Zenobia Hagans (primary interviewee) and Eunice Brown interview recording, 1993 June 07
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| Rhonda Mawhood | So a couple of things you've already alluded to Mrs. Brown, but I'll ask you the questions anyway. Maybe Mrs. Hagans, if we could start with you and we'll then see how it works moving back between you. Neither one of us ever interviewed two people at once together, so we'll try to get this as straight as possible. Mrs. Hagans, how long have you lived in Charlotte? | 0:03 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Well, now I've lived in Charlotte, I can say all of my life except for my first five years after I married. | 0:30 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And where did you live then, ma'am? | 0:39 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | I lived in Mamaroneck, New York. | 0:41 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | In New York. What year did you marry, Mrs. Hagans? | 0:41 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | I married in, let's see, I'm trying to get the year straight now. Well, my older daughter's 45. | 0:47 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So she was born in 1948. | 1:05 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | All right. | 1:06 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I guess. | 1:06 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | I married '46. | 1:07 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | '46, thank you. Okay. And has your family lived in Charlotte a long time? | 1:13 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Yes. My father is from—Well, it is Charlotte now, but Hickory Grove, it's a little part of Charlotte, kind of— | 1:20 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Which grove was that, I'm sorry? | 1:32 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Hickory Grove. | 1:33 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Hickory Grove, I see. | 1:34 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | And my mother, of course, was born and raised South Carolina. | 1:36 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | In South Carolina. | 1:39 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | And when she came to Charlotte to work, she and my daddy—My daddy met her and they became married, they had 10 children. | 1:42 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | 10 children. And did all of the children live to be grown? | 1:53 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | No, they reared six, some died in infancy. | 2:00 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did you ever know your grandparents, Mrs. Hagans? | 2:11 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | No, I never saw any of my grandparents. | 2:13 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did you have other relatives around aunts, uncles? | 2:16 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | I've had some aunts and one or two uncles from my daddy's side. | 2:19 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And did they come by the house and visit? | 2:28 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Well, one was living in Toledo, Ohio, and the other one, I don't know where he was living, but once in a while I think he would come by. I was a very little girl then. | 2:33 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And what did your mother and father do, Mrs? | 2:49 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Well, now my father used to tell about his education. I think he went as far as about the sixth grade. He was good with numbers, he was good in math. He was excellent in music, even though he didn't have an opportunity to pursue those things through school. And my mother had a chance to finish, I think she said the 10th grade. And that was done in South Carolina. She had a sister that was living there that was married and had children. And that's how she got the opportunity to go as far as she did, which is the 10th grade of high school. | 2:54 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So her sister helped her through? | 3:37 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Mm-hmm. And she helped to take care of the sister's children. | 3:39 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And then did your mother have paid work while you were a child? Did she— | 3:43 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | My mother never worked out, my daddy didn't want her to work. He did all the work out and she just took care of the children. | 3:49 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And what kind of work did your father do? | 4:00 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | My father worked at JB Ivey's. | 4:01 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | JB Ivey's? | 4:04 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Yeah, company. It was a company, something like a Belk's. And it's out of the existence now though. | 4:05 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And what kind of work did he do there? | 4:20 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Well, he used to create furniture, he was very good at that. And he was a delivery person, and at that time they would deliver furniture as far as Greenville, South Carolina, and a lot of places in the eastern part of North Carolina. And at particular time we didn't have a car. So my daddy would call my mother and get my mother and me, and he'd come by and take us with him. And so at that rate, I had a chance to see some other places. | 4:22 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did your mother ever talk about growing up in South Carolina to you? | 5:04 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | She didn't do a lot of talk about that, because her mother and father had I think about 22 children. And my mother was the baby of all of them, you see so everybody had gone by the time she was coming along. And I think too, one of the reasons why she went to her sister's to live is because her mother and father were so old they didn't know how to take care of her, and so her sister just took her. | 5:10 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And did she ever tell you what it was that made her come north to North Carolina? | 5:42 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | I don't know. I think she just came to Charlotte and she got a job with one of the prominent White families here, the Stokes? | 5:50 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Stokes? | 6:01 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Yeah. And of course Mrs. Stoke was a daughter of Johnson, you know Johnson building here in Charlotte? | 6:01 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Oh yeah, the Johnston building downtown. | 6:09 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Yeah, is it Johnston? | 6:11 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yes. | 6:12 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | All right, Johnston building. | 6:14 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yeah. | 6:15 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Mrs. Stokes was his daughter, and that's who my mother worked with. She took care of the children and she traveled along with them too. When they went to the beach, she went to the beach with them to take care of the children and she worked in their home. | 6:15 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I see. | 6:33 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Yeah. | 6:35 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Thank you. Mrs. Brown, if we could ask you similar questions. You were born in Charlotte, I think you said? | 6:36 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yes, I was. | 6:45 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And then you lived here until the time of your marriage, is that correct? | 6:48 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yes, except for going to school, for going to college in Raleigh, Shaw University. I lived here till I finished high school. | 6:53 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And how long has your family been in the Charlotte area, do you know? | 7:06 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Let's see, my grandparents that I knew, and my mother came here in 18 something, I don't really know the year. And the reason was that my grandmother, this was her second marriage and she married a minister and he was appointed to a church here in the Charlotte area, and that's how they came to Charlotte. | 7:20 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And your father's family, were they from Charlotte as well? | 7:57 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | My mother came from a little town called Henrietta, North Carolina. My grandmother came outside of Greensboro in that area. My father came from South Carolina near Lancaster, an area, I don't know if it's a township or not, called Indian Land and he came to work here in Charlotte. I don't know, I believe he and my mother met at a laundry where she was working and he was working, is my understanding. | 8:00 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And so did you know your grandparents when you were growing up Mrs. Brown? | 8:46 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yes, I knew them on my mother's side. | 8:50 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So can you tell— | 8:55 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | My grandmother. | 8:57 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Can you tell us what you remember about them? | 8:57 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Well, my memory of them really starts after the death of my father. My father died when I was a little less than two, I have no memory. The sister I mentioned, Dovey, has them. And my memory goes to my grandmother's home and she worked at home and she did laundry. She made her own soap, she made her own starch, and she was excellent and meticulous at the work. She did like choir robes for a large White church downtown Charlotte, and they were snowy white. I just remember playing around these clothes. But they were so loving that I don't really have memories of anything that was harsh until a time after that. I had a half sister and there were three of us by my mother and my father, the Johnsons. And when she married him, he had this one child. His first wife died in South Carolina with tuberculosis, I understand. And the one child was left and she came with the husband. | 9:01 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And how old were you then, Mrs. Brown? | 10:39 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I don't remember any of this. I'm just saying how this came to be, because I have to include her because I was almost a grown woman before I knew that we did not have the same mother. However, she did not look like us. I looked a lot like us because she was fair. But grandmother was fair with silken hair. So what are you going to do with that? But my memories are loving memories being at Grandma's house, didn't make any difference to me. Great food to eat that was cooked and from the garden with loving care. My grandpa, he was a minister. And going to church, we went to church on Sunday three times a day and we were glad to get there each time we went. | 10:41 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | But did you go home in between services? | 11:41 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | We went home, we went to the main service, I guess that's Sunday school and the main service. And we came home and ate this big dinner and then we would go back. See what is it in the Methodist church? Now BYPU is the Baptist Youth— | 11:43 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Baptist, yeah. | 12:06 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | The whatever, what is— | 12:06 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Baptist Youth— | 12:09 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Whatever it was, we used to go back to that in the afternoon, I can't think what it is now. | 12:10 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | But it was a youth group in this church? | 12:15 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | It was a youth group, and we would go back to that and then we would go—My mother sang in the choir and she had some music and we would go back in with her in the evenings. If my grandmother didn't go back, we'd still go back to church with her, those are some of my fondest memories. And that when anybody was sick in the community, I think my grandmother was almost like a midwife, and I didn't know too much about this until my sister was writing her book and she wanted to start it with life. And she remembered that the lady down the street was pregnant and she heard all these whisperings that she picked up, but I was too young to pick up on. So my memory goes back to a lot of love, playing in the yard, nice big garden with all kinds of vegetables and fruit trees, a locust tree out of which my grandmother made locust beer. | 12:17 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I later learned that there was a closet in the living room that we respected, for some reason I didn't know why, but I later learned my grandmother made the wine for the holy communion. Now I have seen her making the bread because biscuits are made this way and cut out, cornbread is made and poured into moser into a pan. But this was flat out like this, it was funny looking bread to me. And I later learned—And I can almost smell it when I think about it and it was thin and then she cut it. And that closet in the living room contained the wine that she made and such things as pickled peaches off the peach tree. Now that was a treat at Christmastime, I later learned. | 13:34 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Was wine only for holy communion or would they take a glass of wine at other times? Your grandparents? | 14:28 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I believe at Christmastime. And then it was medicinal, when you had a cold, you got castor oil and somebody else had made it foam, a little soda I guess and you drank that and drank wine behind it. I remember that blackberry wine. I've been early in the morning with my grandmother, now Z's too young to remember this. I've been early in the morning with my grandmother and a basket down by a creek and then picking blackberries and then pulling what was called chicken grass, it smells so good and clean. And grandma had chickens, see. And picking this and putting it in a basket and then I'd see her go and scattering it out to the chickens. And in the fall we went into the woods to gather nuts and persimmons. Then we made a persimmon pudding and things like that. I remember a lot of reading of the Bible. My grandpa had a lot of books, and as I grew up, he used to dictate to me and I used to write down his sermons for him. | 14:35 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | At what age did you start doing that? Do you remember? | 16:14 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I guess I had to be in—Well, when do you learn to write? Around third grade or fourth grade or something like that when I would do that. | 16:19 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did you have a favorite part of the Bible that he would read to you? | 16:26 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | No, it was whatever he was going to preach about. I understand from the older people that he was a great revival preacher, he was a handsome man. | 16:32 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What was his name, Mrs. Brown? | 16:45 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | His name was Clyde, C-L-Y-D-E, L middle initial for Leonard Graham. | 16:46 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Graham. | 16:52 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | G-R-A-H-A-M. | 16:53 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Thank you. | 16:56 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And he was from South Carolina too, but he was from around York or wherever Springs Mills is in South Carolina, in that area. Because had a sister. | 16:57 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | In Lancaster [indistinct 00:17:07]. | 17:06 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Lancaster County or? And she would come and bring patches of cloth, she worked in the mill from which my mother would make us things to wear. | 17:07 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So your mother made most of your clothing or something or other? | 17:22 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | At one time She did because she went to high school at night, same Second Ward high school from which we graduated, at night and took sewing and later took up the—And was able to stay at home and sew. I've seen wedding gowns hanging, I have seen suits, I've seen coats. | 17:25 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did she have Black and White customers or? | 17:48 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | No, she had Black, principally Black. | 17:51 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Thank you. | 17:55 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | This enabled her to stay at home with her children. And later she'd make clothes, like dresses, I guess we would call them house dresses. My grandfather also had a grocery store. At one time he was managing two stores. | 17:56 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | All the while being a preacher as well? | 18:15 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | That's right. And my oldest sister B worked in the store. Now that is fuzzy because I was young, very young. But I do remember the store, one in particular. I remember smelling kerosene when I go in there because people burn kerosene, there's something—Like a pump or something other in there, they come with their cans. And that was to the side over here in the back. And then up here you had fresh vegetables, I guess, that people would bring the other store he was managing and collecting rent for a White man who owned the little houses that the Blacks lived in, in that area. And the other little store was his and closer to where we were living. So I remember going there, I remember my sister working there. | 18:17 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And did your grandfather keep these stores and his managing job as you got older? Or was this only when you were a small child? | 19:12 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | As I grew over, my recollection is that he kept the one store that was nearest to our home. And I don't know what happened to the other, but he was collecting rent for this man. Now my sister tells me he was a pretty old man—He was getting old, the White man was getting old. She remembers the white hair and all that. And perhaps he died or something and maybe his children sold it or something. But anyway, he didn't do that anymore. | 19:20 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So who were your neighbors Mrs. Brown? And I'd like to ask you this as well Mrs. Hagans. | 19:57 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | All right. One neighbor I shall never forget, and Z probably remembers him too, his name was Charlie Withers, W-I-T-H-E-R-S. He was a fine looking Black man, always dressed in a suit, hat and everything. We lived next door to him, his wife, Sadie, looked almost like you do with silken hair. And he ran several things. I guess he was the only Black taxi, really. Always had a nice looking car. I don't know his—Where he comes from or anything. Everybody called him Mr. Withers or Charlie. And he probably owned other properties. At one time, he had horses. Somebody had horses there. And when the horses went there, I remember the sister next to me, she was real brave. We'd go up there and go in the barn right here in the city. | 20:05 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | City's changed. | 21:16 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yeah, I remember him. Now, the Wilson's had that house before he did. And there was an incident in which a boy was killed by a horse, but I didn't know that. I moved up to where I remember that the Wilsons lived there, this was in what they called Brooklyn. And this was on Boundary Street. And I remember him because I believe, sincerely, that he helped my mother in one way or another with us. Because I remember I had a scholarship my first year at college. And I remember when I was getting ready to go back, he gave me $5 and $5 a whole lot of money then. | 21:17 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And I think that—I don't know whether my grandmother would—His wife was a bit sickly I understood. But she'd do wash for them or what? | 22:09 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did they have children, Mr. And Mrs. Withers? | 22:24 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I don't recall any Withers children. Now, I don't know why he just stands out because now there were others, but I don't remember—I do remember a family where the mother played the piano and you could hear this old piano going. And let's see, that was Marie Shad, Jimmy Shad's mother. And then a family moved in from Georgia, the Haygood family, very distinguished family. And I remember they had Marthina and Rosina and they were about, what? Two years apart, would you say? | 22:27 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Mm-hmm. | 23:17 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Something like that. About like my younger sister, and myself. I remember them moving from Georgia, this big old house. It was framed with shingles on the outside and that they sounded a little different in their speech pattern to me, but we played together. And that mother was a very religious woman. And she and my grandmother would be talking about the Lord you see, we heard more of that than we did anything else. | 23:20 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Mrs. Hagans, what do you remember about your neighborhood? | 23:57 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Well, many of the people in my neighborhood were homeowners, in the Black neighborhood where I guess you might say everybody mostly was a respectable person. And, of course, the doctors and the lawyers and whatnot didn't mind living among the rest of us. And even though we owned homes, a lot of us, like they did. I lived on Boundary Street, I heard Mrs. Brown mentioned Boundary Street. And Boundary Street was one of the main streets— | 24:00 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | In the Brooklyn community. | 24:39 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | In the Brooklyn community, and it ran down into McDowell. And I do remember we used to have people that were running from the law, they sold whiskey and whatnot, (laughs). Yes. And they'd come through there sometime making 100 miles an hour. (laughs) | 24:41 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | But you could look up and see them coming. There were the children out, they could see and they could hear too. And then they would just get back one side or the other. | 25:03 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | And we played in our yards and we just had a good time together. That was just a good time. And we didn't have to worry about anybody hurting anybody else or coming along, no shootings, nothing like that. We used to go to church every Sunday, my daddy, by the way, played for church, the old St. Paul Baptist Church on McDowell. Was at first on First Street, and then it moved to McDowell. And we used to go to church every Sunday. | 25:12 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | And my daddy would—I was the only girl. My daddy would take care of the boys, he always would bathe them and made sure that their heads were combed and they had on their—I guess he would put their clothes out that night before, 'cause he had five boys to continue because my mother only took care of me. She didn't have to be bothered with the boys no more than to have their things ready, clean and all that, which she did a lot of washing, ironing and all that for the family. But I do remember that we would be going along—This is what I remember the most, and I just enjoy thinking about it now. You remember Wings over Jordan? | 25:52 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Mm-mm. | 26:38 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | On the radio? | 26:40 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Come on the radio. | 26:41 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Oh, we didn't have TVs then. | 26:42 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | No. | 26:43 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Yeah, came on the radio and many of the families—The folks would be sitting on the porch, every house would have Wings Over Jordan on. | 26:44 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What was that show about Mrs. Hagans? | 26:53 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | It was a Black group. And were they stationed? Somewhere in Washington DC or in Virginia or somewhere— | 26:57 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | New York? | 27:05 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | I don't know. We'd have to research to remember where they came. But most people do remember Wings Over Jordan that are our age. | 27:07 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Oh yes. | 27:13 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Maybe even a little bit younger. | 27:13 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Beautiful music, religious. | 27:13 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Beautiful music, yes. And I still remember that now. And I can just sometimes close my eyes and visualize that. Well, as we would be walking along, they would come on about 10 o'clock, I think on Sunday mornings and—9:30, because we went to Sunday school too. We always went Sunday school and church. And as we would be walking along the streets, many of the families—During that time, many of the grandparents and the mothers, I guess fathers too, they lived together, and the children. And we would be walking along and they would be sitting out on the porches listening to that while we passed going to church. And I remember I guess speaking to everybody as I passed, as I passed that house, I'd look and speak. | 27:20 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yeah. | 28:15 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So you knew your neighbors? | 28:17 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Yes. If I didn't know them personally, I knew them just by speaking to them. And so people were just friendly then. They were nice. Well, I guess anybody's nice if you nice to them too. But I just enjoyed it. | 28:18 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | And the Wings Over Jordan songs and a lot of them, oh, I just sit back sometimes and sometimes I'd go to piano and play some of them and sing them. And I'd just like to hear them now too. | 28:39 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | And I remember my daddy he always took care of the boys now. Yes, that's what he told my mother, all he wanted her to do was to take care of me because I was the only girl. There were five boys that they had and one girl. So my daddy would always have the boys right with him going to church. And in fact, all of us would be going together. And I would be right along with my mother and father. In fact, all the boys were older than I, except one. That's Andrew, the one that is up the street there. And I went everywhere they went. | 28:51 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | And as I told people as I was coming up, only places I went was to see the sick, the dead (laughs) and the church on Sundays and those—'Cause I didn't go to the movie, and I lived about three blocks, what? About three and a half blocks from the movie. The movie was around on Second Street. Now my brothers could go. But me being the only girl out, they protected me a lot, my mother just kept me. | 29:33 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | And I didn't go to dances, first time I went to a dance, I had finished college and I went to visit a cousin in New York and she took me to the Savoy. And I went in and as I went in, this fella walked up to me and said, "May I have this dance?" I said, "I don't know how to dance." He said, "Well, that's all right. I'll show you how." So he took me and started. He said, "You just follow me." | 30:03 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | So after that, I'd say, "Irene, let's get way back here in the corner somewhere." Because I don't want to dance no more, I had too much trouble. I had to think, try to keep step. Then I remember too, well, I never went to a movie until I was in college. I was in my first year of college. I was at Lutheran College in Greensboro, Immanuel Lutheran College. And they would let the ones in college—That was a high school too. But the high school was at the church, high school and elementary school. And the kids that came from out of state, mostly from Alabama and Louisiana, they lived in the dormitory too. We have great big, nice new dormitory. And so they would let the little kids go to church and whatnot, they couldn't go to the movie. | 30:44 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | So on Fridays, we that were in college—They had seminary students too. And of course, well, all the seminary students found a girlfriend, so they would come and get us and we couldn't go just a couple, about five, six couples. We'd go at same time to the movie, go there and come back together. So you see, there's no other place you could go. And so that I enjoyed. And I tell you, my mother didn't work out. All my daddy wanted to do was take care of the children. So she would always have something ready for us to eat when we got home from school. And I don't remember ever experiencing a day that I was hungry, never. And my daddy did most of the cooking though. My daddy would get up early in the mornings—And you talk about the grocery stores, they weren't like they are now. These are supermarkets now. You couldn't go and pick up things and put in the basket and all that because it didn't have any baskets and everything was up on the shelves all the way up to the ceiling. | 31:45 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | And the folks, when you say you wanted this, you could point to it and say, "Get that for me." And they'd bring it down and keep until you got what you wanted there. And then they'd add it up. And I don't think they had an adding machines, did they? | 33:02 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | No. | 33:23 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | They didn't? | 33:23 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Right. | 33:23 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Right [indistinct 00:33:24], excuse me. | 33:23 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Was it a Black family that had— | 33:23 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | They had a book. | 33:24 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. Was it a Black family that owned the store or White family? | 33:26 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | You mostly Whites that owned the stores. Some Blacks didn't have stores, but mostly Whites. I remember the man that was in my vicinity was Mr. Clark. | 33:29 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Where was the store at? | 33:41 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Right up on the—Right little bit—On Alexander Street, behind the street in Alexander Street? | 33:43 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Right. | 33:49 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | There were two houses and then his store on Alexander Street. And they would let people have groceries and they'd keep a check on how much they owed the, and when the person got—The family, the whoever it was that was paying for the things that they had gotten, when they'd come and they'd ask, "How much is my bill?" Well, of course they could tell them anything, but whatever they told, that's the bill. So the person would try to pay as much as they could each week, maybe $5. Because you didn't have to spend more than about what, $10 for—And you get what people now pay $50 on. Yeah, because sugar was about 5 cents a pound, wasn't it? | 33:50 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | You say— | 34:34 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And everybody had a garden, chickens. | 34:34 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Yeah, we always had a garden too. My daddy made a garden in the back, always. | 34:34 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What kinds of things did he grow in the garden? | 34:48 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Oh, he would grow corn and beans, string beans and greens. Oh, very well I remember greens. He always had plenty of greens, all kinds. And sometimes beets, all those good vegetables. And then I do remember too that on Saturdays, these children don't know anything about this though, the people from the country—Now, I told you my daddy grew up in the country, which is part of the city now, out in Hickory Grove. So those people that had great big farms out there and different places around would grow all these fresh vegetables and whatnot. And they have wagons and a horse, horse and a wagon. And they coming on the street with all the vegetables and whatnot on their wagons. | 34:50 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Black and White. | 35:49 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Yeah, Black and White. And you listen out for them, or either they would sometimes yell out, wouldn't they? | 35:51 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | They'd yell out. And sometimes the parents would tell the children— | 35:56 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | To watch out for them. | 36:01 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | To watch out for them. Same as we used to watch out for the ice man. | 36:01 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Yeah, because we—there used to be an ice man too. People didn't have refrigerators like they have now. So I remember when we used to get blocks of ice maybe twice a week, and just like you got your newspaper, they knew where you'd get a block of ice too, each time they would come along. | 36:05 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | You were talking about the stores and you were saying that the person who owned the store could say that a customer owed anything, but do you ever remember any instances where someone thought they were being cheated, where they might have talked about it? | 36:26 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | I don't even think they thought about it. The only thing they thought about, well, he let me have my food and I feed my family. And I guess whatever that he said it was, they didn't mind it because they could pay what they wanted on that payday that they got their money. And as long as they were struggling and trying, and I guess the owner didn't worry too much about it. And the people that were getting the food, they didn't worry about it at all, I don't think. I don't remember hearing my mother and father saying anything about it, but I don't think he—My daddy didn't—I think he did have a little bill there, but he didn't think too much about that. What he would do, he would always go—He would have the money and go and just pay for it. Because my daddy would go to the store almost every morning and pick up what he wanted to pick up to fix for breakfast. | 36:40 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Now my daddy did most of the cooking and before he'd go to work and we didn't have central heating, didn't have central air conditioning. My daddy would get up real early in the morning and make the fires before he'd even call my mother or the children. Got up every morning and made the fires in the stoves, about two stoves. And it would be real warm on that side of the house because kitchen though, that was over on that same side. And we had a coal or wood stove back in the kitchen too and it would throw out a lot of heat. And we had, in the living room, we had an Arcola. And then in their bedroom they had a—What do you call? Laundry heater? | 37:39 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yes. | 38:25 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Yeah. And my dad would get up and do all that, and then he'd go off to work. And when he'd come back in the afternoon, he'd get off about 5:30 every afternoon. He'd come back and stop back by the A&P. There was A&P then and he'd get whatever he wanted to get to fix for that evening. | 38:26 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | And, of course, my mother would always cook—I told you she had something ready for us when we got home, she'd always cook the vegetables. We'd always have some of the best greens, I think about it now. And some of the best—Oh, I used to love pinto beans, some of the best beans. And she used to make cornbread. We didn't call it cornbread, it was a muffin. Because she put sugar in it, muffin bread. She'd put a little sugar in it and oh, it would be just like cake. | 38:49 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | It looked like cake. | 39:21 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Yeah, it certainly did. And my mother made that, and she just—The things that would take a lot of time to prepare and cook, she had that ready. So when my daddy came home—And my daddy wasn't a picky person, my daddy could eat anything. So he ate that plus what he stopped at the store and bought, usually fish or he used to like—Not the steaks, but what do you call them? The young beef? | 39:23 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Um. | 40:02 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | I don't know. | 40:05 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Stew? We used to have stew. | 40:07 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | No, the what's the young— | 40:09 |
| Hasan Jeffries | Veal? | 40:11 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Veal. | 40:11 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Veal, oh yes. Oh, I see. | 40:11 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Veal, that's what he liked. Most people don't like veal. But he used to love veal. | 40:16 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | We used to have it. | 40:23 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | But I'm not a meat eater. | 40:25 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Not anymore? | 40:27 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | I never was a meat eater, and my cholesterol is wonderful. I never was a meat eater. So the only thing I can remember that I would like—I say, "I don't want the meat." I say, "You just cut all the meat off and let me have the bone." So I was just, whatever tiny bit was left around the bone. That's what I ate. But what I liked most was the vegetables. And I just remember I had a good childhood, wonderful. I never had me whipped. | 40:28 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 41:05 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | I think my mother smacked me one time, I was out playing across the street where she let me go to play out, sort of alleyway where the children would go out and jump hopscotch. They don't do that anymore and all that. | 41:07 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | And she came to the door and called me once, I didn't go. She came and called me the second time. | 41:18 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | That's a mortal sin. (laughs) | 41:23 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | I took time, yeah and I went on over. So when I went to the door there, she grabbed me and turned me down and spanked me good, with her hand and spanked me good. I didn't do that anymore. | 41:26 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Mrs. Brown, do you remember being disciplined by your parents? | 41:39 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Oh yes. Oh yes. Especially, well by my grandmother and also by my mother. My mother was sewing at home and enabled her to stay with her children, which was great. And I was making my doll some clothes and there was a big wicker basket about this where all the scraps went because you see quilts were made from those scraps. So I went in there and found this package with this material in it, and it was a pretty orange color. I get it out, and my mother then was working as a cook and doing some sewing too. I get this piece of material out and I just made my doll fabulous things. My doll had a little iron bed, she was all dressed—When my mother got home that afternoon and saw this material, I thought, sure, this would be my last day on earth. | 41:41 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | But for my grandfather who was so gentle and said to her, "Don't whip her, you're too angry." Or words to that effect. And she didn't. She whipped me eventually about it, and there's a difference between a spanking and a whipping. Where could you do this with a spanking, but you go get you a switch, get you a branch off a tree. And I thought, sure, I was going to be killed, that's the hardest discipline. I remember grandmother, we had goldfish in a bowl in what was like a family room and dining room. We had moved from the little house that I remember to larger house, and this was furnished by my grandpa's church. | 42:55 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | So I don't know why, I was fascinated with this goldfish. And my grandmother found it (laughs) swimming top side up one morning and knew that I had been playing with it. And so she gave me a good spank, and this is a little keen type switch around the legs and that kind of thing. | 43:44 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And I went out on the steps of this big house, and it was kind of on a hill and I was out there crying and she came out and I told her, "I'm going to tell my mother (laughs)," "I'm going to tell my mother on you when she gets home." And she said to me (laughs), quite stern, she said, "I'll whip your mother." And everything fell, all my sails went down. (laughs) She said, "I'll—" And my grandmother had black eyes. She looked me in my eyes and told me she'd whip my mother. (laughs) I had no defenses whatsoever. (laughs) | 44:06 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I guess I sat out on the steps until I cried enough and then I came back. And when I came back in the house, I'm sure my grandmother patted me, offered me some pie or whatever, fruit or whatever. (laughs) | 44:42 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | But now those two disciplines, I can remember. And grandmother used to say, spank my youngest sister, Rachel. | 45:00 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So she would spank her or you would spank her? | 45:11 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Pardon? | 45:12 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So that your grandmother could spank your sister? | 45:12 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yeah, she would—Sometimes she'd say if you were doing something wrong, she'd said, "Okay, go get me a switch." Now, that wasn't for me. You didn't go get your own switches, but she'd send my other sister after the switch. Then sometimes when the switch came, she had cooled off or something, but she just wanted to switch to be there. See, it was a discipline itself. | 45:16 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Seeing it? | 45:43 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Just seeing it, oh yes. | 45:44 |
| Hasan Jeffries | Now did you and your sister, have it worked out where you might get a nice little light switch? Or was— | 45:46 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I don't think so. | 45:53 |
| Hasan Jeffries | No, you just knew to come back with a solid— | 45:57 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Solid wood. (laughs) | 45:59 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Now my sister, Dove has mentioned that, but we didn't have any such agreement. (laughs) I guess it depends on how you were feeling in your heart that day. (laughs) I wonder it was something done to you and you were part of this thrashing, you know. (laughs) | 46:01 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Oh boy, those were good old days. | 46:21 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | If I can ask you, both of you have talked about your dealing with adults and with White and Black adults. How did your families—Either Mrs. Hagans or Mrs. Brown, go first, how did your parents and grandparents teach you to address adults? Do you remember? | 46:24 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | In our own neighborhood, it was a given that the ladies were Mrs. so-and-so, and I guess then we learned the difference and we'd say, Miss. so-and-so, and all of the men were Mr— | 46:44 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | I told you he was reared up out in the country. His father reared him because his mother died when he was about five or six years old. So his father didn't marry anymore. Well, in fact, his father had been married once and his mother had been married once. She had children and he had children. So when they married they had him. So when my father's mother passed on, the father just reared him. | 0:01 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | And my daddy, that's why he could do so much. My daddy could wash and iron. He learned to do everything and he didn't mind doing. And so we all had a very good life. Very good life. My daddy, I guess they taught him, they must have taught him to say yes and no ma'am. He said that to everybody. Black, White, yeah. Young, old. Yes ma'am. No ma'am. But now when I came along I said politely, yes and no. I don't ever remember saying yes ma'am or no ma'am. Or yes sir, no sir. Just yes, no. But politely, or no mama or no daddy. | 0:29 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | The two of you have been friends for a long time. So could you tell us a little bit about when you became friends and how you became friends, things you remember. | 1:24 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Well, we were telling you something about she knew my brother. One of my older brothers. | 1:34 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | He was my boyfriend. | 1:42 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, when was that? | 1:43 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | When I was in high school. That handsome fellow. | 1:45 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | At that particular time, I didn't know Eunice. Now I've always, since high school they known Rachel. Your baby sister. | 1:51 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yeah, baby sister, baby Marsha. | 1:59 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | But we became friends how many years ago? | 2:03 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I guess since I came here. | 2:06 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Yeah. So since you came here. | 2:07 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Officially in 1970. I came here in 69, but I was working with the telephone company in New Jersey, North Jersey. And I tried to transfer here and I was, at that point, I was a manager in the central office, the largest central office. Had had all kinds of management training and everything. When my papers were sent here for me to transfer and I got here, I think they were sent after I got here. But anyhow, I went and had an interview and all of this and thought, well, what's the problem? And I was denied employment because I was Black, I was a manager, and I had almost 18 years of service. | 2:09 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | This is in the 1960s? | 3:23 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yes ma'am. | 3:25 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | All right, thank you. | 3:26 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Now right here as I would sit, like we are sitting here and the carport on my mother's house is a porch and it's a screened porch. And I would sit there and see the buses passing with great big advertisement, "Southern Bell needs operaters." And that was one of the saddest times of my life. And ask me a question again, because I get that that's the emotional part. (laughs) | 3:29 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Yes, ma'am. I was just wondering how you and Mrs. Hagans had become friends. | 4:01 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | All right. After I settled most of my business in New Jersey and my mother really needed somebody to be with her, she had a man rooming there that she had known of me and used to room at my grandmother's house. So then I thought, well, I'll come back. | 4:07 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And that's when I applied here at Southern Bell and wait here and help mother. And she told me about Zenobia's mother and made me know who Zenobia was. And then I guess we got to see each other over the fence and say hello. | 4:28 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And Zenobia's husband was a fine looking gentleman and he did a lot of work around in the yard. Then she did a lot of work in the yard. So I remember the last time I saw Jimmy alive was out back where I had had the pine tree clipped, the big pine that used to be in there before Hugo, in mom's yard. And he was ill. And you had gotten one of these things that mulched. Yeah. And he was sitting, but then he would take these branches. | 4:56 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | So she was busy and I was busy. And then she had children I think. And see, who was in school because Jade worked with telephone company and Cheryl was in college when I first came. Yeah, Cheryl. And she was teaching school— | 5:36 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Three years behind you— | 5:59 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And Mr. Hagans was a school teacher. And then I was trying to find work. I became a Kelly girl. I worked at the banks, anywhere I could get anything, my little bank account was dwindling while Southern Bell tried to make up its mind. | 6:00 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | But just to follow along with that story, I became so disgusted. And I said, well, I think maybe I'm going to have to go back to New Jersey. And I said this to my sister on the phone. She says no. She says, "Listen, I'm going to send you some money and I want you to get trained and come on up to Washington." | 6:16 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | So anyway, I had seen a lawyer and I had seen a man who was in charge of federal contract compliance, had an office at the US Post Office. He sent someone out to talk to me. And I just was so disgusted because I had all that training with the telephone company and then my sister had written and dictated some information to him. So I went up to Washington, I was working in Lawrence and I went to a case with her that morning. And we stopped at lunch and came back and the office secretary told me that Southern Bell had called and it was very important, urged me to call collect. I called collect and to this man one, Mr. Tucker was his name. And he asked me, "How soon can I get back?" Because my manager, my boss in New Jersey had called me and used profanity and said, "What in the blank of the blank is wrong with those people." | 6:41 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | So what my sister did was we went all the way to federal contract compliance in Atlanta. Well see, they couldn't understand the word I said, but when they heard from Atlanta, they called and asked me how soon. See, I had a little period of disability and that's all they could talk to me about, all the days. And had good attendance record that I had driven through snow and ice and sleet. And the car turned halfway around. And because my husband was ill, I took split time. I worked 9:00 to 12:00 and 5:00 to 9:00. And many times when I went back in at 5:00, I was in charge of that central office if it was my assignment. But I had good attendance and everything. So I began working for Southern Bell after that. Am I jumping ahead? | 7:54 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Well, it's a very interesting story. Thank you. And I'm sure that that will be of great interest to people who use these tapes also. But maybe I could bring you back a little bit to the earlier times. One thing that we'd be asking people is if they remember signs in town, the segregated signs, segregated facilities. Do you have any memories of that kind of thing? | 8:54 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Plenty of it. | 9:19 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | If you could share some with us. | 9:21 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Yes. Well, I tell you my daddy worked at Ivey's. There were no places for Blacks to go to the restroom. Now in some of the five and 10 cent stores, they had water fountains. If you had one, they had two because one was for the Blacks and the other—Well, what did they say? Negroes, isn't it? | 9:22 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Coloreds? C-O-L-O-U-R-E-D. Something like that. | 9:46 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | And then this one, they would be side by side. And this one over here would be Whites or Whites only. | 9:50 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Something to that effect. | 9:58 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | So yeah, there were no restrooms for the—So I think though, you know where the workers would work in Belk's, downstairs in the basement, they had a little hole like where they had one toilet down there where if somebody was real urgent had to go, they could go down there and ask maybe one of the sales ladies if they could go in there, use the bathroom. | 10:03 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | But otherwise, there was no place. Now, at Ivey's, since my daddy worked there, if I was uptown, sometimes my mother and I would go up there and because he would want us to come and pick up his paycheck. I'd go to the restaurant with them Black employees. The men and the women went in the same one, not the same time, but they had to use the same one. | 10:29 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you remember your mother explaining that to you? Ever talking to you about not being able to use certain facilities? | 10:59 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | No, as she know— | 11:06 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Or your father? | 11:06 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | No, I guess Black people were—They were real religious. And my mother was, was a real religious woman. She didn't talk against anybody nor against anything. She just had a good life. Well, she had a good husband too. My daddy was a good man. And so no, she never talked against anything. I do remember one time though, I was uptown right in front of Belk's there on Trade Street and I had to go to the restroom in the worst way. And I kept jumping and hopping and telling my mother I need to go to the restroom. She said, "See if you can hold it, see if you can hold it, see if you can hold it till you get home, see if you can hold it." And I don't remember, it seemed like me. We went back up where my daddy was working, which was up on the corner, which wasn't very far around down on the other corner. And we made it back up there. And I went to the restroom, but there was no place to go. | 11:14 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | And as far as eating is concerned, this is something that stays with me. As far as eating was concerned, they had places for Whites to eat everywhere in the five and 10 cents store. Everywhere he went, they had no Blacks. In the five and 10 cent store, you better not sit down there and try to eat. So as a result, I just trained myself just never to look in that direction. I always looked ahead. And so I guess by doing that, I could always keep a level mind and keep myself together. But I never looked when that—Yeah. | 12:15 |
| Hasan Jeffries | Mrs. Brown, did you have a similar experience? | 12:59 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | No, somewhat like Mrs. Hagans, we didn't have a broken spirit about that. We weren't taught that. We weren't taught if a White person comes calling a cracker of what, we weren't taught that in our home. | 13:02 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And when my mother went out to work, she usually worked for people who were pretty wealthy, had chauffeur and all that kind of thing. And they would come or bring her home and speak to grandma. Grandmother always had a lot of flowers. And I remember one woman used to entertain all the time, she'd want cut flowers for the dining room table and things like that. And then sometimes when they have the big parties, I was too short for this old-fashioned sink with this washboard type drain, which you too young to know about. But I stood on a box and I washed fine china, one piece at a time in a sink or a dish pan lined with a heavy thick Turkish towel. And then you know, you overhear and then you dip them in this water and everything. And as I say, my mother went to night school, the high school that we graduated from, and she learned cooking and selling. | 13:18 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | So she didn't work for people who perpetrated all of that. And it meant a lot to us because they gave her good clothing that she could make over and things like that and food to bring home. The only thing I remember, I remember there was a gypsy lady that came through the neighborhood and my grandmother was sweeping and she came in and she called her auntie or something. "Tell your fortune, tell your fortune." And she kept on coming through the gate in this little cement path, and then she's going to come. She said, "I'll tell your fortune if you don't get off my steps." (laughs) | 14:24 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I remember those kinds of things. But there were vendors that came into the neighborhood, White vendors, peaches, remember that? Georgia Peaches and all that. And people would go out and buy, but we never called them names. I don't ever remember them calling us names because after all, we were the buyers, the little money we had. | 15:08 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And the man that brought the ice would be White sometimes. And we'd go to the wagon and eat the chips. The chips fell off the ice when he was chipping the little blocks of ice. And we weren't taught that. Now I was taking laundry back in the Dilworth area when I got old enough. Now I'm early teens. We would call carrying clothes, we would take—Grandmother did shirts and these guys lived in an apartment and you went and picked up those clothes on Monday before you went to school. Well, say Thursday, whenever you took them back. You do the same thing before you went to school. Now I remember this was in the afternoon, I think when you take them back. Anyway, and this little White child was playing on the sidewalk there, and there were several children and she said, "Digger, digger, digger," to me. | 15:32 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And I really didn't quite understand what she was talking about at first. And then it dawned on me, and I just kept walking and not paying the attention to. | 16:31 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Then I came one morning it was went to get the soiled clothes to bring them to my grandmother and there was a White man in a car and he got out and fully exposed himself. So help me. And I didn't know what it was. I ran, that's all I did was run. | 16:39 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | But I didn't hate every White man. You see, I didn't hate every White man. We weren't taught that. | 17:03 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | My granddaughter used to deliver White babies where she came from. And we were just simply not taught that hate. Now isn't that true, Zenobia? | 17:12 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | That's true. | 17:21 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | There was always a White man, I remember this. | 17:23 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | On McDowell— | 17:25 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | When we lived on McDowell, near Boundary, there was a grocery store and I went there for something one morning before going to school, whatever it was, and he was in there by himself. Well, now see, I'm in my early teens and I guess I'm beginning to develop. So what it was a box of salt and whatever and the little money for it and everything. And he reached over the counter like this and this, both of these, bang, I didn't know what he was doing. | 17:26 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So he actually physically touched you? | 17:54 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yes, I remember that. I used to have long hair when I was a youngster and I didn't know. I gave him the money. When I gave him the money, that's when he gave me these pinches. | 17:56 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I'm sorry, just so that it's on the tape, just because so people—You're saying that he pinched you on your breasts. | 18:09 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | That's right. That's right. Absolutely. And I guess I was beginning to grow, you see, and I was sort of stunned by it, but I just ran out of the store and ran home. | 18:18 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did you tell anyone about it? | 18:28 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I told my grandmother and my grandmother and my mother talked it over. Then my mother talked to me and told me, "Don't go in there and don't lean over the counter." How children will just automatically lean over a counter and don't lean over the counter. And I didn't go there much after that. And I didn't know why. It just erased itself from my mind. But it was something that when I got to thinking about it, so much of this stuff that comes up today, I recall that. | 18:29 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Then I also remember being downtown in the United States Post Office at Trade and what it meant, which is a federal building now. You had to go in there and get you a—What was it? Whatever it was to pay a bill, | 19:05 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Like a money order. | 19:25 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Maybe a money order or something. And I went in there and this very genuinely looking White man, obviously older than I, he moves over to where I am and I think this was a $10 bill. Now he had $10 bill his hand. He said, "What would you do for that?" I didn't know what the man was talking about, period. Now those incidents, I as old as I am now, I still remember them because of course those things are highlighted so much more as I grew older and then I could—So I always remember that, those two instances. I remember also being a maid. And this one was a school teacher. | 19:26 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | A White woman? | 20:13 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yes. She was a school teacher and he sold cars. So they weren't rich. They didn't live in new house. And anyway, her brother came here from Tennessee. Now I'm dusting, I'm dusting in the living room. I'm dusting in the dining room. And there was a telephone in the dining room, not a telephone in every room like it is now. | 20:14 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And I answered the phone and she asked to speak to her brother who was visiting from Tennessee. So he comes out and answers, and I think I probably went into the kitchen or something while he was talking. I did run these push things, you have to run over rug. | 20:35 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | To make a long story short, when I came back into the dining room, his wallet was lying on the phone table. They did a little telephone table, got one over there at the house and money was pulled out of his wallet, a dollar or whatever wasn't lying there. So I didn't say anything, but I dusted around it and left it there. | 20:54 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | So I go down the hallway to go into the bedrooms and he comes out in the hall and calls me "Cookie" and starts trying to feel on my butt. I remember that incident because I was old enough then. | 21:20 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | You were in your teens maybe? | 21:33 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yes, I was in my teens and I told my mother. Well, I didn't work there long. | 21:35 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | How did your mother respond when you told her about that, Mrs. Brown? | 21:42 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | She just said she, well, he's a dirty old man. She didn't use profanity, said he's a dirty old man. And whatever the woman's name was say, I think my mother said she would call her or something. But I don't remember how I left that job, but I didn't stay there long after that. You see, because she was a school teacher. And I found it interesting because I was learning stuff from her and she had a little girl, but I guess a lot of people had that because I don't know whether Zenobia remembers this or not, but there were two sisters and they were very nice looking people. They were little fair, not real fair. But this White man frequently came to their home and stayed around and whatnot. And I didn't know until I was a grown woman what was happening. | 21:49 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And they were in your neighborhood? | 22:59 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Oh, yes. You don't say anything right there when the White man comes from the neighborhood. But that was right in our neighborhood. I remember one time he came and got what looked at be like an antique rocker, almost like a Boston rocker. And he was carrying it upstairs. | 23:00 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And there was only one White man who visited them or were there other men? | 23:26 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | He was the only one that I remember seeing because you'd see him pretty often and you just— | 23:29 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Well, there were White men coming all through our— | 23:37 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yeah, anyway, collecting insurance, all kinds stuff. | 23:42 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | But they would be selling— | 23:43 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Peddlers selling clothes, books, bed spreads, throw rugs, lamps. | 23:43 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Kitchenware. | 23:43 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Excuse me. Did people talk about the fact that this one particular man was visiting these sisters? | 23:57 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I guess they did. But see, we were not involved in what was then called grown folks talk when we were children. | 24:03 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | And we didn't listen. | 24:11 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And we didn't listen and we were told to go in the yard and play. You see, I remember one incident, my grandfather, I was perhaps just about to reach my teens, I guess maybe, I don't know, nine years old or something. | 24:12 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | My grandfather comes home and I'm playing in the living room where I can see out to the street. He comes in, he speaks to me, he goes in the back and stays for a while. He comes back and he's completely changed clothes. And he has on, what is this British morning coat that comes about three quarters down here. And that's his preaching coat and the Bible. While playing near the window in the living room, I noticed a local undertaker was sitting there in the hearse. | 24:33 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | My grandfather comes hurriedly out and maybe just waves up and something. He goes down the steps and oh, he was very spritely man. And goes and gets in and drive away. Now that stayed in my memory for years. | 25:13 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | He got in the hearse? | 25:26 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Oh yeah, with his Bible. That stayed in my memory for years. It wasn't until I moved back here that my mother told me what had happened. A Black man had had an altercation with a White man over wages or something to that effect. Now, he was definitely going to be killed. That was a given. Somebody would kill him. He was in back of that hearse. Now, to make it authentic, instead of the local undertaker driving the hearse across the state line up into Virginia, my grandfather, the minister, went along with his Bible. He's sitting in front and there's a casket or a box in back of this hearse. And they're taking this man over the Virginia line. | 25:27 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Why were they taking him over to— | 26:23 |
| Hasan Jeffries | [indistinct 00:26:26]. | 26:24 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | That's right. So they wouldn't kill him. They wouldn't kill him. Now my grandfather on my mother's side had to leave the King's Mountain area where they were living in Henrietta, North Carolina for the same type of thing. His name was John Bryant. And that's my grandmother's first husband. And it was mountainous. It was near King's Mountain. And there was a Black man who was a friend of his, and they did some work together and he had had it up here, I guess he talked back to this White man and they exchanged words and a few blows. | 26:31 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And my grandfather helped him to get him out of the way. And wherever he went, I don't know where he went, but my mother and my uncle, her brother were babies. Now this is told to me by my mother and my grandmother. The sheriff and several men came to her house that night. But her husband, my grandfather, John Bryant, had hid in the mountains. And they had an agreement between them where the hiding place was. And they came there and they said to my grandmother, they said, "Rachel, we are not going to hurt you, but we are blood thirsty for John." And those are her words. "We are blood thirsty for John." | 27:21 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And okay, somebody ended up throwing a brick through the window and the glass went on the bed where her babies were, her children were, you see. And either the next day or some time, she had to pick her time early in the morning. So she went the mountains to the hiding place. And she had 50 cents and she gave him. How he got away, I don't know. But he had a cousin that lived in Fall, Rockaway, New Jersey. | 28:20 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And he eventually got that far. I don't remember him. I don't remember my grandfather John at all. But I know that I had first cousins that obviously looked like him. And Robert is one of them because he was dark and he was very tall and a very similar man. And he had to get out of town. | 29:00 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And did he come back later? | 29:24 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Oh no, he never came back. Now my grandmother had heard through a cousin that kept up with them and she used to send us clothes when we for children. She sent us trunk full of stuff. And that's how she kept up with him and knew that he had died. | 29:25 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | So then my step-grandfather had passed away and they came up to New York and then to New Jersey where I was living. And she had this on her heart, she wanted to go. Oh, what is this town? It's a resort in New Jersey and Toms River is the county seat. It's not Rockaway. But anyhow, maybe it will come to me. | 29:46 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Make a long story short, my sister and her dear friend traveled to New Jersey to my house and mother and grandmother were there and they stayed overnight. And then that next day we went to—She did all the phone work and found out what county seat. And we went to the county seat, Toms River, Asbury Park, what is his resort? Similar to that. So we went there the next day and she knew how to do the research and she found out that he was dead. She found out who the undertaker was. | 30:11 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Then we went to the undertaker, who was a White undertaker who buried him. And then we went to his grave site. And then my grandmother felt that her soul was saved. She had done nothing wrong in remarrying and this kind of thing. It was a very touching thing. I didn't really know all about it, you see, until afterwards. Then we went to his cousin's house. She had died and she had begged my mother to keep in touch with her. She had no children. She had a nice little house and she had passed away and the state was renting that house out and there were still hanging baskets on the porch and flowers around the yard that she had tended. Now why I can't think of this place in New Jersey. It is a resort area, something like Asbury Park. And there are a lot of pine trees there. | 30:51 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And I think people come there to the hospital or something and it's a beautiful place. And that's where she worked in the hotel one night and she gathered clothes and everything. And I remember one time she set a humpback trunk. I wish I had it now because you get a lot of money for it. I remember that. And it was still with pieces of cloth where mother couldn't make things and children's clothes and all kind Thompson skirts and all that. Her name was Anna. Cousin Anna. | 31:50 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | I didn't tell you about the Jim Crow Laws as far as the street cars. Isn't that what they were called? | 32:29 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yeah. Oh, street cars. | 32:33 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you remember riding on street cars in this area? | 32:37 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Oh, many times. Yeah. I remember one time where we were living when my mother became ill and my brother or this brother died last year, he was living in Pennsylvania. He and I would catch the bus. Not the bus, the street car, because they had tracks. The street car and take my daddy his lunch or his dinner or whatever it was at work. And we catch the bus and how little children are when they about, I guess 10, 11 years old and all. My brother didn't want me to sit with him on the street car. So we would get on and sometimes street car be full. You coming through Black neighborhood, coming from uptown, right? Coming on down through Brooklyn. And then you turn on down the street and head back towards McDowell and then back towards town. Of course now there were a lot of Whites that would get on when you got to McDowell Street. | 32:39 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | See it was full of Blacks coming from town, maybe part of the way. And then all the way into Brooklyn and they'd be dispensing themselves and then these White people get on down there. But anyway, however it was, if you were Black and you happened to be sitting up near the front, that meant you knew automatically to go get back— | 33:45 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Because they had a little door in the middle of those street car and everybody, all Black people sat behind that door and my White people sat from here up to the front. So I remember getting on this particular time and my brother must have been mad at me about something. | 34:08 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | He said, "Don't you sit with me." So he found a seat in the back and I looked and looked and there was no seat back there, but there was a seat just as you got into the middle of the bus and turning towards the front, that seat back there. So I got in that seat and sat there. Nobody was sitting there, White people were. So I sat there and as I sat there, you feel so funny and so bad you sitting there and White people don't come and sit. That's supposed to be their seat. So these two elderly, very well-dressed, they must have been rich. They must have been from up there towards Addison Apartments somewhere back there. | 34:35 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Oh, yeah. Okay. | 35:23 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | They got on the bus and of course now there was some seats all up in there still where the White people could sit. And one sat beside me and then the other one sat there in another seat that she sat beside. They continued to talk and they didn't pay me any attention. | 35:24 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | The bus brought into essentially Black area. | 35:45 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Yeah, then. | 35:48 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Because the Addison Apartment I thought was the tallest building in the world. | 35:49 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | So the street car still saying bus, but street car conductor said, "Girl." | 35:53 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Oh, yeah. Okay. | 35:59 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | I looked up, "You know you got to move away from there. Move." I looked up and I looked back. I didn't see any seats so I didn't move right then. The ladies didn't say anything. They were talking to one another because one sat up on—There was a seat emptied ahead and seat where I was. And they continued to talk and all, they didn't pay anything in their attention. They saw me, they hadn't seen me. And so finally he stopped the street car. And I got on up. And by that time I think there must have been one or two seats left from where the Blacks were sitting back there. I got on up and went on to the back there and sat down. Now that, I never forgot that. | 36:06 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | The White women didn't say anything about it? | 36:54 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Uh-huh. They never said a thing. They never said speech. Never said a word. | 36:58 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Well see, Zenobia rode the trolley more than we did because we walked everywhere. We walked across this town, right? And we'd go to missionary meetings and my mother belonged to Masonic orders, Order of Eastern Star. My grandfather was a mason, my daddy was a mason. And they were into that and they would walk to their meetings. And see, we couldn't afford to get on the trolley and too many of us. So we walked most of the time. And I guess when I was old enough really to—I was working after school or something and could go on the trolley and get on uptown to come back. You're coming then when it made its turn off of Trade Street, it's coming into a predominantly Black area. So the motorman doesn't have to be obsessed with trying to keep you sitting in the back and the White city in the front. | 37:03 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And many of them would relax. And I remember them lighting cigarettes, you see? Because they're going down the Black neighborhood and be nobody down there to say this. But we just simply were not taught when something terrible would happen and a White man had killed a Black man or something like that. I might hear my grandmother or my mother say a dirty old, poor White. And down here they call people crying. And I didn't even know where that came from. A White person that I was working with that son after I transferred there and told me and told me how badly it made her feel. But she was walking through something, she lived up near Concord and some little Black children were playing and she walked. Everybody had a path to cut off. | 38:19 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And she was young at this time? | 39:15 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And she was young. She wasn't a tiny child. She was I guess maybe an early teenager, something. And these little Black children said to her, see there were about three of them and just one of her. And they said something like White soda cracking. You look like a soda, there's a little song. I can't remember the thing there. You see? So you see it could happen in reverse because just like this man exposed himself, there's nobody else out there. When people got you by themselves. You see, then you had some of these experiences. But thank God we didn't have too many of them. My grandmother was very cunning. She was very cunning and loved the Lord. But she figured out things, you know what I mean? And they had to be. | 39:16 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What kind of ways would she have to figure things out? | 40:12 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | So that we wouldn't have to come up against this racism. We didn't have money to go to sit at the counters or even ask. We went in there and my mother went downstairs and got some thread or cloth or binding or whatever or something for quilts and came on out. So that didn't even phase that we had planned to eat at home anyway, good food and homemade bread and all that good stuff. My grandmother had a job working for a doctor and his wife. And his wife when he was in med school, had taught home economics. And she's taught her a lot of the fine arts of cooking. | 40:15 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And that lady could do some cooking. So we had ice cream on the back porch. And the old churn when we got home from church, put it down in the morning riding and riding. And then we got home from church. We had ice cream and there was cake. So I think we were rather fortunate. I think we were fortunate and didn't know it. To live by ourselves, because people, a few tradesmen would come into the area, but you didn't have this interaction. I feel that we were better off living in the city than people who lived in the country because then you were living on this little piece of property, which belonged to a White man. And then on here, there were White people living here and you did work for them and stuff. | 41:04 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | But if you did anything that they didn't like, they'd just take you out and kill you. And that's just way it was explained to me. But we didn't have that. We were shielded. My father died when I was just two and we came to live with grandma. So see, I don't remember too much beyond that, but we were shielded, I guess. They had wisdom to know that we didn't have to interact if we didn't want to. Every once in a while we'd be, a White preacher would come to the church and preach. Yes, from the Methodist church. Yeah, we'd have things like that. | 42:04 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Well, there used to be a time too that they didn't allow Black people going to White churches. I know you heard that. Because I know you didn't know Mets, Reverend Mets. We were getting over in Double Oaks then. | 42:52 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I think I remember his name. | 43:11 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Yeah, he was tall and light and he had kind of wooly hair and I think he went up too. But I think they let him in though, that particular church. But otherwise they didn't let Black people go. | 43:13 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | But I didn't really know until I got to Philadelphia, how we segregate ourselves by color. | 43:31 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | When was it that you moved to Philadelphia? | 43:41 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I moved to Philadelphia in 1940. | 43:44 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | 1940. | 43:45 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | My husband and I. Just a little about transportation. | 43:46 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Oh, well, go ahead and finish. | 43:56 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Oh, I'm sorry. | 43:58 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Finish. | 43:58 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Oh, I thought you wanted to take a breath. I can think of—Say, see, I married my junior year in college. I met this guy. He was an athlete from Richmond, Virginia. | 44:01 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And you met him at Shaw? | 44:14 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I met him at Shaw University and fell in love with him. And he did not like the south. This was as far south as he'd ever been. That Richmond isn't far. But all the things that he heard about. He said he bought a pair of tennis shoes and rode the bus and came to Raleigh and he put his tennis shoes on so he could run. Well, we were married and I could have taught school right where I did my practice teaching and everything. The woman was a fine woman. She was about to retire. And that was the best thing because he probably would've killed somebody. | 44:15 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So where was it that you did your practice teaching Mrs Brown? | 45:02 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | In Raleigh. | 45:05 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | In Raleigh. And why was it that you couldn't get a job at that school? | 45:05 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I was offered a job. | 45:10 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | You were? Oh, I'm sorry. | 45:11 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | But see, I married. | 45:12 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I see. | 45:12 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I was married. | 45:12 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I see. | 45:14 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And my husband did not want to live in the South period. | 45:14 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Thank you. | 45:17 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | So the dean and everybody called me, thought I was crazy, but I had to go with him. And we ended up going to Philadelphia because he had relatives up there and had been up there before. And he could see all the opportunities. So the time that we did come back here, I remember we came back. Well, I think this is after the war, after World War II. And we came by train. So we're going back now. And my mother and sister fixed us a lunch and all that, you couldn't buy anything on the train. And we got down to the station, the Southern station here. We have to go down here now to where the Jim Crow car comes in. | 45:21 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | So here we are. And Brownie had—We were right in front because my mother had made us leave home early and he has on his football sweater with his football emblem and his letter and everything. We're standing there. So then this White conductor comes and puts the little step down and he can step down and coming down the steps. Now, here's what he says. "Move back. Move back." But by the time there was a group of people and he reached out like this and just about touched my husband. And my husband blew up. He said, "I will kill you where you stand. Don't put your hands on me." And see, my husband's been overseas lying in fox holes and everything. | 46:09 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Okay. | 0:01 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | With your husband's friend who had become a detective. | 0:01 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yeah, had become a detective. And he wanted a smaller caliber gun, a larger caliber. And my husband had brought a German gun and going to exchange these guns, which we did. And he changed it, I believe, for .32. And I had that gun in my little carry on train cases, Samsonite luggage. And it was fully loaded. After this conductor, after this way, we got on this Jim Crow train and everything. We didn't see this conductor anymore, but my husband just almost refused to sit down because he said, "I am going to kill him, period." And it persisted until into the night. We never saw that conductor anymore, because when my husband spoke to him about something about being a soldier, being overseas it and all this kind of stuff, see, then he said he's going to get the MPs. | 0:04 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | He said, "Get the so-and-so MP, I don't care what you get." He even stood between the cars begging me all while to give him this gun. And I went into this little, it was in the toilet, but then there's a little space here. There's a little seat, will hold not as many people as a sofa where women could sit. And I went in there and there was an elderly Black lady sitting there and I started to cry and I told her, and she said, "Whatever you do, don't you give him that gun child." Child, she called me. She said, "Whatever you do, don't you give him that gun." And it was not until almost daylight that my husband stopped watching out for this man to kill him because he had pushed up against his clothing, I'ma move back, move back. Okay. I thank God for that, and we arrived safely in Philadelphia. | 1:04 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | But from that day forward, and that was in, what? About '41 or something like that? I didn't ride a train and I came to see my mother every year. I came by plane. I had been on constellations and prop jets and you name it. And I have been the only Black passenger to get off, I came by this time of day. The limousine came to take the people from the, let's see, from the airport, ferried people in by limousine to the Charlotte Hotel. I remember one time coming in February, it was nice and warm down here. And he came in such a way that it would be foolish to go downtown and then have to come back and bring me, and it was filled with White people and we were talking and everything. No big thing. My grandmother's mother was sitting on the porch and there were several people sitting because it was a nice day and it stopped like everybody, I didn't realize it. And I got out and the driver got out and put my luggage out and brought it up to the step and went on. | 2:04 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And I never rode the train. My husband said, "I will not pay for you to pay the same fare that everybody else pays, and you got to sit back there in that smoke and soot." So he would get me a plane ticket every time I had come. And then when we got a car and got a larger car, then we used to drive in here, you see. | 3:21 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | How was that, driving back down south from Pennsylvania? | 3:49 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Really not bad. You came through Virginia. And once you came through Virginia, you learned, people learned to carry lunches and used to call shoebox lunches because it was a convenient size box and everything. And then you had to be careful where you stopped for gas. You made sure you filled up in Virginia and there was a town just outside North Carolina somewhere thereabouts. And then you're not supposed to need any food. Maybe you could get a soda, you see? | 3:53 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Well, you couldn't go to the bathroom. | 4:26 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And you couldn't go to the bathroom. | 4:28 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | You had to just— | 4:30 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | That's right. | 4:31 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Go where the woods were, stop and go down. | 4:31 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | You just had to know where the woods and you put them in the woods and go over in the woods. That was absolutely, and you made provisions for that. You had your stuff in your trunk, you had your toilet paper in your trunk of your car. I remember that only too well. So all of that, you had to. Now, when people got ready to go South, say in the summer to visit their people, they start preparing for all of this and they charted their course and so that they would circumvent all these things. Then the Afro-American newspaper had a book that was printed called the Green Book, and it gave you names. If you had to go into a town, where you could stop and you could get laundry and you could get food. You remember the Green Book or you're too young? | 4:31 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | I think so. I think that was. | 5:27 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And things like that. And then, by word of mouth. Now, just so happened my husband was a member of fraternity, same as Zenobia's. As a matter of fact, same fraternity. | 5:30 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Which fraternity is that? | 5:40 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Omega Psi Phi. And so then that, there was certain information you got from things like that. Masonics, the Masons and the Eastern Star and the Shriners, they all had information and a lot of it was published into little booklets to help you. | 5:41 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Thank you. You may have another appointment, Mrs. Hagans. We have to ask you to fill out, to help us fill out some forms of life history. Just some family information, names of your grandparents and so forth. I don't know if we should stop now and do that. This is, it is a fascinating interview. I just don't want to keep you over time to keep your. | 6:04 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Maybe. | 6:21 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | It's time for me to eat my lunch. | 6:24 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Yeah, maybe. | 6:24 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | So I can take my medicine. | 6:26 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | You're giving us wonderful stories. I'm just, we might do it on tape actually, the forms. We just have to ask you as quickly as possible. | 6:29 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Both of them? | 6:42 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Both of you please if that will be all right. | 6:42 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Or maybe, but get her first unless you. | 6:44 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | It doesn't, either one of you in the same order. | 6:47 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Okay. | 6:49 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | All right. Thank you. Maybe you could do Mrs. Hagans from over. | 6:55 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Okay, where you want to? | 7:00 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So we don't interrupt each other. | 7:01 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | You can do yours here. | 7:13 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Hasan, do you want to [indistinct 00:07:14]? | 7:14 |
| Hasan Jeffries | Do it back here? | 7:14 |
| Zenobia M. Gray Hagans | Okay. | 7:14 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | The heat has sealed the envelope. Here we go, all right. | 7:14 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | You want me to come over there where I can look on the paper? | 7:23 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Either way, whichever you're comfortable. | 7:26 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I need to stand. | 7:28 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, yes. Well, there you go. Stretch a little bit. | 7:30 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I need to stand up and stretch by now. Oh. | 7:32 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | This is just to be able, so when someone listens to this tape or read the transcript, they can get a little bit of information about you and your family. We're trying to get family histories of people as well. So your last name is Brown. | 7:35 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Mm-hmm. | 7:51 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | B-R-O-W-N? | 7:52 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Right. | 7:53 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And your maiden name was Johnson, is that right? | 7:54 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | J-O-H-N-S-O-N. | 7:57 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And that's also your middle name now ma'am? Or do you have another middle name? | 8:00 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yeah, I have another middle name, Wilhelmenia. | 8:04 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Wilhelmenia. | 8:05 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | W-I-L-H-E-L-M-E-N-I-A. | 8:05 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I'm sorry. M-E-A-N-A? | 8:12 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Wilhelmenia. W-I-L. | 8:13 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Yes. | 8:13 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | H-E-L. | 8:16 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Yes. | 8:18 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | M-E-N-I-A. | 8:18 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | M-E-N-I-A, thank you and. | 8:23 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | First is Eunice, E-U-N-I-C-E. That's from the Bible. All of us names from, Eunice was the mother of Timothy. | 8:23 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, that's right. | 8:30 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Second Timothy. | 8:30 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And. | 8:30 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | 2657 Lasalle Street. | 8:30 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Street. Okay. And the zip, ma'am? | 8:35 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | 28216. | 8:49 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And your telephone number. | 8:51 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Area code 704, 392. | 8:52 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | 392. | 8:52 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | 8493. | 8:52 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. And do you have a work telephone number? | 9:04 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | No, I'm retired. | 9:06 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And so when your name is listed on the transcript, how would you like your name to appear? | 9:09 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Eunice Johnson Brown. | 9:17 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Johnson Brown, thank you. All right. Now, if you could give me your date of birth, please ma'am. If you wish. | 9:18 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I'll tell you where I was born. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina. | 9:40 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Charlotte. | 9:42 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Mecklenburg County. | 9:42 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | That's right. North Carolina. | 9:42 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Okay. | 9:50 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And you're a widow, Mrs. Brown? | 9:50 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Mm-hmm. | 9:54 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Yeah. And your spouse's name, your husband's name, his first name? | 10:00 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Thomas. | 10:03 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Thomas. And his middle name? | 10:04 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Beverly. B-E-V-E-R-L-Y. It's spelled [indistinct 00:10:12]. His grandfather was White. | 10:14 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, really? And. | 10:16 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Brown, B-R-O-W-N. | 10:16 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And your husband's date of birth? | 10:27 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | He was born 6/30/14. | 10:28 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Thank you. And is the year that he died? | 10:29 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | '69. 1/14/69. | 10:32 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Thank you. And where was he born? | 10:45 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Richmond, Virginia. | 10:48 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And his occupation was? | 10:54 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | He had several jobs and then we had our own business. But he was a life insurance underwriter, he went to school for that. | 10:57 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, my father was too. All right, now your mother's name please, Mrs. Brown. | 11:02 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Lela, L-E-L-A. | 11:17 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And her middle name? | 11:20 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Luvinia. L-U-V-I-N-I-A. | 11:23 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Thank you. Johnson. | 11:25 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Johnson. | 11:26 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And her maiden name? | 11:31 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Bryant. B-R-Y-A-N-T. | 11:33 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And do you know what year she was born? | 11:37 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I can't think of what year she was born, but I can tell you when she died. | 11:39 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Yes, ma'am. | 11:43 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Okay. She died 8/78. Wait, that's not right. That's eighth month. | 11:48 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Eighth month. | 11:56 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And 1978 she died. | 11:56 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | 1979. | 11:56 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I think it was 8/14/78, thereabout. Henrietta, North Carolina. H-E-N-R-I-E-T-T-A. I really don't know what it's whatever county I came from out then. | 12:01 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | We can find, that's fine. Thank you. And your mother was a seamstress? | 12:22 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yes. And then she became a cook and housekeeper. | 12:29 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And your father's name? | 12:46 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | James. | 12:47 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | James. | 12:47 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Alexander. Johnson, J-O-H-N-S-O-N. | 12:51 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And do you know? | 12:56 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I don't know his date of birth. | 12:56 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Right. | 12:56 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | But let me see. He died in 1918. | 12:56 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Thank you. And I think you told me where he was born. | 13:14 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Indian land, South Carolina. | 13:16 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And what did he do while he was living? | 13:24 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | He was working at a publishing house on, he was operating at his, he was operating a printer. He went in his [indistinct 00:13:40]. When my husband died and my father died, I remember seeing and playing with a camera and trap hard, fishing boots, an Orven typewriter. Then my father could also play the organ. | 13:28 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Oh my. A talented man. A lot of different things. Now you are. | 14:05 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I wish I had that typewriter now. It'd bring lots of money. | 14:10 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I'd like to get a list of your sisters and brothers, if I could, their names and as much as you remember their birth and death date. | 14:15 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | My oldest sister deceased. Her name was Beatrice, B-E-A, Beatrice. | 14:23 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Beatrice. | 14:28 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Brown. She died on January the 13th, 1990. | 14:36 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you remember what year she was born? | 14:52 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I do not. I'd have to go get her obituary. | 14:55 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | That's fine. | 14:56 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And she died in White Plains, New York. That's where she lived. | 15:00 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Her husband and your husband weren't related. | 15:08 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | No, not at all. | 15:13 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And the next? | 15:13 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Next is Dovey, D-O-V-E. | 15:16 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | One whose book is coming out soon? | 15:18 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Let's see, Dovey's middle name. Let's see. Well, Mary Magdalene was supposed to be her name. Just put Dovey Johnson down. | 15:28 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Yes, that's fine. | 15:35 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Just like it's found. | 15:40 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you remember what year she was born? | 15:44 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | She's born 1914. | 15:44 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | 1914. And she's still living. And the next. | 15:44 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Rachel, R-A-C-H-E-L. And Ruth is her middle name. Bratton, B-R-A-T-T-O-N. | 15:44 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you remember what year she was born? | 15:44 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | She in the same thing when I was born. Oh, dear. When did I say Dove was born? '14? | 15:44 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | 1914. | 15:44 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Okay. Oh, well Rachel, she was born 1918. | 15:44 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | 1918. Thank you. | 15:54 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Born the year daddy died. She was a baby. | 16:03 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Oh. And so that's all. Do you have any brothers? | 17:07 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | No, we don't have any brothers. Has adopted brothers. | 17:07 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Wow. So you were, I guess the second in the family then. | 17:07 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Mm-hmm. | 17:07 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Second, but were you first out of? No, you were second. Okay, thank you. Do you have any children, Ms. Brown? | 17:07 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | No, I have no living children. | 17:08 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you want to list any? | 17:11 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Anybody miscarried, no, I don't. | 17:13 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I see. Thank you. All right. The places, we're interested in getting an idea of where you've lived and approximately when. So you've lived in Charlotte. | 17:15 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yeah, I lived in. | 17:29 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | A long time. | 17:41 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I lived in Charlotte until 1939. | 17:41 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And then. | 17:41 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Then I lived in Washington, DC. | 17:41 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Washington. | 17:41 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | In 1940. | 17:41 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | 1940, mm-hmm. | 17:42 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And then 1940, in Washington. That's wrong. I lived in Washington in '39. | 17:51 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I see. | 18:05 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Then I lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 1940 until, when did we move to New Jersey? To about 1948, I guess. | 18:14 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | But shortly after the war ended? And then you lived in New Jersey? | 18:40 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I lived in, let's see, Orange, New Jersey. I lived in Orange about a year. And I lived in East Orange, New Jersey, my own business. | 18:45 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, what was your business? | 19:06 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I had a hosiery finishing company. | 19:07 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Oh. | 19:11 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I worked the Navy Department doing the war, Philadelphia. See, after they had the production forces. | 19:11 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I see. | 19:16 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I got a job. I was waiting, go to department, public assistance. And then this was advertised and I applied and I turned up my nose and I'd have to work in. It was a hosiery finishing company. And this man was smart enough to have kept the mechanic on duty all during the war and everything, keep his finishing machines up to date. Now he was ready to go as soon as nylon was released for civilian consumption. And I mean, at first quality hosiery was selling for $3 a pair and over. So we had our new business in Orange until, it was about 19, exactly about 1952. | 19:21 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What was the name of that company, Mrs. Brown? | 20:07 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | It was Beverly. B-E-V-E-R-L-Y. Beverly Hosiery Company. | 20:09 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I'm just going to list that down there. | 20:10 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And that was my husband's middle name, but I was president of the company. | 20:18 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. And then after East Orange, New Jersey, where did you move to? | 20:28 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Okay. Then, see we worked and see, we converted the back of the store. It used to be a cabin, hardwood floors and bathrooms and everything. And we lived there, we had a studio apartment back there. And then in '50, in that same year, we bought a home and we lived in Union, New Jersey. And I lived there until '69, and then I came to Charlotte. | 20:31 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So you've lived in Charlotte from 19. | 21:12 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Officially, yeah. That's right. | 21:13 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | 1970. | 21:19 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | '70, right. | 21:19 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Until present. | 21:19 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Because see they delayed me with the stupidity. | 21:22 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Yes. | 21:23 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yeah. | 21:25 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So the first school you went to, the first place you went to school, Mrs. Brown was where? | 21:26 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I went to the Myers Street. M-Y-E-R-S, Myers Street Elementary School. | 21:33 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And that was in Charlotte? | 21:43 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Mm-hmm. | 21:44 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Right. | 21:44 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And then I went to Second Ward High School. | 21:51 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And I guess that was in the 1930s that you were in high school? | 22:02 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And from there I went to Shaw University. | 22:04 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Shaw University. What years were you at Shaw, Mrs. Brown? Do you remember? Let's see. | 22:13 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I went the first year right out of high school. I had a scholarship. I think because the other sister had a scholarship to Spelman College in Atlanta. I had to stay out and work. And I used to work in my motherhood very well. I stayed out and work for while. Then I had an aunt who died in Richmond, Virginia. And her children were all grown, nobody wanted to go to college. And she left policy to my mother for whichever child needed help going to college. So I stayed out a year and then I went back. | 22:16 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you remember the year you graduated approximately? | 23:00 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yeah, I graduated 1940s. | 23:00 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And it was a BA that you had? | 23:01 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Mm-hmm. | 23:10 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And what was your major? | 23:13 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Major was elementary ed and minor in English. | 23:14 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Thank you. All right. And then. | 23:19 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I went to Bok Vocational School in Philadelphia. | 23:34 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What is it? How do you spell the name of that school? | 23:36 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | B-O-C-K. | 23:36 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | B-O-C-K Regional School. All right. | 23:40 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And this was preparatory to going to the Navy Department to work. | 23:43 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I see. | 23:47 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | During the war. | 23:48 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And that was in Philadelphia? | 23:49 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Mm-hmm. | 23:50 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So your work history. Your first, oh my goodness. So you're talking to us, that job was— | 24:05 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Got my first social, yeah, I know where my social security came from. I worked for, when we moved to Philadelphia, we went and made applications for government and all, but this, I worked for a novelty wreath company. | 24:13 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Novelty wreath company. | 24:30 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And made Christmas wreaths and all kind of store decorations. That was my first job. | 24:31 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And what did you do for them? | 24:38 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I made, let's see, what did they call that title? Well, made wreaths and store decorations. | 24:41 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So you were in the actual production? | 24:59 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Production of it. | 25:02 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And the artistic. | 25:04 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Had this greenery that, I guess it was just like cedar or Christmas tree. It would be pickled in the same kind of stuff they used to bomb people. And they used to call it lycopodium or something like. Anyway, you've got to take these, gather up the right little bunch of it and then spin them around the little wooden picks like the flower, the florist does. And then you have the frames you see, and then you put them in the frames. You work over here for a while, go to frames. Then you learn how to make ribbons, they had a machine that made pretty bows for Christmas wreaths, and cemeteries and all that stuff. All kinds of flowers and stuff. It was decorating company really, they made decorations. | 25:05 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So you were there in the '40s? | 25:54 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Mm-hmm. Right after the war. | 25:55 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Right. | 25:59 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And then I went to, let's see, then I went to US Navy Department, Philadelphia. Worked in electrical supply. Okay, and I was promoted to storeroom, electrical supplies. They go aboard all kinds of ships. And I didn't even know what a female plug was until guys, they would tease us. Some of the first one, I want a female plug. I want a female bush, and I don't know this female business, but you learn. So that was a promotion there for supervisor of the. | 26:01 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | This one. | 27:03 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Supervisor of materials or something like that, the Navy gave it the title. Okay, now we come out of the Navy Department. Then I had my own business, that's when I had the hosiery company. | 27:04 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | All right. And then. | 27:16 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I had the hosiery company. And then after that I went to New Jersey, Bell Telephone company in Newark, New Jersey. | 27:21 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And you were a manager there, you said? | 27:39 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yes. At my husband's death, I transferred to Charlotte and finally worked for Southern Bell for 13 years. And I had an actual title here. And I conducted a program of my own in communication skills because I had to learn this old-fashioned switchboard. Here, we already had computerized boards in Jersey. And a woman was, see, I had to learn what traffic you carry and all that and how you operate. And while I was doing that, she brought me some tickets back, told me I got some billing tickets back, bring the correct billing. We had to mark since in special lead. | 27:42 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And the tickets perforated where you write like when you take government exams, that sort of thing. But see, I have been away so long until I'm hearing someone say to me 7041. And I think it's an O, it comes by as an O, it's not four, that R is not on there. And I thought about that, and so then when I finished learning the board and went to an office of my own and talked to that with the DTM, district traffic manager, there was a great need for listening skills and communication skills too. | 28:34 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | So touchdown time, see, you understand, the person comes in and gives you an order and you can program it in right away. So I did that for one year. And I went to most of the major colleges, universities around here and everywhere I went to, people wanted to grab me by the throat. "Oh my goodness, I'm so glad to see." I went to department heads and they wanted to take my job. And Jean C. Smith, she said, "How in the world did you get that job?" Said, "I'm so sick of teaching." For one year I did that. And we had a control group. And we went to Charlotte Rehab Hospital at that time was headed by Dr. Robin Prescott, PhD. She was from way up in Peabody, Massachusetts. And she was just thrilled. We had hearing test and we had all kinds of verbal tests, speech clinicians and everything. | 29:20 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Sounds very useful for a telephone company. | 30:22 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yes. And then we had classes at Central Piedmont where we could be exposed to see where they already had this one, I had training in New Jersey, you see. You have a project you have to report on, you have closed circuit television where your critique is on television as well as the substance of your material. And so we did all of that kind of thing. I hear from girls and they say, "Oh, what fun we had." | 30:28 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | It sounds like it. | 30:53 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | It was too much pressure here in a central office for people to really perform human beings. It was too much pressure, too much patrolling up and down, almost with sticks. So I was a missionary and didn't know it until later. But because see, they had no Blacks in management, no supervisor. Yet, they would pull these, oh, his daughter was working. Now they would pull these girls out at certain periods of time and have them doing supervisors work, supervisory work. But they weren't even getting paid differential. So they knew good and well, don't try that with me because I was a union steward in New Jersey. Don't even try that. And so other people were promoted and they had some fine young people bored to tears. Absolutely board to tears. Boy did I get them up off of those stools and give them something to do, because that's a terrible predicament to me. And they were the losers. So along comes. | 30:55 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | The Bell company. | 32:01 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Sure. Along comes the computerized switchboard, TSPS. And they pulled me from where I was and put me on training. I never saw so much crying, weeping and gnashing of teeth. The concept that you could just push one little button and it would do about five different things that you would normally have to do manually with a cord and jacks and all that kind of stuff, I felt sorry for some of the older people who were about retirement, almost retirement age and everything. But some of them just matched that I wouldn't give up on them and others would not give, I was not the only one. But I knew that she could if you gave her the concept. And I used to ask for more teaching time in order to do that. | 32:06 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And then you had the young people who came in just snatched it up like that because see, they weren't confused by this old-fashioned board. And the office I worked in New Jersey, it was just a multifaceted place. I used to do tapes for the weather. We had conference calls and giant conference calls. We used traffic circuits from about four or five other states. | 32:55 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I remember exactly what I was doing the day that John Kennedy was assassinated. I was training two people. One girl was 28, they were both Black, but she was 28 and she had lived overseas. And this other youngster was just out of high school, and she lived down in Newark in the projects. And they didn't even have a telephone. So she had no use of the telephone whatsoever. | 33:21 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I was training those two people when I saw the chief operator, used to call her little captain. And she was a little short Irish lady, cute as a button, and she was running up and down. I don't know, because I'm down here in the training position and she comes and tells me that I had to put these girls, "See you have to put them to the switchboard, put them, Mrs. Brown!" | 33:49 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And then I didn't know right away. She wouldn't tell me right away how severe it was. And so then I had to bridge in with them and tell them so we wouldn't have so many mistakes and everything, because I had to work myself between them. Yeah, that was an awful time. | 34:11 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Sure. There's another question here, which have you ever received any awards or honors or any offices that you want on the record? You said you were a union steward. | 34:39 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yeah, I was union steward in New Jersey. CWA, Communication Workers of America. I received accommodations for training, operator training and working communication skills. I've been to seminars, attendance seminars. We went to a lot of technical schools here, mostly in Atlanta, because the Southern Bell Park, this big hotel complex in Atlanta. | 34:46 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 35:30 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Executive Park Training center in Atlanta. And I think that was Dawson, George Dalton outside of went with some special, some of the old-fashioned equipment that they weren't phasing out right away. Then I became what they call a service observer, not service observer. I did that too at the time, trying to, what did they title that thing where it came from? Forgot what the title was, wow. This is where business services, I worked in business services. And this is where you go to, all the large businesses, which normally have PBX equipment, you train the operator, person who operates the PBX equipment, who operates a switchboard. | 35:34 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And then you go behind that into the actual equipment, the trunking equipment. Then periodically, you make scheduled studies on that equipment, which involves you carrying a scanner to the equipment very often. We had one weight, 55 pounds, one weighed 110 pounds. And then at Christmastime, major holidays, you took studies on traffic overloads and you interpreted that the data would come back on teletypewriter, you had to scale, you interpreted, and you make such suggestions. And then you worked very close with marketing. If marketing sells a piece of equipment, then you are the persons that frame. | 36:35 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | They're all interrelated. | 37:25 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And that's when the Southern Bell really cut its throat because it didn't have nary so hardly with a degree of any kind. And you got into this computerized world and you didn't have the manpower that you should have had. Yeah. And I'm sure they paid the price for that because they really just did not have it. They just missed it. And it just seemed to have come so quickly. I mean, it was absolutely foreign when I came here and began to talk to them about it. It was absolutely foreign to them. | 37:27 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | If I can ask you a little bit about church and religion, your current religious denomination? | 38:07 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yeah, I'm Catholic. | 38:17 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So your current church affiliation? | 38:18 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Our Lady of Consolation. | 38:20 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And that's in Charlotte? | 38:30 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | On Statesville Avenue in Charlotte. And this is the first parish I ever belonged to that is designated as a Black parish. | 38:31 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, really? That's interesting. | 38:43 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | It was in a house that was on Oaklawn Avenue one time. And I think that's the way the history of this church read that it began. So at this parish, we have a White priest. We have had one Black priest since I've been here, but about once a month or once every two months, they have the mass. It's like an African ceremony and it's called Harambe, and people dress up in African dress and they have a ceremony where they have palm fronds or something, and they go to the ceremonies sweeping the aisle round the altar and all that. Do some very ethnic things. They have a choir that's a spiritual choir and all that. And so that you don't lose your roots, you see, you don't lose your. It's a majority Black parish, although, but we are involved in many things and helping in the community where our church is located. | 38:46 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | We have a young priest, a young White priest born here in Charlotte. When he got out of seminary and knew that this church was here, he always wanted to pastor that church named Father Tyson. Father Cecil Tyson. And I think he's doing a good work because you can't tie people down and say forget your heritage altogether you see. And I have seen people shout, almost scared me to death, I've seen people start shouting over there because I belonged to much larger churches you see. Where the majority were Irish and Italian and all that you see and few Blacks, and you went along with the program. I loved the bass anyhow. But here, they sing the way they want to sing. Of course you sing the hymn tunes of the Mass, but then you sing some gospel. | 40:05 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | That sounds wonderful. | 41:08 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I think it's unique, I really do. | 41:08 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | It's wonderful. It does sound unique. | 41:08 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I mean, yeah, it keeps our roots going. Yes. | 41:11 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | You were raised in the AME church? | 41:17 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yes, I was raised as a youngster. My grandfather was a minister in AME church. | 41:19 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What church were you a member of as a child? As a young person. | 41:25 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | All right. It was then called East Stonewall. | 41:27 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | East Stonewall. AME. | 41:32 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | AME Church, African Methodist Episcopal Church, which still exists today. They have a wonderful new church in a different location. My sister was here Mother's Day, and she worshiped at that church. | 41:37 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And that was the church you were a member of until— | 41:52 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | When I was born. | 41:54 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Until you became Catholic? | 41:56 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | No, my grandfather was reassigned and he had to leave this church and go, they reassign at conference, whatever. | 41:58 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Yes, ma'am. | 42:10 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And also, let's see, it depends on your performance and all that, but something happened, I don't know the full detail, but he moved to the Palmetto Conference in South Carolina. And my mother, my grandmother both worked in the church, but my mother became disgruntled by the way they were treated. And she says, "I'm not going to take it anymore." She had a good alto voice, and she did something about music. She played something. And this choir, this church had always had a wonderful choir. It was called the Ebenezer Baptist Church. | 42:11 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And that was with, oh, but were you a member of that church? | 42:50 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Oh yes. | 42:53 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | You were, okay. | 42:54 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | She took me one Sunday night and I joined with her. | 42:55 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And where was the Ebenezer Baptist Church? | 43:00 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Let's see what is actually [indistinct 00:43:05] on Davidson or on. | 43:02 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | But it's in Charlotte. | 43:06 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | It's at 2nd, I think it was 2nd and Davidson. | 43:09 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | The city. Thank you. | 43:12 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | So then my religious education continued, and mother and I went first and see, we had to be baptized, immersed. And then grandmother came along. It seemed to be some difficulty there where she didn't feel that her mother was being treated right and she wasn't going to take it because she was still a young woman and she didn't want her children to grow up confused. And so we worked in the church there. I remember teaching Sunday school, teaching daily vocation, Bible school, secretary of clerk of the church, secretary Sunday School and all that. | 43:14 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So that was the church. That was the last church you remember before you converted to Catholicism? | 44:00 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yes. | 44:05 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Thank you. | 44:06 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Exactly right. | 44:06 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you or have you belonged to any organizations, clubs, or things like that? | 44:09 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Okay. Well, I said the CWA, Communication Workers of America. | 44:14 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Yes. | 44:18 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Okay. And I was in pledge groups for sororities, but I didn't go over because my husband went over. | 44:19 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I see. | 44:26 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | And we didn't have the money. | 44:26 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay, I see. | 44:28 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | So I pledge Delta Sigma Theta, but I didn't go over it. | 44:29 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, all right now. | 44:31 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | It's a pledge. | 44:31 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Pledged Delta Sigma Theta. | 44:31 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | NAACP. | 44:31 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Delta. | 44:31 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Theta. | 44:31 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Theta. And you're a member of the NAACP? | 44:42 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Mm-hmm. | 44:46 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you remember approximately when you joined? | 44:47 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | When I first came here. | 44:50 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | When you came here? | 44:53 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | When I first got here, I needed help. | 44:55 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | 1970. | 44:58 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Had to fight these people, try to get a job, you know I needed help. And I knew the family, the Alexander family. | 44:58 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And you're still a member of the NAACP? | 45:04 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | I'm not an active member at this time, I regret to say. | 45:06 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. Are there any hobbies that you would like to list for the records or other activities? I've written that you were a union steward. | 45:15 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yeah. Well, I don't know whether [indistinct 00:45:28] my hobbies or not. | 45:25 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | It's as you wish. | 45:30 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Well, I enjoy plays. I've been used to live theater and I've been used to also accustomed going to the horse races and still have that here. I used to drive 45 miles by myself, go to the track. I looked at the Belmont Saturday, I think. Got in New York Triple Crown and a woman won for the first time. | 45:33 |
| Hasan Jeffries | Oh, really? | 45:57 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Oh yes, honey. He bought that horse on in there then. And paid some nice money. The exact paid, if you had the numbers for the exact, you know what the exact is? It would have brought back 18,000 and some odd dollars. I cried. Driving a car fast doesn't charm me at all. Out here at the motor speedway, and I don't think you can bet, you can probably. I know you can't, but you have to do it under the table, that kind of thing. And I love theater and I've been to a whole lot of it, offering a whole ball of wax. And I miss a lot of that being here. | 45:58 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So under activities. | 46:40 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | But I go to Washington and go to the Kennedy Center. When I go up there, it's always something, right? | 46:41 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So under activities, I have union organizing, theater, and horse races, that's right? | 46:46 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | Yeah. That's great. | 46:50 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | All right. | 46:51 |
| Eunice Johnson Brown | It's great. | 46:51 |
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