said that the government later on rescinded the dishonorable discharge and gave them honorable discharge?	32:02
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	So that they could gain benefits.	32:12
Kate Ellis	Okay. Even though they knew that they also had killed a White—	32:14
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, they were guilty. They had—Well, you see in most cases, when you have a preliminary hearing and they go from that, but eventually later on, they'll, "Hey, let's review this." If one of the guys in there persists upon it, why he did it, and why he was involved into it, well, then they may open the case up again, and then the government goes straight and they find out, "Hey, well, this officer was really abusive, and he was completely at fault," and it just motivated-	32:15
Kate Ellis	So, eventually, if they look back in the record—	32:43
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	What they said, well, okay, it could have been swung either way.	32:45
Kate Ellis	Almost like it was almost like a self-defense.	32:50
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. In a certain sense. They could only take so much. And that was the end of that. But I have quite a few of them that lost their lives. Some of them lost their lives just foolishly, drowning.	32:58
Kate Ellis	You mean in the war?	33:08
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	During the war, yeah. Lot of them, accidents by automobile accident, vehicular accidents, killing or something like that.	33:09
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	But my mother was, she had the two older brothers, myself. Well, my youngest brother went in later on, but my oldest brother was a very lucky one.	33:18
Kate Ellis	What do you mean?	33:34
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, see, he was cut on his throat.	33:34
Kate Ellis	In the war?	33:37
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. He was in the Pacific Theater with the Japanese. My second-to-oldest brother, well, he was in this riot. Well, he wasn't born at that time. There was a riot in Alabama. They had a race riot in Alabama.	33:38
Kate Ellis	Yeah. What year was that?	33:52
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	This was in 1942, '3, something like that. They had the race ride in Alabama. Well, they had one here in Louisiana, the 93rd division had in Shreveport, in Alexandra. That's when they shipped them over. That was an all-Black outfit. That was an entire Black outfit. They fought in Italy, Sicily, and all like that.	33:52
Kate Ellis	So, they were—	34:23
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, I was a part of that one in the beginning, and then I switched over to the third Army. Oh, yeah, that was field artillery. See, I started off at Searchlight Battalion.	34:24
Kate Ellis	In what?	34:35
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	In the Searchlight Battalion. You see, we were supposed to have [indistinct 00:34:39] duty. We were supposed to protect all of the area, the area the United States, with searchlights and—	34:35
Kate Ellis	Oh, right. When you said that your brother was lucky in that he was in the riot in Alabama—	34:46
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah, because he could have gotten killed. He was wounded.	34:54
Kate Ellis	Oh, and he didn't get—okay.	34:57
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	He was wounded, but he didn't get killed.	34:57
Kate Ellis	Right. Huh. When you got back from the war, did you expect things to be different in New Orleans in any way? Or did you—	35:05
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yes. Yes. Yes. I really thought—Well, things were a little different.	35:14
Kate Ellis	And what was that [indistinct 00:35:22]	35:18
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, some of the people were a heck of a lot different. But when I first got back here, my experience was that I was going to buy me a pair of shoes. On the street car, on my way back, at that time, they had the separation of the races. They had the little—	35:24
Kate Ellis	Screen.	35:37
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, it wasn't a screen. It was just a little piece of wood that was stepped into there. Well, I didn't question that. I was sitting behind that little fence when I had two young White boys come up there, and they wanted me to move out of the seat that I was sitting in.	35:38
Kate Ellis	And even though you were sitting in—	35:52
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Behind the screen. Well, this presented a problem. But the other fellow that was with me, he just told me they kept me and everybody else, and that there was two White ladies on there. They came over there, they were talking to me, and they just kept me just cooling him down [indistinct 00:36:11]	35:54
Kate Ellis	They kept you calm.	36:10
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Because they knew I had—It's like they told those two fellas to come up, they got plenty of seats up here. But they just wanted to see where I was at.	36:13
Kate Ellis	Because they were antagonizing.	36:20
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.	36:21
Kate Ellis	What did you say to them when they asked you?	36:23
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, I don't remember. But I do know that I was angry enough to hurt them.	36:25
Kate Ellis	Oh. Did you?	36:30
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No, I didn't. But I was.	36:30
Kate Ellis	I see. You were angry.	36:34
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	You see, at that time, you'd go through rehabilitation and everything else because you were instilled with this: Either you kill or be killed. This was taught to you daily. This is the way things was to you. You didn't show no fear because of this guy here that's a human being; you're a human. You didn't worry about that. That's an enemy as far as he's concerned. He's going to take your life. So, you try to take his to protect your own self.	36:35
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	All of these things flash back into you. This guy here is trying to hit me with a piece of wood for no apparent reason. So, I got to try to protect myself. You see? And that's the thing. That's the only experience I had when I come back here. I never experienced anything else other than that.	36:59
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	But right before I left, before, when I got into New Jersey—I think it was New Jersey. They had a little orientation. Well, before—Yeah. It was in New Jersey we had—No, Virginia. It was in Virginia. We had an orientation. The officer there sat down and he told all of us, he said, "Now, let me explain something to you. You've all come back. The war is over. You've all put your lives on the line for this country. So, you had that same right as any and everyone in this country to have the same thing. Don't take a back step."	37:19
Kate Ellis	Wow. This was a—	38:00
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	White officer.	38:02
Kate Ellis	A White officer said this to you?	38:02
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	This was a White officer. He was having the orientation. He was the one doing it. And he said, "You've been taking a back step for a long, long time." Well, it wasn't just Blacks in there. There were both Black and White in the—	38:04
Kate Ellis	In that room.	38:16
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	—orientation class [indistinct 00:38:20].	38:18
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	So, when I left, I left Blackstone, Virginia, and I landed in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. I went to buy some kind of—I think it was deodorant. I stood in line and this young White girl, she wouldn't serve me for the love—She would take every one of the White soldiers [indistinct 00:38:41]. This particular White soldier came up there, he said, "What's wrong? Why is it you don't have what this young soldier want?" She said, "I don't know. What do you want?" He said, "He's been standing up here all this time, and I've heard him ask you for something." But he didn't know what—I had asked for that deodorant. She told him something. He said, "You mean to tell me you're not going to serve him?" He said, "Look at yourself." He said, "Just take a good look at yourself. If it wouldn't have been for him, you probably wouldn't be here. Not in this position." He says, "So now you go on and serve him."	38:22
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	So, she gave me what I wanted. I thanked him. I said—Well, I wasn't going to create a problem. I was going to just move on [indistinct 00:39:26]. It would've made no difference to me because I wasn't a person to create a problem. I could walk away from it. It didn't make any difference. It didn't hurt. It hurt inside to a certain extent, to know that you've gone over there. You've been hurt and everything else, and yet you come back here and you're still getting [indistinct 00:39:43].	39:15
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	But after coming back to New Orleans, it wasn't too hard. I knew where to go. I didn't have any problems. I worked in the White neighborhood. Then when I worked for Lights Egan, that was all predominately [indistinct 00:40:02] and it was White.	39:44
Kate Ellis	Oh, really? In the funeral home?	40:06
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. That funeral home, that was a White funeral home.	40:06
Kate Ellis	Oh. Oh, okay.	40:06
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yeah. [indistinct 00:40:07] Black funeral home, not strictly [indistinct 00:40:07]. Now, there's no such thing as a White funeral home. No.	40:06
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh. It's all mixed.	40:13
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	It's all anything. They bury everybody now. Yeah. If you got the money, they bury everybody. You go to any cemetery. At one time, you only had certain cemetery. But you go anywhere now. They put you anywhere if you got the money.	40:16
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	But I worked for Lights Egan. Then after I worked for him, then I left and I worked for, like I said, the Haps Parcel Service.	40:28
Kate Ellis	The what post—	40:35
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	It's Haps. Haps Parcel.	40:40
Kate Ellis	Oh, parcel service. I see.	40:41
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	It's a parcel service. Then I left them and then I went into Herrin Transportation Company.	40:42
Kate Ellis	What's it called? Herring?	40:50
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Herrin.	40:50
Kate Ellis	Herrin.	40:50
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Okay. H-E-R-R-I-N. Herrin Transportation Company. And that was the one. Then MacLean bought out Herrin.	40:50
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay. Right. What—	40:54
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And then I retired from MacLean.	40:54
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm. When did you retire?	40:54
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	1986. January the 10th, 1986.	41:03
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm. Well, we talked about this a little bit back, just as far as—This actually may have gotten us partly on the topic of where you could go or couldn't go with the trucking company. What did you do for them while you couldn't drive trucks? You joined a transportation company, but at first you said you couldn't travel-	41:09
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Go on the road.	41:25
Kate Ellis	Right. You couldn't go on the road.	41:26
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	But you could drive locally.	41:27
Kate Ellis	Oh, I see. Okay. So you just could go—	41:28
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	You could drive locally.	41:30
Kate Ellis	I see.	41:30
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	You could drive locally.	41:30
Kate Ellis	You didn't do interstate kind of stuff.	41:30
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. You can intrastate, but no interstate.	41:31
Kate Ellis	I see.	41:35
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	You did all of that. You could drive. You drove. Now, one of the things that they didn't have in most of the trucking the industry was a Black man wasn't a checker.	41:36
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry? They-	41:42
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	A checker. That's what they used to call the guy who checking the freight.	41:42
Kate Ellis	You didn't have a Black man doing that.	41:48
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	They didn't do that.	41:49
Kate Ellis	Why?	41:50
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, they didn't want him to have the job. And then after the union came in and after that, then when the union decided, hey, if he's got seniority and he can qualify for the job, then he took the job. So what happened, the companies had three pay scales. They had a driver, helper, and a checker scale. Well, the checker was the highest per scale, then the driver and the helper. So, what the company did, instead of creating a problem in the union with the union in negotiation, they said, "We're going to have one price."	41:53
Kate Ellis	One pay scale?	42:30
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Just one pay scale. Now, you had to do all of it.	42:30
Kate Ellis	All of those jobs.	42:30
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Any job that the company decided, that if he wanted you to drive today, you would be a driver. If he wanted you to be a helper, or if he wanted you to be a checker. You had to do that. You had no option. But before, most of the guys would go in, both Black and White, they would never go in as a driver or a checker. The difference between the checker and a helper was about 15 cents an hour. So, there was a difference then, a 15 cents difference. The checker made about 15 cents more than a helper did, and the driver made about a nickel more than the helper. What happened is that everybody wanted to be a helper, both Black and White.	42:30
Kate Ellis	Oh, really?	43:08
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yes, indeed.	43:10
Kate Ellis	Because that was—Uh-huh.	43:11
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, the helper didn't—	43:11
Kate Ellis	It used to be-	43:11
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	—have nothing to do. See?	43:11
Kate Ellis	So, it used to be paid, but the easiest job.	43:15
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. The best job. Well, take it like this. If you'll go out there, you was a driver. When you take the helper on the road with you, he'll unload. He'll help you unload the truck. But if anything happens on that road, if you have an accident or anything, your job is in jeopardy.	43:17
Kate Ellis	Right. Not the helpers [indistinct 00:43:31]	43:30
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No, no, no. The helper don't have nothing to do with it.	43:31
Kate Ellis	Wow. That's funny.	43:31
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	The helper had nothing to do with it. He didn't care. See? So naturally, he figured, well, hey, at that particular time, he can make $105 a week. So, why would I have that kind of problem? When they decided on that, they made every one of them—And most of the guys could drive a straight frame, but they couldn't drive the 18-wheeler, you see? A straight frame is just a regular truck.	43:31
Kate Ellis	Is a smaller truck.	43:58
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	It's a regular—It's a big truck. It's a six by six, but it's a straight frame, you see. It's not a two piece unit. So, when that happened, when they made that one pay scale, you had to learn how to drive everything, and they gave you 30 days.	43:59
Kate Ellis	To learn everything.	44:13
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yeah.	44:13
Kate Ellis	I see.	44:13
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	You had 30 days. Then, well, at that particular time, I think they were paying, what, they were paying 3.95 an hour. I think that's what they were paying. 3.95 an hour.	44:13
Kate Ellis	This was in the '60s?	44:21
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, this was in the '50s.	44:22
Kate Ellis	In the '50s. Okay. Did the racial composition of the jobs—	44:24
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Black and White—Well, after the job—No. The racial problem came after they started paying—What was the salary? $5, I think, it was raised up to about $5 an hour. Before the ratio were more Blacks than White in the freight industry. You see, the reason for that is that in that industry, what the man wanted, he wanted a weak mind and a strong back because it didn't pay much. So, what you would do, most of this stuff was handled by hand. This was strictly manpower.	44:35
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm. The freight handling.	45:08
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yes. Everything that was done was mostly strictly by hand, manpower. After they started paying off more money, they were getting modern equipment. Well, when they start to pay—Well, you didn't have many Whites that was coming into that industry before that. But after, I think it was around about—I think it was $5 and $7 an hour. Well, then the Whites started coming into the industry.	45:09
Kate Ellis	Because they wanted the more money.	45:36
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	They wanted the money. Okay. Well, at that time, then it was becoming a much easier—Then the foremans were older, so they were dropping off. They were bringing in new people in there. See, the company I worked for, there wasn't no White guys wanted to work for that company.	45:39
Kate Ellis	[indistinct 00:45:53].	45:51
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	They didn't want to—Oh, no. They didn't want to work for that foreman.	45:53
Kate Ellis	Because he was—	45:55
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, he was something else. I mean, you knew that was your job and you knew what was going on. He wasn't supposed to talk to you like that. But what could you say? Charlie Fox was something else.	45:56
Kate Ellis	Charlie Fox.	46:08
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Charlie Fox was something.	46:08
Kate Ellis	Wait, now he was—	46:08
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	He was the foreman. He was the boss. He was everything. Charlie Fox was something else. But he was a nice man. He was nice. He was nice.	46:12
Kate Ellis	Wait. He was White?	46:18
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	He was White. Oh, yeah. He was White. He was White. He was White. And it didn't make no difference whether you was White or Black. Well, he talked to you to same way. Didn't make any difference. That's what I'm saying. That's why Whites didn't even like to come to work for him.	46:19
Kate Ellis	I see. I see.	46:30
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	But after they started paying off, then the ratio became that, started off that there were more Whites. As the company started to grow, then they wouldn't hire anymore Blacks. They started hiring just White.	46:31
Kate Ellis	Oh, when the pay went up and the market got easier.	46:43
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yeah. When the pay got to $13 an hour, well, then they really didn't hire any Blacks. So, then the—	46:44

Kate Ellis	You were just saying that the government stepped in in the '70s?	0:12
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah, and started—And they had to have a certain amount of Blacks. They had to hire so many Blacks.	0:15
Kate Ellis	That's when—	0:20
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And you had to hire them into certain positions as well.	0:22
Kate Ellis	Okay. Okay.	0:23
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	You see, we didn't have any dispatchers, we didn't have any foremans as Blacks. Then after the government stepped in there, then they had so many foremans.	0:24
Kate Ellis	There was this whole shift in the trucking industry, a lot of it because of—It sounds like because of the racial politics in the company?	0:30
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah, in this part of the country. This part of the country. We're speaking of the South.	0:40
Kate Ellis	The Southern [indistinct 00:00:46]—	0:45
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I'm speaking of the southern portion of the country.	0:45
Kate Ellis	It was different in—Yeah.	0:48
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. From the northern portion of the country because I can't answer for them. I don't know if they had line drivers up in that area running up from that area into the—Up along the Eastern Seaboard and around the West Coast. I don't know. But I'm just talking about in the southern district here. And we didn't have any Blacks or that sort of things that they had. But other than that, though, they treated you fair. They didn't abuse you, they didn't misuse you or anything like that.	0:48
Kate Ellis	In the trucking? In this business?	1:14
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	In the industry? No. They didn't, no, no.	1:14
Kate Ellis	They were just sort of—	1:14
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	You did your job and that was all that they was interested in seeing. Because the old man, Mr. Harry Nault, he was interested in his money. He didn't care what color you was. You made the money for him, that's all he was interested in.	1:15
Kate Ellis	What I was going to ask. There was some question I had.	1:30
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I got something else in there. During that period of time, y'all had a bigger problem. My biggest problem, you talk about race and segregation and hatred, my biggest problem was with my teachers.	1:37
Kate Ellis	With your teachers?	1:47
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I had two high school teachers—Three, as a matter of fact. I won't call names, but I had three high school teachers that almost denied me an education.	1:51
Kate Ellis	Now, were they White?	1:58
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No.	1:58
Kate Ellis	They were Black?	1:59
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	They were Black.	2:02
Kate Ellis	Now, what do you mean they almost denied you an education?	2:02
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, what they did, one of them, I never will forget my geometry teacher told me—He told me with my pigmentation and the texture of my hair, that I wouldn't amount to nothing but a service station attendant or a shoe shine boy. And he done everything, he and I, we got into a misunderstanding because he wanted me to dig a jump pit for the young girls. The school board's paying that maintenance man or somebody else to dig that pit. They want me to dig that pit and willing to pay me the same pay, I'll dig that pit. I have nothing against that. It's an honest living.	2:03
Kate Ellis	Right, you'll work for money.	2:38
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That's right, but I wouldn't—He sent me to the office and the principal, he told me I was a troublemaker and I tried to explain it to him. I was not a troublemaker. I said, "You check my grades." I said, "If I was a troublemaker, when you get my grades back there, you tell me if I'm a troublemaker." They got my grades, but he did. Yes, he got my grades and they come back, I had an 86 average. He looked at me and he told me, he said, "Well, you must have a problem some other way."	2:40
Kate Ellis	The principal said this?	3:11
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah, so he put me out.	3:12
Kate Ellis	What do you mean?	3:12
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	He just suspended me.	3:16
Kate Ellis	He suspended you because you had refused—	3:16
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Because I refused to dig that pit and that was his teacher. Well, I got back into school, but it was a hard, hard thing, believe me. And then I would go and tell him and he would tell me about, "You'll never amount to nothing like your brother and all this kind of stuff."	3:19
Kate Ellis	Who said this to you?	3:34
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	The teacher.	3:34
Kate Ellis	Right.	3:34
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	The teacher.	3:35
Kate Ellis	Because of the color of your skin?	3:37
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh yeah. Got to believe it. Yes, sir. Oh, well see, when I was in high school, you didn't have very many kids from in the uptown area. It seems as though the kids from in the uptown area were more of a dark skinned than the kids from in the downtown area. Like I told you, it was a mixture where I was born and bred, more or less, they were more of a mixture downtown.	3:38
Kate Ellis	Which was downtown.	4:00
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Downtown.	4:01
Kate Ellis	Which included Creole?	4:02
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Creoles. This is strictly what it's all about. When they were in my class, I was the darkest fellow in the classroom. Most of the majority of them had straight hair and fair complexion.	4:03
Kate Ellis	In high school?	4:13
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	In high school.	4:13
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh.	4:15
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh yeah. I never had no problem in grammar school. I had no problem whatsoever in elementary school. I just gave the teachers a lot of problem, but I never had really no problem with anyone. Because my first day, my very first day when I reached Albert Wicker High School, my algebra teacher—I was a little, bitty fellow like this and she told me, "You can't come into my class." What did I do to this woman that she didn't want in this classroom? I stayed out of her class for two weeks. Well, I was getting all the information and everything on what the classroom work and everything was and I studied it.	4:15
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Then she sent for me. She told me, she said, "If you make a favorable grade on this test, I'll give you credit for the two weeks that you was out." She set me in her desk like you sitting there. I was sitting behind her and the students was in front and facing her. I took the little test that she gave me. It was very simple. I made 100 on the test. She graded my paper, she put me out completely. She told me I didn't need the class at all.	4:48
Kate Ellis	Really?	5:15
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Really. But I—	5:15
Kate Ellis	But why did she kick you out in the beginning?	5:18
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I haven't the faintest idea. Never knew why she did it. I'll never know. And then I was picked up one evening coming from the school, and I'll never forget that coming from the alley way. I didn't know who these guys was, these White fellows.	5:22
Kate Ellis	This is junior high school and you're picked up—	5:36
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And I was picked up on my way. The guy grabbed me behind my back. I a little, bitty fellow. I was real young and real small in high school. I didn't know what I'm doing around that school like that because they were supposed to be having trouble. I didn't even know anything about what kind of trouble. Well, they had these White girls was coming from the school, which is, I think it's Clark now today. And they were coming towards Canal Street and these kids from Canal was going down. I didn't know that they were having problems, that they were having conflict thing. He picked me up and "What the hell is going on?"	5:37
Kate Ellis	That's what you said?	6:11
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I didn't know what was going on. Then he wanted know what—And I told him, I said, "I'm coming from school."	6:12
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	He said, "What school?" And I told him that I was Wicker High, right at Canal and Tortie. He put me in the car and told me that there's no way in the world I would be in high school.	6:15
Kate Ellis	Why?	6:23
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Because I was so small and little. Then they brought me all the way back to the school, brought me up there. Good thing the principal was still in the school, up in school. When they brought me up the steps and everything else, they brought into the office and he asked him if I was a student. Then he looked at me, he asked me my name, I told him my name. He said, "Oh yeah, yeah, he's at the school." By that time they had notified my mother that they had picked me up.	6:26
Kate Ellis	And these were just White guys? They weren't White policemen?	6:54
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah, they were detectives.	6:55
Kate Ellis	Okay, detectives.	6:56
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	They were detectives. By that time, I was able to get back to my mother to let her know that everything was all right. They just picked me up because I was a little, bitty thing. I was real small. I was a little, bitty thing. As a matter of fact, I was in—We had what they call a manual training period. And instead of putting me in manual training, which was carpentry and masonry, they had me in sewing and cooking.	7:00
Kate Ellis	Really? Because you were so small?	7:18
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I was so small. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. When I went in the service, I was 120 pounds.	7:21
Kate Ellis	Oh, wow.	7:25
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Soaking wet.	7:26
Kate Ellis	Really? You were a small guy.	7:27
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah, but I was a healthier fellow though. I had no problems. I got along fine.	7:30
Kate Ellis	You were healthy.	7:36
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	But that was the only problem that I had. But I didn't let them to stop me from—	7:37
Kate Ellis	And when you say them, you're also talking about the teachers in your high school?	7:46
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. They showed a lot of prejudice now. I ain't going to tell you—	7:51
Kate Ellis	You think that there was—	7:55
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	There were a lot of prejudice among the races. The races themselves. Black people were prejudiced against themselves.	7:55
Kate Ellis	Really? How so? Can you describe that to me more?	8:00
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. Well, they still have that. You still have that in families. In families. When sisters and brothers denies one another.	8:03
Kate Ellis	Because one is—	8:16
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	One is light and one is dark.	8:17
Kate Ellis	The light one is—	8:19
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	The light one, and he socialize with his particular group and he you don't want that group to know that you're a part of that family.	8:20
Kate Ellis	Which is a darker family?	8:29
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	The darker—Well, I'm saying that brothers—Sisters and brothers. You figure in my family, like I was telling you, my sisters and brothers, well, they had families like that. They had sisters and brothers like that and they wouldn't socialize with one another. And he was in here, he would be with that group that would just socialize, just with the light skins. And the other one, well, he would never introduce that party as being associated as a brother or—	8:30
Kate Ellis	Did that ever happen in your family? Because you mentioned that in your family—	8:57
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh yes, they did.	9:02
Kate Ellis	There was—	9:02
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yes. Oh. Yes, it happened. Sure, sure, sure, sure. Oh, yeah.	9:02
Kate Ellis	Among your brothers and sisters?	9:09
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Among the family, yeah. Brothers and sisters, yeah. Not my sisters. My brothers.	9:11
Kate Ellis	Yes. Because some of your brothers, you said, I think, were lighter than you?	9:16
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Light skinned, yeah. Yep. Yeah, people may not believe that, but that's a fact.	9:18
Kate Ellis	Yeah, yeah.	9:25
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yeah. And then the children come out, they talk about it because they didn't realize what's going on and they can't understand this. Why? What was the reason? What was the advantage? What was the disadvantage? There isn't an answer.	9:29
Kate Ellis	[indistinct 00:09:44]—	9:42
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	There isn't an answer.	9:44
Kate Ellis	Yeah, to why people do that?	9:45
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Why? Yes, that's right. Why they didn't. It still goes on. Oh yes, indeed. I can take you right there in that Seventh Ward right now. They got families in there that's Black families and they might be relatives but they won't let you inside.	9:46
Kate Ellis	Wait, say it again? They—	10:02
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	They'll be related to one another, they will not let that party inside of the house—	10:04
Kate Ellis	And they're a different skin color.	10:12
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	—because of the texture of their skin. That's all, the pigmentation of their skin. That's right.	10:13
Kate Ellis	Let me ask you, does it go both ways as far as light skinned folks rejecting the darker skinned brothers and sisters or family members, and darker skinned folks rejecting their lighter—Do you see what I'm asking? Does the prejudice go both ways?	10:17
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. You mean if the dark person would go against the light skinned person?	10:37
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	10:40
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah, sure they do that. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. That's crazy.	10:43
Kate Ellis	They both, they're each, "You're too light. You're too dark."	10:45
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yeah, right. If you are light-skinned person, not a dark-skinned, I'm angry because you're light-skinned with fancy hair or straight hair. You understand? The light skin, it's against them because of the pigmentation of the skin, yeah. I'm not just saying that it falls on just one face of it.	10:48
Kate Ellis	They each do—	11:06
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No, it's on both sides. Both sides of it, they have a prejudice among themselves.	11:06
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	11:10
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Really, it's crazy, but that's the way it works. And you have it right out here, right in this same area.	11:14
Kate Ellis	That same area?	11:20
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	In this area right here. Take my neighbor. My neighbor there, her people didn't have no use for her husband, her second husband.	11:21
Kate Ellis	Why? Was he light or dark?	11:37
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	In the beginning. No, he was dark. Her first husband was very fair.	11:37
Kate Ellis	But they didn't want to have anything to do with the second one because he was dark?	11:37
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, it was that family. That was that family. That was that—Well, I don't—That was just that family then. If you look at her sisters, they didn't have any problem being White.	11:41
Kate Ellis	They didn't have any problem?	11:53
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Being White. They could go any way they wanted to go.	11:54
Kate Ellis	They could pass?	11:57
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	They could go any kind of way they wanted to go.	11:57
Kate Ellis	I was going to ask you about that. Actually why—	11:57
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Anywhere they wanted to go.	11:57
Kate Ellis	Did you know people who passed for White?	12:01
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Mm-hmm.	12:03
Kate Ellis	When you were growing up?	12:05
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Mm-hmm. We didn't object to it.	12:08
Kate Ellis	You didn't?	12:09
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No, because that's the only way that they can make it. That was the only way that they could get a decent job. No, no, you didn't get angry with them. Because the ones that we knew them had done it, they didn't deny you.	12:10
Kate Ellis	They didn't deny you?	12:22
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No, they wouldn't say that—They wouldn't spit on me because of they knew I knew what they were doing, but they would still socialize in a certain sense with me, away from where they were at.	12:23
Kate Ellis	Right. They had a double life?	12:34
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, yes, quite a few of them had to live that double life to survive.	12:36
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	12:40
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Many of them, many of them, many, many of them had to do it, believe me, to survive. Because it was hard. It was very hard.	12:41
Kate Ellis	To make it, to get a job?	12:50
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yes.	12:52
Kate Ellis	As a Black person?	12:55
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yes indeed, as a Black person, yes indeed. And as a light-skinned person to work into the—They're mostly doing domestic work, they didn't want to hire them because most of the White ladies would figure that that's a light-skinned young lady, she would flirt with her husband or something of this nature. Therefore they wouldn't hire them as domestics.	12:55
Kate Ellis	Interesting. Interesting.	13:10
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah.	13:11
Kate Ellis	I just had to interject this. I heard a story about that recently where it was a light-skinned woman working in a household that got the most abuse in a sense, from the people working in there. I think it was from the White homeowner, because she was really threatened by her.	13:12
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Certainly.	13:30
Kate Ellis	But it can go the other way too.	13:30
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yeah. But one of the things about it, in most cases like that though, you know what? It was happening, they did have quite a few White mens that had Black women for their mistress. They took care of them, but they were free. They could walk around the street openly. Nobody said nothing about them.	13:34
Kate Ellis	The White men could with the Black women?	13:54
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh yeah, they could walk—Oh, yes indeed. Walk openly. Whether they were jet Black or the white as snow, they walked the street with them and nobody said nothing. But you better not be caught walking the street with a White woman, a Black man.	13:56
Kate Ellis	Right.	14:06
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	But the White man could walk the street with a Black woman. Yes indeed. There was nothing ever said. And you better not mention nothing to him about her. You better not even say that she's Black.	14:06
Kate Ellis	One of those things that you knew, buy you don't—	14:19
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And she would be Black. She'd be jet Black but don't you tell anybody that that's a Black woman. That's the way it was. They could do what they want. Like I said, that was a matter of survival. You did what you had to do. And if you was in that position and you was able to do it—	14:21
Kate Ellis	And that was understood among Black [indistinct 00:14:44]—	14:39
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I think that's how my mother—I think my mother was able to get the job in a funeral home, because she was light-skinned and then she didn't have—She just had the light skin at that time, so that's just one of the things, I think this is how she was able—She got it. You got along with them.	14:44
Kate Ellis	Right. Do you think that they—Do me a favor and [indistinct 00:15:10]. Do you think that they knew—Did the people in the funeral home know that she was not White?	15:02
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yeah.	15:16
Kate Ellis	But they just sort of—	15:17
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, yeah [indistinct 00:15:19]—	15:18
Kate Ellis	—they let her work there because—	15:18
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	—that didn't make any difference. It's just that—	15:18
Kate Ellis	But she was light enough that they were comfortable?	15:18
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Light, light, right.	15:18
Kate Ellis	That they were comfortable.	15:18
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Right, right. It was comfortable and everybody would be comfortable. Whether they knew or not, they were comfortable. That didn't matter, but when the question of my texture, you understand naturally they could see the differences. Therefore—	15:25
Kate Ellis	Right, it was obvious.	15:37
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. There sometimes would be little questions about it. Because they didn't have Black drivers, but there were limousine drivers, like chauffeurs. They were the chauffeurs. The hearse driver was White. But all the rest of them was—They had Black drivers. Some of them, some of them didn't. The ones that were paying the money, all the White funeral homes were paying the money to the limousine drivers and everything else, but Black companies couldn't afford to pay that kind of money. Most of the experienced Black chauffeurs would go to work for the White funeral home.	15:39
Kate Ellis	Yeah, because they got more money and then—	16:19
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	They made more money and they worked more often too, you see.	16:19
Kate Ellis	There was more work?	16:19
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	There was more work.	16:19
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	16:19
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And they knew what you had to do. There was a lot involved and such, because whether they had a funeral or not, they still had to wash the limousine every day. They had to keep it up and everything else. There was a little work involved into it, but most of the time they always was busy working, making funerals.	16:25
Kate Ellis	For the people that you knew who passed or knew of who passed, who got a job, the employers didn't always know, right? It was sometimes a secret?	16:43
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, it was sometime before they found out. Eventually they found out.	16:54
Kate Ellis	Employers would find out?	16:57
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, eventually, yeah, they would find out.	16:58
Kate Ellis	What would happen when the employers would—	17:00
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	But they would never challenge it though.	17:01
Kate Ellis	The employers wouldn't?	17:01
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No, no, no.	17:01
Kate Ellis	In a sense, if you were light enough,	17:04
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah—	17:06
Kate Ellis	Most would let it go.	17:06
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	They had an idea, but they would never challenge it.	17:07
Kate Ellis	I see. Kind of sounds like an implicit agreement among everybody, among members in the so-called Black community to not call attention to Joe Smith, who's passing as a White person, and the employer who's employing Joe Smith wouldn't say anything? Nobody would say anything?	17:09
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Nobody wouldn't say nothing, because really and truthfully, it was hard. It was hard sometimes, because you never know. What's happening during that—In this city here, like you, well, you're a White girl right now, a young lady. Excuse me for calling you a girl. A young lady. When you were born, most of these kids were born by midwives during my time. What happened, they would present this to them in the register. He'd look at you, he's put White on it. He wouldn't no, he'd just take it for granted you're a White person, you see? You'd put White. Race, White. You couldn't argue with them because I'd get my birth certificate, "What that has on my birth certificate? That says I'm White."	17:28
Kate Ellis	I'm white.	18:10
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Therefore, [indistinct 00:18:12] these are the things that you had to—That's happened several times recently, that families were challenged and, hey, well, they made a mistake. In the register, whatever he said, 90% of the times, when you were Black, you didn't argue with it. Whether he misspelled the name or not, you went along with it, because you better not challenge him.	18:11
Kate Ellis	Oh, really? The register was always White, yeah.	18:39
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	They were White. You're going to embarrass that fellow by telling him he didn't know what he was doing? He didn't know how to spell? Oh no, indeed. No indeed. They would've more policemans around.	18:42
Kate Ellis	Really?	18:53
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Of course they would. They could do what they wanted to you. What could you do? You didn't have no rights. You didn't have the right to vote or nothing else in here. I tell you, him what paying poll tax and the only one who paid poll tax was those that was homeowners. And how many Blacks then was homeowners? You didn't have no say so. You had no voice. You just was a free slave, that's all, in those circumstance.	18:53
Kate Ellis	Yeah. When you were growing—	19:18
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	During this time, yeah, when I was born. My sister and I generally have a lot of arguments about it. She'll tell me, "Oh, that's not your name."	19:21
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I said, "Well, I don't know why you say that."	19:30
Kate Ellis	What's not your name?	19:33
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	My name? I spell mines E-M-M-E-T-T. But my mother always said my name was Emmitt, E-M-M-I-T. See that? I can't do—I don't know that. I say, "Now, that's what you said, but you far younger than me and I can't understand that stuff." And all my brothers and sisters were saying, my daddy—I was 11 years old. If my name is not E-M-M-E-T-T, I know as smart as my father was, he wouldn't allow my name to be E-M-M-E-T-T when it was E-M-M-I-T-T. But if that's the way it was supposed to have been, it's what it is now. I've gone through life with that name and it's on my birth certificate.	19:34
Kate Ellis	But what was your sister trying to tell you when she said that's not your name? Was she saying the register—	20:19
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, somebody was wrong. Somewhere's along the line, somebody goofed up. Either me. Until I prove to her that I have it on my birth certificate. As a matter of fact, I have three different birth certificates.	20:23
Kate Ellis	You do?	20:34
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	All from the—Yeah. And all from the same guy and all three spelling is different.	20:38
Kate Ellis	How'd that happen?	20:41
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	It's all from the guy. They got everything, the same date, everything is all the same. See, that's what I'm trying to tell you. They do what they want to do. They do what they want to do. But see, when I had it, I went up there to get my passport when I left to go overseas again, so I had to have all my birth certificates. I went up there and I challenged them, wanted to know. She said, "Well, what did you go by?"	20:42
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I told, "As long as I know, I went by E-M-M-E-T-T. She looked at it up and she said, "Well, that's your name. That's your social security number. That is your name. Uncle Sam said this is you." And as a matter of fact, she told me, she said, "Well, you should know better that there's no correct spelling or pronunciation of a proper name." I said, "Well, I can understand that. I'd just like to have it straight."	21:03
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	She said, "Well, don't worry about that. What counts is C-H-E-R-I.	21:26
Kate Ellis	Your last name?	21:32
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That's it. The family name. She said, "Whatever, you don't worry about nothing else."	21:32
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I said, "Okay."	21:35
Kate Ellis	Yeah. Huh. Wow.	21:36
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	But that's a little experience that you go through. A lot of things that you go through. A lot of things that you think of and you wonder. And many a times I sit down here and I wonder how my mother made it really? With six kids, six small children.	21:42
Kate Ellis	Yeah, that's amazing.	22:04
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And the oldest was 14. That's something.	22:07
Kate Ellis	Yeah, that's a lot.	22:10
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That's right. And she sent every one of us, educated every one of us. If my mother said, "I want you in that house there for 6:00," you were in that house. I can remember an incident. I was out of the service and I was sitting at the table and our kitchen was similar to this. And I happened to be sitting there and Mama was serving dinner. Don't ask me what did I say, but I said something. Boy, my good God almighty, I had a backhand hit me right square. And up until this day, all my sister and all of them, they all was at the table, but nobody can tell me what I said that caused my mother to give me that backhand. I was 21 years old.	22:15
Kate Ellis	And you were just out of the Army, you said.	22:59
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Right, I was 21 years old when she slapped me. I don't even remember what I said. Up until this day, I can't remember. Maybe I'm supposed to forget what she said.	23:03
Kate Ellis	Right. Knocked it right out of your head.	23:14
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	But they used to have an attitude too, when they didn't want you to understand anything they would say. Here and her lady friend, the lady would be talking to, they would speak French, Cajun French, and I always used to wonder why my mother never taught us how to speak French.	23:14
Kate Ellis	Huh. She knew how to—	23:31
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And my great aunt spoke French, but she never would—	23:33
Kate Ellis	Now, how does she know how to speak French?	23:35
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, everyone knows, I guess. Well, my great-aunt did it in the country.	23:38
Kate Ellis	I'm just trying to think, your great—Oh, well, wait a minute.	23:41
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Down that bayou there, that's the—	23:43
Kate Ellis	Now, you said your mother was light-skinned.	23:45
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah.	23:47
Kate Ellis	Was one of her parents—Did you tell me this? Was one of her parents French or White or Creole?	23:47
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	My grandmother.	23:53
Kate Ellis	On your mother's side?	23:54
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. Now I don't know about my mother's grandparents.	23:55
Kate Ellis	Well, that's what I'm asking, because you said—	24:05
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I don't know any of my mother's grandparents.	24:05
Kate Ellis	Okay. You don't know how she learned how to speak French.	24:06
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I don't even know—I don't know my grandmother or grandfather, but I don't know my mother's grandfather.	24:06
Kate Ellis	Because you see what I'm asking?	24:12
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah, I understand that. But they were light-skinned.	24:13
Kate Ellis	She's light-skinned and she's speaking French—	24:15
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	But they were light skinned, you see?	24:17
Kate Ellis	Who was light-skinned?	24:18
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	My mother and all her people were light-skinned. But on my mother's father's side, now they were dark skinned.	24:24
Kate Ellis	On your mother's father's side. Right.	24:30
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah.	24:32
Kate Ellis	But you don't know about your mother's—	24:32
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I don't know about my mother's—	24:34
Kate Ellis	Your mother's side.	24:36
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	—mother's side. The grandparents on either side. I don't know them. Yes. I don't know that. I don't know what color they were. I don't know whether they were were French or what they were.	24:36
Kate Ellis	Or whether they were French. Yeah, I just was wondering whether—	24:46
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No, I don't know—	24:46
Kate Ellis	—because you said that she spoke French, I just thought, oh, I wonder where she learned how to speak that.	24:48
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I really don't. We knew that the name Cheri was French. We were trying to find out if my grandfather was from the island or was he born on the French—The settlers that was slave owners and he took the name of Cheri? We don't know, because it's only a very few. Only the Cheri sisters and brothers and uncles that's listed in the phone book. That's the only Cheris they have in the city of New Orleans.	24:49
Kate Ellis	Oh, really? It's not a large—	25:13
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, no, no, no, no, no.	25:13
Kate Ellis	Well, I think that we should move on to—	25:18
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Signing all of these papers.	25:21
Kate Ellis	—these questions. Because if you can believe it, we've been talking for—	25:21
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Since about two hours.	25:21
Kate Ellis	—for about two hours. But see, now do have a better—You now must have a better sense of what I was curious about. Okay, so your last name is Cher, C-H-E-R-I, E-M-M-E-T-T.	25:26
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Right.	25:47
Kate Ellis	What is your middle name?	25:47
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Emmanuel.	25:49
Kate Ellis	Can you spell that?	25:50
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	E-M-M-A-N-U-E-L	25:56
Kate Ellis	E-L. Okay.	25:56
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	You got it?	25:56
Kate Ellis	Yes. E-M-A-N-U—	25:56
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Uh-uh! E-M-M.	25:58
Kate Ellis	Oh, two M's. Okay.	25:58
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	A-N-U-E-L. Emmanuel.	25:59
Kate Ellis	Okay, and—	26:02
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Just like the Bible.	26:04
Kate Ellis	Okay. That's easy. Now, what's your address?	26:07
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	4628 Mithra, M-I-T-H-R-A.	26:09
Kate Ellis	Street.	26:14
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	The old French wood.	26:15
Kate Ellis	New Orleans. And what's your zip code?	26:16
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	70126.	26:22
Kate Ellis	26. And you were born in New Orleans?	26:25
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Right.	26:27
Kate Ellis	And your birthdate was?	26:32
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	12-24-24.	26:34
Kate Ellis	Oh, that's a good one. And your principal occupations were truck—	26:35
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah, 18-wheeler.	26:43
Kate Ellis	Okay. I'm going to say truck driver.	26:45
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah, a truck driver more or less.	26:45
Kate Ellis	Yeah. And before that, it was truck driver—	26:45
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Most of it was truck driver.	26:45
Kate Ellis	Truck driver? Okay. And—	26:47
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Or driver, whatever.	26:51
Kate Ellis	Okay. This asks for the same thing. I'll fill it in later. Let me just move—Okay, how would you like your name to appear in written materials? Would you like it to be Emmett Emmanuel Cheri or Emmett E. Cheri?	26:54
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah, Emmett E. Cheri would more probably.	27:38
Kate Ellis	Okay.	27:41
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. Senior.	27:45
Kate Ellis	Senior?	27:45
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Senior.	27:47
Kate Ellis	Okay.	27:48
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Senior, because I wouldn't want to confuse it with Junior.	27:49
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay. You have a son with the same name?	27:49
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	My son is, yeah. My oldest son is. That's why I just realized that.	27:49
Kate Ellis	Okay.	27:49
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Do you need me to still have this—	27:49
Kate Ellis	Oh, what I usually do is record this part.	28:07
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, okay.	28:12
Kate Ellis	Which, I only do it because sometimes when I ask these questions, something else comes up and it's always good to have it on record. Are you divorced or widowed?	28:12
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yes, divorced.	28:21
Kate Ellis	You're divorced? Okay. What was your spouse's name?	28:22
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Delores.	28:27
Kate Ellis	What was her middle name?	28:31
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I don't know much in there, but I know she was-	28:33
Kate Ellis	But she was Dolores?	28:35
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Just Scott.	28:36
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry?	28:37
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Scott.	28:37
Kate Ellis	Dolores Scott. Do you remember when she was born?	28:38
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Let's see, she was born On—what was that? March the 10th, '31.	28:44
Kate Ellis	Okay.	28:48
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah, what's that, the 3rd, 10th, 31?	28:51
Kate Ellis	Yeah. And where was she born?	28:55
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	New Orleans.	28:56
Kate Ellis	Did she have an—Oh no, she was a housewife with you, right?	29:04
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Right.	29:06
Kate Ellis	Okay. Your mother's name? Full name?	29:11
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Rosa.	29:15
Kate Ellis	Rosie?	29:16
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah, that's Rosa, R-O-S-A.	29:17
Kate Ellis	R-O-S—	29:17
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	A, Rosa. R-O-S-A.	29:19
Kate Ellis	Rosa. Do you have her middle name?	29:20
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Mary, more or less. Mary. Mary.	29:24
Kate Ellis	Rosa Mary.	29:27
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Mary. M-A-R-Y. What, you want her full name?	29:28
Kate Ellis	Say it again. I want her full name. Rosa?	29:32
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Mary.	29:34
Kate Ellis	M-A-R-Y?	29:35
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Y, right.	29:36
Kate Ellis	And her last—And Cheri?	29:36
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Right. That's her married name.	29:40
Kate Ellis	I am spelling your name right. It's C-H-E-R-I.	29:43
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	C-H-E-R-I, yes.	29:47
Kate Ellis	Okay. And what was her maiden name?	29:48
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Poison.	29:50
Kate Ellis	Can you spell that?	29:50
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	P-O-I-S-I-O-N. P-O-I-S-O-N. That's the right name.	29:53
Kate Ellis	That's the way. Like Poison?	29:59
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Poison, yeah, that's the French way, Poison. Most of them say Poison.	30:01
Kate Ellis	They mostly say—Yeah.	30:08
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I know you noticed rubbing my arm, huh?	30:10
Kate Ellis	Just a minute ago, because you're—	30:13
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah, well, you know what that is? I'm [indistinct 00:30:18], but really and truthfully, this is from the insulin.	30:15
Kate Ellis	From insulin?	30:20
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah, I'm a diabetic.	30:21
Kate Ellis	Oh, you are? Oh.	30:22
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And insulin—	30:23
Kate Ellis	You get that reaction?	30:24
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah.	30:25
Kate Ellis	Does it itch a lot?	30:25
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Sometimes. Most of the time when it's hot, when it gets hot in this time of the evening. And when I have the—I use this like that to put on it.	30:26
Kate Ellis	Oh, yeah. Okay, what was her date of birth? Do you remember?	30:36
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	My mother was born on February the 25th, 1895.	30:37
Kate Ellis	And do you remember when she died?	30:47
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	March the 16th. Yeah, March 16th.	30:50
Kate Ellis	1952?	30:54
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	1959. Now, wait a minute now, let me get this straight now. Is she the 15th? Yeah, I think she's the 15. Yeah, she's the 16th. March 16th, 1952. I got to get them because my daughter was born on the day before, I know, the day before she died.	30:54
Kate Ellis	Now, where was your mother born?	31:10
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	My mother was born in Paincourtville, Louisiana.	31:13
Kate Ellis	Can you spell that?	31:14
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	P-A-I-N-C-O-U-R-T-V-I-L-L-E.	31:15
Kate Ellis	Louisiana?	31:24
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Mm-hmm.	31:25
Kate Ellis	And she made tobacco, made cigars?	31:27
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah, well—	31:30
Kate Ellis	Was that her occupation?	31:32
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, she was a housewife.	31:32
Kate Ellis	Okay, I'm going to say housewife.	31:33
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	She was a housewife, yeah.	31:34
Kate Ellis	Can I then put down that—Oh no, and then she was a cook?	31:36
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Then she was a cook. Yeah, you could put the housewife and cook.	31:39
Kate Ellis	Okay. And your father's name?	31:42
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Fernand. F-E-R-N-A-N-D.	31:46
Kate Ellis	F-E-R-N-A-N-D?	31:53
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	J.	31:53
Kate Ellis	J?	31:53
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Which is Joseph, yeah.	31:53
Kate Ellis	Joseph?	31:55
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Uh-huh.	31:55
Kate Ellis	Fernand Joseph—	31:55
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Joseph Cheri.	31:58
Kate Ellis	Remember his date of birth?	32:00
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	August the 1st, 1895.	32:03
Kate Ellis	And his death?	32:17
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	August the 31st, 1936.	32:18
Kate Ellis	And he was born?	32:18
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	New Orleans.	32:19
Kate Ellis	And his occupation? He worked-	32:25
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Printer.	32:27
Kate Ellis	Printer? Right.	32:28
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Printer. Printer. I got to use his Southern swirls, you know what I mean? You can understand that from the Eastern Seaboard a little different. In pronunciations anyway.	32:29
Kate Ellis	And the sisters and brothers, now you were the second oldest?	32:40
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No, the third.	32:43
Kate Ellis	Third oldest? Can you tell me the names of your—	32:45
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Fernand is the oldest.	32:48
Kate Ellis	Your brother?	32:49
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Fernand. He's a Junior.	32:50
Kate Ellis	And when was he born?	32:56
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	He was born February the 25th, 1922. Same day as my mother.	32:59
Kate Ellis	Did you say '22?	33:03
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	1922.	33:04
Kate Ellis	Is he still alive?	33:05
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah.	33:06
Kate Ellis	Okay. And he was born in—Everybody was born in New Orleans?	33:07
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	New Orleans.	33:09
Kate Ellis	And then what about the next one?	33:11
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Lionel.	33:15
Kate Ellis	Lionel. His birthday?	33:15
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Lionel was May the 30th, 1923.	33:19
Kate Ellis	And then after you?	33:26
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Was Emmett, then—After me?	33:28
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	33:29
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, my sister, Selika.	33:30
Kate Ellis	How do you spell that?	33:30
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	S-E-L-I-K-A.	33:33
Kate Ellis	Her birthday?	33:37
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Selika was November the 22nd, '26.	33:39
Kate Ellis	And then after her?	33:47
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	It's Miriam.	33:47
Kate Ellis	Her birthday?	33:48
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	June the 21st, '30.	33:55
Kate Ellis	And then your brother?	34:01
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That's deceased?	34:02
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	34:03
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Okay, well, he was born on September the 5th, '32.	34:09
Kate Ellis	When did he die?	34:12
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	March the 29th, '87.	34:12
Kate Ellis	What was his name?	34:18
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Earl Cheri.	34:20
Kate Ellis	Okay. And then the names of your children?	34:23
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, you want my children? Okay, I got Emmett, which is the Junior.	34:27
Kate Ellis	And when was he born?	34:38
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	April 29, '53,	34:41
Kate Ellis	Where was he born?	34:46
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	New Orleans.	34:47
Kate Ellis	They were all born in New Orleans?	34:48
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	All of them born in New Orleans, yes. And I have David.	34:49
Kate Ellis	David?	34:53
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That's right.	34:54
Kate Ellis	When was he born?	34:55
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	1-12-55.	34:58
Kate Ellis	And after him?	35:02
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Trina. Trina's May the 2nd, 1957. Then I have Bernadette, July the 12th, 1958. And Merrilyn, M-E-R-R-I-L-Y-N.	35:06
Kate Ellis	Merrilyn.	35:34
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	She's on the 15th of March, 1963.	35:41
Kate Ellis	'63?	35:46
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	We had a little slip there. We had five years different between Merrilyn.	35:49
Kate Ellis	And you have six grandchildren?	35:53
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Six grandchildren.	35:54
Kate Ellis	Okay. Now, you have lived in New Orleans and then have you lived anywhere besides New Orleans?	35:57
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No.	36:06
Kate Ellis	Besides being overseas in the service?	36:06
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No.	36:07
Kate Ellis	How long were you in the service?	36:08
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Three years.	36:10
Kate Ellis	Okay. What were the—Because I'm going to say you were in New Orleans from—What was the year that you were born again?	36:11
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I was born in '24.	36:17
Kate Ellis	1924. To when did you enter the service?	36:21
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	1942.	36:30
Kate Ellis	Overseas in the service from 1942 to 1945. Okay. Now, your education, the first school you went to?	36:30
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Craig. Joseph A. Craig.	36:54
Kate Ellis	Craig Elementary?	36:57
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Mm-hmm.	36:58
Kate Ellis	In New Orleans. From, do you remember what years you were there?	36:59
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Oh, God.	37:07
Kate Ellis	I know. Maybe we can work our way back there.	37:08
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, it would be for, I know, up until the seventh grade. I don't remember when that would be.	37:11
Kate Ellis	I'm just trying to think. Did you join the service right when you got out of high school?	37:18
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. I was 18 years old.	37:22
Kate Ellis	Okay, and then your—	37:25
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	17, no. No, I got out of high school the same year.	37:25
Kate Ellis	Okay. If you got out of high school in 1942—	37:29
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That was 11—I'm trying to figure that out. I started at five. If I was five, I was four or five years old in—No, that ain't right. And see, my father died in 1936. I went into high school in 1937, '38. I'm trying figure that one out.	37:33
Kate Ellis	No, when you say-	37:56
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Okay, my father died in '36. I was in seventh grade. I was 11 years old. I was going to be 12 that same year.	37:57
Kate Ellis	And that was the junior high school?	38:02
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That was going into junior high.	38:04
Kate Ellis	What was the name of that high school?	38:07
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Wicker. Albert Wicker High.	38:08
Kate Ellis	Junior high?	38:09
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I went there in 19—What'd I say? I was 12—	38:12
Kate Ellis	You said 1937 was when you entered Wicker?	38:22
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. And this started with two years there and then two years over in '35, so that's the four years.	38:24
Kate Ellis	Okay. That makes sense, pretty much.	38:31
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. It's about 17. It was the right age.	38:33
Kate Ellis	[indistinct 00:38:38] '35.	38:37
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That was the right age. I can't remember all of that.	38:38
Kate Ellis	I'm just thinking. About 1939 to 1942. And so you would've been—And you went to Albert Wicker in seventh grade?	38:47
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Eighth grade.	38:50
Kate Ellis	Eighth grade? Okay. Eighth grade.	38:51
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	That'd be—	38:53
Kate Ellis	It's different now. They didn't have—See—	38:53
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	From about 1929 to 1937, yeah, something like that era. '29, yeah, something like that. 1929 or something like that, yeah.	38:58
Kate Ellis	You got your high school diploma?	39:06
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah.	39:11
Kate Ellis	Okay. Now this-	39:12
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Don't ask me where. Don't ask me where it's at. I've been trying to find all of these papers. I got one of my daughter's graduation.	39:12
Kate Ellis	Oh, yeah.	39:22
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And I can't find the rest of them.	39:22
Kate Ellis	Oh, really? Yeah.	39:27
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I don't know what happened to them. God knows. And my son, I don't know if he's got it, but he's asked me for it several times now.	39:27
Kate Ellis	Really?	39:33
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I've checked all over. I don't know. I tell him to ask his mother if she got it. None of them, I don't even have none of their diplomas.	39:33
Kate Ellis	Really? Yeah.	39:41
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	My son, my daughter, none of them. I don't know what the heck happened.	39:41
Kate Ellis	Well—	39:44
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, they broke in this house twice.	39:46
Kate Ellis	Oh, really? Wow.	39:48
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And there's a lot of things that's missing and I—	39:51
Kate Ellis	Yeah, okay. Now list your current and most previous job. Your last job was with—	39:53
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	McLean.	40:01
Kate Ellis	McLean Trucking.	40:02
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	McLean Trucking Company. That would be it.	40:03
Kate Ellis	And that was in New Orleans?	40:13
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yep.	40:14
Kate Ellis	And the dates—You retired in 1986?	40:16
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	'86.	40:22
Kate Ellis	When did you start with them?	40:24
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I started in 1956 with the Herron Transportation Company, included, but that was 1956.	40:26
Kate Ellis	And before McLean—	40:31
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I worked for Haps. Haps, H-A-P-S, HAPS Parcel Service.	40:35
Kate Ellis	Haps, H-A-P-S, parcel.	40:41
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. H-A-P-S Parcel.	40:41
Kate Ellis	What was your job?	40:42
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Driver. Everything was driving.	40:44
Kate Ellis	Okay. And that was in New Orleans.	40:44
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	All of that's New Orleans. Everything—	40:48
Kate Ellis	And how long were you—	40:49
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I worked for them in in 1947 to 1956.	40:51
Kate Ellis	Okay. And then before that?	40:52
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	I worked for Lietz Eagan Funeral Home.	40:52
Kate Ellis	Can you spell it?	41:00
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	L-I-E-T-Z, that's the way, E-A-G-A-N.	41:04
Kate Ellis	Is that a separate word?	41:07
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah. Lietz Eagan. That's two names.	41:08
Kate Ellis	Tell me—Lietz, okay, L-I-E—	41:12
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Lietz is one and Eagan is the other one.	41:13
Kate Ellis	Okay, okay. And Eagan is spelled?	41:14
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	E-A-G-A-N. Funeral Home.	41:14
Kate Ellis	And your job for them was—	41:21
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, more or less just porter. That's just all I got. That's primarily what that is. Maintenance. I don't know what they would call it.	41:24
Kate Ellis	And then you—And that was from '45 to '47?	41:37
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Right.	41:40
Kate Ellis	And then before that, you were a soldier. What's the type? You were an Army soldier?	41:42
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yes, in the Army, yes.	41:48
Kate Ellis	What's that? Do you call yourself a soldier? What were you called?	41:52
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah, you're called a soldier. A soldier. Just a soldier in the Army.	41:53
Kate Ellis	Okay.	42:00
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	You go in there as a private in the Army. Pvt, all of them.	42:04
Kate Ellis	Okay. Have you ever received any awards or honors or held any offices?	42:17
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	From what?	42:24
Kate Ellis	Just any awards or honors from anywhere, or been in—Okay. That's fine.	42:25
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No awards.	42:31
Kate Ellis	And your current religious denomination is Catholic?	42:35
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Right.	42:37
Kate Ellis	And it's St. Francis de Sales is your church?	42:38
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Right.	42:40
Kate Ellis	And then before joining St. Francis de Sales, what other churches did you belong to?	42:46
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	St. Peter Claver.	42:51
Kate Ellis	Will you spell Claver?	42:54
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	C-L-A-V-E-R.	42:55
Kate Ellis	Anyone before that?	42:59
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Corpus Christi was next. I went to St. Peter Claver, then Corpus Christ.	43:01
Kate Ellis	And those are both in New Orleans?	43:05
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	New Orleans. Yeah, I was married at Corpus Christi. I was Christened at Corpus Christi. I did everything at Corpus Christi.	43:08
Kate Ellis	Do you belong to any organizations? Any civic, community, or education—	43:19
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Not anymore.	43:22
Kate Ellis	What did you belong to?	43:23
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Autocrats Social.	43:24
Kate Ellis	What was it?	43:26
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	The Autocrats Social and Pleasure. Excuse me.	43:27
Kate Ellis	The Autocrats Social? The Autocrats Social?	43:29
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	And Pleasure Club, yes.	43:36
Kate Ellis	Social and Pleasure Club?	43:37
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Well, it's a club. It's what the club is.	43:40
Kate Ellis	Social club?	43:41
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	Yeah.	43:41
Kate Ellis	Anything else?	43:41
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No, that's it.	43:41
Kate Ellis	Okay. Any other activities or affiliations, hobbies, interests, anything?	43:45
Emmett E. Cheri Sr.	No, not really. No.	43:54
Kate Ellis	No? Okay. Any favorite saying or phrase or quote? Okay. That's pretty much it. The one thing now is to—I'm going to turn this off.	43:57

Item Info

Title:

Emmett Cheri interview recording, 1994 June 23

Date:

June 23, 1994

Creator:

Cheri, Emmett Emmanuel

Contributor:

Ellis, Kate

Description:

Name: Emmett Emmanuel Cheri; Date of birth: 1924-12-24; Place of birth: New Orleans; Occupation(s): teamster; Residence: New Orleans, LA
Informant ID: 525; Interviewed by: Kate Ellis.

Occupation:

Teamster

Location:

Format:

Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

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

Series:

Related Resources:

See below

Provenance:

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

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

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

Identifier:

Interview number: 823
91a29d70-414c-43b8-9aa1-4f591e21ebeb
behindtheveil
btvct07064
ark:/87924/r46m37j5r
c0b144c9-6ae9-4852-a3c4-d8566d7f792a

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Emmett Cheri interview recording, 1994 June 23

Transcript

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1. Emmett Cheri administrative file, 1994

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Transcript

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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