Robert Georgia and Abraham Smith interview recording, 1995 June 14

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Mary Hebert	Mary Hebert, and I'm going to be interviewing Abraham Smith and Robert George in Mr. Smith's home in Summerton, South Carolina, and Mr. Smith, can you say your full name?	0:02
Abraham Smith	Full name? Abraham Smith.	0:13
Mary Hebert	And Mr. George?	0:15
Robert James Georgia	Robert James Georgia.	0:16
Mary Hebert	Georgia? Oh, okay. We just have-	0:18
Mary Hebert	How's that spelled?	0:21
Robert James Georgia	G-E-O-R-G-I-A, just like the state of Georgia.	0:23
Mary Hebert	Oh, and we had you written down as George.	0:25
Robert James Georgia	George, yeah. I always used to say Georgia.	0:27
Mary Hebert	Uh-huh. I need to know when and where both of you were born, so you could do it one at a time.	0:32
Abraham Smith	I was born August 27th, 1930.	0:38
Mary Hebert	Okay, well, let's stop it.	0:43
Mary Hebert	Mr. Smith, you were saying your name and where you were born. Can you do that for me again?	0:47
Abraham Smith	My name is Abraham Smith, born on August 27th, 1930.	0:54
Mary Hebert	Here in Summerton?	1:02
Abraham Smith	Summerton, South Carolina.	1:03
Mary Hebert	And who were your parents?	1:15
Abraham Smith	Robert Smith and Orie Smith.	1:15
Mary Hebert	And Mr. Georgia?	1:15
Robert James Georgia	My name is Robert James Georgia, Jr., and I was born right here in Summerton, South Carolina, the 10th month, the 23rd day, 1930. My father was Robert Georgia, Sr., and my mother was Carrie Georgia.	1:17
Mary Hebert	Did y'all grow up near one another.	1:36
Abraham Smith	Yeah.	1:38
Robert James Georgia	Yes, right.	1:38
Abraham Smith	We're cousins.	1:38
Robert James Georgia	Close neighbors, yeah. My cousin.	1:40
Mary Hebert	Oh, y'all cousins.	1:44
Abraham Smith	Right, mm-hmm.	1:45
Mary Hebert	What did your parents do for a living?	1:49
Abraham Smith	My father, he---- Most of my life he ran a small business, all of my life, most of it. All of it as far as I'm concerned because I ain't never remember him doing nothing else.	1:53
Mary Hebert	What kind of business?	2:06
Abraham Smith	Well, he started off in a restaurant, and then went over to grocery, then start selling gasoline, greasing cars.	2:07
Mary Hebert	Was that unusual for a Black man to do here in Summerton, to have a business?	2:21
Abraham Smith	Well, it was because there weren't too many doing it now. In fact, I believe he was about the only one back during that time.	2:24
Mary Hebert	Who were his customers?	2:27
Abraham Smith	Blacks only, no Whites. Just Blacks.	2:32
Mary Hebert	Was there any kind of White reaction to him running a store?	2:36
Abraham Smith	Well, yeah. Yeah, it was. I mean, him down in the country.	2:40
Mary Hebert	What did they do to him?	2:41
Abraham Smith	Different things. I'm trying to think of something that [indistinct 00:02:51]. Back then, the law is firm and---- He always run something, like putting in a dancing place, too, and sometime [indistinct 00:03:04] coming, what to close him up and things like that.	2:46
Robert James Georgia	One of the main things, they didn't want to see him do that because they always want to see the Blacks work hard in the fields and things for the White man, and he never had to work for White people, or he never had to work like a lot of people around this place do sharecropping and stuff like that, but he never did that.	3:10
Mary Hebert	Did he belong to the NAACP?	3:31
Abraham Smith	Yes.	3:36
Mary Hebert	Was there any kind of reaction against him because of that?	3:38
Abraham Smith	Yes. [indistinct 00:03:44], well, he and his business, after this thing into the full coin, they stopped the salesmen from coming to his store. No salesmen come. I would have to go in these other towns and pick up stuff or meet trucks someplace and get stuff off. None of them would come to the store. They wouldn't allow them to come to the store.	3:41
Mary Hebert	How would they stop them?	4:08
Abraham Smith	Well, you see, he was the only, most only Black, and had a pretty good business. Four or five, maybe six White stores, and they would stop buying from them if they served him.	4:09
Mary Hebert	Did he sell to a lot of the sharecroppers around here?	4:20
Abraham Smith	Yeah. Blacks, you know, sharecroppers, farmers, anybody who would come in, but I mean most of them just normal people.	4:32
Mary Hebert	So people had purchased from White businesses before your father started his business?	4:42
Abraham Smith	Yeah, that's right.	4:49
Mary Hebert	Do you remember-	4:49
Robert James Georgia	You know, he always had a business, and mostly Blacks always, especially when he start running the station. They'd always get gas from him, and a lot of the Whites didn't like it because they patronized his father, you know, which was my cousin. They didn't want to wait on him. They always give him a hard time when he didn't have to work.	4:53
Mary Hebert	What about your father, Mr. George?	5:20
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, we had our own farm. We didn't have to work for nobody else. We always worked for ourselves. We had our own farm, didn't sharecrop, had our own place. We'd farm, we had mules, and then coming up in the '49s and '50s when the integration thing started, we had---- Like we buy mules, you know, and a wagon.	5:21
Robert James Georgia	During that time doing cotton season, [indistinct 00:06:03] to pay so much down and at the end of the year you pay so much on that. This particular year, I think that would be '49, yeah '49, somewhere in that area, all of the sudden they wanted him to pay full price for it and he already had just about finished paying for it. They wanted him to pay for it or else they would take it, repossess it, take it back.	5:57
Robert James Georgia	I'll never forget. His daddy give my daddy the money to go ahead on and finish paying for it because his daddy runs a store. He know he going to have money, and that's how he did it, keep the mules and the wagon and whatnot. I know we had a brand new two horse wagon then.	6:35
Mary Hebert	How did your family come to own that land?	6:54
Robert James Georgia	Oh, from his father, from my granddaddy.	6:57
Mary Hebert	And he bought it after---- How did he get the land?	7:02
Robert James Georgia	My daddy was living with his father, and up until he died. We always in the same house until he died.	7:07
Mary Hebert	How did your grandfather get the land? I think that's what you were asking.	7:14
Robert James Georgia	Oh, he bought it. He bought it, and before that he had his own land out---- I forgot the name of the place now. It's out there now where next to [indistinct 00:07:33] at now. He owned the land, and during that time, you're supposed to pay tax. Somehow or another he---- He didn't have much education. He didn't pay his taxes. I think they took it back from him. After they took it back, he bought this land up here.	7:21
Mary Hebert	So your family had some sort of independence that other Black families who were sharecroppers and renters didn't have?	7:51
Robert James Georgia	Yeah.	7:59
Abraham Smith	Yeah.	7:59
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, and he wanted a---- He bought this tract of land up here.	8:01
Mary Hebert	You're talking about they wanted to repossess the mules? He had bought the mules on credit?	8:08
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, my dad, yeah. Not my granddaddy, my father.	8:14
Mary Hebert	Right, your father.	8:16
Robert James Georgia	Yeah.	8:16
Mary Hebert	Did both of you attend school?	8:18
Abraham Smith	Yes.	8:19
Robert James Georgia	Yes, the same class.	8:20
Mary Hebert	And that was Scott's Branch.	8:20
Abraham Smith	Right, mm-hmm.	8:20
Robert James Georgia	Scott's Branch.	8:24
Mary Hebert	How many grades did it go through?	8:26
Abraham Smith	We was the first class that went through 12th grade. They used to graduate from the 11th grade. We was the first class, which in that year we thought we was going to graduate, so we had to go another year.	8:30
Mary Hebert	And what year did y'all graduate?	8:39
Abraham Smith	'49.	8:43
Robert James Georgia	'49.	8:45
Mary Hebert	Was Scott's Branch the only school that you went to? Or was there an elementary school?	8:48
Robert James Georgia	The only school we ever went to.	8:52
Abraham Smith	Only that one.	8:53
Robert James Georgia	Now, I got a chance to went to the old---- It was named Scott's Branch then?	8:56
Abraham Smith	Yeah, [indistinct 00:09:04].	9:01
Robert James Georgia	[indistinct 00:09:04], but that burnt down, and then we went to school in the church.	9:03
Abraham Smith	Right, for a while.	9:09
Robert James Georgia	For a while until they get Scott's Branch built. That was a long, White, wooden building with a hall in the center and classrooms on each side.	9:11
Mary Hebert	What were the classes like? Did you have more than one class combined in a room? Like say second and third grade or something like that?	9:22
Abraham Smith	I think it was just one in there.	9:31
Robert James Georgia	It was just one class, first grade on this side, second grade on the other side, third grade, fourth grade, going up like that, [indistinct 00:09:39].	9:33
Mary Hebert	How did you get to school every day?	9:39
Abraham Smith	It was a long [indistinct 00:09:46].	9:45
Robert James Georgia	[indistinct 00:09:46]. We walked to school. But the children that was living way out here in the country, like across [indistinct 00:09:51] crossroads, their parents had to bring them to school on the wagon.	9:46
Abraham Smith	Some of them had to walk [indistinct 00:09:58].	9:55
Robert James Georgia	And some of them had to walk and [indistinct 00:10:00] it's like [indistinct 00:10:03], had to walk.	9:55
Mary Hebert	All the way from there?	9:55
Robert James Georgia	All the way to Scott's Branch.	10:03
Mary Hebert	It was the only Black school in the county?	10:06
Robert James Georgia	It was another school in Clarence County, Brick Chapel.	10:10
Abraham Smith	But I believe it was the only high school.	10:15
Robert James Georgia	Only high school. These other schools, you go so far and then have to come to Scott's Branch in order to graduate.	10:17
Mary Hebert	About how many people were in one of your classes?	10:27
Robert James Georgia	About how many? When we graduate, how many children was in our classroom? About 40 or 50, wasn't it?	10:33
Abraham Smith	Could have been something like that.	10:35
Robert James Georgia	Classrooms would be full.	10:35
Mary Hebert	Who got to go to school? Did a lot of the sharecroppers' children get to go to school the whole time?	10:35
Robert James Georgia	No.	10:52
Abraham Smith	No, no.	10:52
Robert James Georgia	Certain time of year, the people who were---- The parents who sharecrop and their children in school, the White man would have them to keep the children out of school to gather the crops. That would cause all the children to have to go to school a little longer to make up that time they was out.	10:57
Mary Hebert	Did they get to go through the 12 years of school?	11:20
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, after we came out, the other children had to go through 12 years, but during before that time, they went to 11th grade.	11:25
Mary Hebert	How long was the school year? Was it nine months like it is now?	11:42
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, it was nine months.	11:47
Abraham Smith	Nine months.	11:49
Robert James Georgia	[indistinct 00:11:51] nine months.	11:49
Mary Hebert	Did everybody get to go the whole nine months? You said the sharecroppers' kids had to go push the school year back, but did they get to go every day all year long?	11:50
Abraham Smith	No, not every day.	11:59
Mary Hebert	Did y'all feel lucky that y'all got to go to school every day?	12:03
Abraham Smith	Well, I guess so.	12:06
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, yeah.	12:08
Mary Hebert	Did your parents encourage education?	12:10
Robert James Georgia	Oh, yeah. Yeah.	12:12
Abraham Smith	Yeah.	12:12
Robert James Georgia	Made us go to school. We had to go.	12:12
Abraham Smith	Yes, we did.	12:13
Robert James Georgia	If we didn't go, we would have wished we'd of had to, be working so hard.	12:17
Mary Hebert	Did they have an education, your parents?	12:20
Abraham Smith	My father didn't. My mother had a pretty good education, but I don't think she went no higher than 7th or 8th grade. Anyway, that's what she did. She had that 7th and 8th grade meant just as much to her-	12:21
Robert James Georgia	Oh, yeah, as college.	12:46
Abraham Smith	As some college graduations.	12:48
Robert James Georgia	[indistinct 00:12:52].	12:49
Abraham Smith	But my father, he couldn't read a nary bit, big as that wall over there, but you come in that store and get---- He got figuring in his head where you would take a pencil and do it.	12:53
Mary Hebert	So he could do math in his head?	13:03
Abraham Smith	Right.	13:03
Mary Hebert	Did y'all's mothers work?	13:03
Abraham Smith	My mother worked in the store.	13:03
Mary Hebert	In the store?	13:03
Abraham Smith	Yeah.	13:03
Robert James Georgia	My mother, she worked to one of these motels down here called Greenburg Motel. That was the name of that [indistinct 00:13:25] at that time.	13:14
Abraham Smith	Summerton Motel.	13:25
Robert James Georgia	Summerton Motel it is now. She always worked at that.	13:28
Mary Hebert	Did you have siblings?	13:29
Robert James Georgia	What?	13:36
Mary Hebert	You have siblings? Brothers and sisters?	13:37
Robert James Georgia	Yeah.	13:37
Abraham Smith	I had one brother and one sister.	13:37
Robert James Georgia	Yeah. It was seven of us boys, five boys and two girls. That's what it was, seven of us, seven children.	13:38
Mary Hebert	What kind of chores would you do around home?	13:47
Robert James Georgia	In the morning before you go to school, we had---- I don't think they had no college at that time. We had to milk the cow, carry out for them to eat, and then maybe if we're doing farming, it's cotton time, we had to work in the field a little bit before we go to school, then come back home and wash our feet. We had to be clean to go to school, then go to school, put those shoes on. That's right.	13:51
Abraham Smith	I had to cut so much wood I don't ever want to see no more wood.	14:17
Robert James Georgia	And clean fish.	14:24
Abraham Smith	And clean fish. I had to clean fish before I go to school in the morning.	14:25
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, we used to come up there and [indistinct 00:14:31].	14:27
Abraham Smith	My father [indistinct 00:14:33] and sell a lot of fish. Sometimes we just had to clean 100 pounds before we go to school, me and my brother.	14:35
Robert James Georgia	And on the weekend, I used to always like to go up there and help them clean the fish in other to get a cup of the chow, which I don't live far from here, but during that time, you couldn't leave the house. You got home before sundown.	14:39
Mary Hebert	Why was that?	14:53
Robert James Georgia	Oh, they didn't allow us to be out in the night.	14:54
Mary Hebert	So the White people, the White power structure didn't allow you-	14:58
Robert James Georgia	No, not that. They just always train us to be home at night.	15:01
Mary Hebert	Your parents?	15:06
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, at a certain time we had to go to bed. We all gather around and say prayers together and go to bed. Up until I was 18 years old, I had to ask to go out. That's right.	15:07
Abraham Smith	Yes, sir, me too.	15:25
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, ask to go and then be back home a certain time at night. Don't be back, then they come looking for us. That's right. I used to be setting at my girlfriend's house and after I did a hard work, a hard week's work around the farm, he'd let me use the car that evening. I'd go to my girlfriend's house and I'd say, "I got to be back when he say," because when he told me to be back, he'd come get the car, leave me sitting right there. That's right.	15:26
Mary Hebert	Were y'all one of the few Black families that had a car?	15:59
Robert James Georgia	Yeah. Yeah, we had a---- Ever since I know myself, we had a car.	16:03
Abraham Smith	Yeah, we did, too.	16:08
Robert James Georgia	They always had a car. A lot of people around here, they didn't have cars. They didn't have cars.	16:09
Mary Hebert	Did y'all parents take part in the NAACP activities in the late '40s and '50s?	16:15
Robert James Georgia	Oh, yeah.	16:18
Abraham Smith	Yeah.	16:21
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, yeah. My dad, he had a big part in it, too, a big part in it. Right now his name is up there on that [indistinct 00:16:35] Cypress School yard now, Robert Georgia. You'll probably see my daddy.	16:22
Mary Hebert	What did he do?	16:47
Robert James Georgia	You know, they used to just petition what the Whites wanted them to sign in order to get off, not be a member of the NAACP, and he was the one who didn't sign it. His daddy, he didn't sign it. That's why they wouldn't serve him. They wouldn't let the trucks come here to serve his store, and they always tried to scare them, you know.	16:48
Mary Hebert	What types of things would they do to try to scare him?	17:07
Robert James Georgia	If they see you walking down the road, they'd try to run over you, try to run you off the road, [indistinct 00:17:19], threaten you.	17:13
Mary Hebert	Did they threaten the children, you as children, too? Or just your father?	17:20
Robert James Georgia	They always nagging at you, you know? One night I was going home. I used to clean the streets, you know, use that [indistinct 00:17:35] broom, and walking home one night, they would look at me doing that work and [indistinct 00:17:40] direction right, and they would follow behind me, driving behind me with their lights off, want to know where I'm going and where I'm coming from. Always bother me. Always threatening.	17:24
Mary Hebert	Now you're talking about a petition. It was a petition that the Whites circulated for the Black people to sign?	17:57
Robert James Georgia	Well, wanted to take their name off.	18:01
Mary Hebert	The NAACP roles?	18:11
Robert James Georgia	Right, right. It wasn't like they wasn't going to do nothing. They did everything they could for them not to be a member of the NAACP. Then some people that didn't take their name off but had a little job in town like working at the station, they fired them. Just like Harold Briggs, they fired him. I think he went up the road.	18:17
Abraham Smith	Yeah, a lot of people left here and went up the road.	18:31
Mary Hebert	Were they run out of town?	18:46
Abraham Smith	Yeah, and the city, New York, Baltimore, anywhere.	18:46
Robert James Georgia	I'll never forget. During our last year of school, graduation, we'd go---- We didn't have a gym to play basketball. I used to play basketball and he used to play basketball. We'd just go into K Street. They had a gym there. That's where we usually had the tournaments, and that night we came home, I had [indistinct 00:19:04] got to drive the car that night, and he was with me. When I put him out right in front of his door, the city police stopped me. You remember that.	18:47
Abraham Smith	Yeah.	19:14
Robert James Georgia	Stopped me, wanted to know where I was coming from, where I was going that time of night. I told them, and [indistinct 00:19:22]. There was paper. A lot of paper was throwed out on the highway threatening, [indistinct 00:19:33] the lane. He was all, something like our advisor during the school year, and they was threatening to---- Was it run him out of town or burn his house down or something if he didn't---- Something they wanted him to do and he didn't do it.	19:15
Robert James Georgia	I went on home that night, and the next morning the police that brought that paper out to the house, they were looking for me because they thought I throwed them out. Then they tried to put that on some of the Black people. They didn't know who did it, but those papers was typed right at the district office right there, the superintendent's district office. They knew all about where those papers came from. They tried to blame it on someone else, you know.	19:50
Abraham Smith	They found a cotton rider there that was a used cotton rider.	20:19
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, cotton rider. The cotton rider was carried back to the district office. I was at the [indistinct 00:20:30] house that morning. We was out there helping my uncle work in the field. They came. They wanted to arrest me. They thinking I throwed the papers out. But they did knew I didn't put those papers out. They know just who put them out.	20:22
Mary Hebert	Did y'all know Reverend DeLay?	20:46
Robert James Georgia	Oh, yes.	20:47
Abraham Smith	Oh, yeah, yeah.	20:49
Mary Hebert	What was he like?	20:50
Abraham Smith	He was a firm man.	20:52
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, he was a good man. He did what he say he was going to do and didn't do what he say he wasn't. Like if he said he wasn't going to do something, he wouldn't do it.	20:56
Abraham Smith	I just---- Oh, go ahead.	21:11
Robert James Georgia	Go ahead, go ahead.	21:12
Abraham Smith	If I just can remember, because [indistinct 00:21:19].	21:16
Robert James Georgia	Our class was the one what started the whole thing in this area.	21:19
Abraham Smith	I was saying, Reverend DeLay was, I believe.	21:24
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, he [indistinct 00:21:27].	21:25
Mary Hebert	How do you mean your class started it?	21:27
Robert James Georgia	The way those things really got started, it was the 12th grade, okay? We had our robes, you know your rent, our robes, and they overcharged us for the robes. The superintendent, and then when they overcharge, the superintendent would get part of the money.	21:31
Mary Hebert	For your graduation gowns.	21:54
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, graduation gowns. They overcharged for everything and they end up giving some of our money back. You remember? We got some of the money back. During that year.	21:55
Abraham Smith	Some children graduated from out of this district, and our principal's name was SI Benson. He wanted to charge those children a certain amount before they got their diploma. That's some of the things that helped start it all, too.	22:15
Mary Hebert	Did Reverend DeLay encourage y'all to protest?	22:35
Robert James Georgia	Oh, yeah.	22:36
Abraham Smith	Yeah.	22:36
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, he was behind the whole thing. He told us, you know. He always let us know what to do, and so he told us to get a petition and go around to all the parents who would be, during our graduation, go around to all our parents and get them to sign and go have a meeting right at [indistinct 00:23:04]. That's how we started. We started having meetings, and that's what they really didn't like because at the meetings it was mostly the leader was advising us what to do.	22:36
Mary Hebert	Now, his life was threatened, wasn't it?	23:17
Robert James Georgia	Oh, yeah, threatened.	23:17
Abraham Smith	His house was burned down.	23:17
Robert James Georgia	They burned his house down and all, house right there on the next corner, still there on the corner.	23:25
Mary Hebert	So all of this came out of them overcharging for the graduation robes.	23:31
Robert James Georgia	Yes, that's the way it stared.	23:36
Mary Hebert	And then the Briggs case came out of that?	23:37
Robert James Georgia	Yeah.	23:39
Abraham Smith	Yeah, it came out of it. That just came to nothing but [indistinct 00:23:40].	23:39
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, so long, '49 up until now.	23:40
Mary Hebert	Who were some of the parents that took part in this protest? Were they more independent people or did the sharecroppers fight against it, too?	23:54
Abraham Smith	Well, I know some of the people, but ain't none of them that's so independent because----	24:05
Mary Hebert	It was just normal, everyday people who fought against it?	24:18
Abraham Smith	Right, like Harriet Ray, Reverend Richburg, and some Pearson man from across from [indistinct 00:24:48].	24:21
Mary Hebert	That's Levi Pearson?	24:48
Abraham Smith	I think it is.	24:49
Mary Hebert	Did they ever gather in your father's store to have meetings?	24:53
Abraham Smith	No, I don't think so. They had most of the meetings up there at Seven Mile Church.	24:57
Mary Hebert	Was that where Reverend DeLay was pastor?	25:00
Abraham Smith	No, he never pastored there. He pastored---- I don't know exactly where Reverend Delay pastored. He never pastored there.	25:04
Mary Hebert	Now, was he principal of Scott's Branch?	25:14
Abraham Smith	No.	25:16
Mary Hebert	He was principal of another school?	25:17
Abraham Smith	Another school, and I don't even know the name of his school.	25:18
Mary Hebert	Who was your principal?	25:26
Abraham Smith	Who was?	25:31
Mary Hebert	Yeah.	25:31
Abraham Smith	When I graduated, the principal's name was SI Benson, Benson, but [indistinct 00:25:37] Madison was there most of my days. AM Madison was there most of my days. I bet he'd been there for, oh, I guess 25 or 30 years. Might be longer than that.	25:32
Mary Hebert	And he was Black?	25:49
Abraham Smith	Yeah, he was Black.	25:49
Mary Hebert	And most of the teachers were.	25:49
Abraham Smith	Black.	25:49
Mary Hebert	Black.	25:49
Abraham Smith	All of them.	25:49
Mary Hebert	All of them.	25:49
Abraham Smith	All of them.	25:49
Mary Hebert	Did they ever teach you Black history or-	25:57
Abraham Smith	They just teach history.	25:59
Mary Hebert	But they didn't teach about-	25:59
Abraham Smith	United States history. They didn't teach no Black history.	26:03
Mary Hebert	They didn't teach about Black soldiers in the Civil War and those kinds of things.	26:07
Abraham Smith	No, no.	26:10
Mary Hebert	Did they teach y'all government, American government, about voting and the Constitution and those kinds of things?	26:12
Abraham Smith	I don't think they did.	26:17
Robert James Georgia	No, I don't think so either.	26:17
Mary Hebert	Was the church important in organizing the Black community for the Briggs case and before that? The organizing?	26:23
Abraham Smith	Yeah.	26:28
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, it was. A lot of this was carried on after. See, we graduated in '49. From then on, it was still going on and we was already out and the parents, you know----	26:36
Mary Hebert	Did y'all meet Thurgood Marshall and any of those people when they came around?	26:52
Abraham Smith	I saw him one time at that church up there. I was a young boy then. I didn't-	26:57
Mary Hebert	You didn't know who he was?	27:06
Abraham Smith	---- talk to him then. I just saw him. I can't even remember what he was talking about, but it was on the same thing. But I saw him once.	27:06
Robert James Georgia	We didn't know this would be so important during that time, so you know, we just did what we had to do and didn't think it would be important.	27:13
Abraham Smith	No, we didn't thought that it would last up until now.	27:24
Robert James Georgia	No, sure didn't.	27:33
Abraham Smith	Or I'd have write a book about it during then.	27:33
Robert James Georgia	Yeah.	27:34
Abraham Smith	Yes indeed.	27:39
Mary Hebert	Were your families involved in the churches here? Did they attend church?	27:40
Abraham Smith	Yeah.	27:44
Robert James Georgia	Oh yeah.	27:44
Mary Hebert	Which church? Was it St. Mark's?	27:45
Abraham Smith	No. My parents was at Choctaw Baptist Church, his also.	27:47
Robert James Georgia	Right, Choctaw Baptist Church.	27:51
Mary Hebert	Did the minister there take part in all of this protest or protest against-	27:56
Robert James Georgia	No, because you see, during that time our pastor. Reverend Harvard, he was from Sumter. He didn't take too much of a part in what was going on here, did he?	28:01
Abraham Smith	I don't think. I never known him to take no part in anything.	28:14
Robert James Georgia	I don't think so, no. Especially he was out of town and trying to have something to do with what's going on here. They would have tried to haul him against.	28:21
Mary Hebert	So all of the protest came from within the community.	28:28
Robert James Georgia	Clarendon County, right here, in the community here.	28:31
Mary Hebert	What were some of the reactions to it? Were there people who were beaten or lynched or that kind of thing because of fighting against segregation?	28:36
Robert James Georgia	The ones who wouldn't take his name off this petition, they did run them out of town. They couldn't get a job.	28:50
Abraham Smith	Wouldn't give them no credit.	29:04
Robert James Georgia	Wouldn't give them no credit.	29:06
Mary Hebert	Who would give credit?	29:06
Robert James Georgia	Just like these stores that was uptown. Doing it, you just couldn't get nothing.	29:10
Abraham Smith	[indistinct 00:29:17]. Can't get nothing from nobody.	29:18
Robert James Georgia	Couldn't even get a car or nothing like that.	29:20
Mary Hebert	Now, did your father still sell to those people?	29:23
Abraham Smith	Yeah.	29:31
Mary Hebert	Did your father give credit to people as well?	29:31
Abraham Smith	Yeah, some.	29:36
Mary Hebert	I heard that some people lost their utilities, like the power was cut off to their houses. Do y'all recall that?	29:36
Abraham Smith	Could have been, but I don't know nobody who had the problem [indistinct 00:29:53].	29:48
Mary Hebert	Who belonged to the NAACP here in Summerton?	29:52
Abraham Smith	Well, I guess some people probably [indistinct 00:30:07]. I know some of the names, but-	30:06
Mary Hebert	Did they not put their name on the list, but would contribute and give money and support it?	30:09
Abraham Smith	Yeah.	30:13
Mary Hebert	Did some people do that.	30:14
Abraham Smith	Right, some did that. [indistinct 00:30:23]. Kind of [indistinct 00:30:23]. It would hold them back, you know?	30:22
Robert James Georgia	Some of them how wasn't a member of the NAACP, they could get stuff. They could get credit. I'll never forget. A fellow there, our cousin Russell Johnson, during the time he could get what he, mostly, what he want because he would go back and---- Some people would go back and tell what's going on with the other people, and they can get what they want. They'll tell, "Oh, they're going to have a meeting." Some of them would go and say, "They're going to have a meeting at such and such time." There had been times some of the Whites would come and eavesdrop or hear what's going on when they're having the meetings.	30:37
Abraham Smith	At the meetings?	31:15
Robert James Georgia	Yeah.	31:15
Mary Hebert	How did y'all get news to one another? How did you find out what was going on? Was it word of mouth or----	31:25
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, go around announcing in churches, different churches.	31:30
Mary Hebert	So the churches played a very key role.	31:33
Abraham Smith	Yeah, big role.	31:36
Mary Hebert	Were there church organizations, like women's organizations and things like that, that helped the process along, that helped organize people?	31:39
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, because they always announce in church about joining the NAACP and they tell you what to do and what not to do in order to get along with the people. You're going to have to do certain things in order to try to get along with people.	31:50
Mary Hebert	What kind of things?	32:01
Robert James Georgia	You know, like buying things like these stores do. If you didn't have to buy it, you can go someplace else and buy it. Just like you go to something like---- Summerton used to be a town sell mostly anything, dry goods and grocery stores all up Main Street, and they tell people they don't have to shop there. If they want to go different places to shop, they'll take them to Sumter. That's out in the county. Take them to Sumter to shop or different places because it's like his dad. He's had to go up to Sumter a lot of times, and I had to drive him up there to get food to go on the shelves in the store.	32:02
Mary Hebert	So they would bring people to Sumter to shop?	32:55
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, different ones carry them different places to shop if they don't want to shop somewhere, and then they---- Sometimes they don't want the others, the man, to know they went out of town to do shopping.	32:56
Mary Hebert	Were they afraid that they would lose their land or they would be thrown off the farm if they-	33:14
Robert James Georgia	Now those sharecroppers now, they couldn't sign it. They couldn't join the NAACP. They just know they would be put out of the house and wouldn't be able to---- They would probably had to leave town in order to get any kind of work. My cousin, Joe Richard, his wife was teaching school and they stop her from teaching school.	33:19
Mary Hebert	She was fired?	33:53
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, she was fired from teaching school, so they went and moved to Baltimore.	33:54
Mary Hebert	Didn't he lose his job, too?	34:02
Robert James Georgia	I think he did.	34:03
Abraham Smith	Yeah, because he-	34:03
Robert James Georgia	Yeah.	34:09
Abraham Smith	Yeah, he did.	34:09
Mary Hebert	Did a lot of people start migrating to the north during that time?	34:09
Robert James Georgia	Yeah.	34:09
Abraham Smith	Yeah.	34:09
Robert James Georgia	In order to get work.	34:10
Abraham Smith	Right.	34:11
Mary Hebert	What did you hear about what was going on in the northern states? Did you hear the people talk about it?	34:13
Robert James Georgia	Oh, yeah. Yeah.	34:24
Mary Hebert	What did they say about it.	34:24
Robert James Georgia	They just talked about how bad it was, how bad it was. Ms. Briggs, she have one of the original copies of the people who signed this petition. She had t-shirts with those names on there.	34:25
Abraham Smith	Yeah.	34:52
Robert James Georgia	[indistinct 00:34:55] out there.	34:52
Mary Hebert	She would make t-shirts?	34:56
Robert James Georgia	She had t-shirts made. I got one from her last year.	34:58
Mary Hebert	What were some of the places where---- I'm changing the subject now, where y'all gathered to have fun on the weekends and that kind of stuff? Were there any hangouts? Did they hang out at your dad's store?	35:05
Abraham Smith	I remember one of them [indistinct 00:35:19]. That was the one.	35:16
Robert James Georgia	Another place called The Speed up there, Lou Solomon's.	35:26
Abraham Smith	Yeah, Lou Solomon's place. I mean Mary Oliver, she was one of the signees of that thing, too, I think.	35:28
Mary Hebert	Who's that? Ms. Oliver?	36:04
Abraham Smith	Yeah, Mary Oliver, and then Annie, Annie Briggs? No Annie-	36:04
Mary Hebert	Gibson?	36:04
Abraham Smith	Gibson, yeah, and [indistinct 00:36:05]. Solomon, Ms. Solomon I think.	36:04
Mary Hebert	These are all people who were signers on the Briggs case?	36:04
Abraham Smith	Yeah. I think [indistinct 00:36:06] signed.	36:05
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, my dad name on there.	36:05
Abraham Smith	He signed.	36:05
Robert James Georgia	William Riggins.	36:09
Abraham Smith	William Riggins.	36:09
Robert James Georgia	And Bubba Riggins name. What was his real name?	36:14
Abraham Smith	Edward Riggins.	36:16
Robert James Georgia	Edward Riggins. They was some of the most hated people out in [indistinct 00:36:26] area.	36:16
Mary Hebert	What was the reaction against your father for signing that petition? For being one of the people [indistinct 00:36:33]?	36:27
Robert James Georgia	They always threatened. They always tried to threaten him. He couldn't buy no stuff for the farm. He couldn't get it from around here. He had to pay cash for it if he could get it, buy anything, like fertilizer and stuff. He had to pay cash for it.	36:33
Mary Hebert	Did the farm suffer? Or was he able to pay cash?	36:56
Robert James Georgia	Well, he paid cash. He must have paid cash, and then, okay, the people would plant tobacco, like selling the cotton, like you pick cotton and you go gin it. More or less the Blacks would get less for their cotton than anybody else. Tobacco, you could take it to Lake City to sell your tobacco. You'd get less there. They know where you're from. They always want to know where you're from. You'd get less per pound for your tobacco than for anybody else's. You always get less.	36:57
Mary Hebert	Did he have trouble selling his cotton because they knew he signed that case, he was one of the people on that case?	37:32
Robert James Georgia	He didn't have too much trouble selling, but he would get less than what everybody else did. It was just they'll sample it and act like it not worth but so much. That's the way you do it.	37:37
Mary Hebert	Did he hire people to work on the farm? Or was it just provided by you and your brothers and sisters?	37:49
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, some people come and help to pick cotton. Used to have to pick it by hand, and most of the Blacks helped Blacks. You got a big farm, you all would go help the one pick, pick their cotton by hand.	37:54
Mary Hebert	So what did y'all do for fun on the weekends here in Summerton? Or during the week?	37:58
Robert James Georgia	During the week?	38:17
Mary Hebert	Or on the weekends?	38:18
Robert James Georgia	When we did have a chance to go out, we'd go to some little place and have---- play the piccolo and have a little dancing. There was dancing, then come back home at a certain time.	38:18
Abraham Smith	It wasn't too much to do.	38:33
Robert James Georgia	It wasn't too much to do.	38:34
Abraham Smith	It wasn't too much to do [indistinct 00:38:39].	38:34
Robert James Georgia	There used to be a movie.	38:39
Abraham Smith	Because it isn't no place to go around here right now.	38:40
Robert James Georgia	Right now it's no place, no place to go.	38:42
Mary Hebert	You said there used to be a movie theater?	38:45
Robert James Georgia	There used to be one.	38:46
Abraham Smith	Yeah, it was one.	38:47
Robert James Georgia	It was a movie theater down there, on Main Street over that way there, and that closed down. Used to be the Blacks upstairs and the Whites downstairs.	38:48
Mary Hebert	Was there a separate entrance?	38:56
Abraham Smith	Yeah.	38:56
Mary Hebert	Did you ever go?	38:56
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, yeah.	38:56
Mary Hebert	What kind of movies-	38:56
Robert James Georgia	And different type benches.	38:56
Mary Hebert	Different benches?	38:56
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, different type benches.	38:56
Abraham Smith	Yeah, it's all cushioned down there in the White area.	38:56
Robert James Georgia	Now downstairs in the White, they had cushioned chairs with one single chair to sit in, and upstairs they had them old long benches.	39:18
Abraham Smith	And [indistinct 00:39:22].	39:20
Robert James Georgia	It wasn't even [indistinct 00:39:25]. They didn't put them close together, [indistinct 00:39:27], you know. Just stuff for you to sit on.	39:27
Mary Hebert	To make it uncomfortable.	39:30
Robert James Georgia	Yeah.	39:31
Mary Hebert	Did they have separate water fountains and-	39:34
Robert James Georgia	Oh, yeah, yeah.	39:35
Abraham Smith	Oh, yeah.	39:36
Robert James Georgia	During that time Whites had to spend a lot of money. They had to buy---- There were two of each, two of everything. That's right.	39:39
Mary Hebert	What about restrooms?	39:49
Robert James Georgia	Restrooms?	39:51
Mary Hebert	[indistinct 00:39:52].	39:51
Robert James Georgia	Oh, yeah, Black and White. Black-	39:51
Abraham Smith	There was one at the truck stop. You could go around in the back and order a sandwich if you wanted it. You didn't go in the front of it.	39:59
Robert James Georgia	No, you didn't.	40:02
Mary Hebert	Did y'all ever travel during this time? Take long road trips and things like that?	40:04
Abraham Smith	Nah, I didn't.	40:09
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, I did, but on the bus. I had to sit on the back of the bus.	40:11
Abraham Smith	Sat in the back.	40:12
Robert James Georgia	Sit in the back of the bus. When the bus stopped, you got a different bus station. You got a different station to go in. You got to, when you go in the station, the bus, there's be a window there. You ordered what you want through the window and bring it down. At some places the buses would stop, they'll go around to the back at the kitchen door, and you order your sandwich right there.	40:14
Abraham Smith	And a lot of those buses had a [indistinct 00:40:47] for the White, but the Blacks had to stand out on the side of the building.	40:47
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, on the side till they put it through the window.	40:48
Mary Hebert	How did that make you feel?	40:48
Robert James Georgia	It make you feel bad, tough, rough. Yeah, it did.	40:48
Mary Hebert	What were-	40:48
Robert James Georgia	Some of these places right now today, like these stores, you go in and if you have to use the restroom, you got to get out and get in your car and go someplace to use the restroom because they'll put on the bathroom door, "Out of order." [indistinct 00:41:39] right now, Gene's Drugstore counter. They got a restroom there. "Out of order." But that's the one they use, right now, today.	41:18
Abraham Smith	Yeah, them drugstores up there, at one time they had booths in there for White people to go in and sit down and drink on those seats and make [indistinct 00:41:52] and stuff on it. [indistinct 00:41:52] take them out-	41:51
Robert James Georgia	Take them out.	41:51
Abraham Smith	To keep the Blacks from sitting in them.	41:51
Mary Hebert	So they changed it after to-	41:51
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, to keep the Blacks from going in. Up there on Main Street on the left, that drugstore that was up there, he had those benches up there back in the forest, had a bench, had a caboose up under there. [indistinct 00:42:28] Georgia was working up there. So after integration, they take all that out just to make sure nobody sat on them.	41:52
Mary Hebert	Is that what they did with the schools, too? Didn't they make the White school private? They made a private school here? I mean, the White students don't go to the public schools here.	42:36
Robert James Georgia	No, they didn't and they don't do that right now. They could go, but they don't [indistinct 00:42:51].	42:46
Abraham Smith	I just see one White, one White girl come going through there. It started [indistinct 00:42:51] I think. That's what they say.	42:51
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, they got a private school out there, a private school. It was kind of tough.	43:05
Abraham Smith	Yeah, it was.	43:10
Robert James Georgia	And our books, we didn't never get new books. We'd get books what---- They were used books, and they'd be raggedy. Some of the pages would be out. We used to use [indistinct 00:43:27] truck to go over there to Manny to get the books at the courthouse and bring them back over here to the school.	43:11
Mary Hebert	They would go and get new books?	43:28
Robert James Georgia	No, we didn't get new books.	43:32
Mary Hebert	Who would go to the courthouse and get books, though?	43:37
Robert James Georgia	The students, like you get a man with a truck. I'll never forget. Eliot Richardson, we used to use his truck. We'd go to Manny and get some of the high school children and go to Manny at the courthouse and he'd get those books and bring them over here. Some of them the pages are tore out. They're used books.	43:37
Mary Hebert	From the White schools?	43:53
Abraham Smith	Some of them didn't have no backs on them.	43:53
Robert James Georgia	Some of the books didn't have backs on them.	43:59
Mary Hebert	What was the school building before they built the new one like? I mean, before that built that one in the '40s. The wooden building, what were conditions like in that building, the one that burned?	44:01
Robert James Georgia	Oh, the one that was burned? Now I was real young. It was a two-story building. It was a two-story building. The stairway was on the outside. Two-story building.	44:16
Abraham Smith	Two-story wood building?	44:20
Robert James Georgia	Wood building, yeah.	44:27
Mary Hebert	Well, compared to the---- Scott's Branch, compared to the White school that was here before they---- How did it compare to the White schools here?	44:30
Robert James Georgia	When they build this one?	44:37
Mary Hebert	Yeah.	44:38
Robert James Georgia	We still didn't have a gym. They didn't build us a gym, but they always had a gym. We couldn't even go to see the Whites play basketball. If they see you looking through the window, they'll run you away from there. During the winter, you couldn't even go watch them. You couldn't pay to go see, go watch the White people play baseball, play basketball.	44:38
Abraham Smith	It was [indistinct 00:45:04].	45:03
Robert James Georgia	Oh, yeah.	45:05
Abraham Smith	Everything was [indistinct 00:45:06].	45:05
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, we had a new school and we had to play basketball on the grounds.	45:06
Mary Hebert	Now, they built this school so they didn't have to integrate? Wasn't that one of the reasons for building?	45:15
Abraham Smith	Yeah.	45:16
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, that's why we got a brand new school.	45:19
Abraham Smith	Yeah, that's why we got that.	45:19
Mary Hebert	I need to turn this----	45:19

Robert James Georgia	So, after the integration, after things was integrated, when the Blacks could have go to the White school, they'd move out and build up a school [indistinct 00:00:15], just give up the school they was going to.	0:00
Mary Hebert	What about buses? Did they ever get school buses? I mean, that didn't come in till a lot later, did it?	0:18
Robert James Georgia	In what year-	0:25
Abraham Smith	That was later. I don't know what year it was.	0:25
Robert James Georgia	No, I wasn't here.	0:25
Mary Hebert	Have you always lived here, both of you?	0:38
Abraham Smith	Yeah, I lived here all my life here.	0:39
Robert James Georgia	I left here in '50.	0:42
Mary Hebert	Where'd you go?	0:44
Robert James Georgia	I went to Columbia. I lived in Columbia for a while, then I left there and went to Baltimore.	0:45
Mary Hebert	Why'd you decide to leave Summerton?	0:51
Robert James Georgia	I went up in the [indistinct 00:00:57] go to work.	0:53
Mary Hebert	Why'd you move to Baltimore?	0:57
Robert James Georgia	For work.	0:57
Mary Hebert	For work?	1:02
Robert James Georgia	And some of my people was already there now [indistinct 00:01:05]	1:03
Mary Hebert	Where'd you work in Baltimore?	1:06
Robert James Georgia	My first job when I went up there was Spivak's Packing Company. It was a meat place. I also worked to Miss Filbert's Margarine place. Yeah, Miss Filbert, what you used to see on that margarine pack? I'd see her [indistinct 00:01:26] I have help her up and down the stairs.	1:08
Mary Hebert	Oh, did you?	1:26
Robert James Georgia	Back in the '50s. Yeah, used to have her dining area up there to eat.	1:26
Mary Hebert	How was Baltimore different than Summerton? Was it different-	1:36
Robert James Georgia	Oh, yeah. It was a little different, but it was kind of segregated. It was segregated a little bit too, but it wasn't near as bad as Summerton. It wasn't nearly as bad as here.	1:40
Mary Hebert	Could you vote in Baltimore?	1:51
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, [indistinct 00:01:54] vote there. We could vote there.	1:53
Mary Hebert	When did you come back here?	1:59
Robert James Georgia	Well, I really didn't get back here until-- I left Baltimore and came home and stayed for a while and then I went to Florida. When I left Florida, I lived upstate New York until '76. I moved back here in '76.	2:02
Mary Hebert	Did you have relatives in Florida and New York too?	2:21
Robert James Georgia	For the part of New York I went, I didn't have no relatives there, up there between Rochester and Syracuse, it would be Upstate New York. But New York City, I have relatives in New York City.	2:24
Mary Hebert	Was it all for jobs that you moved around?	2:34
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, yeah, yeah.	2:35
Mary Hebert	Mr. Smith, you took over your father's store?	2:42
Abraham Smith	Yeah. Mm-hmm. I took over-	2:44
Mary Hebert	And you still run it?	2:46
Abraham Smith	Still try to run it. Nothing like it has been though.	2:48
Mary Hebert	Really?	2:53
Abraham Smith	But I'm still trying to run it. Mm-hmm. Because it's a big change now.	2:54
Mary Hebert	I want to go back to your childhood a little bit. Did y'all ever have other people living in your houses with you, like aunts and uncles and cousins and that kind of stuff?	3:07
Abraham Smith	I have an adopted sister that lives with me. She lives right next door there.	3:26
Mary Hebert	Oh, she does?	3:34
Abraham Smith	Uh-huh.	3:35
Mary Hebert	What were your houses like growing up?	3:37
Abraham Smith	Well, when I was real young, they was like, I don't know. Had holes in the floors. When you lay down in bed, look at the moon.	3:44
Mary Hebert	So there were half an inch, inch cracks in the-	3:53
Abraham Smith	Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Had these wooden windows that you open and close. Yeah.	4:08
Mary Hebert	How many rooms?	4:12
Abraham Smith	Sometimes two room in some of the houses. Some of them have three.	4:14
Mary Hebert	Was your-	4:18
Abraham Smith	If you have a four room, that was a big house.	4:20
Mary Hebert	A four-room house was big?	4:20
Abraham Smith	Yes, that was a big house [indistinct 00:04:26] See, most of the houses-- Ain't no most, all of them, most of them not let you had your own [indistinct 00:04:31] your own little [indistinct 00:04:31] Those White people, they didn't-- Can't fix them up or nothing.	4:20
Mary Hebert	Were y'all houses different than most since your parents owned their own land and their own businesses?	4:35
Abraham Smith	Yeah. Yeah.	4:43
Mary Hebert	Was your house more than a four-room house when you were growing up? Your dad's house?	4:46
Abraham Smith	Well, like I said, the last house my dad lived in was a five-room house, the last one he lived in. But the one I was talking about just then, he was over those. Now it's a different time.	4:51
Mary Hebert	Yeah.	5:07
Mary Hebert	The Whites in Summerton, did they live in a different area?	5:07
Abraham Smith	Oh, yeah.	5:07
Robert James Georgia	Oh, yeah. The house I was born in, [indistinct 00:05:26] operation, but during the time, one part of the time, we didn't have no ceilings in the house. But we did got to seal up, our room was-- Just say five rooms, four big room and then that little place they used to have the dining room table, the kitchen room. Five rooms. We didn't have a bathroom, outside bathroom. We didn't add a bathroom until I came and moved back home, put a [indistinct 00:06:07] the bathroom up into the house. House was built like a pyramid. Tall house.	5:23
Abraham Smith	I remember when I [indistinct 00:06:16] register to vote, you had to read one side of the constitution before you could sign up. I'll never forget what the words I read said, that no person shall be jailed for theft except in case of fraud. Mm-hmm.	6:16
Mary Hebert	When did you register to vote?	6:46
Abraham Smith	That was, I guess 1957, I imagine. Something along there.	6:47
Mary Hebert	Did they let you vote? Could you go and cast your ballot and vote?	6:58
Abraham Smith	Yeah, after, you had to be registered, not before then.	6:59
Mary Hebert	How many people got to register? I mean, you had to be able to read, obviously.	7:04
Abraham Smith	You're right. You had to be able to read. During that time, when I did it. Since then, I think it's different [indistinct 00:07:14]	7:09
Mary Hebert	But did a lot of Black people register when you-- ?	7:17
Abraham Smith	Well, a lot of them was signing up. But they still-- not a lot of them registered nowadays.	7:19
Robert James Georgia	A lot of them still don't register.	7:38
Abraham Smith	[indistinct 00:07:39]	7:38
Mary Hebert	How did you feel the first time you voted? Do you remember that?	7:42
Abraham Smith	Yeah, sure. [indistinct 00:07:49] doing it. I had to [indistinct 00:07:51] looking like you fixing to steal something sometime. That was tough, but that's all right.	8:01
Mary Hebert	Did they have any other kind of tests, other than you had to read that part?	8:06
Abraham Smith	That's all.	8:07
Mary Hebert	That's all?	8:08
Abraham Smith	Mm-hmm.	8:09
Speaker 1	How are you doing?	8:09
Abraham Smith	Hello.	8:14
Speaker 1	[indistinct 00:08:17].	8:14
Mary Hebert	But there wasn't any other kind of test to vote? You didn't have to calculate your age and dates and that kind of stuff?	8:18
Abraham Smith	Well, yeah, you had to tell them all that.	8:25
Mary Hebert	You had to tell them how old-	8:26
Abraham Smith	Yeah. How old you is.	8:26
Mary Hebert	Did they try to exclude you by these little mistakes on the form? Or do they-	8:31
Abraham Smith	No, I don't think so. It's so long, I [indistinct 00:08:41] remember that, I don't think you did.	8:40
Mary Hebert	But you still remember that passage that you had to read?	8:45
Abraham Smith	Yeah, I remember.	8:47
Mary Hebert	What was it like during lay-by time, the time before picking cotton? What went on during that time?	8:59
Robert James Georgia	Nothing too much.	9:13
Mary Hebert	Was it just a time to rest-	9:14
Robert James Georgia	We tried to rest then for a while, but we always had something to do around the house.	9:16
Abraham Smith	Yeah.	9:20
Robert James Georgia	You always had something-	9:26
Abraham Smith	Always something-	9:26
Robert James Georgia	It was always a garden going or you could plant a garden year-round. You had to work in the garden. [indistinct 00:09:33] anything else, you'd go up there to help them. Like his dad, I used to work with his dad sometimes and [indistinct 00:09:40]	9:26
Mary Hebert	Did your mother plant the garden?	9:42
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, yeah, we had a garden.	9:44
Mary Hebert	Did your mother plant it?	9:46
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, yeah, we did it. We always helped out.	9:49
Mary Hebert	What kind of things did you grow?	9:51
Robert James Georgia	Oh, butter beans, okra, peas, white potatoes and tomatoes, sweet potatoes, all that kind of stuff.	9:53
Mary Hebert	Did you sell any of it?	10:04
Robert James Georgia	Yeah. Okay, now the butter beans, my daddy used to plant a big crop of butter beans to sell. And he'd get up four days in the mornings, [indistinct 00:10:18] to shell butter beans, shell by hand. Then I'd have a dish pan and my brother would have a dish pan and we'd go to town and sell them. We'd start off selling butter beans 20 cents a quart, shelled butter beans, 20 cents a quart. Then I'd take them around White people houses and you walk. Then it went up to 25 cents a quart. But no speckles, if you had one or two speckled beans, they'd want us to pick those speckled beans out. "They're not good, they're not good." And a quart, [indistinct 00:10:51] you'd give a quart, 25 cents.	10:07
Mary Hebert	So y'all would go around the White community with your beans?	10:55
Robert James Georgia	Selling, yeah, then we'd sell eggs. Eggs, like 35 cents a dozen, 25 cents a dozen, [indistinct 00:11:04] cents a dozen.	10:56
Abraham Smith	[indistinct 00:11:05] people garden, going all the time too. [indistinct 00:11:10]	10:56
Mary Hebert	So your family didn't have to buy food? Or they had-	10:56
Robert James Georgia	Certain things, they had to buy because we had chickens and hogs and cows. When you kill a cow, we had to let them know when you would kill a cow, back in them times. You had to let them know you would kill it.	11:15
Mary Hebert	Who'd you have to let know?	11:36
Robert James Georgia	I just remember now what we used to have to do when you get ready to kill a calf or something [indistinct 00:11:42]	11:37
Abraham Smith	Then [indistinct 00:11:47] had to go to Manning.	11:42
Robert James Georgia	Had to go to Manning. Yeah.	11:50
Mary Hebert	You had to go to Manning to let someone know?	11:50
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, to let them know you would butcher a cow or something like that.	11:53
Mary Hebert	Would people from the community come and help you when there was butchering and that kind of stuff?	11:59
Robert James Georgia	Well, our neighbors-	12:03
Mary Hebert	Yeah, that's what I meant.	12:04
Robert James Georgia	They'd come here. Yeah, yeah. Back in them time, we had good neighbors. We always killed together and then you would [indistinct 00:12:14] a little piece of meat during them times.	12:05
Mary Hebert	Who were some of your neighbors? Do you remember them?	12:17
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, our neighbor was Hattie Riggin. Had an uncle, Edward Georgia. Who else was in [indistinct 00:12:43] around there during that time?	12:23
Mary Hebert	Y'all lived near one another?	12:45
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, we always lived close to one another.	12:46
Mary Hebert	Did y'all play with their kids?	12:50
Robert James Georgia	Yes.	12:53
Mary Hebert	Now people have said that if you were at someone else's house playing and you got into trouble, they would punish you?	12:57
Robert James Georgia	Oh yeah, yeah.	13:02
Abraham Smith	Yeah.	13:03
Robert James Georgia	But you know better than to do anything wrong, you get a whooping. If they whoop you, you better not go home and tell it. You'd get another one. Oh yeah, you'd get another.	13:05
Abraham Smith	Mm-hmm.	13:11
Robert James Georgia	Another whooping.	13:15
Mary Hebert	Mr. Smith, you were saying y'all had a garden too, did-	13:19
Abraham Smith	Yeah, my father, all his life, they had people garden going too. Had a lot of peanuts. They'd boil them and sell them.	13:19
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, yeah. Sure did.	13:19
Abraham Smith	Big old collard greens, some big heads, biggest head I ever seen come out of his garden.	13:35
Mary Hebert	Would y'all go around and sell them like that?	13:38
Abraham Smith	He'd go around and sell his peanuts. People would come out for collards. We'd go out in the field and cut them out the field for them.	13:38
Robert James Georgia	Mm-hmm.	13:48
Abraham Smith	Yeah.	14:08
Mary Hebert	When did you take over the store?	14:08
Abraham Smith	That's in 1961, I believe it was. Yeah, '61, 1961. Mm-hmm.	14:08
Mary Hebert	How did the civil rights movement in the South affect Summerton in the late '50s and the '60s when they were having a lot of trouble in other places? What was it like in Summerton?	14:13
Abraham Smith	Yeah.	14:35
Mary Hebert	Did the White community try to keep change from happening here? You mentioned-	14:40
Abraham Smith	Oh yeah, yeah.	14:43
Mary Hebert	-- they pulled all the benches out?	14:43
Abraham Smith	Yeah, yeah, they tried to keep change from happening. They did everything they could to keep it from [indistinct 00:14:49] going so far. They did everything they could. Everything. Couldn't even get milk. I [indistinct 00:15:05] get my father had me putting a sign up in the store. "Sorry, no milk." Because we couldn't get it.	14:43
Mary Hebert	You couldn't get a dairy to deliver the milk?	15:15
Abraham Smith	No. You couldn't get nothing.	15:16
Robert James Georgia	No trucks would come.	15:22
Abraham Smith	Yeah. Had a [indistinct 00:15:23] White Citizens Council. They put pressure on the Blacks.	15:22
Mary Hebert	How did they do that? Do you remember?	15:23
Abraham Smith	Well, just like what we was talking about, the president putting on us different things, like wouldn't let the trucks come in the store and the farmers had to-- wouldn't let the farmers [indistinct 00:15:55] get credit and whatnot. But that's how they did it.	15:23
Robert James Georgia	Mm-hmm.	15:58
Mary Hebert	Did y'all know who belonged to the Citizens Council?	15:59
Abraham Smith	Yeah, because uptown they had stickers in all those windows. Remember the stores uptown, they had stickers. White Citizens Council.	16:01
Robert James Georgia	Mm-hmm.	16:09
Mary Hebert	Would y'all not go to those stores if they had their Citizens Council stickers in the windows?	16:14
Abraham Smith	We would try, but some people would go, but we would try to keep them out of those stores. Because everybody had them. Only way [indistinct 00:16:25] you had to go out of town and you could come in our store.	16:19
Robert James Georgia	Mm-hmm.	16:30
Abraham Smith	Yeah.	16:31
Mary Hebert	What about the Klan? Was it big here or the Citizens Council?	16:32
Abraham Smith	I believe it was the same thing really.	16:39
Robert James Georgia	Mm-hmm.	16:40
Mary Hebert	That's how it was in most places.	16:40
Abraham Smith	Yeah.	16:40
Mary Hebert	I was just wondering if there was any difference.	16:40
Abraham Smith	I believe it was the same thing. Every now and then, the Klan would go up to the [indistinct 00:16:50] at night, you would see them pass in the car with the lights on and you would see some of them with hoods on, going right down this road out there.	16:40
Mary Hebert	Did they ever burn crosses and that kind of stuff?	17:00
Abraham Smith	No, I don't think I heard about no crosses being burnt. Only thing, burned down some houses and I don't know just how they did it.	17:06
Mary Hebert	They burned down more than Reverend DeLaine's house?	17:15
Abraham Smith	Someone else. But I can't think of who it is right now.	17:16
Mary Hebert	Was there any attempt in the '60s to get rid of the NAACP here? Or was it mostly in the '50s that they fought against it?	17:52
Abraham Smith	Well now, what fought against it, practically ever since I can remember, it was the NAACP.	18:04
Robert James Georgia	Yeah.	18:11
Abraham Smith	I imagine it was probably harder back then than [indistinct 00:18:18] now or whatnot, but they still fighting against it.	18:16
Mary Hebert	They're still fighting against the NAACP?	18:20
Abraham Smith	Yeah.	18:20
Robert James Georgia	Oh, yeah.	18:20
Abraham Smith	They were fighting against it. Mm-hmm.	18:20
Mary Hebert	That's all the questions I had. [indistinct 00:18:30] more? Okay.	18:20
Robert James Georgia	My dad used to-	18:40
Mary Hebert	[indistinct 00:18:43] worked in the store.	18:42
Robert James Georgia	My dad always talked about, his father always tell him, said he had to mind turkeys. We originated from Georgia, State of Georgia. During that time, it was slavery, he was bought. They said they way we got our name, see-	18:43
Abraham Smith	[indistinct 00:19:06]	19:05
Robert James Georgia	You give this group-- He go to the Georgia man over here from Georgia-	19:06
Mary Hebert	[indistinct 00:19:13]	19:12
Robert James Georgia	So we [indistinct 00:19:13] from Georgia. That's what we was told.	19:13
Mary Hebert	So he was sold to someone from Georgia?	19:14
Robert James Georgia	Right, right. That's why our name Georgia. But I think we are automatically supposed to be Brunson.	19:19
Mary Hebert	Brunson? That's who the master was?	19:29
Robert James Georgia	No, our name was supposed to be Brunson, I think it is.	19:33
Mary Hebert	The names of your brothers and sisters-	19:35
Mary Hebert	What was minding turkeys? Did he-	19:37
Abraham Smith	Junior-	19:39
Robert James Georgia	See, he had to mind turkeys for the White slave owner.	19:39
Mary Hebert	Okay.	19:46
Robert James Georgia	He had to mind his turkeys to keep from them getting out [indistinct 00:19:48]	19:46
Abraham Smith	[indistinct 00:19:48]	19:47
Mary Hebert	He was a little child when slavery ended?	19:50
Robert James Georgia	Yeah, I guess it was. Yeah. My daddy was.	19:51
Mary Hebert	Garden?	19:51
Abraham Smith	Garden. G-A-R-D [indistinct 00:19:58]	19:51
Mary Hebert	Your father remembers being-	19:51
Robert James Georgia	No, no.	19:51
Mary Hebert	Your grandfather?	19:51
Robert James Georgia	My grandfather, yeah.	19:51
Mary Hebert	Okay.	19:51

Item Info

Title:

Robert Georgia and Abraham Smith interview recording, 1995 June 14

Date:

June 14, 1995

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Description:

Name: Robert Georgia; Date of birth: unknown; Place of birth: Summerton, SC; Occupation(s): electrician; machinist; construction work; Residence: Summerton, SC. Name: Abraham Smith; Date of birth: 1930-08-27; Place of birth: Summerton, SC; Occupation(s): store owner; store employee; family business; Residence: Summerton, SC
Informant ID: 1212; Informant ID: 1213; Interviewed by: Mary Hebert and Blair Murphy.

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English

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Behind the Veil

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

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

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

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Interview number: 1052
427a53e7-fdef-4368-9dd2-6ccf5c61f6e4
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Robert Georgia and Abraham Smith interview recording, 1995 June 14

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1. Robert Georgia and Abraham Smith administrative file, 1995

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Robert Georgia and Abraham Smith interview recording, 1995 June 14

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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