George Wyatt interview recording, 1995 August 09

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Mary Hebert	State your full name and tell me where you were born.	0:00
George Wyatt	My name is George W. Wyatt Jr. I was born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1920.	0:05
Mary Hebert	What did your parents do for a living?	0:14
George Wyatt	Oh, let me see if I can go back that far now. My father worked for Rices. My mother worked at a laundry.	0:18
Mary Hebert	What were their names?	0:32
George Wyatt	His name was George W. Wyatt Senior. My mother's name was Laie B. Wyatt. We lived in a very, I'd say very Spanish neighborhood, but it was the kind of neighborhood that I think we ought to have today. Everybody knew everybody. Everybody was friendly. And if we did wrong, we would get spanked by the neighbor. And it spanked by our parents when they came and they came home.	0:35
Mary Hebert	What neighborhood was it, did it have a name?	1:16
George Wyatt	No, it was just—	1:21
Mary Hebert	What section of Norfolk was it in?	1:28
George Wyatt	It was in the, I would say downtown section now. We lived on Nicholson Street at 332. That was the address, Nicholson Street. And that's more or less like downtown now. It was downtown, well, it wasn't not called downtown Norfolk. Jefferson Street ran through there. Kent Street ran through there. Where the cemetery is on Princess Ann Road down, that ran by there just like it does now, it's still there.	1:32
Mary Hebert	I'm familiar with that area.	2:19
George Wyatt	They, of course, when we moved out from there and moved to Uden Street, I guess I was about 10 or 12 years old, we moved to Uden Street and we lived there until, well, I got grown, I'll say that.	2:22
Mary Hebert	Did your parents own their own homes or were they—	2:49
George Wyatt	No, they were renting or they had, I doubt if they could have owned a home making six, $7 a week. And that was basically their salary. There was seven of us. There were three girls and four boys. And of course my youngest brother, he's dead now. We went to school at, well, I went to school at SC Armstrong. From there I went to Booker T.	2:54
Mary Hebert	Did you graduate from high school?	3:33
George Wyatt	I did not graduate from high school.	3:35
Mary Hebert	Did you have to go to work to help the family out?	3:37
George Wyatt	Well, basically, at that time it was a struggle. And I don't guess I was old enough to, well, I really didn't quit school until I got in there. What? 11th grade, I think. Because when I really stopped school.	3:40
Mary Hebert	And you went to work?	4:03
George Wyatt	I went to work, yes. As much of work as there was.	4:05
Mary Hebert	This was during the depression?	4:12
George Wyatt	Well, during the depression, no, the depression was what, '24?	4:14
Mary Hebert	'29 to '30.	4:33
George Wyatt	29.	4:33
Mary Hebert	To 40s, till about World War II.	4:33
George Wyatt	Roosevelt was elected in—	4:34
Mary Hebert	'32.	4:35
George Wyatt	Yeah. Well, I'm trying to think back now. I'm trying to think back. I remember when Roosevelt was elected and he started the WPA. And of course I was still in school then. And my father and mother struggled through the WPA and my father was still working as a what? Janitor, clerk or something at a department store, right at the department store. And my mother was still working at Fairfax Laundry. And we used to have to get up mornings before going to school and take the clothes to the laundry for her to wash them. And then we'd bring them back that she might press them and so we'd have—	4:37
Mary Hebert	Your clothes, the family's clothes?	5:43
George Wyatt	The family's clothes, yes. I worked at a grocery store on the corner. I think it was George, was O'Brien, I don't remember the man's first name. No, I think it was George O'Brien, but I'm not sure.	5:45
Mary Hebert	A White man?	6:02
George Wyatt	Huh?	6:02
Mary Hebert	A White man?	6:10
George Wyatt	He was White. Yeah, he was White. And I worked there delivering groceries and whatever else I could do.	6:11
Mary Hebert	How were you treated when you're going through these White neighborhoods delivering groceries?	6:20
George Wyatt	But I didn't have to go through White neighborhoods.	6:25
Mary Hebert	Okay. You delivering to Black neighborhoods?	6:27
George Wyatt	It was all in Black neighborhoods. I did not have to go through White neighborhoods until I got, well, I guess I was about 16, 17 years old. I was working at another grocery store and there we delivered groceries and you had to go to the back door. They didn't allow you to come to their front door at all. You delivered groceries and you went to the back door.	6:28
Mary Hebert	How were you treated by the kids in the neighborhood? Did they call you names and things like that? The White children in the neighborhood?	7:03
George Wyatt	No. No. I personally never came in contact with that. We were not, well, I guess I was so much in the Black neighborhood. I was more in the Black neighborhood than in a White neighborhood. So I never came in contact with Whites calling us anything, calling me anything, I'll say it that way. And I never had problems with them bothering me because I was never in that neighborhood that much.	7:08
Mary Hebert	Except to do your job.	7:43
George Wyatt	That's all.	7:44
Mary Hebert	When you were going to school, did you have to walk to school?	7:47
George Wyatt	Yes.	7:49
Mary Hebert	How far a walk?	7:49
George Wyatt	Well, let me say this. When I was going to school with me living uptown, there were kids who lived in Lamberts Point. There were kids that lived in Berkeley. They had to walk by the White schools to get to the one Black school that they had for Negroes. And that was Booker T Washington High School. And it's at the school is setting now where the old school was.	7:55
Mary Hebert	It's just out?	8:29
George Wyatt	Huh?	8:34
Mary Hebert	Out this way? Off Park?	8:34
George Wyatt	Yeah, it was there then. It was not Park Avenue then, it was Calvert Street and I guess Maltby Avenue. And those streets surrounded the school. And that was in a predominant Black neighborhood. I played a little football for Booker T at the time that they had had a football team. I played some football with them.	8:38
Mary Hebert	The games were in the afternoon?	9:10
George Wyatt	The games were all in the afternoon. It was a big thing for Booker T and St. Joseph's. It was called St. Joseph's Standards. Well, what is St. Mary's now. St. Joseph's and Booker T played, they were all shoe stores on Church Street. They could close their stores that day for that game because that was a, well, it wasn't a rough and rowdy game, but it was a little competition. The competition was real.	9:14
Mary Hebert	So there's a big rivalry between the two schools?	9:52
George Wyatt	Two schools, yes. And Booker T did not have, well, they didn't have the enrollment that Booker T had. And they would go out and get other boys to come and play for them that day. They had other players who would come in and play for them. But it was, and their coach [indistinct 00:10:20] then was Biggie White.	9:55
Mary Hebert	Would you travel to football games to other places or did you all stay mostly within the Norfolk area?	10:26
George Wyatt	We stayed more or less than within the Norfolk area. And the one or two times we traveled or they had buses for us to travel by. And we would go to Addison, played Addison High in Roanoke. We went to Portsmouth and played Markham. And of course then you had to go, the ferry was running and we had to cross over on the ferry. And you didn't get, well, it was a thing that if you went over at the Portsmouth and won the football game, you'd had to run back to catch that ferry to be sure you got that ferry to get back to Norfolk.	10:34
Mary Hebert	You would've been in trouble if you wouldn't.	11:23
George Wyatt	And they were days that we wished that the Whites and Blacks could have had competition between each other. But that never matured until the later years.	11:30
Mary Hebert	Did you have to try out for the team or did anyone who wanted to play just join up?	11:43
George Wyatt	No, no. We had that but we had tryouts. And you had tryouts and it was pretty rough for the tryouts. There was a lot of competition there. And they knew that they were, we figured we were the best and they wanted to keep that macho feeling going.	11:48
Mary Hebert	You mentioned that they closed the stores on Church Street. Was there a fear that there'd be riots or looting?	12:16
George Wyatt	No, they closed just in honor of those games. Every, and most of the stores on Cherry Street, they were operated by the Jewish race and from, let me see, El Snyder. The El Snyder were just the one right there. Think El Snyder did not close. El Snyders was more way downtown. They were down by Main Street and El Snyders and [indistinct 00:12:59]. I think they were the two, anyhow, from, I would say from Market Street on up or back. They would close the stores. They'd have, this is the day we closed in honor of this, of these two teams playing.	12:21
Mary Hebert	Did the parents go to the game too? Did a lot of people from the community?	13:18
George Wyatt	Oh yes, indeed. Parents were stark supporters of the boys playing football.	13:20
Mary Hebert	Did you have bleachers and things that they had at football stadiums for high school kids [indistinct 00:13:35]	13:28
George Wyatt	Yes. We played, well, High Rock Park. High Rock Park was on Church Street where the railroad track is, where that Veco or where the light place, telephone or something there that. But that's where the High Rock Park was.	13:36
Mary Hebert	And that's where you played?	14:04
George Wyatt	That's where we played.	14:04
Mary Hebert	So it wasn't on the school grounds?	14:05
George Wyatt	No, no, no. It wasn't on the school grounds.	14:08
Mary Hebert	Did you have any teachers that were very influential, important to you?	14:24
George Wyatt	I had a principal and his name was MJ Green. He was very influential with me and with my oldest sister. He was one of those kind of principals that was close to the family. Because every Thursday, I could assure you that my father would come to the school and have a conversation with this principal every Thursday. He would take his lunch hour and come to the school and they would sit in the office and have a conversation. It isn't like it is now. You can't see the principal, you got to go through a whole regimen of people to get to the principal.	14:24
Mary Hebert	But they had this standing meeting every week?	15:34
George Wyatt	Every Thursday, and the principal, Mr. Green knew he was coming and my father would be there.	15:34
Mary Hebert	Was education important to your father?	15:40
George Wyatt	Very important, yes. Education was very important to my father.	15:43
Mary Hebert	And your mother also on [indistinct 00:15:50].	15:46
George Wyatt	Yes.	15:46
Mary Hebert	You just mentioned that your father went to the school.	15:49
George Wyatt	Well, my father went, but because my mother couldn't go. But my father was the man of the house. He did the things that a father should do.	15:51
Mary Hebert	He made the decisions.	16:07
George Wyatt	Well, it was between him and my mother. I guess they collaborated and made the decisions together.	16:09
Mary Hebert	Was he responsible for discipline?	16:17
George Wyatt	Yes he was. He wasn't, well, [indistinct 00:16:27] tell you, but you know it wasn't a thing. If you punish a child then, you'd had to go to jail and all this kind of stuff. You didn't have bothered with that. But they disciplined you on the way they should be disciplined.	16:20
Mary Hebert	Did some of your younger brothers and sisters get to go further in school than you did?	16:45
George Wyatt	My sister graduated from Booker T. My oldest sister. My youngest sister, she also graduated and she went to college. My brothers went in, my brother next to me, he went in the CC Camp.	16:51
Mary Hebert	Okay, so where'd he go?	17:24
George Wyatt	He went CC Camp.	17:27
Mary Hebert	Oh, okay.	17:29
George Wyatt	That's where he matriculated. Got the education that he got.	17:37
Mary Hebert	And he'd send money home?	17:42
George Wyatt	And send it down. And then once they send it in the hole, then that's where you would take it for, they would send it either to the port side or starboard side of the ship. It depending on what side it was going on.	17:46
Mary Hebert	And so they hoist it onto the ships?	18:06
George Wyatt	Yes.	18:07
Mary Hebert	What year did you become a longshoreman? It was in the 30s?	18:08
George Wyatt	No, no.	18:09
Mary Hebert	The 40s?	18:09
George Wyatt	Before then.	18:09
Mary Hebert	Before then?	18:16
George Wyatt	Yeah. I became a longshoreman and no, no, no, no. It wasn't before then, either. I became a longshoreman in 1942.	18:19
Mary Hebert	And you'd already married and had children by then?	18:35
George Wyatt	Yes.	18:37
Mary Hebert	And you started out earning 95 cents.	18:39
George Wyatt	95 cents an hour.	18:42
Mary Hebert	Were most of longshoremen Black?	18:43
George Wyatt	Most of them were Black. There were a few White longshoremen. But see, when you were a longshoreman you were the scum of the earth then, nobody wanted to be a longshoreman because of the hard work. And it was hard work.	18:47
Mary Hebert	All done by hand you said?	19:06
George Wyatt	All done by hand, yes. We had to bring cargo to the ship. You had a few tractors that were broken down, but they would bring the ship, pull the ship cargo up under the whip. And that's what he called it, the whip. And from the whip, they lifted it into the hole. And then from the hole. And when they had these large airplane motors that I was talking about, they were hoisted on by cranes.	19:07
Mary Hebert	So you put the rollers under them to get them to a certain point and then the cranes would—	19:44
George Wyatt	No. Oh, well, if we weren't taking them out.	19:48
Mary Hebert	Oh, when you were taking them out. Okay. I'm just thinking of loading and not unloading. So you all did both of you loading and the unloading.	19:51
George Wyatt	We did the loading and the unloading. Yes. And we loaded the airplane engines going overseas. We didn't ever get into coming back. The few they got coming back were broken down or beat up.	19:56
Mary Hebert	Was most of the business during World War II, Navy, Army, business, military?	20:16
George Wyatt	No. There were, well, I said no because we did most of, I guess it could have been Navy contracted and Army contracted. But they were commercial steel doors who actually did the work in the port.	20:20
Mary Hebert	Now what's the difference between a stevedore and a longshoreman?	20:41
George Wyatt	They the same.	20:45
Mary Hebert	Same thing?	20:46
George Wyatt	Same thing. Well, let me see if I can clarify that for you. The stevedore was basically the company.	20:49
Mary Hebert	Okay.	21:00
George Wyatt	Basically the company, the longshoremen were the workers.	21:00
Mary Hebert	Okay.	21:03
Mary Hebert	Did you belong to a union?	21:05
George Wyatt	Belonged to a union, yes.	21:07
Mary Hebert	What union was that?	21:26
George Wyatt	We belonged to a ILA. We belonged to the ILA. And they had had, of course, that was a union that was formed in New York. It was formed in New York and of course there are some stories behind that too. Because during that time, the Pollocks and the Greeks in New York started the union. And they had a heck of a time getting the union, actually getting it organized. When we started, when I got in the union here, it was well organized. But the pay wasn't, it was still that 95 cents an hour.	21:29
Mary Hebert	Were the White workers paid more than the Black workers, did you know?	22:11
George Wyatt	No.	22:18
Mary Hebert	They were all paid the same?	22:18
George Wyatt	The same thing.	22:18
Mary Hebert	Was the union integrated? Did you have White members and Black members?	22:18
George Wyatt	Well, in New York, yes. I'd say yes they were integrated. In Norfolk they were not integrated. There were two unions, two locals. I'd say locals. One was White, one was Black. But they worked together on the job.	22:24
Mary Hebert	So they were both in the ILA, there were just two locals, two chapters of it here.	22:45
George Wyatt	See, we were Local 1248. They were Local 970.	22:49
Mary Hebert	But they worked together in negotiating wages and conditions?	22:56
George Wyatt	And their wages they negotiated together. And whatever it was negotiated, there was always the committee of our peers who negotiated for us and for them. And whatever we came up with, they got the same thing.	22:59
Mary Hebert	So you all worked together on those things?	23:26
George Wyatt	Yes.	23:27
Mary Hebert	And so the committee of peers was a group of Black and White—	23:31
George Wyatt	Yes.	23:34
Mary Hebert	—people working together?	23:34
George Wyatt	Together. There were, I guess basically then there were 10 or 12 unions at that time in the port. I think it was eight or nine now. And I say I got to think because I'm not really sure, but I think they were eight or nine now. And when they negotiate the president and one or two persons from each local come in to make up—My grandchildren. Come in to make up the—	23:35
Mary Hebert	So all these unions would get together. It was just the ILA that would get together and negotiate?	24:27
George Wyatt	Just the ILA.	24:31
Mary Hebert	During the course of the war, were there a lot of negotiations to increase wages and that kind of thing?	24:33
George Wyatt	During the course of the war, I guess they would meet once a year and whatever they came up with at that time would be what the employers would have if they agreed to.	24:41
Mary Hebert	Did you all also negotiate for employee safety and those kinds of things?	25:02
George Wyatt	Well, the safety and everything was involved and was included in the negotiations. And they talked more about safety than wages.	25:06
Mary Hebert	It was a dangerous job?	25:16
George Wyatt	Oh, yes, indeed. Yes, indeed.	25:17
Mary Hebert	Oops.	25:18
George Wyatt	Very dangerous.	25:26
Mary Hebert	Did you have any kind of workman's compensation for people who were injured? Or is that something that the union tried to?	25:29
George Wyatt	No, there is a compensation, well, the federal government, I guess, instituted the compensation. And it still stands now based on where you are working. Well, now it's a little different than back there, but where you are working, whether you working on a dock or whether you are working on a ship or whether you are working, however you're working, there's a difference in the schedule and the payments. And they pay you based on the amount of money that you made last year. Your compensation is based on how much money you make last year. And it's negotiated in that.	25:35
Mary Hebert	Did you work along with White longshoreman or were you all separate?	26:40
George Wyatt	No, we worked—	26:44
Mary Hebert	Together.	26:45
George Wyatt	—more or less together because in longshore work, they're set up in gangs. So you might have, and the Whites did not want to go on the ship, they wanted to stay on the dock. So you would've a White ship gang and you would've a Black ship gang and a White dock gang. And they would make up the number of, if you had 20 men in a gang, then whatever required that ship and whatever required on that dock, that would be one gang and they would be White. All the White would be on the dock and the Blacks would be on the ship. Because on the ships, the danger was on the ships. But I've seen fellas killed on the dock that were, and they were on the dock, and basically they were part of the ship gang because they were the slingers. I do know of two instances where [indistinct 00:27:52] was going up and something fell off and killed him [indistinct 00:28:02] on the ground.	26:48
Mary Hebert	On the ground?	28:01
George Wyatt	Yes.	28:01
Mary Hebert	The ships were more dangerous because things could fall?	28:04
George Wyatt	Well, that had something to do with it, but it was based on how it was stored on the pallet that was lifted onto the ship. It could fall off.	28:09
Mary Hebert	Did your union ever go on strike?	28:44
George Wyatt	Yes, indeed. Up until, was this '90, up until '89, I guess or '87. They would go on strike almost each year. That was one thing. The basic reason for the extract was wages but safety, they wanted more safety on the docks.	28:46
Mary Hebert	How did that work? Did your family not have any income coming in when you went on strike?	29:32
George Wyatt	Yeah, that's right. No income. It worked later, let me see. I would say back in 1942, '44, they were on strike almost every year. But there was always cargo that demanded it be shipped. Military cargo was one of it, and they did a lot of military cargo shipping during that time, which means that you could be on strike and we did stay on strike for sixty some days one time. The military cargo, with it being no restrictions on that, you were able to get home some few dollars.	29:37
Mary Hebert	So that cargo you had to be shipped out [indistinct 00:30:40]	30:37
George Wyatt	Had to be, yeah. In fact, the union did not require you to strike against the military.	30:39
Mary Hebert	How did management and the owners respond to strikes? Did they try to bring in scabs?	30:50
George Wyatt	No, no, they negotiated with the union. And they didn't because I guess at that time they figured if they tried to bring in scabs that they would have a war.	30:56
Mary Hebert	There wasn't any attempt to try to break the union?	31:16
George Wyatt	No.	31:18
Mary Hebert	Would safety conditions improve with each strike and then would you get what you want?	31:26
George Wyatt	Safety conditions were improved, yes. With each strike, safety conditions were improved. The method of handling cargo was improved. And of course, until we got to the crane, to these Pasico cranes that they have now, that's the thing of new comings but the handling cargo was improved greatly. I think the working conditions were improved.	31:30
Mary Hebert	Did you all strike for shorter work days and those kinds of things?	32:13
George Wyatt	No, we didn't strike for shorter work days. Basically our strikes were better conditions with more, well, they always strick for more money. Money was involved, but the conditions were the primary interests, primary strike issues.	32:18
Mary Hebert	Why did you decide to become a longshoreman?	32:48
George Wyatt	After I came out of high school, I mean, I stopped high school. I decided I was—	32:55
Mary Hebert	Were there jobs there, I mean?	33:02
George Wyatt	There were?	33:02
Mary Hebert	Jobs available as a longshoreman?	33:05
George Wyatt	And at that time, work was real good as longshoreman. Even the pay wasn't, they went from 95 to a dollar a quarter, but the pay wasn't that horrendous. But there was a lot of work. And you could go to work and, well, you made $150 a week.	33:08
Mary Hebert	That was a lot.	33:36
George Wyatt	That was a lot of money at that time. I remember the first job I went on, the first job I went on and worked. It was a night job and we went to Newport News handling canned goods. And that next morning I couldn't raise my arms this high.	33:37
Mary Hebert	You couldn't raise them above your shoulder at all?	34:02
George Wyatt	No, no. They would ache. I went home and took a bath and got rubbed down and I was ready to go the next night. The next night. I think I worked five nights on that job.	34:05
Mary Hebert	Would you travel around to different, like you said you went to Newport News for that one, would you travel around to unload the ships or load the ships?	34:23
George Wyatt	No. Well, basically the terminals and the [indistinct 00:34:35] were basically in Norfolk. They had one in Newport News—	34:31
Mary Hebert	That you'd go to?	34:39
George Wyatt	—that we'd go to. And every now and then we would go to Portsmouth where the Portsmouth marine terminal is now, we would go over there.	34:39
Mary Hebert	And so you've unloaded just about everything in your career as a longshoreman?	34:54
George Wyatt	Yes.	34:58
Mary Hebert	Canned goods, airplane engines, whatever needed.	34:58
George Wyatt	Automobiles. Trucks. And they were shipping Army trucks and things overseas, and we loaded everything that.	35:00
Mary Hebert	How did the civil rights movement and the changes in the segregation laws, did it impact your job at all? Did the union combine into one rather than having two locals?	35:19
George Wyatt	That has never changed.	35:33
Mary Hebert	So you still have two?	35:35
George Wyatt	Still have two locals.	35:36
Mary Hebert	One's predominantly Black, the other predominantly White?	35:37
George Wyatt	Yes. Well now we have more than two now.	35:40
Mary Hebert	But you still have that separate?	35:43
George Wyatt	But that separation was started way back. I think the White local was first. The Blacks didn't come on until later. But the Whites did not want to go on the ship and the Blacks didn't mind going on the ship. So that generated the two locals there. Well, I said there eight or nine locals now because you got 1624 that's predominantly White. And they do the checking and when or whatever, the cargo that the longshoreman really honestly has nothing to do with, but the longshoreman, all they do is take it and put it on the ship and take it off the ship. The 1624 is a White local, and they were always paid at additionally to what the longshoreman got, even though they negotiate together. But the checkers get an eight hour day whenever they go to work.	35:46
Mary Hebert	So even if they don't do any?	37:04
George Wyatt	If the ship doesn't get in, they going to get eight hours. The longshoreman is guaranteed four hours and if the ship doesn't come in, he will get that four hours. But the checkers are going to get paid eight hours whether the ship come or doesn't come.	37:06
Mary Hebert	Was there any attempt to equalize that?	37:34
George Wyatt	No, there has never really been any attempt to equalize that. Because in most cases, back years ago, in most cases, four hours was basically as long as the ship would stay here. Now the ship stay longer, but at that time, four hours would be basically tend to the ship and—	37:39
Mary Hebert	So you would get it loaded and unloaded in four hours?	38:04
George Wyatt	Well, with whatever they had with the cargo they had.	38:08
Mary Hebert	I'm sorry to interrupted.	38:10
George Wyatt	When you asked about equalizing the pay and I said no, there was some friction because the checkers would always try to get the longshoreman to do their bidding for them. Because that's the only way they could really get in is have the longshoreman to side with them. If the longshoreman didn't side with them, they would not have had an eight-hour day. And checkers and clerks and delivery clerks, and of course with this change, I really don't know how that's working there, because I haven't been out there, I really haven't, well, I haven't been really tied into their systems since '82.	38:15
Mary Hebert	Is that when you retired?	39:23
George Wyatt	No, I didn't retire until '95.	39:24
Mary Hebert	Oh, okay.	39:26
George Wyatt	'94.	39:26
Mary Hebert	So you went on to another job after?	39:28
George Wyatt	Well see, I was, when I was secretary treasurer for the Local 1248 for 28 years, I was elected in, well, some fictions went on in the fellow that was in there. I was elected in 1956. And I held that job until 1980. 20 years, for more then 20 years.	39:30
Mary Hebert	I'll figure it out.	40:05
George Wyatt	For 28 years.	40:05
Mary Hebert	'84?	40:05
George Wyatt	Okay. I kept that job until, and then when I left that job, then I went to, as an insurance clerk for the union and another department and I stayed there until '94.	40:12
Mary Hebert	So when you're working secretary treasurer, you didn't work on the docks?	40:34
George Wyatt	No.	40:41
Mary Hebert	So you just—	40:41
George Wyatt	But see, working as secretary treasurer for local, I was involved in all of the inroads. When I say inroads, negotiations and everything, I sat in on all of those.	40:45
Mary Hebert	What were your duties as the secretary treasurer, would you—	40:57
George Wyatt	Well, my duties as secretary treasurer, I took orders for gangs. I kept a log on each gang that went out each day. I kept the finances. Finances of the local. And we were ordered to twice a year. And ordered twice a year, I think at one time I was two or 3 cents off in my figures and what the auditor found.	41:01
Mary Hebert	That's not bad. A couple of cents.	41:36
George Wyatt	No.	41:42
Mary Hebert	How were the dues collected? Were they withheld from checks?	41:45
George Wyatt	No. Well, at first the persons paid their dues individually. Then they went to checkoff. Where out of each hour you worked, so much money for your dues and at the end of a month, the people send the dues to [indistinct 00:42:16]	41:49
Mary Hebert	What were the negotiations like? I mean, when you were involved in that, were they heated and lots of arguments?	42:18
George Wyatt	Oh, a lot of them were heated. Yes, very heated. And then they weren't that heated either. They were heated to the degree, but they never got out of control. I'll say it that way.	42:23
Mary Hebert	I need to turn this—	42:38

Mary Hebert	—between the two, the locals or—	0:03
George Wyatt	No, between the—	0:04
Mary Hebert	With management.	0:06
George Wyatt	—management. That's between management. There were things that the union was asking for and the thing that the management asked for that they couldn't agree on. And I'll never forget the time that we had in our bylaws that orders had to be in by a certain time, in order to keep the union from staying up all night. They had a certain hour that you must have your orders in. If you don't have your orders in, you don't have any labor for the next day.	0:07
George Wyatt	And I, being the secretary, treasurer and knowing the rules and they were not abiding by those rules, I brought it to the attention to our superior. And he went in at that time to get it that it would be as a negotiable item to get it into the contract. Confirmed.	0:52
Mary Hebert	And it was?	1:23
George Wyatt	Yes.	1:24
Mary Hebert	So the management or whoever would call into the union and say, "We need so many men to come in on this date, unload this ship"?	1:26
George Wyatt	No. Well, like I said, they were set up by gangs. And they would call in and ask for John—	1:34
Mary Hebert	Two of the gangs or—	1:51
George Wyatt	They called them by name, name.	1:53
Mary Hebert	Oh, they [indistinct 00:01:55].	1:54
George Wyatt	They'd call them by name. And we would take that and post it. And of course, at the time we had a, well, at one time we had to write the names on a board outside. Then we got sophisticated and we started doing a little differently. Now they are really sophisticated because they call the gangs in the and they're called in and computerized on tapes. So you can't make, there were times there were many mistakes made during a verbal negotiation of gangs. Because one person said, "He ordered this." And they take that he didn't, she didn't order that, then they would have disputes.	1:55
Mary Hebert	Oh, between gangs?	2:54
George Wyatt	Yeah.	2:56
Speaker 1	How you doing?	2:58
Mary Hebert	Did you enjoy your work? Did you enjoy—	2:59
George Wyatt	Very much. Go ahead. Go head out.	3:04
Speaker 2	Why?	3:07
George Wyatt	Go head out.	3:08
Mary Hebert	And then when you became the insurance clerk, you were selling insurance to—	3:12
George Wyatt	No, no, I did not. I kept a record record on persons that were injured and claiming to be injured and were—	3:15
Mary Hebert	So you were keeping track of the people who were injured and making claims and—	3:27
George Wyatt	Yes. And the person who said they were injured and wasn't injured, and going to work or working maybe other jobs or something and collecting compensation. That was my job at that time.	3:35
Mary Hebert	So you made sure that the people who were making claims were injured?	3:49
George Wyatt	That's right.	3:52
Mary Hebert	What union membership required of the longshoremen working on the docks?	3:56
George Wyatt	Was did—	4:03
Mary Hebert	Was it required? Was it a closed shop where you had to have union membership to get the job?	4:04
George Wyatt	You had to have union membership to get a job. Yes. Well, I say in Virginia, they don't have a closed shop, but the employees would not deal with outsiders.	4:09
Mary Hebert	So to join a gang, you had to be a union member.	4:27
George Wyatt	That's right.	4:30
Mary Hebert	Did you belong to any kinds of organizations outside of the union? The NAACP? [indistinct 00:04:44].	4:33
George Wyatt	I belonged to the, well, that's outside of the union?	4:47
Mary Hebert	Mm-hmm.	4:48
George Wyatt	That's not union related?	4:54
Mary Hebert	Right, right. Let's—	4:56
George Wyatt	Okay, okay.	4:57
Mary Hebert	Well, you belonged to union related organizations?	4:57
George Wyatt	No.	5:02
Mary Hebert	Okay.	5:03
George Wyatt	No. No. I belong to the Roman church is one thing. I belong to the NAACP.	5:05
Mary Hebert	When did you join the NAACP?	5:22
George Wyatt	In the forties. I don't remember the day.	5:26
Mary Hebert	Why'd you decide to join?	5:26
George Wyatt	Because of the magnitude of influence that it had on many Black people at that time.	5:38
Mary Hebert	This was when they were starting to file court decisions.	5:44
George Wyatt	Yes. Yes. And it seemed that the NAACP, it was a force. And I said a force because it was helping so many people who were being discriminated against to get jobs and to maintain their jobs in certain areas.	5:53
Mary Hebert	Did you feel discriminated against in your job?	6:26
George Wyatt	In my job, no, I did not feel the discrimination per se. There was some discrimination, but it didn't personally affect me.	6:29
Mary Hebert	So some other people? Some others that were working with you—	6:46
George Wyatt	Well, in this White, Black, there was some discriminations there, because at one time the Whites would not hire Blacks to work with them.	6:50
Mary Hebert	Oh, the gang—	7:01
George Wyatt	The Blacks did not hire Whites to work with them.	7:02
Mary Hebert	But you never experienced that yourself?	7:03
George Wyatt	No.	7:03
Mary Hebert	Did you ever feel, just in general, not only on the job, that you were treated as second class citizen because of the Jim Crow laws?	7:11
George Wyatt	Well, there were many feelings of, even though it did not affect me personally, there were many feelings of discrimination that affected me impersonally, to see how people would treat some people on the jobs, and they were employed. Even in in the longshore industry, there was the kind of discrimination that I mentioned earlier, that there were those who were discriminated against by virtue of, "You Black and I'm White, so you stay over that side and I'll stay over this side."	7:20
Mary Hebert	Did you ever experience it in society as a whole, saying not being able to go to restaurants, having to use back windows at restaurants to order food and that kind of stuff?	8:14
George Wyatt	No. Let me say this, I've always said that God has been good to me as an individual. Because going round to back windows and things like that, I've never had to face that. When I rode the train, it was on a short distance. I never went long distances on the train, so I would never face that. I never went long distance on the bus.	8:38
Mary Hebert	So you never had to face any of that either?	9:07
George Wyatt	No.	9:09
Mary Hebert	Did you choose not to have to face that? Was that a choice?	9:09
George Wyatt	No, I did not choose that, but it was just something that, just things that happened.	9:21
Mary Hebert	Did you not shop at certain stores because they were segregated? Lunch counters and things like that? Say Woolworths or—	9:29
George Wyatt	Yeah, I know. Well, let me say it this way. I never ate at the places. Well, let me change it. Let me change it around. So if they had lunch counters and I knew the lunch counter was White, I didn't go there. I didn't go to lunch counters at all.	9:45
Mary Hebert	But you went to the store?	10:12
George Wyatt	I went to the store.	10:12
Mary Hebert	Okay. So you just didn't want to have to be treated in that manner?	10:16
George Wyatt	No, no.	10:21
Mary Hebert	Did you ever have problems purchasing clothes, trying on shoes?	10:25
George Wyatt	No.	10:31
Mary Hebert	Not being allowed to do any of that?	10:31
George Wyatt	No.	10:34
Mary Hebert	How did the Civil Rights Movement—	10:45
George Wyatt	Just want to cut that off a minute.	10:47
Mary Hebert	Do you remember the Civil Rights Movement coming to Norfolk, the sit-ins, those things?	10:49
George Wyatt	I remember my son, he's dead now, I remember when they had the burning and the looting in Norfolk. Yes.	10:59
Mary Hebert	It was burning and looting in Norfolk?	11:09
George Wyatt	Yes.	11:11
Mary Hebert	When was that?	11:12
George Wyatt	In the Berkley sector. It must have been in the—	11:12
Mary Hebert	Late sixties?	11:15
George Wyatt	Early sixties, I would say.	11:15
Mary Hebert	Early sixties.	11:25
George Wyatt	Yeah. They were burning and looting in the Berkley section of Norfolk.	11:27
Mary Hebert	Why were they doing that? Do you remember—	11:34
George Wyatt	Because of the conditions that the people were living in in Berkley. And the people would not actually fix up—Where Bell's Diamond is now, that section was deplorable. Bell's Diamond and along Liberty Street, Berkley Avenue.	11:36
Mary Hebert	So people were protesting the conditions?	12:09
George Wyatt	Yes.	12:11
Mary Hebert	Were they burning down businesses or homes? Or—	12:12
George Wyatt	Both.	12:14
Mary Hebert	Was it young people?	12:20
George Wyatt	They were young people.	12:22
Mary Hebert	You mentioned that education had been important to your father and your parents. Was it important to you? Did you want your children to get a good education?	12:28
George Wyatt	Yes. And I say, well, maybe at first I wasn't that interested, but in later years I come to find the value of education and what education can do for you and cannot do for you. And as soon as my grandchildren, of course, they were my children. I had a daughter who works for the city of Norfolk now, who finished Booker T. She didn't go to college. She has two daughters and both of them went to college and finished college. I had my daughter here, she finished Hampton. My son finished school in Washington. And of course, my family had been educationally programmed.	12:37
Mary Hebert	And so, that was important.	13:52
George Wyatt	Yes.	13:53
Mary Hebert	Did you see that as a way for them not to have to do manual labor?	13:56
George Wyatt	Well, my two sons, both of them were longshoremen.	14:03
Mary Hebert	Oh, they were?	14:08
George Wyatt	Yeah. Because one's dead. That one there, he's dead. But my oldest son, he's working with the longshoreman and he's enjoyed it.	14:09
Mary Hebert	Did you enjoy it also?	14:21
George Wyatt	Yes. Yeah.	14:22
Mary Hebert	Well, that—	14:23
George Wyatt	The only thing, that people used to look down on longshoremen as a degrading thing, but now they look up at longshoremen as an upgrading.	14:29
Mary Hebert	When did that change happen? When they started earning more and more money? Or—	14:42
George Wyatt	That change happened, I guess, in the eighties. It started happening during the eighties, when people began look up to them [indistinct 00:15:06] people and see people and now go to the longshoremen for many things that they wouldn't think about, wouldn't have thought about going to them for earlier.	14:50
Mary Hebert	Were you looked down just by people within the community saying, "Oh, he's a longshoreman"? Was it people within the community that—	15:14
George Wyatt	They were in the community, yes. And said one time, at one time, school teaching was a primary source of income for Blacks. But then the longshoremen started to negotiate. They left the school teaching jobs to come to be a longshoreman. There are many teachers now who were teachers at one time that are not teachers now, they're longshoreman.	15:23
Mary Hebert	And so, the position of longshoreman has risen within the community.	16:01
George Wyatt	Yes. And it has some advantages too, I'd say. Some of the advantages that it has, it upgraded your income. And I think the thing that really attracts people now, that you can make a hundred thousand dollars a year and don't have to work every day.	16:08
Mary Hebert	So you only have to work a few days a week and—	16:30
George Wyatt	You can make a hundred thousand dollars a year. It all depends on the type of job that you—	16:36
Mary Hebert	How many hours.	16:42
George Wyatt	Yeah.	16:44
Mary Hebert	Well, at $21 an hour, I can see how that would be easy to do. Is it a specialized job that requires a lot of skill? Is that why?	16:45
George Wyatt	Well, now it is being specialized now. See, now you have to go to, well, I don't say go to school, but you have to go to training to become operators of the cranes. And at one time you didn't have to do that. You could be an operator of crane, but just a little skill. And now you have to be skilled because of the magnitude of the machinery and the, I guess they say the cost of it. They want people that are not highly educated, but that are educated. They want people that they know are not on drugs. And they real hard on drugs. They real—	16:52
Mary Hebert	They do testing and—	17:41
George Wyatt	Oh yes, indeed. They real hard on the use of drugs out there.	17:43
Mary Hebert	Were you ever taught how to load a ship, how to set the cargo inside of it in order to get the best possible use of the space?	17:49
George Wyatt	Well—	17:58
Mary Hebert	Or is that something you just learned along the way?	18:06
George Wyatt	Something that you learned along the way. It's something that you learned along the way. When I was working as a longshoreman in the holes, I was a good longshoreman. That, I know. It's a whole lot of techniques that, there are some techniques that you find out how to keep from straining yourself. Now, that's important, to keep from straining yourself.	18:07
George Wyatt	The things that you do, the things that you can do to keep these strains off your back, off your legs. And when I worked as a longshoreman, these were important to me, that I take care of myself. They were important to me and the men that worked with me and how to take care of themselves. I've seen people get fingers cut off. And—	18:32
Mary Hebert	So you have to be careful. You have to always think about your own safety while you're—	19:08
George Wyatt	That's right.	19:14
Mary Hebert	Were you trained or did an older person take you under his wing when you started working there? Showed you the ropes?	19:16
George Wyatt	No.	19:22
Mary Hebert	You just had—	19:23
George Wyatt	At the time, at the time that I became a longshoreman, the older people, I don't say they didn't care about you, but they were trying to make a living like I was trying to make a living. And they didn't have time to try to keep you—They would tell you, "Watch out, boy, don't get in certain places." And of course, you become aware of the fact that certain things could happen to you if you got in certain places.	19:24
Mary Hebert	And so you learned to be careful really quickly.	19:51
George Wyatt	Yes. That was, I know it was, you [indistinct 00:20:05], a snatch block.	19:55
Mary Hebert	What's that? Now I know.	20:07
George Wyatt	It's a block that was put on in the side of the ship to pull big cargo in. And there was a fellow working with us who was standing in the bite. When I said in the bite, he was standing there. If the snatch box would come back, it did kill him. But nobody saw to it that he was not standing there. And this snatch block pulled up, and that snatch box came back, hit him right in the side of the face, killed him. But—	20:11
Mary Hebert	Were the families compensated at all for these accidental deaths?	20:52
George Wyatt	Well, such as it was.	20:56
Mary Hebert	Did the union work to increase that kind of compensation?	21:00
George Wyatt	Yes. Yes, indeed. Now, oh, your compensation is pretty good now.	21:04
Mary Hebert	But when you first started working, it—	21:06
George Wyatt	Oh, wasn't any compensation.	21:08
Mary Hebert	So if someone died accidentally, that was—	21:11
George Wyatt	That was it.	21:13
Mary Hebert	The family didn't get anything?	21:14
George Wyatt	Maybe they get enough to bury the person with, and that's about all.	21:18
Mary Hebert	What about injury back then? We talked about the workmans' compensation. Did they have that back then when you first started?	21:25
George Wyatt	It was very minimal. Very minimal. They didn't have—You see persons get injured now, and of course they still have the thing that you had to go through a long process to get whatever you want.	21:36
Mary Hebert	But then it wasn't much at all in the forties?	21:59
George Wyatt	No. No, wasn't much at all.	21:59
Mary Hebert	Well, those are all the questions that I have. Is there anything else that we haven't talked about that you'd like to mention? Your involvement with the church or the other things?	22:06
George Wyatt	Well, I'm committed to the church. I'm committed to the Order of [indistinct 00:22:27], I'm committed to the Masons. And these are organizations that I take a lot of pride in because of their earlier associations.	22:18
George Wyatt	With the church, I happened to be a steward in the church that I'm a member of. I attend all of the meetings at the Connectional. And we are a Connectional church. Bi-annually, monthly. But I'm a member of the [indistinct 00:23:17] Finance Commission.	22:47
Mary Hebert	Have you always been active within the church? In that kind of where, is it mostly in more recent years when you've—	23:20
George Wyatt	Well, I'd say in the last 20, 30 years I've been there.	23:29
Mary Hebert	So you have been for a long time.	23:36
George Wyatt	Yes.	23:38
Mary Hebert	I have a question. What's the order of the Eastern Star? Is it a service organization? Or—	23:39
George Wyatt	It's a service organization.	23:42
Mary Hebert	Do men and women join? Is it—	23:48
George Wyatt	Men and women join, yes. Because to become a member of the Eastern Star, your husband, brother, son has to be a member of the Masonic order.	23:50
Mary Hebert	Oh, okay. I just heard people mention that they belonged to the order of the Eastern Star and I've never heard of it before, so I was curious—	24:05
George Wyatt	The son, husband, brother, father, who are Eastern Stars, you can join under either that classification.	24:18
Mary Hebert	Oh, okay.	24:36
George Wyatt	To mother, sister, daughter. Oh, me.	24:37
Mary Hebert	Do you have to be asked to join?	24:47
George Wyatt	No, it's an organization that you seek. And I say you seek and you ask if you can become a member. If you have the right affiliations, yes. If you have no affiliations, then no.	24:51
Mary Hebert	And you do scholarships, church, work within the community, things like that?	25:07
George Wyatt	Yeah. There are different lodges in this. As in Norfolk, there are nine lodges. There are 10 chapters, Order of Eastern Star. Of course, we have some chapters in Virginia Beach, we have lodges in Virginia Beach. We have them in Suffolk, we have them in Williamsburg, we have them in Carrollton. We just have them all around. But I'm talking about Norfolk now, in Norfolk you have nine lodges and 10 chapters, that the chapters are the Order of the Eastern Star, the lodges are Masonics, Masons.	25:19
Mary Hebert	Okay. That clears it up for me. I've just been curious and I've never asked anyone before. They usually mention it at the end, after the tape recorder's off. Well, that's about all the questions. I'll turn off the machine now.	26:04

Item Info

Title:

George Wyatt interview recording, 1995 August 09

Date:

August 9, 1995

Creator:

Wyatt, George

Contributor:

Hebert, Mary

Description:

Name: George Wyatt; Date of birth: 1920-08-18; Place of birth: Norfolk, VA; Occupation(s): longshoreman; Residence: Norfolk, VA
Informant ID: 972; Interviewed by: Mary Hebert.

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Longshoreman

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Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

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

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Provenance:

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

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Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

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

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Interview number: 945
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George Wyatt interview recording, 1995 August 09

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1. George Wyatt administrative file, 1995

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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George Wyatt interview recording, 1995 August 09

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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