Margaret Alexander interview recording, 1993 June 07

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Margaret Alexander Alexander	I was born here in Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, September 20th, 1924. Okay.	0:01
Kara Miles	What neighborhood did you live in?	0:08
Margaret Alexander Alexander	First Ward, section of Charlotte.	0:09
Kara Miles	Okay. Could you tell me a little bit about your parents, your family?	0:13
Margaret Alexander Alexander	My parents now deceased, Yuli Lester Gilreece Alexander and Alberta Wallace Alexander. We lived there in the First Ward section, as I told you, 709 East 11th Street, next door to Mount Moriah Primitive Baptist Church where I attended that church. Also, my mother and father attended that church. My mother was one of the mothers. My father was a deacon in that church. I attended Alexander Street School was about a block from my home.	0:18
Margaret Alexander Alexander	We lived on 11th Street and the school was on 12th in Alexander. After graduating from Alexander Street School, I attended Second Ward High School. That was about a mile from my home. It was located on the corner of First and Alexander. We walked to school but we had a lot of shortcuts and I can recall going up the courthouse steps, getting a drink of water and then down the steps, up the hill to school over to Second Ward High School. Graduated from Second Ward High School in 1942 and attended North Carolina College for Negroes in Durham, North Carolina, which is now North Carolina Central. Graduating in 1946.	0:59
Margaret Alexander Alexander	I married in 1946. Married to Kelly M. Alexander Senior. We have two sons, Kelly Miller Alexander Junior and Alfred Lewis Alexander. They are four years apart. Alfred attended North Carolina Central, Kelly attended and graduated there. Then from there to Gupton-Jones College in at Georgia, Atlanta. He's in the funeral business. Alexander's Funeral Home. His grandfather started that business. Kelly went to Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, graduating and getting his master's degree in public relations and they both are very active in NAACP.	2:08
Kara Miles	What did your parents do?	3:16
Margaret Alexander Alexander	My parents, my mother stayed at home and my father was worked for himself in plastering work and hauling. Later life, he, after retiring in early years, he did a little maintenance was, what would you call it? Well maintenance I guess you call it, at the Knit Company. Those were the two things.	3:18
Kara Miles	Did you know your grandparents?	3:55
Margaret Alexander Alexander	I knew my grandmother on my mother's side, she lived on 10th Street, that was down the hill from us on 11th Street and I can recall going down there and she would, I can remember standing up on the chair helping her to wash dishes and she would have three pans there, washing one and rinse and two. She put me on one of her blouses. It made a dress for me. I remember a red and white check, one that I kept. Her youngest son lived with her, Sonny, and she wouldn't let you eat anything until Sonny came home for lunch.	3:57
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And I can remember this peppermint candy that she kept all the time that I liked and cinnamon, seemed like she had this cinnamon all the time that I enjoyed getting some of that too. And when I was spending night with my grandmother, early in the morning, I could hear her out there sweeping off the porch and hollering and everybody going up the streets to work in the morning. And she did a lot of washing and ironing for people, 'cause I can recall this big basket that she would carry on her head and I would go with her sometime to take the laundry to individuals that she was doing that for. I didn't know my father's mother or father. They were dead before I was born. And I didn't know my mother's father. He was dead also.	4:52
Kara Miles	Did your grandmother ever tell you stories, like about her childhood?	5:58
Margaret Alexander Alexander	No. I don't recall hearing any stories about her childhood, but she did take me to church. Matter of fact, that's the first I remember going to church with my grandmother first, and then later with my parents. And we were right next door as I say to the church. But I associate her with the church. And I know we talked about a lot of things, but I can't recall everything that we talked about.	6:04
Kara Miles	Was your neighborhood a middle class neighborhood?	6:38
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Well, I don't know whether they would consider my neighborhood middle class or what because it was the First Ward. But they call that area, it's Cody Town. I don't know why they said Cody Town after you leave 9th Street, they said Cody Town. Then on further from over before you get to the railroad track, it was they called Mosquito Bottom. And then from across the railroad, the White Belmont section is where the White people lived.	6:43
Margaret Alexander Alexander	So I don't know, I guess we were, because even years later when they said, when they started talking about the ghetto and things like that, I didn't know what that was, you know? Because I lived a very sheltered life and it was a good life. I knew nothing about the—Well when the depression was on, it didn't really touch me because my parents, well I was like an only child. I had a brother that died before I was born.	7:29
Margaret Alexander Alexander	The midwife cut his umbilical cord too short. I was told about that when I was about I guess five or six years old. But up to that point I did—I was just like an only child. And after that I was reared as an only child because I didn't know the brother but I heard that his name was Earl. But he died an infant at birth. And my parents were very protective of me. Most of my friends came to my house to play and entertain and like that. So I think I was a little bit better. Let's say fix—Better. Well I had a little bit more or something than most of my friends because they all congregated at my house.	7:59
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And when it rained or something, my mother would see to it that we were driven to school. My dad always had some kind of car, although I don't drive now. And I think it's because things were too convenient for me when I grew up. And I always said I wanted to learn how to drive. But my father told me years later he didn't think I really wanted to because I would get my cousin to drive us, I'd get my friends and on Sunday we'd get his car and he would take us wherever we wanted to go. And we were close to the downtown. I was close to the bus line, street car. We played a lot of games during that time because we didn't have television and we didn't have, well we had a radio but maybe not in the beginning. We assumed we got a radio, because I remember listening at another lady's radio with earphones. And then we got a Majestic radio.	8:53
Margaret Alexander Alexander	We played ball softball in the streets right in front, 'cause it was not paved street. We had a little piece of cement with four blocks in our front yard there and we played hop scotch there. We played ball out in this street or in the alley across some houses in front of us, and then alleyway there. We played hide and seek, Little Sally Walker and all those little, you had to use your imagination. We played school and we would, we'd be cooking, we'd take these two bricks, put a piece of tin across there and have our little pots and we'd cook the grass and the we'd bag up the sand and that was the meal and the flour and all that kind of thing.	10:16
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And we played with paper dolls. We'd have—We taught school imitating what we had learned in school. We would have a program, we'd usually end up with a program and invite our parents to the program and we'd perform, we'd do our speeches and tell those stories and sing, do, charge them a penny to come and hear And just from one activity to the other. Had a lot of parties, birthday parties, that was the thing for social activity.	11:16
Margaret Alexander Alexander	We had, let's see, what else did we do? And a lot of clubs, after we got older, a lot of clubs, had clubs and they would have dances or parties that you would go to, in invitation, however. I learned in later years that when my kids came along, most of the young folk, when they heard it was a party, just everybody came. I had to get used to that because we didn't go if we weren't invited.	11:58
Margaret Alexander Alexander	But I conformed to that when my boys were in school and in high school because we had the after prom, I had this breakfast and all for them here. About a hundred of them came through here, I guess into that. And then I was active in as youth advisor for NAACP youth group while my kids were coming along until about in the '70s. This was in the '50s and '60s and up to the seventies. Let's see what I want to say about those. Maybe you want to ask a question.	12:32
Kara Miles	Well I wanted to go back to some things. What kind of—You talked about the clubs. What clubs were these that you and your friends belonged to?	13:19
Margaret Alexander Alexander	No, I didn't say that we belong to that. That we were invited to. Well the Scorpion Club would have a dance, but now in later years, like the Black Cats Club had the Kappas, I think it was had the Kappa Dawn dance, 'cause that was out of the range I believe from when you—No, I graduated from college in '42. So you are, I'm still within your frame. '42. Well the Kappas had this Kappa Dawn dance that a lot of the kids from school to come down to Charlotte to that dance.	13:32
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And as a matter of fact, that's in April. April 21st I married, got married and a lot of the kids came to the dance and Kelly and I went to the dance and that's when they learned we had married, because we married at six o'clock Easter Sunday morning. And they thought that I hadn't told Dean Rush about the fact that we were going to get married, but I had all that taken care of before I left school.	14:11
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And they said, "Oh my goodness Dean Rush is going to send that girl home." 'Cause see during that time, I couldn't get married unless she knew I was going to get married. You had to tell them everything you know, couldn't get on. When you—In order to come home for a visit, you had to let—Your parents had to write school and say that you could come home for that weekend and then you had to sign out and they would know what you were going on, the bus or the train or the airplane or whatever, to get home.	14:44
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And then when you got back to school, you had to sign in and you couldn't go any place off campus without two additional people to go along with you. You had to get them to go with, that was your freshman sophomore year and I think your junior year, maybe you could go with one and then your senior year you could go up to the church or somewhere. But they had to know where you were. And we didn't have the visitation from the young men in the building other than in the power. And nobody crossed the line back in your living quarters.	15:23
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Not hardly your father. I think my father probably brought a suitcase in there the first day that I got there, but not after that. They'd ring the bell and let you know you had company and you come down. I preferred the first floor. So I was on the first floor each year. First year I was in Rush Hall on the first floor and second was Anna Day Shepherd Dormitory, then McClean my junior and senior year McClean, first floor right next door to the counselors. All right.	16:12
Kara Miles	You talked about the rules, the college rules, were they the same for the men?	16:59
Margaret Alexander Alexander	I don't know about the men, whether they had to get anybody or not. I really don't. I don't know.	17:05
Kara Miles	What was the Scorpion Club?	17:15
Margaret Alexander Alexander	That was a social club. That was a social club. Young men. I don't know what all they did, but I know they had this annual dance and one of my little boyfriends at the time was a member of that club. His name was Clarence Strong. That was in—Now that was in high school.	17:17
Kara Miles	Was there a women's club like that?	17:43
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Clubs? I don't name—I don't know. I don't remember any girl club. Now we were in like, lets see, what clubs did they have in school? Different school things that we had, but not any social, most of the things, just the birthday parties or something that the church was having or something like that.	17:46
Kara Miles	Were there any women's clubs at college?	18:14
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Well I was in the sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority and Alpha Chi and that was my, let see, what year was that I went over? I believe it was in, I think it was in my junior year that I went over. But I was in the Ivory Leaf Club, and we had to go to Vesper too. We had to go, I don't know if they do that now, not. But we had Vesper certain days and we had chapel periods and you were assigned seats, and alphabetically and I was A, so I was right down front first seat and someone would be up upstairs there checking you out to see if you were in your seat.	18:18
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And if you weren't in your seat you would get so many cuts. You had chance for so many cuts. I think it was five or something like that. And then some kind of penalty would be placed upon you for not being where you were supposed to be. And we had lots of good speakers that came like Mordecai Johnson and what's the name down there? Benjamin Mays and Marion Anderson and singers and I think Etta Moten and different people that we were exposed to that came to the campus. These different programs, licensing programs that they would have.	19:12
Karen Ferguson	Were involved politically on maybe the race question, or the questions of, I know this is before the civil rights movement, but were you—were there any kind of political actions like that when you were at college?	20:07
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Well now I'll tell you when I first heard about that.	20:22
Kara Miles	Okay.	20:27
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Mr. Alexander, Kelly Alexander Senior, my husband, my late husband was the first person that really started talking about civil rights around here. And Charlie wasn't my husband at the time, however I was in high school. And he started talking about that we should have the same thing that everybody else had and that we—Because things were segregated before that and we wanted to be first class citizens. And he started a chapter of NAACP. My, I believe it was my junior year was sometime in the about '40, I guess it was around '40 or '30, must have been around '40 because I graduated '42 from high school, '46 from college.	20:27
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And a lot of my classmates were in this youth council that he started, NAACP Youth Council. And they tried to get me to join and I promised that I was going to join. But somehow or another I never got around joining. And he told me however years later, perhaps it was a good thing I didn't join. Because had I joined then I probably wouldn't have been his wife because he could not associate with young people that he was advisor to. And so I guess something must have told me to—Although I mean knew nothing about this, this was after thought, that I'm saying because he told me years later that had I been, but I kept telling him I was going to come to the meetings but something would happen. I never got to the meetings.	21:28
Margaret Alexander Alexander	But he was the one, the lone voice in the wilderness crying out for us to get these rights, our civil rights. A lot of people were afraid to speak out at that time, but they were in the funeral business and they weren't obligated to say the establishment, for their livelihood so they could afford to speak out. And they said the things that—He said the things that other people wanted to say, but were afraid for losing their job if they said, if they spoke out.	22:21
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And the establishment got someone on the radio to talk against what Kelly was saying, Dr. Tross was one of the voices that would tell us to "Be patient. Time is not ripe," you know, and to keep us cool.	22:59
Margaret Alexander Alexander	But people would join the NAACP and some were afraid to have the card or the information to come to their homes. They saying, "We're going to give you this to join but keep my name off the roll." And so forth and so on.	23:20
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And a lot of them kept him aware of what was being said as they served in the homes of the people. And they'd do this talking about race question and all that kind of thing and what they heard. And they would come back and let us know what was happening and what they were saying to keep him aware of what was happening that way but anonymously.	23:42
Margaret Alexander Alexander	So that was about, as I say, it was around the latter '30s and the early '40s in college. I recall one of my professors, history professor, I think his name was James Taylor, he's dead now, but he told us about going to these movies and going up in the buzzard roofs, he called it, because you had to go upstairs. And that kind of perked my, I said, "well no, this is not right." And of course after I married Kelly, I knew it wasn't right to do that. So I mean I started on my track after I married him and got introduced to all the civil rights. And then that's when I started working with the youth councils and he was up on all of that. And I became aware.	24:15
Margaret Alexander Alexander	But living this protective life with my parents and all, and they weren't educated people. My mother, I don't know how far Mama went in school and Daddy probably didn't go any farther than high school, but he stopped to take care of his sisters and so forth and started working because his mother and those came along when they lived on the plantation or something.	25:13
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And after she died, they were all young. He said he would take care of them. So he got a job and took care of them and from there, married my mother and like that. But he had a good head on his shoulders and he could do all this cement work. Because at home I know he lowered the ceilings and put in where we had the cords for lights. And he put the side where you, like this to on and off situations, he put that in, underpin the house with the brick.	25:44
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Then later years he put the whole front porch, brick. We had a long porch, I'll show you pictures of our house when I was coming up after while. And he could do all kind of things like that. And had he gone to college and all, I mean he would've made himself some money, I guess how you say, if he had, he had a good head on his shoulders and he could read and all. My mother couldn't read but you wouldn't know that she couldn't, 'cause people were proud back then they didn't want you to know. Although she did take a few lessons, but I think pride kind of got in the way and she didn't. But she could count. People that they can't read but they can count. You can't fool them, but they counting, counting the money.	26:27
Margaret Alexander Alexander	But anyway, they wanted me to have a college education. Matter of fact, when Kelly asked them to marry me, my parents wanted him to assure them that I would graduate from school because they didn't have the education but they wanted me to have it. And we promised that I would wait until I graduated from college to marry. And we almost made that because we married April 21st, 1942. And I didn't graduate until May or June, whenever that graduation time. But we knew then that I was only—Wasn't too long from that. And as I said, we married six o'clock in the morning so we could have a lot of time we thought together.	27:23
Margaret Alexander Alexander	But his father sent him on a funeral. We married, had breakfast, just a few family friends and he sent him on the—We had a picture made, he sent him on the funeral. I went to church and then about four or five o'clock we got together that evening and we went out riding. And from there we stayed at his house.	28:16
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Now they had a big house over there on what street was that? Caldwell Street. About 20 some rooms in this house. But his mother and father were elderly people now. So they had closed off a portion of the house and they were living in the front portion of the house upstairs and downstairs. And that's where we stayed there, until that Wednesday I believe it was. And I was on the dean's list at the time. So I had unlimited number of cuts and was able to stay a few days. And then we went on, I went back to school, and everybody knew it when I got back that I'd married because those kids that had been here for the dance and gone back and told everybody.	28:42
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And we didn't have a honeymoon until about a couple of years later or a year and a half later when we went to the NAACP convention in Washington DC. And we called that our honeymoon. But he was busy with the NAACP however. But I enjoyed the trip and going back and we met in churches at that time and we had to go down the street and around the corner to a restaurant for our meals. 'Cause I met a lot of those people I enjoyed, always enjoyed going to the NAACP conventions because you meet all these people that you read about and that was quite unique meeting those people.	29:28
Margaret Alexander Alexander	I met Ralph Bunche's wife and of course Mrs. Roy— Minnie Wilkins. Clarence Mitchell. In fact Clarence Mitchell held my kids on his knee when he'd come down here. Because our house was a house where, that's after I married I'm talking, about where all these people would come when they'd come to Charlotte.	30:28
Margaret Alexander Alexander	The first person of that statue that when I was in college, Kelly had Adam Clayton Power to come to the Armory Auditorium here in Charlotte. And I came home from school to hear him. And this was, I don't know if he had married, married Hazel Scott, I don't think he had married her at that time or they were going to get married or something. I think that was just before they married that he was here. And we rode with him to the [indistinct 00:31:20]. And in fact I rode with Martin Luther King when he was here. We had him here in, I believe it was '68 and oh all of—A lot of those people.	30:51
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And you find that they'd just like everybody else, very nice, you wonder at first about them. But then you meet them and they are down to earth and congenial and it really—Now with these youth council group to work with, we would always have this mother of the year and freedom celebration in Raleigh. And we would take a busload of them up there and we would have people like Jackie Robinson and Daisy Bates and different people to speak and they would have an opportunity to meet with them. And then we'd take a picture of them and it was a real experience for them.	31:38
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And one year we took a busload, they sold candy to secure this bus and each person selling three cases of candy would get a seat on the bus. That was $90. And they met with their parents and they gave them a little spending change and they took their lunch along with them. And we went to Washington and they lived on the campus of Howard University and they attended the NAACP convention and we had assets to this bus all during the time and they would manage their little money, had envelope with the names on there. And I would open up in the morning and they'd get the little money and go up the street and get some little meal because we didn't eat in the hotel to expensive for them. We would go up to, there was some kind of a, I don't know, it was not a restaurant, it was something up there that had, you'd go down the line and get what you wanted and about a block from the hotel and they would go and get that.	32:28
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And we went out, now that was the year when, I think that was in '60 something when Martin Luther King was buried out there in Arlington Cemetery. And Robert Kennedy was alive at the time. So they had an opportunity to meet him because he came to the NAACP convention and all they thought that was wonderful to shake his hand. And we went out to John Kennedy's grave site at that time. And so that was really something for the younger kids to enjoy.	33:44
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Now you asked me something though that I didn't get to. What was that question that you asked me? And I got off, I have a way of getting off on something else while you asked something.	34:28
Kara Miles	Oh, last thing I remember talking about was clubs.	34:42
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Oh, the clubs, okay. Oh well then I just started talking after that. Huh? Okay, well let's see now what else about the, trying to see if there's anything else about that I remember, I don't know. I think that must have been in the—This was the 50th, I believe this was the 50th anniversary of NAACP, I'm not sure. But in New York City. And we went out on the, let's see, what's the name of that ball field out there? It's not there. I can't think of the name of it now.	34:43
Margaret Alexander Alexander	But anyway, we had, the platform was out there on this field and we went out there. Roy Wilkins was up there talking and it started raining and it started raining so hard, everybody moved out. But he stayed up there to listen to everything. And so we went in the, down in the dugout there so that we would be undercover. Now everybody else was undercover, all the audience, but we were out in the field and so we tried to stay out there but rain started coming down so hard we had to go for cover. Although some had they umbrellas and all, but all of us didn't have. But that, I'm trying to think the name of that field ball field. 'Cause you all are too young. You don't know. Well I can't think of, maybe it'll come to me.	35:25
Kara Miles	And what occasion was this?	36:18
Margaret Alexander Alexander	It was an NAACP convention. NAACP convention and it was, I don't know what day of the convention it was. It might have been the last day of the convention that we were having this big mass meeting out there. But I don't remember the name of the field. But I do remember going up to a Thurgood Marshall's apartment when his kids were young and we had a little get together up there and I was just so, I got so many pleasant memories about the movement.	36:20
Margaret Alexander Alexander	But getting back to what you were talking about now we detested segregation. But people, as I was coming up, as I say, they were afraid to say too much for fear of losing their jobs. But then in later life, after they were educated about what they could do and take advantage of these things that were opening up to us and by opening up things for, well recreation facilities because you couldn't swim anywhere, so you had to—The golf course people could work but they couldn't play. So we had to have a case. Take this case it was, let's see, it was Bonnie Brae Golf Course, of, out of, let's see, what Bonnie Brae Golf—	37:13
Karen Ferguson	I think that's right. We talked to Mr. Wyche. Thomas Wyche.	38:20
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Thomas Wyche.	38:22
Karen Ferguson	And he was talking about that case.	38:22
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Right, right, right. Yeah because he was on that and we they open up after fighting, open up that for—'Cause I think he was, did I see Dr. Wyche and Weddington boys and Dr. Green, Dr. Roy Wynn, and all those people are dead now. Some of them. But Harold Walker, different ones were in this case, we're litigants in this case. But I guess Tom told you all about that. And then they had hospital, we didn't have but one hospital, Good Samaritan where the Blacks could go. And we had to see about getting hospitals open up where we could go to. And that's when—And getting the doctors to be on the boards, I think Dr. Ran was about the first one that got on the board around here. Emery Ran and that was probably in the '50s.	38:23
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Teacher's salaries were not equal. And even in high school, and I know I'm going from one thing to other, but I mean it's just come, I don't have it down on any paper. I told you I like to write it down instead of trying to talk.	39:26
Kara Miles	That's fine.	39:48
Margaret Alexander Alexander	But in high school, we got hand me down things. You didn't realize all this until integration and when they started getting all this science equipment and typewriter and this, that and the other that you didn't have. 'Cause when I came along, they didn't even teach typing in shorthand in high school. I think one or two people in the city, older people knew how to do it and they would teach, I don't know what you had to pay for it or what, but they would, and the Y had, you could go there and get a little typing or something, but they didn't have it in the school system.	39:48
Margaret Alexander Alexander	I understand that when my husband came out, he's nine years older than I am. But when they came along they were getting hand me down things from the band, clothes and things like that. And they even had to fight for the Scouts to be together in parades and oh Lord, what all—Black and White fountains. Go downtown and no bathroom to go to. And even when my kids came along, sometimes you have to ask the employees or somebody to let you go to the bathroom that they went to up there. And so you had to not, maybe not drink any water or anything before you went any place so that you wouldn't have to go.	40:32
Margaret Alexander Alexander	When you'd go on a trip you didn't eat in the dining room, on the train. I think the first train trip, 'cause that's why I guess most people took the bags of food on the train to eat in the cars. When you'd go into cars to New York or someplace, you didn't have any place to stop. You had to go out in the field someplace or take something in a container in your car to be relieved and taking your lunch along with you for those kind of things.	41:34
Margaret Alexander Alexander	So you tolerated that but you weren't pleased with it. But you wanted to obey the law, which was separate and segregation and all that kind of thing. But we had to get away from that because being first class citizens, you wanted to go to everything, be able to go and move around freely and do what you wanted to do when you got ready to do it within the law.	42:10
Margaret Alexander Alexander	NAACP fought in the court's, legislation to be changed for us to be able to do these things. We didn't do a whole lot of marching and going on. We did some of it, but we helped to get those marchers out of jail when they got in jail. We paid the freight to get them out and a lot, we don't get a lot of the credit for what we did and are what we are doing. But because everybody comes, this one and that one and the other one, rather than joining forces and making this thing go, we are—Well maybe I say we are complimentary rather than tearing down. But I mean if we would pool our resources, I think we could do more. I'll put it that way.	42:38
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Okay. Oh, swim. We said swimming. Even, they called it the poor house at that time. But let's see what you would call it. The—See what kind of house would you have, anyway, it was segregated and—	43:46
Kara Miles	Homeless shelter?	44:07
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Oh it was, what do they even call it home, it was, what did they call, I mean what is the name of this thing? Oh, I can't think of the name of it right now. But NAACP was instrumental in getting them to, they had the Black and the White in different places, had the White on the front and the Blacks in the back and they had to get them where they would integrate that.	44:08
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And we would go before the school board and the county commissioners, even the kids when they were in the Youth Council and they would, in this living room, they'd have their little meetings and get together on their strategy and so forth when it's a busing situation. And they made those busing signs out there in the garage and say they can be bused just like us. I mean we can be know, let's see what's the thing about?	44:36
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Oh yeah, they can be bused just like, you know, us, right? 'Cause we were being bused to the schools and we wanted everybody to, 'cause I remember when I came along, the Whites were bused and we had to walk and walk by them going to school. 'Cause I went to, when I was going to Second Ward High School and the buses pass us going up to First Ward school places and we walking on over there to Second Ward High School.	45:10
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And when my kids came along and we tried doing integration, we applied for integration for them to go to, let's see the first school, I think it was Dilworth School, I think we applied to go there. And then we applied for Sedgefield. But they sent them to York Road. Now Sedgefield, you go so far and you turn to the left to go to Sedgefield and to the right to go to York Road. And they said York Road was closer to our house. We lived over in Brooklyn on Stonewall Street now. And both of them were good distance from the house, but they claimed that that was closer. And that's where Kelly had to go to York Road. It's now Kennedy High School I think it is. And Dilworth couldn't go there. That was, had to go to Myers Street cause Myers Street was closer. That was all Black school. So that's where it had to go.	45:38
Margaret Alexander Alexander	But soon as that '54 decision came out, about '55 or '56 after they got, had to educate the parents to the fact, 'cause they were, some were afraid to apply, but the NAACP Charlotte Mecklenburg County branch would go in the afternoons when the people would come home from work and tell them about the necessity of getting their children to apply so that we could have things open up for us and got different people to apply. We had got a few in.	46:41

Karen Ferguson	How did you teach your children about segregation?	0:02
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Well, my children really grew up knowing about segregation. See, because their father, as I say, was into the NAACP. He was president of the state NAACP, North Carolina State NAACP. He was also on the National Board of Directors of NAACP. In fact, he was the chairman of the board at his death in '85, April 2nd, 1985. He was national chairman of NAACP Board of Directors. And so, that was a everyday dose of civil rights in our home. And they had the opportunity to meet all these civil rights leaders that came through Charlotte.	0:07
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And daddy got papers from everywhere, all kind of, New York Times and all the papers, and fast as I'd through out one bunch, there's another one coming. Really he was an avid reader. He read about Negro history and everything before it was fashionable to read about it, and he could talk on just about any subject. Some people thought he was a preacher, some thought he was a lawyer, and he had all these different kind of titles they thought he was because he could speak so well.	1:04
Margaret Alexander Alexander	I'm happy to say that my sons have followed in their father's footsteps and they are in the civil rights. Kelly Junior is on the board of directors. He's one of the vice presidents of the national NAACP, and Alfred is one of the chairman of the security force of the NAACP nationally. And also, they are both with the state. Kelly is the president of the state NAACP, and Alfred's with the security on that level. So, my family has helped with policies and procedures and all that thing of the NAACP for years. He revitalized and reorganized, Kelly Senior, did, the Charlotte Mecklenburg County Branch in 19—Let see, what was that year? 1940 or 19—No, 19—Yeah, 1940. In 1940.	1:43
Karen Ferguson	So there had been one before? A branch before?	3:04
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Yeah. They'd start and stop, start and stop, start and stop.	3:07
Karen Ferguson	Why would they stop?	3:10
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Well, I guess maybe how it is when you start some things maybe and people get disenchanted or—Because I wasn't on the scene at that time because they started in—I wrote the history of the thing. I had my book in—Well, I won't go get that. But anyway, maybe they'd get tired that the people didn't—They couldn't get the—I don't know. I don't know why, but they started two or three times. In fact, Kelly's father in the 30s, my husband's father, was president for about a couple of years or something like that. And they stopped and then they started up in '40, and this is the one that we have now that my husband started in 1940, and we still got that. It didn't stop. It carried on, but I don't know why. Just complacency or apathy or something, I don't know. I don't know.	3:12
Karen Ferguson	But you remember hearing about the NAACP before the 1940 one in your childhood?	4:24
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Mm-mm. No, I didn't hear anything about it. I didn't hear. See, I guess I was too young or something. I didn't hear about it. But the records, the national records, when I started writing this history and then I got the records of when it started. Now I can go back there and get that thing and she'll tell you exactly. Would you like that? Stop that and do that?	4:30
Kara Miles	We can get it later.	4:52
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Okay. Okay.	4:53
Karen Ferguson	Do you know what, in your husband's experience, well, I guess his father was into it, how he got so involved in—	4:59
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Well, he said when he worked for a Jewish merchant selling jewelry all down south. And he said he was standing on the corner one morning waiting on—His name was Sam Morton, I believe he said his name was. And the police came up there wanting to know what was he doing. What he said, "What you doing standing out here this early in the morning?" And in their travel too, there was no place sleep, hotels. He had to go find some other place where he could sleep or sleep in a car or whatever. And eating facilities and just things were just so horrible that he said he's got to do something about this.	5:09
Margaret Alexander Alexander	He wasn't used to that kind of treatment and that something had to change. And he got so fed up with all that, that he decided he was going to come back here and kind of shake up things and get people excited about doing something for themselves to get better treatment. And that's what motivated him. And I guess it was a lot of other things too that had been brewing, but that was the straw I guess, that broke the camel's back.	6:06
Kara Miles	What were your own personal experiences with segregation as a child and your teenage years?	6:50
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Well, I said, I was so protected in my own little circle around there in First Ward, and I was happy and getting everything I wanted, and I just didn't have the insight about those things. And I guess with my—Well, I'd go to the stores downtown, but I'd get what I wanted. And I mean, I just didn't have any encounter with it because everything was just right in my little world. A church next door, school, playing and enjoying myself, getting everything I wanted. I mean, I didn't know the oppression was on. I mean my parents were giving me everything and I was happy and I just wasn't aware of what was happening out there, because everything was fine in my little world. And mama and daddy, I mean, my friends, mama would give—Some of them would come there to eat and she would get clothes and things for different ones. I mean, she was always giving.	6:56
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And I just never thought about it until later life. And then, a lot of the people didn't talk about it. I mean, they were just accepting things, although I'm sure they weren't satisfied with it, but it must have been something you just didn't talk about it too much. That was just the law. That's the way it was, and you just conformed to things and didn't like it, but just went on and tolerated it. But later, you wake up, "No, I'm not going to take this anymore. I'm going to do something about it." You know you're entitled to it. So, that's the way—I mean, I was just a late bloomer; late bloomer. But Mr. Alexander opened my eyes to it and one or two others along the way, and finally it registered with me that something's got to be done. So, I got in there and started doing my bit.	8:24
Kara Miles	Were there certain people in the community when the NAACP in the 40s, when your husband started it again, were there certain people or groups of people perhaps who really supported him and others who really criticized him for it?	9:39
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Yes. Oh yes, oh yes. Some of the supporters.	9:58
Karen Ferguson	Yeah.	10:02
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Uh-huh. Well, now some of the supporters, Marguerite Adams and her husband Stan. Stan was a professor at Johnson C. Smith, and Marguerite was a teacher at Second Ward High School in Diversified Occupations. She was one of the first people around here to get her doctor's degree, and they were very supportive. Then you had several ministers, Bishop Gordon, and you had some of the doctors and lay people, Mr. Green and his wife, Mr. Gillard and his wife. Let me see now, who else? Oh, you had some—I remember some of these—Let me see. Oh, you start naming names now and you leave out somebody, but I got all those names in that history I was telling you about. And I'll go in there and get that and pull out some names for you if you think you want to stop	10:02
Karen Ferguson	What kind of people were they though, generally? They were professional people mainly?	11:13
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Well, no, some of the professional people were—No, it was a lot of everyday people that did things, like Ms. Ella Johnson and Ms. Emily May. And let's see, Ms. [indistinct 00:11:37], she was a nurse. Oh, his brother helped him too. Zach Junior.	11:18
Karen Ferguson	Zach Anderson?	11:48
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Zach Alexander.	11:48
Karen Ferguson	Zach Alexander.	11:50
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Zachariah Alexander.	11:52
Karen Ferguson	I just I saw his name this morning on the list.	11:53
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Oh yeah, okay. All right. That's his brother, his oldest brother. He helped along that time and let see who else helped. And in later years there were other people that helped, but you talking about the early days?	11:56
Kara Miles	And what people would criticize? I mean you mentioned that Dr. Cross or Dr. Frost. Or do you remember mentioning—	12:15
Karen Ferguson	Dr. Tross, maybe?	12:22
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Oh, Charles—Oh, Nathaniel Tross. Yeah, Nathaniel Tross, T-R-O-S-S I believe is his name. He was a minister. What kind—Let's see, what was his church? I don't know [indistinct 00:12:37] or what. I forgot what his church was. But anyway, he was from, I don't know, West Indies or somewhere, he was from, and very educated, intelligent person. But he was on the radio every night telling you that the time is not ripe. He wanted to keep things like it was. Don't rock the boat. And Kelly was considered a radical stirring up—He was stirring up folk and they didn't want that, at that time.	12:26
Margaret Alexander Alexander	He was, wanted to quieten him. And he ran for city council in the 50s a couple of times, and then they put up somebody else to run to split the vote so that we wouldn't get anybody. And we didn't get anybody because they canceled out each other each time. Years later, however, his brother was able to be City Councilman, Mayor Pro Tem, and then went to the Senate. But they paved the way. I think Bishop Dale was helping him back there too. Bishop Dale was—But these people are dead. A lot of them are dead now that helped along, because Bishop Dale used to notarize some of those forms. Oh, and Bell—Well, Bell came later in the 50s. Gibbons, Reverend Gibbons, and now Hawkins was helping him for a while in later years.	13:19
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And then Hawkins started up something of his own. Reginald Hawkins, I think you probably got his name. Uh-huh. Yeah, he's talked to him already? Yeah, yeah. Because Reginald was working with the NAACP for a while. Matter of fact, he was treasurer I believe for a while, because he used to be Johnny on the spot. When those people would come to Charlotte and you look up, Reginald was the first one I'd see there, when these lawyers and all these people would come and then round the table. Reginald would sit there talking and worked right with him for a while. And then, something happened that he started up another organization and then didn't work within NAACP too much after that.	14:30
Karen Ferguson	Why do you think somebody like Tross was so—I'm sure you speculated about the reasons why Tross was so against rocking the boat and that kind of thing, or other people like him. Why didn't they want things to change?	15:31
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Now I don't know why he wouldn't want things to change because I guess he was doing what he was being paid to do. I guess. He was all right himself and he was probably feeling all right himself and he didn't want nothing to interfere with—I guess, now I don't know. I don't really know.	15:50
Karen Ferguson	Well, I guess—	16:21
Margaret Alexander Alexander	I know, my opinion. My opinion was maybe that, I don't know whether somebody had him assigned to try to quieten things down. Maybe that was it. I don't know, because that's what he was trying to do.	16:23
Kara Miles	Which churches were supportive and which ones were critical?	16:51
Margaret Alexander Alexander	I don't know. I can't really say that any church was critical. I can't say that anyone was critical. I might say that some was dragging their feet and didn't do as much as they could, but I wouldn't care to start pointing out which ones did and which ones didn't. Because we had meetings in churches most of the time, at that time, because we didn't have hotels and all to go to. So we met in churches and homes.	17:02
Margaret Alexander Alexander	People had to open up their homes for you, and we had a lot of ministers that cooperated. So I would say we had had more cooperating than we did not cooperating. But of course, those that were cooperating, maybe some of them could have done more than they did so far as getting members. Just as it is today. They could do more today in getting people to join and speaking out and doing things maybe than they are doing. Some do and some don't.	17:40
Kara Miles	I wanted to go back to your childhood and things. Tell me about your schools, like your elementary school.	18:24
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Well, at elementary school, we had from one to six grade. We had—Let me see. What do you want to know about that? Want to know about—Oh, well in first grade, I know they taught, I can recall Ms. Tyson had this chart on the wall with the phonics. I mean they taught with phonics and like that at that time. We had the Blue Speller and you had to do your spelling. They told stories in the second grade. I can recall dramatizing Rumpelstiltskin and different things like that.	18:37
Margaret Alexander Alexander	We'd have for PTA, we'd have to present some type of program and they would have different little projects that you would do. So the parents fix up the room and do these things. So the parents would go around to the rooms and see all that. We'd have a mayday program or something out on the yard, playing on the yard. A lot of activities on the school ground.	19:31
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And when it was raining or something, we would stay in and go—Well, some teacher's room there for recess, like that. That was a time when I was in school too, was during the time they had this, was it WPA or something? When they gave the sandwiches, peanut butter sandwiches. And they had I think some kind of material or something that they used to give to the people to make dresses, things. Some of the kids got that kind of thing. I remember that peanut butter used to smell so good. I'd want some of it, but I was a little chubby. They told me that I was a little chubby girl and they wouldn't give me any of the peanut butter, but I think they's telling me that because I understand years later I believe only certain people were supposed to get that.	20:05
Margaret Alexander Alexander	But they'd tell me I was too overweight or something and I couldn't get any. But I helped to make the sandwiches and all, but I couldn't get any of it. And I had my mother to buy some because that peanut butter look like it was good creamy peanut butter. And the kind that we'd have at home, it seem like it was those big old cans of peanut butter they had, but I never got any of it. And let me see from—Okay, second grade. And I remember Ms. Young Harris was my second grade teacher and I was kind of a little devilish little girl in second grade.	20:52
Margaret Alexander Alexander	She would—Well, if I was dissatisfied with something, I would ask to be excused and to go downstairs there to the—I wanted to go to the restroom I'd say. And I'd pass the restroom and go up the hill and home because I wasn't very far from the school. And I'd go home and my mother would bring me right back. And sometimes when Ms. Young Harris would punish me, I mean, I'd be doing something and she'd make me go back there and sit behind the desk while she was reading a story. I would get up and make a face at the students. They would laugh and point at me and then she would have to make me come out and sit in front of her so that I would—Because she couldn't read the story for me getting up. Every time I'd ease up and look and make a face at the class and they would laugh.	21:34
Margaret Alexander Alexander	So she'd call me up and when time come after giving her all this trouble, because she was a little thin—Looked like a little girl herself. She was thin and short and cute little lady, and we were just about as tall as she was. And when time come to go to third grade, I didn't want to go. I wanted to stay with her but I had to go. And I told her years later, because we are friends now, I see her occasionally at social functions. And I said, "I know you were glad when it was time for me to get out of your—" She said, "No." But anyway, I had to go on to third, but I wanted her to come on up to third grade and be with us. But I had to go on to third. But that third grade teacher, she was, what, say tough or strict, Ms. Tyson.	22:36
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And third grade and then fourth. My sixth grade teacher, yeah, I used to like her a lot. Ms. Scott. Matter of fact, we would go to her house sometimes on Sundays. I know she didn't want be bothered with us on Sunday, but she was very nice to us when we would come. And that's another thing it reminds me too, when we were young, we did a lot of bus riding to the end of the bus and one of the long rides was out to Hoskin and we would get off the bus out there—No, bus or street car? Street car, I think it was. Because street cars, I believe it was about 7 cents, and the street car was just about a block from my house up on the corner of Davidson and 11th.	23:32
Margaret Alexander Alexander	So I'd walk up there, we'd catch the bus, go to Square and change, get on another bus, and take us wherever we wanted to go. That was a big thing on Sunday. We'd ride. When we weren't doing that, when we'd go out to Hoskin, we'd get off the bus out there and we would walk around and somebody had a tire in the tree. We didn't know who it was, but we'd go out there and ride on this tire in the tree, they wouldn't bother us. They let us ride on that in somebody's yard out there, and then we would get the next street car. I guess it was a street car. Yeah. We'd go up, come on back home.	24:23
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Another Sunday maybe we'd go out to the Armory Auditorium. We'd take a camera, take pictures out there. They had statues out there, you could get on and sit in the grass. And we would stop at a drug store and get us some ice cream regardless to how cold or how whatever. We'd get us some ice cream, sherbet, and then we'd walk and talk. We liked to go to the movies. They had those cliff hangers so that you could come back again. So two or three times a week I guess you'd be going to the movies, in the summer. That was the form of a recreation that we had.	25:03
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Let's see what else? It was something else crossed my mind that I'm about to forget. I'm trying to think of all these things that we did. Okay, we went bus riding and something else came in my mind and it just left. Ask me something.	25:46
Karen Ferguson	Which movie theater was this that you-	26:26
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Oh, the Lincoln Theater. The Lincoln Theater, that was on First Street. And we would walk. We'd walk over there. And coming back, I think this is what I was thinking about, we would be discussing what—Because we'd set there and see it twice, the movie. And then we would come back and my girlfriend Inez and sometimes Willie May and I would go, and we'd come back discussing what had happened.	26:27
Margaret Alexander Alexander	They'd see it one way sometimes and I'd see it another way. And then, whoever would get mad at the other one, we'd start walking fast in front of the other one, because by the time you got home, everything was all right. If it wasn't, my girlfriend, she would just go on to my house just like it was hers because she knew my mother was going to give her breakfast the next morning or whatever when she'd come.	26:58
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And if we'd get angry coming from high school, she'd go on there because she know mama was going to give her dinner or what—We'd be right next morning going on back to school together and everything was fine. But we'd have those little discussions and everything. We told everybody that we were cousins but we weren't cousins but we felt like cousins. So we'd tell them that we were cousins and most of her—Because her mother was dead, Inez's mother was dead. She lived with a great aunt and a couple other aunts would from time to time lived there. And so, she used my house kind of like hers.	27:22
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Because she lived around the corner from me at one point and then another way, another time. And my mother was real nice to her. Oh and another, I remember one time we went downtown and we saw these dresses, evening dresses, with the bustle on the back. It was a pink taffeta evening dress with a bustle on the back. Beautiful, flowered, hat to go with the dress, flowered thing, shaped like a heart, to go with—Inez wanted the dress and I wanted the dress, but I got the dress, and she had someone to make her a blue taffeta one similar to that. So she bought the blue taffeta material and got a bustle on back and everything and made it similar to that.	28:08
Margaret Alexander Alexander	But it was a lot of competition between the kids at that time, even in church. One trying to say their recitation better than the other one. And we were in the—Got all dressed up on Easter in those days and stood out there and say your speech. And we were in the choir and we would on those holidays, you'd sing your little songs on that. What else did we do in there? Oh, Sunday School. Sometimes we teach the class, and Bible school. I remember one summer we combined with another church, Little Rock Zion Church and I believe Seventh Street Presbyterian Church, all those churches went together that summer for Bible School. And I taught Bible school that summer, and different little things like that.	29:03
Margaret Alexander Alexander	It was really nice. Oh lord, you stay in church just about all day Sunday. You'd have the morning service and then you'd have something at three o'clock, then you'd have BYPU around five and then you'd go into the evening service that night. But now they don't have quite as many services like that. Well, we didn't have nothing else much to do, and that kept you occupied and gave you something to do. And I told you about the paper dolls. We played with the paper dolls and all that.	30:08
Karen Ferguson	What's the BYPU?	30:46
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Baptist Training—B-Y, Youth Training Union. They called it BYPU.	30:49
Karen Ferguson	So that was a youth organization that met—	31:01
Margaret Alexander Alexander	At church. That was a church, yeah, that we had. It was connected with the Baptist church. That was the Mount Mariah Primitive Baptist is the church that I grew up in. And after I married, I joined my husband's church, Friendship Missionary Baptist Church. So that's the church I'm affiliated with now, but I call Mount Mariah, my roots because that's where I grew up in that church. And matter of fact, I joined there around 12 years old. I joined Mount Mariah and then joined—In '52, I joined Friendship because I was taking the kids back to—Kelly Junior, back when I was pregnant with Alfred, I joined Friendship so that I wouldn't be taking him here, there and yonder. Although my husband's mother was a Presbyterian and his daddy was Baptist, Friendship Baptist. And his mother was Seventh Street Presbyterian.	31:04
Kara Miles	What was the baptism ritual when you were baptized?	32:19
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Underwater? Merged underwater, you mean?	32:22
Kara Miles	Did you go to a creek or was there a-	32:26
Margaret Alexander Alexander	No, no, pool.	32:28
Kara Miles	Okay.	32:29
Margaret Alexander Alexander	It was a pool. It was a pool in the church. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah, it was a pool in my church. And then getting back to that kind of thing, we were fortunate enough to have—Because along when I was coming up, a lot of people had privets out in the—But we had a commode on our back porch. So although we didn't have a tub, we used a tin tub and put the water in like that for the bath for a while, but that didn't last very long, because my daddy was, as I say, was into all this different things and we got us a bathroom shortly. First of all though, he enclosed the back porch and made a kitchen out there and the commode was out there.	32:29
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Then we later added some more rooms to the house and got a bathroom. But some of the people right back of us, they had this outhouse there and then those who lived next door to us, had a outhouse there. And across the street they had a outhouse. But we did have—And we had the lights. We were one of the first—Because first we had lamps and then—That's when I was little. And then we soon got the electric lights like that, and then daddy made the side things.	33:22
Karen Ferguson	Do you know what Blue Heaven is?	34:07
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Yeah. Over in Brooklyn area. That was over in the Brooklyn area. Uh-huh. Are you a Charlotte person?	34:09
Karen Ferguson	No, but someone has mentioned—	34:15
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Blue Heaven?	34:17
Karen Ferguson	Blue Heaven and we're trying to find out more about—	34:18
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Yeah, yeah, Blue Heaven. I think Blue Heaven was over in the Brooklyn section or either—Let's see, was it over the Third Ward section? Because we had First Ward, Second Ward, and Third Ward, and Fourth Ward, I believe was the wards. The Brooklyn was in Second Ward I think it was. And First Ward, and I said we had the Cody Town, all over there. Then you had the Greenville section, and over by the hospital, Good Samaritan. What was that over there? Third, I think they called that—I don't know what they called—The Third Ward seemed like to me they called over by the hospital, Good Samaritan and over in there, I think they called that Third Ward.	34:18
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Not sure, but I think so. I think that's what they called it. But yeah, they had all those little sections and some didn't want the others over in their section. The boys and all, they say they started rocking. One section would start rocking the other section, when you come so far, and all that kind of thing. But I mean, I didn't get into all that. I was mostly in my little section over in First Ward until went to school over in Second Ward High School. And I did go over to activity with—Because this girl Inez went to school over in the Greenville section for a while, because her father lived out in that area and her mother was dead.	35:06
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And she stayed with him a while and went to school out there, and I went and visited her time or two out there. Then we had a theater, Grand Theater was out on Beatties Ford Road near the university, near Johnson C. Smith. We had a theater called Grand Theater down there, and we'd go occasionally to that. And it was another theater down on McDowell Street. What was that called? I forgot the name of that theater on McDowell Street. I went down there a time or two after my children grew up. I didn't go down there too much. Most of the time I went to the Lincoln Theater over in Brooklyn.	35:51
Karen Ferguson	Were these theaters, the Lincoln and the Grand, were they Black theaters?	36:33
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Yes.	36:34
Karen Ferguson	Okay.	36:34
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Yes. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah, because downtown they had the other theaters and we didn't go there. And I mentioned the Black and White faucets and all that stuff they had downtown in the stores. And lunch counters, they had where the Whites could eat, but I mean, I'd go in stores, I'd just pass on by and go on and get what I had to do. And then later they opened up a place downstairs where you could go, but I mean, I never bothered about going to eat up there. I had plenty to eat at home. And I'd go up there and do what I had to do and come on back.	36:35
Karen Ferguson	What about Blue Heaven? We heard that it was kind of a bad part of town.	37:18
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Yeah.	37:22
Karen Ferguson	Is that—	37:22
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Well, I really don't know. See, I mean, I didn't go to Blue Heaven.	37:23
Karen Ferguson	Oh, okay.	37:26
Margaret Alexander Alexander	So I don't know what Blue Heaven was. Seemed like it was the House of Prayer over in that area, first I believe. I don't know where the house—Because at one point the House of Prayer had the sawdust on the floors and stuff like that, and I don't know whether that was called Blue Heaven. I think that was Blue Heaven down in there where it was, but then they moved out on McDowell Street. But I didn't go. I think now my next door neighbors belonged to the House of Prayer and I went with them one time to the House of Prayer when it was down there, but that was about the extent of my Blue Heaven.	37:26
Kara Miles	What was the House of Prayer like?	38:14
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Well, it was their church and everybody worship differently. They had a parade every year that I used to go to see that. We would be up on McDowell Street, they'd go McDowell, and I forgot the route now that they take, but I remember standing up on one of those churches, standing up on the steps of—I think it was the Presbyterian church that was there on McDowell Street, and I stood up on that steps and watched it. And then, another time I was on somebody's porch across the street that I knew, and watched the parade go by.	38:18
Margaret Alexander Alexander	They still have the parade, they're up here now, but I couldn't tell you about their rituals and all that kind of thing. They had Sweet Daddy Grace was down there then. And then they got McCullough, Sweet Daddy McCullough. And I don't know who it is now because I think they got a new, since he died. It's somebody else now. And I don't know who it is, but we—Well, I won't say we didn't bury him, but we were—When Sweet Daddy Grace died, Alexander's was in charge of his remains while he was here in Charlotte, and on display and everything here in Charlotte.	39:11
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And my husband and those were invited sometimes down there when they would come in town to whatever they would have with dinners or something. I don't know. I was not included in that piece of business. I was at home rearing the children while he was traveling all over North Carolina, taking care of NAACP business and Alexander Funeral Home business. I was at home with the kids. And I don't regret, I might say too, I don't regret staying at home with the children and doing—Because I think it's paying off now when I see them doing what they are doing and developing into the fine young men that I naturally, I think they are.	40:06
Margaret Alexander Alexander	I get comments from other people pertaining to the same, that makes me feel very proud of them. And so, that's my reward, seeing them develop into the kind of people that they are now. And I have my grands, got my grandchildren that keep me busy now. Little Kelly was here yesterday. And then Nathaniel, Alfred's son is Nathanael. That's N-A-T-H-A-N-A-E-L. We spell it the way it is in the Bible. A gift from God. And Kelly's named for his father, the third. And they're quite a little—And then Alfred has a stepson, Desmond Fifa. He's married again.	41:00
Kara Miles	Where did you meet your husband?	41:52
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Here in Charlotte. Yeah. Well you—All right. Let's see, now I knew of Kelly because when I was going back and forth to the—Now, they were prominent people in Charlotte. Everybody knew, they had funeral home, and being in the public eye, we knew them. And his father before him was—In fact he, Papa, I think ran for something one time. I done forgot what it was now, whether it was council or something. And I call him Papa, my husband's daddy, father. But anyway, I had seen him standing out in front of the funeral home when we passed by, but I mean, he never—I was just another person passing by the funeral home because I felt that he was older than I was.	41:53
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And so, I was not looking at him or he wasn't looking at me. But now, when we first actually met, he was working for the Afro American newspaper, and I was May Queen at the school in '41 and '42, and he wanted my picture to go in the Afro newspaper. And he came down to the school, went to the principal's office, asked for—Wanted to get the picture, told him what he wanted. And they told him that I was in Mr. Wiley's room, I think, upstairs in a class. And he came up there and asked him if he would let me go and get the picture.	42:49
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And they did let me go and get the picture and bring back to him. So he took me home, very nice, brought me back to school, got the picture and put it in the paper. Then he mailed me the picture back, because I wanted my picture back and he mailed it back. And the first time I knew that he was interested in me was my boyfriend was in the service, Clarence, was in the service.	43:37
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Now they all were friends, the family. In fact, Clarence's mother and father lived about three or four houses below Kelly. And I passed Kelly's house going down to Clarence's house. And I guess he'd seen me passing by there, but he'd say nothing to me and I hadn't said anything to him. And when Clarence was in service, Grace Lurks was having a party out at her house during the summer. I was in college at the time and invited Inez, Willie May, Nanie, and all of us to the party. And she said at that time when she was inviting me to the party, she said, "You know who asked if you were going to be at the party?" And I said, "No, who?" And she said, "Kelly Alexander."	44:05
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And I said, "Oh, he did?" I mean, that was the first I knew that he had even looked at me. And so, all of us went to the party, because our boyfriends were in service and we went to her party and she lived out on Baldwin Avenue across the street from my husband's brother and sister-in-law. That was the Cherry section of Charlotte. I had forgotten about that section.	44:54
Margaret Alexander Alexander	We went to the party and in walks Kelly with another girl. She was visiting Charlotte from New York or somewhere up north. Her relatives were friends of Kelly's mother's, and they had asked him to show her around and he took her to the party. But we didn't know that. Anyway, before the evening was over, we did talk, and all of my friends though, were looking at Kelly because he was an eligible bachelor. And I think they were trying to see which one would he be talking to. So then, anyway, he got around to—He took the girl home and then he got around to talking. And then he wanted to let me know that he was not trying to move in on my boyfriend or nothing, he just wanted to show me a nice time while I was home for the summer.	45:25
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And so, he called me after that and we went out riding. I'd take my girlfriends along with me, and then some of the boys in the Scorpions Club started writing my boyfriend and letting him know. And of course, I admitted it, that yes, indeed, I had been riding. And so, after a while, Kelly was getting ready to go to New York to embalming—	46:32

Margaret Alexander Alexander	—and wanted to know how I felt about it. And so then by that time, I had started liking him and everything. So I wrote my boyfriend and let him know and—Because he said in going to New York, he wanted to know so that when he went, he was going to embalming school and that he would know how to act up there. And so I had to give him my answer. And from then on and when he came home that Christmas, he brought an engagement ring. He been asking me about the size of my finger, my finger size and I didn't know what—I knew what my graduation ring was on my—what it was, the size of that. And he had taken that ring and put on the other hand and determined himself whether it was, I don't remember if it was larger or smaller, but he had gotten it together.	0:01
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And every time he'd write me to tell him about the size, I'd forget to get it measured when I go town. But when he came home Christmas, he had the ring and it fit. It's the same ring that I wear today. And he bought the wedding band in Charlotte and the engagement was in—That was platinum. And he had the ring in a large box about—Looked like it might have been a coat or a dress or something. And then about four or five boxes down, each one wrapped. And I got to the last box and opened that and my mouth flew open looking at that because I wasn't expecting it. And I told him he'd have to ask my parents about it. And he did. And we were the old fashioned way. And he asked them and my parents said, "Well, we did want Margaret to finish school." And he said, "I want her to finish school too. And she will finish school."	1:05
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Because at that time, parents were worried about you getting pregnant or something and wouldn't be able to—They didn't have it like it is now that you could go to school pregnant. You'd have to stop. Teachers weren't even allowed to teach pregnant. All those kind of rules. So we promised we would wait, but this long—We waited a year and four months before we married and Kelly was getting all anxious and everything and even suggested eloping. And I said, "No, we can't do that. We can't do that because we promised. We made a promise." And that's why we married on Easter Sunday morning, is because he was worrying me to death.	2:16
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And I said to let him know that I was really sincere about it, wanting to do it. But I just wanted to wait till I finish. And we'd waited that long and I knew I'd be graduating in May or June and I asked my parents when I came home for my weekend. I'd come as often as I could to Charlotte because he kept the telephone hot up there from here to Durham and wherever he was. And he wrote the longest letters. Some I still have. And he could make you think.	3:06
Kara Miles	You were talking about getting married on Easter Sunday, I think.	3:43
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Uh-huh. Yes, well, I—Oh, and I was talking about his letters and everything too, wasn't I?	3:47
Kara Miles	Oh, right. Yeah, that's right.	3:52
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Yeah. And he'd write these long letters and as I said previously, Kelly was a real good conversationalist. You could think something was one color and when he finished with it, you'd come around to his way of thinking because he could really expound on and could write and he would write these long business page letters. But he wrote large and I could hardly get a couple of pages. I wrote smaller than he did and then I'd have a smaller stationery and I'd write—I'd do good if I'd get three or four pages.	3:53
Margaret Alexander Alexander	But he would write 9, 10, just—And then he would always send you some type of something that he had taken out of the newspaper or a poem or something he'd have sticking in there and all. But anyway, we became engaged. Engaged for a year and four months. And then we married Easter Sunday morning, 6:00. And I told you about the rest. The rest is history.	4:37
Kara Miles	Why did you choose to go to North Carolina Central? Well—	5:11
Karen Ferguson	College for Negroes.	5:14
Kara Miles	Yeah.	5:15
Margaret Alexander Alexander	I was looking at a couple of schools. I looked at Bennett and I looked at North Carolina College. Ms. Carson, my seventh—She really was a homeroom teacher and she was my play mother in high school, that she was the one I'd leave my lunch with because my mother would fix my lunch every day in my little brown bag, and just I like spice ham and I would buy milk to go along with that. And sometimes a bun, cinnamon bun. But my lunch, usually, that's what I would have and she would keep my lunch for me. She was a home economics teacher and my homeroom teacher. And she counseled me into—She said I thought that a co-ed school would be better to go to than the all girls school. And that's why I went.	5:17
Karen Ferguson	Why did she think a co-ed school was better?	6:17
Margaret Alexander Alexander	I don't know why she thought that, but that's what she told me. Because I had thought about the two schools and I felt I took her suggestion about it because, well, I had a lot of respect for her and I thought that she knew what she was talking about. And as I said, my parents weren't college people, so I took her suggestion.	6:17
Karen Ferguson	What's a play mother?	6:42
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Well, that's a term that they use. Play mother, that's just someone that you like and respect and a confidant type of individual.	6:44
Karen Ferguson	So you said your parents weren't able to get very much education and—How were you able to go away to college?	7:00
Margaret Alexander Alexander	They sent me.	7:12
Karen Ferguson	They did?	7:13
Margaret Alexander Alexander	They did. Yeah.	7:13
Karen Ferguson	They were able to pay for it?	7:14
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. My parents paid for my education. Uh-huh. Well, see, times were different when they came along. Course, my mother told me that she played hooky. That mother thought she was going to school and she and her friends would be stopping on the way and didn't go. Regretted it immensely. And that's why she wanted so very much for me to have an education. In fact, I had what, I guess, you would call now a tutor. I didn't know that's what it was at the time, but was someone to help and to see to it that I got my lessons out before I got to the movies or any place else. I had to do it.	7:15
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And although they didn't have it, but they saw to it that I got it. And that's why my father said, "I did want Margaret to finish college before marrying." And that's why I went on and finished. I finished college. Well, I mean, I finished a couple of months or so after I married and my husband came up to my graduation and with my father. My mother came for the pre activities and lived there on the campus.	8:05
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And then I came back home to my husband's family's house and it was the hardest thing for me to not to go over to my parents house every day. He had to tell me that, "Now, you can't go over there every day. You got to learn how to take care of me." And I did because I knew nothing about taking care of a husband. I hadn't been taught because everything had been done for me all my life. And I had to really cry to do certain things, to cook or something, because I knew nothing about what was expected of me of married life.	8:37
Margaret Alexander Alexander	I had lived in a dream world. And because I like to go to the movies, I like to look at. I picture my girlfriend and I, we'd look in picture book or something, and we, "We're going to have a house like this and we going to do this." You know how kids do. And I had said too that I was going to marry Alexander and I didn't know I was going to marry Alexander. But I mean, I didn't want to change my name and it fell right in. I didn't. But I didn't know it at the time that I was, but we would say. She would say what she wanted to do or what she wanted to be, and—just playing. But anyway—Now, what was that question? You know, I have a way of doing—	9:16
Karen Ferguson	I was just asking about how you—	9:58
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Oh, got to school?	10:00
Karen Ferguson	—got to school.	10:01
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Oh, yeah. And so they paid for it. Uh-huh. Yeah, they paid for.	10:02
Karen Ferguson	Now, did most of your friends from high school, did they go to college? No?	10:04
Margaret Alexander Alexander	No.	10:11
Karen Ferguson	So you were unusual in that respect?	10:12
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Yeah. Mm-hmm.	10:14
Karen Ferguson	[indistinct 00:10:24].	10:15
Kara Miles	Okay. Just one more thing. What is Alpha Chi? You mentioned that.	10:24
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Oh, that was a chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. That was the name of the chapter there at North Carolina College for Negroes.	10:29
Kara Miles	And why did you choose that sorority as opposed to any of the others—	10:39
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Any other sororities? I guess they kind of got me instead of—Well, I'll tell you how. I knew of Alpha Kappa Alpha. I knew some teachers here and they used to have plays at school. So most of the people that I knew were Alpha Kappa Alpha women. Mildred Aldridge and Ms. Brody and different ones that had been down at Second Ward. But when I went to school, I didn't think about pledging either way. Everybody was rushing you. Matter of fact, the Deltas had more things than the AKAs had at that time because it looked like they were trying to be so—I should say we were trying to be so exclusive and all that kind of thing at that time that we didn't have too many to pledge AKA.	10:43
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Deltas had a pretty good line because they had entertained all of the freshmen and they would have these contests, what you call singing and dancing and doing all these different things. And one day, I was going across the campus and this little girl from—She was in AKA from New Orleans, Wanda something, what was her name? But anyway, she had long hair down the back and she told me that they were having a meeting up in the seniors' dormitory. And they wanted me to come to that meeting and because as I say, first time, they only had two people to go over. It was a couple of girls from New Orleans in my freshman class that went over in the Alpha Kappa Alpha. And this girl told me she wanted me to come up to this room—	11:38
Margaret Alexander Alexander	That's—hear the birds in the (laughs) chimney, something has got in the chimney—	12:42
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And when I went up there, it was in my homie's room, a girl named Mary Jameson from Charlotte within AKA. And it was in her room that we had this meeting and Helen Phillips and some of my homies and different ones were there and they told us about the sorority and wonderful and our relief club. And so I became a member of that club. I liked what I heard and I became a member of the club. And then of course, they had to watch out what we did and our grades played a important part as to whether you become a member or not and whether you could go over. And that's the way it started. And then I went over my junior year.	12:47
Karen Ferguson	I wanted to ask you something about the Second World War. A lot of boys you knew went into the service or—	13:45
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Well, I guess a lot of my classmates, I mean, my—well, he wasn't my classmate, he was a few years ahead of me. My boyfriend was a few years ahead of me. I mean, it just—Well, I had a cousin, a cousin that went.	13:55
Karen Ferguson	Did they talk anything about their experiences in the service, in a segregated service at all?	14:25
Margaret Alexander Alexander	No. I didn't know. I didn't get any of those conversations.	14:31
Karen Ferguson	Did you see any change in them when they got back from the war?	14:37
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Well, when he got back from the war, you know, I had moved on.	14:41
Karen Ferguson	Right, right. (laughing)	14:45
Margaret Alexander Alexander	(laughs)	14:45
Karen Ferguson	I was thinking about maybe other people—okay, okay. And I have one other question about your father. You said he did a lot of carpentry and masonry. Did he work for—	14:46
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Himself.	15:00
Karen Ferguson	He worked for himself. Did he work on just in the Black community or did he work in White people's houses?	15:01
Margaret Alexander Alexander	I guess, any place he could get work.	15:09
Karen Ferguson	Right. So he wasn't excluded though from working in White people's houses or on White owned businesses or that kind of thing?	15:14
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Yeah, not that I know of. But I was so young that at the time, they didn't discuss all that with me. So I don't know where his jobs—All I knew he was working and the results of the work where the family was concerned. I don't know where—	15:24
Kara Miles	Well, is there—I think we're out of questions. Is there anything else that you think we should know that you would like to tell us about your life during this period that we might not have asked you? It's okay.	15:52
Margaret Alexander Alexander	I don't know what to say other than I feel that I've been truly blessed in my life during my lifetime. I look back now and I say that the Lord has really been good to me because my mother and father took good care of me. And when I left them and married Kelly, he took good care of me. And because I really haven't had any—I've been protected all my life. I'm seeing and having to do more now than ever since his death in '85. But he prepared me, tried to prepare me before he died as to—Because see, he was buying the groceries and just doing everything because, well, I tried for a while but he saw I didn't know what I was doing. So he had to take over those responsibilities.	16:15
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Matter of fact, he said his mother wondered, "Where in the world did you get this girl? She doesn't know how to do anything." But he said, "Have patience with her and teach her." And I was a willing subject. I wanted to learn. I wanted to be a good wife and mother once I had children. And so I tried to do that. But it was a on the job learning experience. First, I didn't know how to cook. So I had to learn how to do that. She helped me with that. And that didn't work. He wanted me to stay there and see how to take care of him. I thought I was going to be his secretary after school because I had taken commercial education and they would bring people in to interview you and try to place you in jobs.	17:20
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And we were engaged, you see, I told you at the time. And he said, "Don't have anybody interview you because you're going to be working for me when you come home. You're going to be my secretary." I had visualized myself going to the office every day at the funeral home, going to be his secretary there. And when I got home, he had a secretary. Had one all the time and he still had a secretary. So he said, "You stay home and take care of me. Learn how to take care." Well, I had to learn how to take care of him because I sure didn't know how to take care of him. So I had to learn that. And when his mother gave me the clothes, his clothes to—I said, "What's this?" And she said, "Those are his clothes. He said they're yours. Said these are yours now. So I'm glad to be free of them."	18:16
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And I looked at those clothes and oh, my goodness. I said, "What in the world am I going to do with these?" Because he was stout and just big pajamas and all that. I never washed anything that large and because I just washed my things at school. But I knew I wanted to be a good wife. So I asked her, so she said, "You can send them to the laundry if you want to or you can use my machine." She had one of those old fashioned machines and then you wrang through the mangle and all. "Or just whatever you want to do, they're yours." And I looked at them and I said, "Well, I'll use the machine. Show me how to use that." So she did and I washed them.	19:08
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And the first chicken I tried to cook, it was so white looking. (laughs) And I had to ask Tim to show me how to get those drumsticks out of that little piece that goes across there. I knew it was supposed to come out, but I couldn't get it out. So he came in to help me to get that out. And potato salad, I forgot you was supposed to let the potatoes cool before putting the salad dressing in it. And it just ran through. I had everything else, the celery, the onion, the pickle and everything in it, but didn't hold together.	20:01
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And I wonder, "Why in the world it's not holding together?" And then when it started getting cool and kind of getting together, but it was still wasn't as nice as it was supposed to be. And then I'd done, oh, well, I was supposed to let the potatoes get cold. Well, I knew the next time. But we ate it. But when he brought a duck home and I had never eaten a duck before, a greasy duck. He had to take that to his mother to prepare.	20:42
Margaret Alexander Alexander	But he had a lot of patience with me and I learned and developed and to be a pretty good cook after that. And because in ACP people, when they would come, they would come here to the house and we had to prepare food for them and they would get right in and help the regional director and the youth director, all of them. They would come and then from one group at the table and another group and like that because he would have a lot of his meetings.	21:07
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Although when we got—So that we would have the meetings at the hotel, if it's something we meet here in Charlotte, he would bring somebody out here and for little conferences or whatever. And the house was always full. Now, we used to say that the house was on the side of the road for everybody to come because they would all come there. His father was into masonic work. So all those masonic people would come. And from that to the NACP crowd. And so that the kids were exposed to all of those individuals coming and going.	21:50
Karen Ferguson	Did those people came, did they stay in your house or did they—Was there a Black hotel in Charlotte?	22:31
Margaret Alexander Alexander	We had one Black hotel, Alexander's, but they were not related to me however, but Jay Eugene, he was my doctor, however. He delivered my first baby, Kelly. But he and his wife Bobby, Bobby was my homeroom teacher too, down in Second Ward High School. And they had the hotel over on 9th and McDowell and that's where we would have—The people would stay there. But before that, they stayed in homes. We've had any number, the people did stay in our—Yeah.	22:37
Karen Ferguson	Do you know approximately when they opened that hotel?	23:17
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Maybe in the—I want to say maybe '50s or '60s, something like that.	23:26
Karen Ferguson	Oh, okay. So it wasn't until then.	23:35
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Yeah. Something like that. Uh-huh. I got a picture somewhere of that hotel though in some of my things. I got the picture of the hotel and got so many little packages of this, that and the other there because on the table there, I got scholarship material that I've been going through. They have a scholarship named my husband's name. And we'd gotten applicants from that and I'd been going through those. And then R.J. Reynold's is establishing—Of course, I mean, I don't suppose I should be saying that right now because it's not even been in the papers or anything now. But we do have the money in the bank that we are getting ready for this, their name in it. And my name and my husband's name. And so I was just so pleased that they included me in that.	23:36
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And I was surprised too that they hadn't—But Mr. Ruffins was talking to me and, Ben Ruffin, and said that they were establishing the Margaret and Kelly Alexander's scholarship. So we were hoping to give two this year, $1,000 for this year and then maybe more next year. And this other one, we give $3,000 each, three people, $1,000 each, doing they make it out to the school in Kelly's, that's the Kelly M. Alexander Memorial scholarship. And this year, however, I think we have—They gave us a little—That's the Carolina telephone people that gave that one. Carolina telephone. And we are going to give about four in that. We added a little bit more money this time.	24:31
Margaret Alexander Alexander	But we got to really get to work on it and get some more money in the fund because you get so many people, deserving people, and you just can hardly pick out three or two or whatever and you just wish you had 10 or 15 that you could give. When you don't have the funds, you can't do it. So we've really got to get to work and try to build up the funds so that we can give more in the scholarship money. I don't know, I was going to show you though, I had picture that I pulled out of my mother and father and that book right there under there—	25:36
Karen Ferguson	Is this the church book?	26:19
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Yeah. Now, the church book, I had done some reflections on in that book where I got this papers. There, you'll see a picture of my mother and father. That's my mother and father in front of the house. And then here in this other page is a reflection that I did when they had their centennial at Mount Moriah. And I did that reflecting on my upbringing in Mount Moriah church. And now, that picture there is one that they had on—That's my husband there with the circle around and his brothers. And then they had family pictures around that that was on the wall at the Caroline building downtown for a while. But I think they took it down in January, I believe it was, or March or sometime that they took it down. But Pat Williams, I believe her name's Pat Williams. What's the name down there?	26:21
Karen Ferguson	Yeah. Pat Williams.	27:21
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Yeah. When she came and talked with me, pertaining to that and got some family pictures to put around. So he's got his mother and his father and different ones around there.	27:22
Karen Ferguson	Are there other [indistinct 00:27:32]?	27:30
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Yeah, they had several artist commissioned to do walls on that building downtown. And that was one of the walls about 15 feet high in the lobby.	27:32
Karen Ferguson	And she did all of them?	27:45
Margaret Alexander Alexander	No, no. They had different.	27:46
Karen Ferguson	Okay, I see.	27:47
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Different. But as you flip through that book, you'll see the different pictures.	27:47
Karen Ferguson	Why was he known as Shipwreck?	27:54
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Well, that was ball—yeah, he was on a football team and they called them Shipwreck. Must have been tough. So some of them called him that. And some of his friends called him the Bear. He's large at that time as he grew older, the however—we fall off a little bit as we grow. I can walk this far with this, get this.	27:56
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Oh, we gave his papers to North Carolina. Yeah, see, the university. This is something on that. But now this is my husband, that was his—And this is—I thought, "Oh, no. They not going to let me be no May Queen two years." But we had gone out on a science field trip and when I came back, the voting had—They had finished with the voting and I found out that I had been chosen for it. Now, I have a motion picture of the—I mean, it's a video situation that they took when we were in high school and it's showing—It was the year that I was May Queen, and we all had to go out on the lawn for this.	28:28
Margaret Alexander Alexander	The coloring is not good, not like it is now. But we had to go out and they had the patrols and the different classes and the walking right fast, you know. And then the May Court was out there and all that. And someone told me when they had the Second Ward alumni reunion, that they were showing that. And so I asked them could I get a tape? And so for $15, I was able to buy one of the tapes. So I got that in my collection.	29:21
Karen Ferguson	We're collecting photographs and films and all kinds of things for this and we would love to have a copy of that video.	29:51
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Yeah. I don't know whether you—I got it from Ely because it's not too—It's kind of shaky because it's old. But anyway, I wanted a copy of it because that was, I don't know if they did any more video and anything of it, of the school, but that was long—Oh, man, that was—Because what was that? That was in '40 something. '41 or '42.	29:58
Karen Ferguson	If we got into touch with the alumni association.	30:25
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Vermelle Ely would know because I think you said she's on your list to talk to.	30:27
Karen Ferguson	That's right. She's been sort of one of our main contacts.	30:38
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Well, she's the one I got it from. She knew the person that did it and the gentleman, and I gave her the money, gave it to him. I forgot who I gave the money to, but I know I did get the tape. And also these people that I told you that this was my second interview when these people came out to talk to me about King, Martin Luther King. And they sent me the video of that. The whole—	30:38
Karen Ferguson	Of the interview?	31:05
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Uh-huh. Of the interview. Yes. So I got that. And with Doug Maze, it was with him. He's an old person that was with the station a long time. He's still with them. But he's very nice man. And I was glad that she sent me Susan, I think her name was. And she sent the tape to me. And because they only had just a little bit of it on the television but I got the whole thing.	31:06
Margaret Alexander Alexander	And, oh, I said I was going to get that history to get those dates for you. Because what we are doing now, this is our 50th year with the North Carolina State Conference and we are trying to get history from the different chapters over the state. And we'll be meeting in Greenville, North Carolina in October. And we wanted to put on display some of the books that we're getting from the branch. But they are not, some of them don't want to give up their books and then some don't have them. The history has gotten away. But we thought if we start now, that they could kind of get things together and we could put them on display since that's the 50th year. I've been working on this Charlotte history and I do have three books that I've gotten together for that.	31:33
Margaret Alexander Alexander	But the North Carolina State Conference, I got pictures and material, but I haven't got started. But I said I got to get started on that so that I can put that together before October to have for them do that. But I wanted a large scrapbook and you can only get them so large in the stores, you'd have to order. And I saw something the other night up there with Dr. Humphreys' appreciation. The man had gotten some kind of material, plexiglass or something and made a scrapbook out of, and I'm thinking about maybe going to that place. I asked him where he got that and trying to get something put together to get these things on because some of my old news articles and that you want to because on this book, I had to cut them up and put them on there and put them on the page. But I'm going to let you flip through some of those and see that.	32:31
Kara Miles	We have a bunch of forms we need to fill out. I've got a lot of the information, different things. What's the zip code here?	33:31
Margaret Alexander Alexander	28216.	33:39
Kara Miles	Okay. And if your name appears in any written materials as a result of this, how do you want your name?	33:41
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Margaret Gilreece, G-I-L-R-E-E-C-E, Alexander Alexander.	33:52
Kara Miles	Okay.	34:03
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Or you can do Margaret G.A. So many people think that Gilreece is—That's from my father. But so many people think that that's my last name or something. But I say, "Well, I was Alexander before I married and then I married Alexander, but the Gilreece was my middle name." But in college, see, it's Margaret Gilreece Alexander. And then I married my senior year. So then another Alexander was tacked on to that. But when my husband was sending out resume, I mean, not resumes, but biographical sketches and so forth, and they read about your wife and some of them cut it off there at Margaret Gilreece, thinking that, "Oh, this must be a mistake or something with the two Alexanders there but—	34:03
Margaret Alexander Alexander	As my roommate used to say, it's Alexander square to the second power. And we are still in touch with each other, my college roommate. She lives in Detroit and since my husband's death, she's been coming to the NAACP meetings and staying with me as a guest. And we hadn't seen each other in about 40 years until about three or four years ago. And so we've just been really—Oh, we just had so much to talk about. And she has about 11 or 12 kids and she's been traveling different places going to see them because they live everywhere and she just has so much to talk about now. And she came from Boardman, North Carolina. That's a small place in North Carolina here. And the largest city is Whiteville, this near Boardman. And her children are always trying to get me to say how she was when she was coming up, and this that and the other. And I told them that she was not as outgoing as she is now.	34:46
Margaret Alexander Alexander	When she was in college, she said, "Well, Margaret, I hadn't been any place and I didn't know anything to talk about." But now, she's been exposed to all these things. So she runs her mouth a mile a minute now. (laughs) Tell her now, she has plenty to talk about now. So we have a—I said it looked like to me, I'm the dull one now and she's the outgoing person. But she keeps me in stitches laughing when we go—I'm hoping she'll be able to come this time. But she's been sick this year and I don't know if she's going to be able to make it or not. I talked with her the other day and told her I was going and she said she'd let me know further because she having some—	36:07
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Although she said she's going out to California to see her grandchild, but she said she's going to stay in the hotel because she doesn't want to have to do a lot of things she's not able to do like she'd been doing when she's around them. So I don't know if she's going to be able to make it this year or not. But we've enjoyed each other since that time.	36:49
Kara Miles	Okay. I need your date of birth again.	37:13
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Okay. September 20th, 1924.	37:15
Kara Miles	And you were born in Charlotte?	37:21
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Charlotte. Mm-hmm.	37:22
Kara Miles	Okay. And your husband's birth date?	37:24
Margaret Alexander Alexander	August 15—Wait, let me get this right. 18th. August 18th, 1915.	37:30
Kara Miles	Okay. And I know you said he died in 1985. [indistinct 00:37:41].	37:37
Margaret Alexander Alexander	April 2nd.	37:41
Kara Miles	And was he born in Charlotte?	37:43
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Mm-hmm.	37:45
Kara Miles	Okay. Got your mother's name. Do you know your mother's birthday?	37:50
Margaret Alexander Alexander	August. Oh, it's the first I think it was. I think is what—Let me look on these things here. Because really, to tell you the truth, my mother did not know her age. And we assigned—She knew she was born in August, but she didn't know her age. And we gave her—And we tried by the census and all that kind of stuff. And we ended up with—What did we end up with? August the 1st, 1903.	37:57
Kara Miles	And when did she die?	38:26
Margaret Alexander Alexander	She died in September 1976.	38:28
Kara Miles	And was she born in Charlotte?	38:35
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Mm-hmm. September 7th.	38:37
Kara Miles	Okay. And your father's birthday?	38:44
Margaret Alexander Alexander	September 5th, 1902. And he died in January 14th, 1984.	38:48
Kara Miles	And he was born in Charlotte also?	39:05
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Mm-hmm. [indistinct 00:39:15]. [indistinct 00:39:15]. That's right.	39:07
Kara Miles	And you didn't have any brothers or sisters.	39:27
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Well, I had that Earl when he was—he was stillborn. I mean, had his—So I guess I should count him. Although I did not know him. I didn't know him, but Mom and Daddy told me.	39:35
Kara Miles	And Kelly Jr. was your first son?	40:00
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Mm-hmm.	40:02
Kara Miles	And when was he born?	40:02
Margaret Alexander Alexander	He was born October 17th, 1948.	40:04
Kara Miles	In Charlotte?	40:12
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Mm-hmm.	40:13
Kara Miles	And the next son was?	40:14
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Alfred Louis. Alfred, F-R-E-D L-O-U-I-S. And he was born November 10th, 1952.	40:15
Kara Miles	Okay. And how many grandchildren?	40:26
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Well, I guess I'll have to say three since I got a step grandchild. I'll say three.	40:30
Kara Miles	Okay. And let's see, you lived in Charlotte all your life?	40:37
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Uh-huh.	40:44
Kara Miles	What was the name of the elementary school?	40:48
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Alexander Street School Elementary School.	40:51
Kara Miles	Okay. And what dates were you there? Can you [indistinct 00:41:05].	40:53
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Let's see now. I think you had to be six years old when you went. So I was born in '24. And [indistinct 00:41:14]. Must've been around '30, huh? I reckon. (laughs)	41:05
Kara Miles	And you were there for six years?	41:19
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Uh-huh. [indistinct 00:41:21] sixth grade. Mm-hmm.	41:20
Kara Miles	Okay. And your house.	41:22
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Oh, yeah.	41:31
Kara Miles	[indistinct 00:41:31] Second Ward.	41:32
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Second Ward. Yeah. Housewife, mm-hmm. A homemaker, whatever.	41:34
Kara Miles	Have you ever received any awards or honors or held any offices that you want me to put [indistinct 00:41:48]?	41:36
Margaret Alexander Alexander	Let see. Where's my little—I don't know if I can put my hands on my little resume that I had written up about myself. Where is it? Got so many little packages and stuff here. Let me see. Let me see if I got it over here or if it's back in the back or where is it?	41:49

Item Info

Title:

Margaret Alexander interview recording, 1993 June 07

Date:

June 7, 1993

Creator:

Alexander, Margaret

Contributor:

Description:

Name: Margaret Alexander Alexander; Date of birth: 1924-09-20; Place of birth: Charlotte, NC; Occupation(s): homemaker; Residence: Charlotte, NC
Informant ID: 5; Interviewed by: Karen Ferguson and Kara Miles.

Occupation:

Homemaker

Location:

Format:

Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South interviews, photographs, and project records, circa 1864-2011, bulk 1990-1999

Series:

Related Resources:

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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.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

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

Identifier:

Interview number: 209
2d0c41ba-cec8-4632-a213-9ebac7f58cef
behindtheveil
btvnc01005
ark:/87924/r42809d2h
c174bcca-179c-4afc-9623-411ff2721c36

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Margaret Alexander interview recording, 1993 June 07

Transcript

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1. Margaret Alexander administrative file, 1993

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Margaret Alexander interview recording, 1993 June 07

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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