Miriam Bates interview recording, 1993 June 11

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Kara Miles	Where did you grow up?	0:01
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I grew up right here in Charlotte. I was born in Prairie View, Texas. My dad at the time was teaching at Prairie View State. And before I was a year old, I moved to Winston-Salem. We were there for a few years. But I was about five years old when we moved to Charlotte. And actually, I'm living in the same house that I grew up in.	0:03
Kara Miles	Really?	0:25
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Mm-hmm.	0:26
Kara Miles	Do you remember anything about Winston-Salem?	0:27
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I remember the house in which we lived. The things that I remember about Winston I think were more from hearing people talk about it. I'm not sure that they were firsthand memories.	0:31
Kara Miles	What do you remember hearing people say?	0:45
Miriam Grigsby Bates	My dad taught at, at that time, Winston-Salem State Teachers College. And I remember some of the things in terms of them taking me over to the practice houses, it was called, that was associated with the Home Ec Department. The general neighborhood in which we lived. And as I remember going back to Winston-Salem, it did not strike me then, but the smell of tobacco was very prevalent at that time. At five years old, you don't really have too many memories of a place.	0:50
Kara Miles	What are the practice houses that you mentioned?	1:36
Miriam Grigsby Bates	The practice house I think was a part of the college in which Home Ec majors did just that, practice some of the skills that they were taught during that time.	1:38
Kara Miles	Do you remember hearing your parents talk about Texas, about living in Texas?	1:52
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Only that it was very hot and that they were really ready to leave. I think I was just three months old when they left. My dad stayed there one semester and left.	1:56
Kara Miles	Where were your parents from?	2:06
Miriam Grigsby Bates	My mother is from North Carolina. She grew up around Kings Mountain and went to Lincoln Academy school there. My dad is from Newberry County, South Carolina, and he went to Johnson C. Smith. Well, I think my mother went to—I believe it was Morris Brown. She went to school in Atlanta and got an Associate degree, but really got her Bachelor's from Johnson C. Smith, and so did my dad.	2:09
Kara Miles	What did your parents tell you about their life before you came along? Do you know anything about their childhood and—	2:43
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I know they both lived in rural areas, and I probably know more about my father's life than I did about my mother's life, except for the fact that there's an area near Shelby that each time we passed, Mother used to say, "I used to pick cotton there." And I have an idea that it wasn't for very long, but she did have that experience. The fact that her father moved to the Kings Mountain area, to the Crowders Mountain area because of Lincoln Academy and his desire to have his family receive the best education they could at that time. And all of them, I think, went to Lincoln Academy. And then Mother, I believe, later taught somewhere in the area after finishing high school.	2:57
Miriam Grigsby Bates	In the area where my dad lived in Newberry County, I believe they were only allowed to go—for Black youngsters, the school probably stopped at the 3rd grade or 8th grade. I'm not quite sure which. There were 11 children in the original family, and they have one half-brother. Most of them were able to go to either Harbison Institute or Brewers to finish their high school training, or I believe my dad came to Johnson C.—to Biddle—at that time. But all of them were able to further their education.	3:57
Miriam Grigsby Bates	My dad went into education. His next-oldest brother, we always teased because he went to Detroit to take a course in pharmaceutical, to take a course in pharmacy. And he said he'd work in Detroit at the post office until he was able to buy a suit. He never left, and we questioned, "That must have been a great suit," kind of thing. His other brothers went to Hampton and had some sort of trade. One went to Fisk. And so all of them were able to move beyond that community. My dad's sisters, I think, for the most part were either in education or in nursing.	4:55
Kara Miles	Did you know your grandparents?	5:51
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I knew my father's father and my mother's mother.	5:53
Kara Miles	Did they live near you?	5:59
Miriam Grigsby Bates	No. My mother's mother lived in Salisbury, and we saw her frequently. My dad's father lived in South Carolina while I was growing up, and we saw them fairly frequently.	6:00
Kara Miles	Did they tell you things about their childhood?	6:19
Miriam Grigsby Bates	My grandparents?	6:23
Kara Miles	Mm-hmm.	6:24
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I don't know that I remember the kinds of things that they told us. One of the things that I remember about my grandfather was that they were not able to vote for a long period of time. And we have a picture of him voting for the first time. And he was quite determined that he would do that. Both of my grandparents were able to read and to function in a literate kind of way. My father's mother died before I was born, and so did my mother's father die before I was born. We had a family reunion last year from my father's side. And one of the things that I wanted to do was a pictorial album for our children so that they would know who their parents and grandparents were. And we were able to go back, oh, some of the pictures were 70 years old. Mm-hmm.	6:28
Kara Miles	That's wonderful. When did your grandfather vote for the first time?	7:37
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I think it was in the mid-'50s, about 1954.	7:45
Kara Miles	And how old was he, about, at that time?	7:53
Miriam Grigsby Bates	He had to have been well into his 80s. He was ninety-four when he died. And he had to have been well into his 80s.	7:58
Kara Miles	Did you ever hear talk about any of your family, like your ancestors, having been slaves?	8:11
Miriam Grigsby Bates	From what I understand, my grandmother was born right after slavery. And I have been looking at the Census for this for a while. Her parents were born during slavery, and her husband's parents were also born during slavery. And part of the difficulty in finding some of the things in the Census is that the names were different. One of the brothers took the name of a slave master, and the other would have no part of it, kind of thing, so that we had brothers with different last names.	8:18
Miriam Grigsby Bates	For us trying to make those connections, it was a little difficult. On my mother's side, I'm not sure how closely we are connected with all the way back in that part of the family. But a part of that family celebrates seven sisters who were brought here from Africa. And the descendants of this part of the family were from one of those sisters that came from Africa.	9:15
Kara Miles	Did you ever hear any of your family talk about slavery, things that they had heard?	9:52
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Not really. Not really.	10:03
Kara Miles	You said your grandfather lived in South Carolina.	10:06
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Mm-hmm.	10:09
Kara Miles	Did you use to go visit there?	10:09
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Yes.	10:10
Kara Miles	During the summers? Or when would you	10:12
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Yes. It was usually during the summer. I'm not sure, but I sort of feel as though my father at least got back to visit with his father at least once a year. Whether we went more often than that, I'm not sure.	10:14
Kara Miles	What did you do in South Carolina?	10:33
Miriam Grigsby Bates	They lived on a farm. And so some of this was really exciting for us because we were not used to being on a farm. And there were some things like, oh, pulling peanuts and drying them. I think he usually put them on the roof of the house. House had a tin roof, and it was built so that the kitchen was separate. You had to walk outside on the porch to get to the kitchen, as I'm sure it was in many of the houses at that time. It was a very positive kind of memory. There were things like the use of	10:36
Miriam Grigsby Bates	a outhouse. And my grandfather had a brother who lived, I guess, relatively close to him, but no telephones or anything. And their way of communicating was to—there was a yell that he could do that his brother could hear, and he would respond so that they knew some kind of way to get together, walking a half mile to the mailbox kind of thing. Being very, very hot. Sugarcane and cutting that and having the experience of eating sugarcane right from the field.	11:21
Kara Miles	What about your mother's mother? What about going to visit her?	12:05
Miriam Grigsby Bates	My mother's mother lived in Salisbury, East Spencer, and it was a much more urban setting than the South Carolina setting. We went to visit with them often because it's not very far away. My grandmother lived by herself. She, too, was in her 90s when she died. And again, it was a very pleasant kind of visit. They were always very positive. She limited her visits with us because I think she had some chickens and a pig, even though it was more—and they had to be cared for, so she couldn't stay very long when she came.	12:10
Kara Miles	What were holidays like in your family?	12:57
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Christmas and Thanksgiving were always spent with a lot of people around either family or friends. We had friends with whom we lived when we first came to Charlotte that for a long time, either we had dinner with them on Thanksgiving or Christmas, or they had dinner with us. My father's brothers visited often. In moving about, they'd always come through and stay for a while. I had one aunt, one of my dad's sisters and one of my mother's sisters that we felt they were ours and didn't belong to anyone else because they had spent a good deal of time with us. There were always a number of people around, and we felt Mother was happiest when she was feeding other people.	13:03
Kara Miles	What were your parents like?	14:07
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I'm not quite sure how I would describe them. It's strange. I don't remember anyone asking me what they were like before. But I think they were pretty neat people. You could talk to them easily. They were the kind of people who let you do things, but gave you the support as you ventured out. They encouraged you right along. Encouraged all of us to pursue whatever we wanted to pursue. I couldn't have asked for nicer parents.	14:13
Kara Miles	Who disciplined you?	15:01
Miriam Grigsby Bates	My dad, I guess by his presence. My mother because she was with us all of the time, but it was not a real firm discipline. I can remember when we first moved here. As I said, we lived with friends the first three weeks. And my mother was bathing me and washing my hair, and I really didn't want to have my hair washed. And I can remember my dad coming in, and I got one swat on the bottom. I think it's lasted me a lifetime. There was never need for any other swats. So, anything after that, he'd look at you, and you knew that you weren't doing what you should have done.	15:05
Kara Miles	Were there other people in the community who disciplined you or other children?	16:04
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Oh, I think that if there was a need to. I have three brothers, one of whom is much older. I say much older. He's eight years older than I am. And then there were three of us in four years. But I think that at that time, at the time we were growing up, if an adult said something to us, we did whatever we were asked to do. There was no "backtalk" or anything of that sort. But I think community, the teachers and—well, for a long time, there were only two houses on this street, this one and one diagonally across the street. And then the one that is next door was built in the late '30s. But before that and even during the time I was going to high school, there were just no other houses on the street.	16:08
Kara Miles	Were there children around for you to play with?	17:13
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Yes. Well, I still had two brothers who were younger than I. And those two brothers, one lives next door and one one house away. So, we've pretty much stayed in the community. I have a friend that lives on the corner who also lived on the next street, or on that corner, when we were growing up. There were youngsters around. We never did have to go out and look for anyone to play with.	17:21
Kara Miles	What kind of things did you used to play? Or what did you used to do for fun?	17:54
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Riding bikes. Rollerskating, to some extent. And at that time, Campus Street was less populated, and we used to close it off, particularly at Christmastime. And kids would roller skate in that area. Just visiting, kind of thing. Things like playing jacks. And my dad from my grandfather's home brought back a large buggy wheel and cut down a tree and mounted the buggy wheel on it, so we had a merry-go-round of sorts. There were swings. And with no houses over here, we had a lot of place to play, a lot of leaves to rake kind of thing. So, it was that kind of thing.	18:01
Kara Miles	At any time when you were growing up, did people other than your parents and brothers and sisters live here with you all?	19:02
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I had a cousin that my mother and father raised, had lived with us in Winston-Salem, I think, and then moved to Charlotte with us. I guess she died in the early '60s. But there again, her husband remarried. And he lived on the other side of my brother. But she was a part of our family.	19:07
Kara Miles	Why did she come to live with you all?	19:42
Miriam Grigsby Bates	There was a divorce of her parents. And she had a sister, and one sister went to live with one of my uncle's sisters, and she came to live with us. She was there. And from time to time, one of my uncles might have stayed here for a while. When we were in Winston-Salem, I think there were a number of—there were, not at the same time, but a number of teachers who lived with us. And it was that kind of—when we came here, I guess all of us had gotten older at that point. Well, there were seven of us, I guess, with Mother and Dad and my cousin. Mm-hmm.	19:44
Kara Miles	Were there any White families who lived nearby?	20:41
Miriam Grigsby Bates	There were some who lived further up Beatties Ford Road, but not people that I would've known during the time that we were coming up.	20:47
Kara Miles	So, when you were coming up, what contact did you have with White people?	20:53
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Very little. Very little. In fact, so little that you did not feel the brunt of segregation as we would have felt had we been—oh, the contact was as we went downtown or riding public transportation, this kind of thing.	21:00
Kara Miles	And what about it when you did see them? How did they act? How did they treat you?	21:26
Miriam Grigsby Bates	There are a couple of incidents that stand out, fairly negative ones. But one is that in going to shop, you had to make sure you went to the bathroom before because there were no restrooms that were available for Blacks at that time. And, of course, the water fountains kind of thing were limited. In trying on clothing and particularly things like hats, I don't remember so much as shoes, but hats kind of thing. In some stores, you were not allowed to do this. You could not eat at any of the restaurants downtown. I can remember White people in terms of not allowing you to do those things.	21:35
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I went to a football game at one point and came back on the bus. And as I got on the bus, there were no more seats. So, I sat down next to a White man who apparently was coming home from work. And his immediate response was, "You can't sit here." And I stayed there, but he got up and left. So, that was fine. My friend had a seat when we came back. But it was this kind of response from him. Other than that, I don't really remember actual contact. I can remember at school, in high school, being in the band and getting uniforms that were handed down from White schools, those kind of things, and I think even some textbooks that were handed down from White schools.	22:37
Kara Miles	Were there any other times, like you just said on the bus that you sat and stayed there, were there any other times that you didn't follow the rules of segregation? Any other incidences?	23:40
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I think the bus probably was the thing—the end of the bus line for this area was where Northwest Middle School is now. And because it was there at the end or the beginning, the bus ran from here to what was known as Second Ward, which was another Black community. We got to the point where we sat almost anywhere on the bus we wanted to sit because we got on first, we filled it up, this kind of thing. And unless there was—and even going between here and town, there were not a lot of White passengers who went in that area. And I think probably what happened with that bus the time that I left the game was that it was a different bus, and I had to transfer to the one that I would've ridden at that time.	23:54
Kara Miles	Did you ever hear your parents or any other adults talk about Whites in any way? Contacts they had with them, incidences that might have occurred?	25:03
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Not really. And there again, that might be just because my memory isn't as good. You should be talking with one of my brothers. I remember things like my dad was principal of Second Ward High School. And during that time, he was one of the founders of the School Workers Federal Credit Union. And I think one of the things that prompted them to start the Credit Union was that it was very difficult for Black teachers to get loans and whatnot, so that if they started their own credit union, it would be much easier for them to get financial assistance and to save in their own institution. In terms of things like that, I can remember that kind of thing. But when it came to out-and-out confrontation with Whites, I don't really remember a lot of that because I think we were fairly sheltered in that respect. We basically lived in a Black community.	25:22
Kara Miles	Were you treated differently because your father was principal of the school?	26:56
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I don't think so. You mean in terms of my peers or in terms of?	27:02
Kara Miles	Any terms. In terms of your teachers, the community, your friends, anything.	27:08
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I think in some ways, I might have been treated different in that more was expected, so therefore, you had to toe the line a little bit more, kind of thing. But for the most part, I don't think so.	27:13
Kara Miles	Were there any neighborhoods or any streets or sections of town where your parents wouldn't let you go or told you you shouldn't go to?	27:31
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Well, I'm not sure whether you are familiar with what Second Ward was like years ago. Well, the whole community I think is basically gone, the section called Brooklyn or Second Ward. There were some places in the area that I think that they would've rather us not go. Or certainly, if you were going to go for any reason, that someone would be with you when you went. Because my dad was over there, there were few places that he would not go. I think he just about went anywhere. And we probably didn't have any fear of going anywhere. But I think as with any parents, you were cautioned as to someplace.	27:40
Miriam Grigsby Bates	There was some restrictions. And this was more of a peer kind of thing. Well, at the time I went to high school, Northwest was named West Charlotte. And it served the Biddleville community, which my understanding is what this is, and the Greenville community. And the kind of things that kids said, that if you don't leave from this area by the time the street light's gone, you're in trouble, kind of thing. But I don't know that those were such serious threats.	28:41
Kara Miles	So, there was a big rivalry between the two high schools?	29:24
Miriam Grigsby Bates	There was. Yeah. There was a big rivalry between this high school and Second Ward. But those were youngsters that went to West Charlotte, kind of thing. And there were kids' kinds of things that were back and forth. But there was quite a rivalry between Second Ward and West Charlotte. And during the time of one of the football games, I guess I had a bet with my dad that West Charlotte would win.	29:27
Miriam Grigsby Bates	And, of course, he was saying that Second Ward would win. He had said that, "All right. If West Charlotte wins, then you will be able to get the trumpet you want for Christmas." Well, it so happened that a fight broke out, and the game was never completed. So, I got the trumpet anyway for Christmas. I don't even remember what the score was. I expected that Second Ward won because we were a pretty young team.	29:57
Kara Miles	So, you went to West Charlotte?	30:31
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I went to West Charlotte. I would say West Charlotte opened—at that time, we went from first through 6th grade, and then 7th through 12th in the same building. And West Charlotte opened just in the nick of time when I didn't have to go to Second Ward. I think that might not have been as pleasant as being over at West Charlotte.	30:34
Kara Miles	Why?	30:51
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Well, with my dad right there in that school. Over here, there was a whole city in between.	30:52
Kara Miles	What elementary school did you go to?	31:00
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Biddleville.	31:01
Kara Miles	What was that like, elementary school?	31:03
Miriam Grigsby Bates	It was a nice, calm little school. I don't really remember any real negative things about the school. We had a principal who was a teaching principal for a while, who was my 2nd grade teacher as well as being principal. I think before I left, that had changed, and she was full-time principal. But it was the kind of school where we developed friendships that have lasted throughout the years. I'm sure that there are a lot of students that I have forgotten, but there are a lot that I remember from those days. I think the relationship between the teachers is still good. There's some who are still living, and we have a good relationship with them.	31:07
Kara Miles	What were your teachers like? What role did they play in your life?	32:13
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Beyond being a teacher? We used to say that elementary schools nor high schools needed guidance counselors because every teacher was a counselor. And I think every teacher advised you in some way. And I think most of them were very positive role models, from what we saw as youngsters. They were encouraging. I don't remember having any great fears of teachers. I think one of my high school teachers probably was responsible for the major I chose when I went to school. I liked the class a lot. He made it interesting to the point that I felt that I wanted to pursue something in that area.	32:18
Kara Miles	What area?	33:18
Miriam Grigsby Bates	This was a biology teacher, and my major was biology when I went to school. I feel as though I enjoyed what I was doing in that class and that he was a part of making me enjoy what I was doing and had that kind of influence.	33:19
Kara Miles	Did teachers sometimes play favorites? Were there some students who got better treatment or got away with things?	33:45
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I expect there were. And to some extent, I guess maybe I might have been on that favorite side because of my parents being educators, that they knew a number of—they knew all of my teachers. And it was the kind of thing where with some of them, they visited with us, and I visited with them. One particular teacher had friends who lived out of town. And when they came, she'd come by and pick me up. They were my kids my age. She'd come by and pick me up so that we could spend time together. It ended up that she built a house at the end of the street here. And when my kids—she was my 3rd grade teacher, but her daughter is the age of my daughter. And they have become friends, kind of thing.	33:53
Kara Miles	Were you in any organizations or clubs growing up?	35:09
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I was in the band, in the chorus for a while, and even sang in the girls' octet for a while. That might have been a favoritism kind of thing, because I don't remember that I could sing very well. I guess there was a chapter of NAACP. I'm trying to remember what I was a part of then. Oh, I can't remember now. I worked in the school cafeteria, such as it was. That's interesting that I can't remember what I was in at that time in high school. I just don't remember. I'm sure that I was active with as many groups as I could be at that time. I can remember that we were anxious to get a picture of Carter G. Woodson, and we were able to get one. We wrote to him, and he sent us a picture that they probably hung in the hallway of the school. But there were things like that that we were actively involved in.	35:14
Kara Miles	So, did you all have any sort of Black history in school?	36:49
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Yeah. And I'm sure that that was part of Black History Week at that time that we were trying to do that.	36:53
Kara Miles	How did you learn that? I mean, did you have history books they'd had?	37:03
Miriam Grigsby Bates	No. None of the history books had anything related to Black history. This was from parents and from teachers who brought this into the curriculum, whether it was a part of it or not. Certainly, it wasn't part of the history books, but it was a part of their curriculum for us to learn certain things, and from church, so that everyone around you—I guess we basically lived Black history, and it was not something that you really had to teach. My kids grew up in Connecticut. I went to Connecticut for two years and stayed thirty. Teachers there made a real effort to teach Black history, Black teachers particularly. Not all White teachers. Some did. Not all White teachers did that.	37:08
Miriam Grigsby Bates	And I guess that was an interesting thing, too about my going to Connecticut. I wanted to take a course in x-ray technology. It was available in North Carolina. But because I was Black, I was not allowed to go. I think it was at North Carolina State. I'm not sure. But what the state did at that time was to pay your transportation and the difference in your tuition. I had no tuition because in the schools of x-ray, you provided a service after a period of time. So, they really didn't charge a tuition. But they did pay my transportation to Connecticut in an effort not to have me go to school here.	38:29
Kara Miles	About what year was this?	39:18
Miriam Grigsby Bates	1948.	39:19
Kara Miles	How was Connecticut different from Charlotte?	39:25
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Segregation in Charlotte is overt and open. You ran across many of the same things, particularly as far as housing was concerned. But you had to run into it before you knew. I lived at the Y when I first went there and developed a friendship with a student at what was then New Haven State Teachers College, which was quite near the Y. And we decided that we would try to find an apartment that was quite close. The superintendent of the apartment was Black, but he refused to even show us the apartment. And it was really right across the street from where we were living, so he couldn't say that the neighborhood wasn't integrated, because we surely had integrated the neighborhood. But that apartment building was not integrated.	39:33
Kara Miles	Was that an all-Black Y?	40:38
Miriam Grigsby Bates	No, it was mixed.	40:40
Kara Miles	How was that, being in contact, I guess, for the first time, really, with—	40:45
Miriam Grigsby Bates	A group of White people?	40:50
Kara Miles	Yeah.	40:51
Miriam Grigsby Bates	It was interesting because in the school of x-ray and—well, they only took three students a term. It was a two-year course so that at any one point, there was six students. And usually, there were twice as many technicians as—and I was the only Black in the whole group. And I'm the only Black—in that area, you were the only Black many times.	40:52
Miriam Grigsby Bates	In the tape that my daughter Karen did, I guess you were talking about the resegregation or the quote—the perceived resegregation that Black students do in colleges around in the dining halls and wherever you congregate. And she was saying that because—well, she went to Wellesley and went to a prep school before going to Wellesley. And she was one of the only two Black students in the school. And at Wellesley, they were in the minority there, too. But she felt that when she got to Wellesley, there were a lot more of just one than before.	41:27
Miriam Grigsby Bates	But in their effort to get the White students to join them in the dining hall and whatnot, they were often reluctant to join them because they felt intimidated by being the only White in the group. And their response was, "What are you having, an NAACP meeting or a Black caucus or something of this sort?" I think while we were only the only Black in a group, we were not as intimidated as they were being the only White in a group.	42:20
Miriam Grigsby Bates	And after a while, you got to the point that if you had a goal to reach, that you were not going to let your being in a minority keep you from trying to reach that goal. And I think that's where my parents came in, to a great deal. I think they knew some of the obstacles that I would meet, but they let me go ahead and try to overcome those the best way I could, but at the same time providing support from this end.	43:00
Kara Miles	So, you must have liked Connecticut if you stayed there?	43:44
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Well, I got married, so it becomes home. And after my husband died, I came back to Charlotte.	43:47
Kara Miles	So, you met your husband in Connecticut?	43:53
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Yes. Uh-huh.	43:55
Kara Miles	Where did you meet him?	43:56
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I met him on a blind date, really. And he lived in Connecticut, had grown up there. So, he was right there.	43:58
Kara Miles	Was he Black or White?	44:10
Miriam Grigsby Bates	He's Black. He was Black. Uh-huh.	44:11
Kara Miles	One of the few?	44:13
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Yeah. (laughs) Yeah. Well, there were a lot of Black people in New Haven.	44:14
Kara Miles	Yeah?	44:19
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Uh-huh.	44:20
Kara Miles	Is that where you lived?	44:21
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Yes.	44:22
Kara Miles	I wanted to ask you—where did you go to undergraduate?	44:22
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Hampton.	44:30
Kara Miles	Oh, that's right.	44:31
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Mm-hmm.	44:32
Kara Miles	Okay. What was Hampton like?	44:32
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I enjoyed it as much a couple of weeks ago as I had then. There again, you lived in a sheltered community. You had White instructors at some point, but the majority of them were Black. Most of the students had basically the same kinds of goals that you had. We came from varied backgrounds, but I think everyone was pushing for something. I enjoyed my years at Hampton. And I've managed to keep up with a fair number of people who were there at the same time that I was there.	44:34
Kara Miles	Why did you choose to go to Hampton? As opposed to—	45:20
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I think my uncles. And I had an aunt who went there. And even, I think, a couple of my uncles' wives went to Hampton. And my parents wouldn't let me go to Smith. (laughs) I say wouldn't let me go. I think they felt as though I should see other things, experience other things. And being right here at Smith was like staying at home and going to school. Well, I would've been at home and going to school. But I think they encouraged me to see other places, and because my uncles had been there. It was the kind of thing where a number of the people from Charlotte had gone to Bennett, and you sort of didn't want to move Charlotte to Bennett, kind of thing. And then I guess I felt that Hampton was a much more relaxed place than someplace like Howard.	45:22
Kara Miles	Mm-hmm.	46:25
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Mm-hmm. And I like the choice.	46:27
Kara Miles	What do you mean by more of an—	46:32

Miriam Grigsby Bates	—worked their way through school, made it a much more realistic place.	0:01
Kara Miles	Did you join any organizations or in any clubs at Hampton?	0:12
Miriam Grigsby Bates	There was a, called the Literary Club, it really was more of a social club, Phillis Wheatley, that I joined. And Greek letter organizations had been banned from Hampton, until I guess my junior year. So I went into a charter group of Delta while I was at Hampton. Again, I played in the band for a couple of years. I was on a Student Trustee Liaison Committee on the Student Council. Can't remember what else.	0:19
Kara Miles	Why had Greek letter organizations been banned at Hampton?	1:08
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I think there again, that down to earth kind of thing, hoping that students wouldn't develop a snobbishness kind of thing that were related, I think, to some extent with Greek letter organizations. And for some reason in '47 they decided that they would allow them, '46 or '47, I can't remember. And so that the 1st chapters were initiated at that time.	1:13
Kara Miles	Were there other sororities coming along at [indistinct 00:02:03]—	2:00
Miriam Grigsby Bates	All of the Greek letter organizations came in at the same time.	2:02
Kara Miles	Why did you choose Delta?	2:06
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I guess, basically, because I had friends in Charlotte who were Deltas. And some of the instructors that I had and admired most were Delta, and that sort of influenced you.	2:08
Kara Miles	You mentioned the NAACP, thought you were in the NAACP in high school?	2:28
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Mm-hmm.	2:32
Kara Miles	How was that viewed? Was NAACP viewed as radical and—	2:34
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Mm-hmm. Not in a Black high school. It was one of those things that—I don't know that it was an organization that made any big strides, but I think that the goals of the NAACP in general were the kinds of things that coming from a Black community, you had a desire to help move along in whatever way you could as a student.	2:39
Kara Miles	Were there any other organizations similar to the NAACP who had the same kind of goals?	3:15
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I can't remember that there were at that time. Because see organizations such as CORE and whatnot were not formed at that time. That was in the dark ages, before any of the other civil rights organizations were really started.	3:22
Kara Miles	Were there any local organizations maybe?	3:42
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Yeah, mm-hmm. There was a larger local organization as far as the city was concerned, but we were just, as students—and it wasn't a real active organization. It was there.	3:45
Kara Miles	Can you tell me anything about the Excelsior Club?	4:08
Miriam Grigsby Bates	The Excelsior Club basically was in existence, was started after I left Charlotte. Now that's really where my brothers could tell you more about. I know that Jimmy McKee was the fellow who started it and owned it. I don't know whether he had partners in it. I expected he might have had to start with. And it ended up, it was, I guess one of the first clubs of gathering places for Blacks in the area. And for quite a while people tended to have functions there, they didn't have to go to a "White" establishment to have something. But as I said, the Excelsior was started while I was away, and by the time I came back it was sort of going downhill, and not as desirable to have functions there as it had been during that 30 year gap, I think.	4:12
Kara Miles	While you were growing up in Charlotte, were there places or organizations that were exclusive that you had to be rich or you had to be a certain color, light or fair—	5:40
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Mm-hmm.	5:56
Kara Miles	—organizations or clubs that were exclusive like that?	5:56
Miriam Grigsby Bates	As a high school youngster, I was not really in tune to that. Now, had I been a young adult in Charlotte, I might have been more aware of those things. Are you familiar with the book that Elizabeth Randolph—let's see.	6:02
Kara Miles	Oh, yes. I've seen that. Yeah.	6:25
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Okay. So you're familiar with this one, and in that it talks of some of the organizations that were around at that time. I just don't know enough about, even now I'm not so sure that I'm as familiar with the organizations as many other people would be.	6:27
Kara Miles	What church did you go to growing up?	6:56
Miriam Grigsby Bates	First United Presbyterian, growing up, it was called Seventh Street Presbyterian Church, and it merged with Brooklyn when redevelopment occurred in that area. And they adopted the name of First United Presbyterian after the merge.	6:58
Kara Miles	Did your family go to church, all the time?	7:16
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Mm-hmm. We went to church regularly.	7:20
Kara Miles	Did you like church?	7:21
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Yeah, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the Sunday school part. Again, we were probably with youngsters that we were not with all the time in school, because it brought together several communities. There again, I played in the orchestra. Sounded like—I was a good musician, but I wasn't, just happened to have been thrown into that area. But I still go to the same church and some of us have been there for a long time.	7:24
Kara Miles	Was your church involved in civic or political kind of things other than just the ministry, Sunday?	8:13
Miriam Grigsby Bates	There again, with that 30 year gap, I'm not sure what they did during the time I was away. And that was the time in which there was more civil rights activity than there would be now. I have been fairly active with the women's organization at our church, and I'm supposed to be one of the issues coordinators. And in that, we haven't really done a whole lot. But—during elections, I think we've tried to encourage the church, the members to become active in supporting a candidate.	8:25
Miriam Grigsby Bates	And usually, of course we've had a candidate that we want them to support. But we've done things like writing letters and participating in campaigns in one way or another. And in terms of supporting the caring for children's programs that the church women's organization advocates, I've done that kind of thing with them. But I don't know that they've spent any great outpour of energies in that direction.	9:12
Kara Miles	Okay. When you were growing up, did your family travel to other states, other than, I mean, you told me South Carolina?	10:00
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Mm-hmm. Well, my mother and dad did graduate work at Columbia and NYU, and there again it was that, you couldn't go to school here, but we'll pay you transportation someplace else. And usually we went with them in the summer. Can remember staying with people as you travel, because there were no hotel arrangements available. Packing your own lunch, because there was nowhere to stop and eat, below Maryland. Above Maryland, you could probably stop and get something to eat. But in traveling in that direction and going South, you just did it through friends and carrying your own lunches all the way.	10:13
Kara Miles	I've heard of this thing called a Green Book, do you know what that is?	11:14
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Mm-hmm, I'm not familiar with that.	11:18
Kara Miles	If someone wanted to travel and they were traveling by car, and say they didn't know anyone in a certain state and they needed somewhere to stay, what would they do?	11:23
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Probably keep traveling until they got someplace. I don't know. There were motels, a few motels safe from New York down, and I'm not sure how people knew where they were. They had an occasion, which one of my uncles died, and we had relatives from New York who were going to South Carolina, and I called them at a motel to tell them my uncle had died, so that I knew they would want to stop in Durham. And they were amazed that I knew where to find them, but it was the only Black motel that they could have possibly stopped it at that point. So it wasn't very difficult to know. But how people knew about that other than word of mouth, I don't know.	11:35
Kara Miles	Were there any Black motels in Charlotte?	12:37
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Yeah, I think there was one that was out on 29. I don't remember the name of it. But I think there was one there. And there was one in Virginia, so people knew about those.	12:39
Kara Miles	You said you spent time in New York when your parents would go to graduate work. What was New York like?	12:59
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Ooh, I lived in Harlem at the time, and with cousins, the brother of that cousin that I phoned. It was interesting, because it was, again, a different kind of life. At one point my mother and my aunt, who was her sister, lived in one apartment with someone. My dad lived someplace else, and I lived someplace else, simply because we couldn't find a place together. And I found that it was interesting seeing how people lived in New York. And there again, people around you were all Black. One summer I worked in Chock Full o' Nuts, and there was a mixture of people. And I worked right at Times Square, so there were a lot of people coming in and out.	13:05
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I don't know that people impressed me one way or the other. I didn't have any difficulties with them, nor did I develop a whole lot of fast friendships either. But it was a matter of day-by-day doing what you had to do and going on back to Harlem. It was interesting there, because the house in which my cousins lived, where I was, it was a co-op and almost all the people there were from South Carolina, most of them had gone to Benedict. So it was like a home away from home kind of thing.	14:15
Kara Miles	Do you know how or if the Depression affected your family?	15:04
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I remember the Depression more in hindsight than I did during that time. I can remember that in terms of foods, my parents had chickens in the backyard, we had a cow kind of thing. There was always a garden. And I'm sure part of that was because it was more economical to do that than it was to always buy things at the grocery store. But I really don't remember being restricted. We may have been poor, but you don't know that you're poor kind of thing. I don't really remember being restricted a great deal.	15:12
Kara Miles	How about World War II, how did that affect you? [indistinct 00:16:09]—	16:05
Miriam Grigsby Bates	My oldest brother had to go into the Army. Many of my classmates, upon finishing high school, went right into the service. When I went to Hampton, there were sailors on the campus. I think there were a 1,000 sailors on the campus at one point. So it was all around in terms of how it would affect us here in the States, the rationing of certain foods, the rationing of gasoline, all of these things I can remember.	16:11
Kara Miles	When your brother got back from the war or anyone else that you knew, did they talk about it, talk about their experiences?	16:59
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Not a great deal. They talked about it some, but it wasn't something that they sat down and continuously talked about. I guess when my brother came back, I was in school. I was away in school at that time. So I remember him talking about trying to get other fellows to make sure that they had dug fox holes, and he hadn't dug his.	17:09
Miriam Grigsby Bates	And he had a patch of gray hair right in the front, and he declared, that's when he got that patch of gray hair, that German planes came over and he had no foxhole to get into. And immediately he developed a patch of gray hair kind of thing. But it was that kind of thing. And not about real hardships in the war or the dangers of it a great deal. It may have been a few incidents in which someone talked about that, but it was nothing that was dwelled on.	17:45
Kara Miles	Did they talk about how they were treated overseas? How they were treated as African Americans—	18:26
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Well, there again, they were in segregated units, so that, I don't remember hearing them talk a great deal—my husband was in World War II and there were pictures of him and some of the fellows who were in his unit and there were pictures of some of the fellows and some French girls that were in the area. Somehow he never got on those pictures on the ones that we saw, but apparently there were friendships that were developed, at least short-term friendships with women, anyway. I did not see pictures of men, French men, kind of things. But I don't remember hearing them say a great deal about how they were treated in the Army.	18:30
Kara Miles	Did your mother work?	19:37
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Yes, my mother was a teacher at Biddleville, where I—she was not there while I was there, but she taught at Biddleville, mm-hmm.	19:38
Kara Miles	Did she work before you all—who took care of the children?	19:50
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Well she stayed—that's how she didn't work while I was there, because she was at home until my youngest brother was well in school, and she was teaching in the school where he was going to school. So childcare was not really a problem then.	19:53
Kara Miles	When you went to Connecticut after you went to the x-ray, what did you do? What kind of work did you do?	20:18
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I trained in x-ray for two years. I worked for a year, and then got married. And I guess I worked for another year—or I got married right after I finished training. But then after my daughter was born, I stayed at home, I guess, for 10 years and then I went back to school, changed my certification from secondary to elementary ed and taught, went back to—I was trying my best to get away from education, but I didn't make it, so I taught in Connecticut in elementary school.	20:26
Kara Miles	What years would that have been that you started teaching?	21:06
Miriam Grigsby Bates	About 1961, '62.	21:10
Kara Miles	What kind of changes did you see from when you were teaching and the way you had been taught? Or how things were when you were in school?	21:16
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I think that there was a greater interest in the individual student. And I think part of that is because I had Black teachers and all of us were Black., There again, in the school where I taught, when I went there to work, I was the only Black teacher. Didn't mean there were no Black students there, but there were few Black students at the time that I went.	21:29
Miriam Grigsby Bates	It happened to have been the same elementary school that my husband attended when he was a child, and there were still fewer Black students at that school when he was there. But I really think that the individual, it was more individual interest in youngsters when I was growing up than in Connecticut. And I sort of think race might have been a part of that.	22:01
Kara Miles	How had things changed when you finally moved back to Charlotte? What had changed? What did you notice?	22:40
Miriam Grigsby Bates	The city had grown so. When I went to Connecticut, New Haven and Charlotte had about the same population, but Charlotte had doubled or tripled its population during that time, and New Haven probably shrunk. But just the general area had grown so. The population had increased, so downtown had sprung up kind of thing. And then, of course, the schools had desegregated. And I had gone from a school in which I had few Black youngsters when I first started teaching to a school where there were few White youngsters in the community where I was working.	22:50
Miriam Grigsby Bates	It was a different—well, had I stayed in that same school, it would've changed tremendously. But, here, the first school that I worked in when I came back was at Lansdowne, and Lansdowne is 11 miles from here. I had an 11 mile one-way trip every day. And it was interesting, that had changed a lot. Your relationship with Whites was increased a great deal by that time.	23:43
Kara Miles	Your father being principal of the school, did he have to have contact with Whites?	24:32
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I'm sure he did. The superintendent was White, and I'm sure that he had to deal with—now how much contact he had, I can remember hearing, I don't remember specific comments, but references to the superintendent. And the same was when I was at West Charlotte. One of the superintendent's car must have been one of the first ones made, and the minute he drove up everyone knew whose car it was, because there weren't many of those around. And word went quickly that the superintendent was on his way in.	24:38
Kara Miles	What kind of relationship did your father have with the superintendent?	25:24
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I don't know that I really know what kind of relationship it was. I wasn't aware that there were any confrontations or anything. I'm not aware of any real negative relationship nor a real positive one. It was just someone you had to deal with every day.	25:29
Kara Miles	Your daughter was raised in Connecticut.	26:01
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I have two daughters, both of them were.	26:04
Kara Miles	Did you have to teach them in any way about race relations?	26:07
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Mm-hmm.	26:13
Kara Miles	How did you teach them?	26:14
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Here again, being exposed to different people. The elementary school they attended was almost all Black, but all the other schools were well integrated. And at one point youngest daughter was involved in a desegregation attempt, a bussing from one school to the other. And that was a real experience for her. And we talked about that the other night for a while. In going from one school to another, it was the kind of thing that you had to prove yourself, coming from a Black school to a school that was almost considered by the residents in that area as their private school, and you were coming into their private school. The kids in New Haven, when I first started working, we had an hour and 45 minutes for lunch, and it meant that we could all go home, everybody went home for lunch.	26:20
Miriam Grigsby Bates	But by the time Patty was bused, the youngsters were picked up at one central point, bused to the school. Then at noon time they were bused back to the community for lunch, and then back to school, which meant that they had—it may have taken 15 minutes for them to get back. But she said, "What a waste of time. We had to leave class a little bit early and we came back a little bit later, and we missed instruction time during those. And so you were always singled out, because over the intercom, the principal would always say, "Will the bused students please come to—" and the bused students is a synonym for Black students kind of thing.	27:47
Miriam Grigsby Bates	There was one White family that had their kids in the school where mine went, and she was sort of pulled as to whether or not she should have her son be bused or keep him at the school to keep it integrated, to integrate it to some extent. And we encouraged her to let him go as well, because she could be a part of a PTA and would find things with no feelings, be able to hear things that we couldn't hear. And she did. So then those were two years that were really, really very interesting. The comments were made there were 17 students who were bused and one of the parents, one of the White parents, said to Joan, "I hope that there are more Black parents who come out to the PTA meeting the next time."	28:39
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Well, there were 17 kids that went and there were 16 parents that were there and she looked at them, she said, "How many more families do you want represented?" Kind of things. But the segregation was much more open or much harsher in Connecticut than it was here. Basically, because I think we were just weren't exposed to situations where—	29:44
Kara Miles	So how did your parents teach you about race, race relations, and your place?	30:23
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I think it came through experiencing things. The whole thing of going to town, making sure you go to the bathroom before you go, because there's no place for you to go, that kind of thing. Knowing that you cannot eat in a restaurant and explaining it in a way that we could understand. There were lots of things, I think, that sort of made you angry. And I guess joining the NAACP was one of the ways of trying to meet that frustration. But we lived certain things. Whenever there was someone who was Black, who had done something for the first time, everybody knew about that.	30:34
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Somewhere along the line, my parents lived in Lynchburg, Virginia for a while, and Marian Anderson sang there. I don't know how it happened that she came up. My brother was ill at the time of her concert, but somehow she came out and talked with him and sang a little something for him. And I think those were moments that they talked about that you knew this woman was an important person, and that she had been able to accomplish some things that hopefully many other Black people could accomplish throughout our lifetime. And that whole thing of hoping that education would be able to move you further and continually pushing you in gentle ways to accomplish things that they felt that you could do.	31:37
Kara Miles	You said you mentioned explaining things in a way that you would understand. How did your parents explain not being able—having to go to the bathroom before you left home or having to drink out of this fountain as opposed to another fountain?	32:40
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Well, I guess, as far as the laws of this state are in accord with what people are doing at this time, but hopefully these laws won't always be like this. So that there are ways that we have to keep trying to erase some of those things that impede progress of people.	32:53
Kara Miles	Okay. Well, that's all the questions I had.	33:20
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Oh.	33:22
Kara Miles	Do you have anything else that I missed or you want to tell me about?	33:22
Miriam Grigsby Bates	I can't think of anything. It seems like we've talked about a lot.	33:29
Kara Miles	Okay. I just have a few forms I need to fill out with you.	33:34
Miriam Grigsby Bates	Okay.	33:36

Item Info

Title:

Miriam Bates interview recording, 1993 June 11

Date:

June 11, 1993

Creator:

Bates, Miriam Grigsby

Contributor:

Miles, Kara Giselle

Description:

Name: Miriam Grigsby Bates; Date of birth: 1926-10-25; Place of birth: Prairie View, TX; Occupation(s): educator; Residence: Charlotte, NC
Informant ID: 9; Interviewed by: Kara Miles.

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Educator

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Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

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

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

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Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

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

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Interview number: 213
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Miriam Bates interview recording, 1993 June 11

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1. Miriam Bates administrative file, 1993

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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