Clyde Strong interview recording, 1993 June 14
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| Clyde Eugene Strong | Hoover was the president. | 0:01 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay, and do you remember that about him? | 0:04 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | I remember that about him. I remember that the only communication you had during that time was the radio, which people was forcing to get, and the newspaper, which people was forcing to get. And the newspaper that time was only five and 10 cent. And of course, during that time, you didn't have an uproar like you have today. Most of the people's patient and more religion, and they was waiting for a better day and the better day came when Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office. | 0:06 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | How old were you when Franklin Delano Roosevelt came to office then? | 0:39 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | When Franklin Delano Roosevelt, when he came to take office, I was eight years old because he came in '32. | 0:40 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And do you remember? | 0:50 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | I remember him when he came in, and his was the New Deal and everything. | 0:52 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you remember your parents talking about FDR being elected? | 0:58 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, they didn't talk about it as much as people was trying to go to work, because at that time he had intended to try to make a living, which was hard. And my neighbors at that time was Kelly Alexander Miller Senior, saying I knew his father, Mr. Zech Alexander Senior, and he came to Charlotte to start the first NAACP, which had two branches of it, the Junior Branch Charlotte and the Senior Branch Charlotte. I was a member of the junior branch because I was still in high school. | 1:01 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And let's come back to that, but I'd like to ask a bit about the earlier years. Have you lived in Charlotte all your life, Mr. Strong? | 1:39 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yes, yeah. | 1:47 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay, and were your parents born in Charlotte? | 1:48 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yes. | 1:50 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. So your family's been here a lot? | 1:54 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | I could have left here years ago because most of my peoples went off, but they called me the country boy and I stayed home because I didn't like the north then either, because the peoples in the south seemed more friendly and had more warmth than the peoples in the north because nobody seemed to care. And that was a bad part, but the community was closely tied because when I was coming along, if you did something wrong, all they had to do was tell your parents and I'd be taken care of. | 1:54 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What neighborhood did you grow up in at the time? | 2:26 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | I grew up on Second Ward between First Street and Stonewall Street, which is Independence Boulevard, now the curve is there, but it wasn't, and the Alexanders lived one house above my house. | 2:29 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What can you tell me about your neighborhood when you were growing up? What was it like? | 2:46 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, it was a nice neighborhood because most of the peoples that lived in the Brooklyn area were peoples of high status. They were ministers, they were teachers. We had a couple of lawyers and we also had some doctors that lived there. And profession didn't seem to be any block every whatsoever. Everybody seemed to be the same and whatever they could do for somebody, they would do it. And peoples had gardens during that time and peach trees and pear trees. So what they'd do, they'd swap among one another. So they'd have fig trees and grape patches and everything and they would swap those between one another. If my crop came in, you could have some of mine, if your crop came, you have some of mine. So that was the mind and effort there. | 2:50 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did your family have fruit trees? Fruits to chop? Did your family have fruit trees or anything? | 3:42 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Oh yeah, we had fig trees and peach trees, that's what was in ours. The lady next door, she had a pear tree and the lady up the street had a pear tree and the lady up the street had a grapevine. So you had all those things that they would pass one another and preserve it, see? It was canned, it was put into jars and you see, they could tell when something had gone, if there was a spoilage or anything, then they'd just throw that out. They were discarded, nobody ate that and they looked out for one another, they really did. Because the present in then time it seemed like that we so self-centered that we forgotten about what the humane society means. This is the bad part. | 3:48 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What did your parents do? | 4:32 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, my father worked downtown at a barbershop as supporter. My mother stayed at home and raised the four of us and he made enough to take care of us. There was no bikes being bought, but there was skates and schools and wagons, and he didn't want to buy a bike and skates, he was afraid we might get hit by a car. In fact, I doubt if he was able to do that because he had to feed us and clothes. So that was enough within itself, and we seen incentives to that and we enjoyed it. But I had very good parents and they guided me. The only thing that my mother had a question about is that she didn't mind me being whooped on my rear. But only thing about it, don't drop me in my face. She was big against that. She even told my father that, "Don't never hit him in the face." | 4:35 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What did your father think about it? Was he against that too? | 5:27 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well no, he had to accept it though. My mother, she was, she'd tell the teachers, "If he does something wrong you can chest stop and you can beat him on his rib, but don't hit him in his face. If you hit him in his face, then he tells me then she's gonna fight because my mother said that's always where the brain was, and you could do more detrimental to a child by hitting them in the face than any other time. She didn't care if you stood up and ate, it was all right with her because you couldn't sit down, and this was the disciplinary that they gave, but most of the time they talked to us. | 5:30 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Your parents? | 6:02 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, they talked. Most of the time they talked and lectured us and they tell us what was right and what was wrong and then we had to go to church. I used to have to walk in Second Ward over the Third Ward to the church over there. It's not there anymore. Anyway— | 6:03 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What do you remember about going? Which church was it you went to? | 6:14 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | St. Michael's Episcopal Church, on the corner of Mint and Hill. Yeah, Mint and Hill Street. We was connected with the Good Samaritan Hospital, the Diocese of North Carolina and the Good Samaritan Hospital. And our priest would go over there because there was a chapel in the hospital and everything. And he would have bread with—Well, they had a nurse's training school over there and he would go over there and have chapel with them, and of course during that time, they had to come to church. It wasn't unless you was sick or something of that nature. So they had good means of discipline and everything, but it wasn't too bad and too strict as I see it today. | 6:14 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did you go to church any days of the week besides Sunday or was it only on Sunday? | 7:01 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, most of the time it was on a Sunday, but if they had some type of special program going on during the weekdays, we went then. | 7:05 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What kind of special programs might you have? | 7:14 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, you'd have your Easter and Christmas, you had to learn material about that and then they'd have all children's there. You have to learn material about that. So you never was just ever out school because around in Brooklyn area, that was approx around about seven or eight churches and each church each month would have barber classes. Course they changed the vocational classes but they had barber classes and the teachers would come around to talk those classes and you'd have to go. | 7:18 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | They'd knock and ask your parents, "I want them in barber class." And you'd say, "Yeah." You might not want to go but that teacher who's teaching you might be your teacher when you went to public school, you never knew. And sometimes they were and they had a feel. I mean, your personality and your attitude, they got a feeling for it. See what we don't have today because they think that's, I mean, obsolete for some reason or another. Just there in time. | 7:54 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you remember fun things going on at the church? | 8:23 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Oh yes. We would have—Well, only fun thing was that you—Well, most of the time you was studying the barber and after the barber, the fun part was they had a bucket of lemonade out there to keep your cool because you didn't have no fans and no air condition, and that was the fun part. And it started about eight o'clock. You was all around about 12 or one o'clock during the day. So that mean mama didn't need them babysitter there that day and I guess she was glad to get to rest. | 8:26 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Was there somebody, when you were growing up, who you looked up to in particular, Mr. Strong? | 8:56 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, I looked up to the elders in my church, especially one named Mr. Austin Jackson. I looked up to Dr. Blackman, Dr. Edson Blackman. | 9:03 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Blackman? | 9:13 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, and I looked up at Professor Adams. He was a registrar down there at Johnson C. Smith, and I hadn't entered Johnson C. Smith at that time. And those was peoples in my church and also I looked up to Mrs. Ali Gunes. All of Mrs. Stead, Mrs. Moore, and Mrs. Gunes. Those was my guiding peoples. I mean, they guided me and they didn't have to whoop me, they'd just say, "Don't do that" and, "That was wrong" and I didn't do it anymore. Because if I thought they told my father, I know what was coming, you see? So you had that community guidance there that you don't have today because— | 9:13 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did these people live in your neighborhood also? | 9:54 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | No. Well, two of them did, but the rest of them lived over there in Third Ward because they was a member of the church. But that just show how a community could connect, and we don't have that today. We don't have no connection or one love, because I think one of the things that we find out about religion is that most churches keep within their walls and never going outside into ourselves and we [indistinct 00:10:23] about that, see? | 9:56 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Was your church involved in civic affairs? Do you remember that? | 10:25 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yes. Our father Wilkin was because he would go to all these different places and everything. Or he left during his retirement period and went to California. I understand he's deceased at this time. His name was Reverend Alfred W Wilkins. | 10:29 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Wilkins? Okay. | 10:45 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | And he was a fine person, before him was for the Reverend John W. Harris, that's the boy I came up on then, and he was a fine man. They seemed like to me that the ministers that day in time had more an outlook on life and was trying to steer the people in the right direction rather than this philosophy religion is today. | 10:46 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you remember disagreements ever coming up in the church when you were growing up? | 11:13 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yes, I remember disagreements. One time with the organists and the ministry, but they soon settled it peacefully and nothing good, I mean, really develop out of it. | 11:18 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What were they disagreeing about? Do you remember? | 11:28 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | I think about the music. The priest has the right to choose the music of the service you see? He had no organ, there's nothing. I think they made some selections and some hymns that he didn't want, you see? But that soon cleared up and everything, but it took its toll. But soon somehow or another it smoothed out. Not in the anguish, hostility. It came to understanding in the media way people wouldn't go to violence like they do today. | 11:30 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Besides the church, what other kinds of organizations were there in your neighborhood? | 12:08 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, they had what was known as the odd fellows. They had halls there. | 12:13 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | The odd fellows? | 12:19 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, where they had halls where they had meetings and also these halls, these youths, these churches, prayer meetings they would call it. Prayer services and they'd use them and there one on the corner of Boundaries and Caldwell Street. Then there was another one on the corner of Caldwell and 2nd Street, and the other was there in the middle of Caldwell near 3rd Street. | 12:20 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | All that's torn out, I mean, that's been demolished now just like they did when they took over, the hood took over and everything because right now where the United Way is, that used to be the YMCA. See, because right over there in Brooklyn you had the YMCA, the YWCA and you also had the Lincoln Theater. What was on and operated once by the American Legion of Charlotte and then it was sold and then they take, I mean, it was a Rex Theater, then it was sold and they changed it to the Lincoln Theater and that was the entertainment for most of the people. | 12:48 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What kinds of things did you do for then when you were growing up, Mr. Strong? | 13:29 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, we had parties, we had house parties and everything. It served peanuts and ice cream and most of the time it was somebody's birthday. We didn't have a party until the birthday. Then later on came along, the heart fellow who I was speaking of, they opened up that and made a recreation center for us where we could go and dance in the afternoon till a certain period of time, nine o'clock, that was the latest, and you had to leave. | 13:33 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And was that when you were in high school that you had that then? | 13:59 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | I was in high school. High school where they had this piccolo in there where the recreation park recreation started back there years ago. Give the kids something to do and keep them out of mischievous things, and everybody, I think was 15 cent to get in. | 14:01 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did you do sports at all on your—? | 14:20 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Oh yes, well, we played sandlot baseball and sandlot football, that's all it was. And basketball hadn't even come into the pitch until later on. I mean, baseball and football, the main two projects you have. Even girls played softballs. Well, you had a softball and you had a hardball and yes, we played that. We had a field where we would put down some snacks or something for basis and it made a ball of diamond out of it. And a lot of people come down and see us play ball and everything. We did the same thing with football. We had certain goals where it was that you would pass and where you'd run and everything like that. | 14:22 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | How did you choose the teams? | 15:08 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, most of the teams came from the real community mostly. Well, they do the pick who they wanted to be on the team, you see? And some was left out and some of them, they made them put them on the team anyway even if they couldn't play, to give them a chance. So they was fair about it. It wasn't nothing this thing about you better than anyone else. So you had you give them a chance to play too. | 15:10 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Were there ever adults around when you were playing? | 15:36 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well yes, adults. Sure. There was always adults around. In fact where we played, I first started playing was back from Royaldine Court, that's off down the street. And above, there was White kids and they'd come down and we'd all play together, and sometimes the mother would come down and bring us lemonade and we was glad to get the lemonade because it was hot. And we drank the lemonade and they'd tell us don't fight, we wasn't going to fight because we was glad to get the lemonade because you away from home about three or four blocks, you had to go home and get a drink of water or anything. So we got along play well. | 15:39 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So you played with the White kids too? | 16:17 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. They see us down there playing and come down and ask us could they play, and of course they choose one on one side of the team, one on the other side of the team. | 16:18 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So, the teams were mixed? | 16:30 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, yeah. In playing? Yeah. And we got along just fine because adults were down at the supervision and they could look out there and they'd be sitting on the porch and they could see, because that was a branch that ran across this and we had to walk across the pipe to get on the other side because the street was a dead end. And I imagine it was a pretty large field out there, wasn't no houses anything out there and so that's where we play sandlot baseball and sandlot football. | 16:32 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Were there any parts of town that you weren't allowed to go to when you were growing up? | 17:06 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yes. Yes, Cherry. | 17:10 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Why was that? | 17:15 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Because every time that you go to Cherry, those people felt like that was their part of the city didn't want you in there and you'd have to run across the cow pastures, which was off—I mean, Thomas Arthur's home. You can't tell it now because Independence Boulevard goes right through it. The old chapel is still over there at Thompson Arthur home and the cow pastures over there and they didn't want us coming over there because of the fact is that they figured that you was coming over to see their girls and that's when you had to run. See, you had to run. And I always thought that was stupid because I said, "If the girls didn't want to be involved with them. Why run us because we come over there?" but we never ran anybody from over in Brooklyn. | 17:15 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | They would come over there because that was the most proper area you had in the city of Charlotte and they would come over and start a fight and maybe then somebody that would get hurt and they thought somebody get killed. They thought that was the most detrimental thing that ever happened. That's right. And you was labeled once you killed somebody, they didn't have too much to do with you. | 18:04 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Yes. | 18:26 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | They didn't care whether you had money or you didn't have money. You're just an outcast, I'll be frank with you, and they didn't accept you. And if you went to a place where you wasn't wanted, they'd ask who invited and say you had to ask them to leave. | 18:29 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So where did you first go to school, Mr. Strong? | 18:45 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Myers Street School. Myers Street School, it's not there anymore. What is down there think now is the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Aquatium, where the swimming is. See Myers Street School was sitting on the corner of—a little from Myers Street all the way to McDonald Street and Second Ward School was—Well, both of them off of Stonewall was between Alexander Street all the way back down to Myers Street. But you can't tell it in there now, the way they have redeveloped the land and everything, you just wouldn't tell it, you see? Because down in Charlottetown Mall it's sitting over, it's sitting over creek. It's creek up under there, but those engineers came in there and you can't even tell it's in there. That's— | 18:47 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I'm sorry, go on. | 19:41 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | No, that's it on everything. But I think peoples was hiding more compassion for each other than they have now. I can't understand it. | 19:43 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Something that I forgot to ask you earlier when I asking about your family, when somebody got sick in your family, what did you do then? | 19:58 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, all of my mother's children was delivered by Dr. Pettaway and he was White, and he took care of. And by my father working downtown, he knew a lot of doctors 'cause Stine's Barbershop was one of the most distinguished barbershops there was. | 20:10 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | I remember when I was young that Governor Clyde R. Hoey came down there. We had the same name, and my dad was calling me, he thought he was talking to him. He said "No, my son there, Clyde," I remember he gave me 50 cent because we had the same name and 50 cents, you could do a lot with 50 cents and everything. | 20:30 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | And he know quite a number of them. But during that time that you had to go to see the doctor, you had to sit out in the hall, they'd put seats out in the hall and the Whites would go into the seats area and everything. But even with that, you felt like that's better than not having a doctor at all. | 20:50 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did you know any Black doctors when you were growing up? | 21:13 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yes, I knew quite a few Black doctors, but it seemed that they didn't have the training that the doctors have today. Because see, during that time, there was medical doctors and there was surgeons and they was not as specialized in the field and the field of medicine is just too broad for you to be specialized in all of it. See? And I scream, "Why people's going in and out there in special fields of medicine and everything?" But I served in World War II from 1943 to 1946 and I can recall very well the good honorable Mr. Harry S. Truman said that, "If you wanted to go to school, we would pay for it" and that was the best news that any veteran had ever heard of. | 21:16 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Even those who hadn't been in high school could go back and get their diploma and they would pay for it, and that's how I went to Smith. The only two requirements was that you must be disciplinary and you must make at least a C plus average to stay in school. If you didn't make that average, then it's left up to you to make it and everything. | 22:16 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So you had graduated from Second Ward? | 22:41 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Right, that's—Yeah. | 22:44 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And what year did you graduate from Second Ward? | 22:47 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | I went '43. | 22:49 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And then you went into—? | 22:51 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Oh, I went into the service. I was drafted into the service. I spent 19 months in the South Pacific. | 22:52 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | If it's not too personal, can you tell me a bit about that? | 22:56 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | The South Pacific? | 22:56 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | About what it was like? | 23:03 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, it was hot and humid. Very hot and the humidity very high because we had to—Well, what we was doing, was I was in the aviation engineer, 1899th aviation engineers. What we was doing was over there building. We was building the runways for the P-38s and P-39s to take off from Guam, where I was, to go on the mission out to Okinawa, Tinian and the Mariana and Johnston Islands to combat the enemy. And we were in the [indistinct 00:23:55] also, that we was going to take Tokyo, until President Truman decided that too many men were dying and that's when they dropped the atomic bomb. | 23:05 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | You see the aviation engineers was close to the Air Force, and one of the captains told me, "Well, in two or three weeks we be going home" and of course I didn't use the sorts of words to tell him no, because they had told us we was going to be at the [indistinct 00:24:20] to go in. But he knew then that they was going to drop that bomb but he couldn't tell no one. I mean, the Army is very secretive in that. Well, the Armed Forces are very secretive in telling things that they don't want to get out because the enemy could hear it, see? And soon after he told me, a week after then, they had dropped that bomb. | 24:03 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What do you remember about them telling you that the bomb had dropped? What were you thinking about at the time? | 24:43 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, he didn't mean—I didn't know. Actually, they didn't tell us till about a week after that they had dropped that bomb. Before then, he came down, he wanted to learn how to operate the bulldozers. He wanted to learn how to operate the graders and he wanted the steam shovels and all the heavy equipment and I asked him, "Why?" He said, "Well, after I get out of the service there's going to be too many pilots and I won't have a job and you know heavy equipment, those people make good money today on your highways and your streets and everything else." And he said that was the reason why. And I got to know him very personally. | 24:46 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | That's when he told me that we be going home the next two or three weeks and I said, "What you talking the next two or three weeks?" He knew then that they're going to drop the bomb and I had to go back and apologize to him, he looked at me laughed because I mean, I'd gotten to know him and everything because they didn't want him to operate the equipment because he was a captain and I told the boss and my little Lieutenant, you go there telling them you know how they're operating. I said, "He outranks me." He said, "Outranked me too." I said, "Well, I can't tell you. You say you in charge of this detail, you go and tell them." Because I wasn't going to tell it. I wasn't going to tell them. I really wasn't. | 25:24 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | When you were in the Army, were your officers White or Black? | 26:02 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | White. | 26:05 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | White? Well, wow was that? How was—? | 26:06 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | To be frankly with you? | 26:09 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Mm-hmm. | 26:10 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | They were downright nasty, because, I mean, I some had some officers—Now, the one that came out of Maine, Major Tarbucks, the assistant there in command, he was very good and those that came out of the coast is very good but the one came out of Arkansas and Texas, and some of those came out of New York, they were very, very nice. | 26:12 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | How were they nice. What kinds of nice? | 26:39 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, they even called one of the soldiers there a nigger and of course he got back to the island battallion commander and course he sent someone down and he was just a second Lieutenant. They didn't know who he was and I didn't either until we looked up and seen in front of that jeep the three stars. That meant he represented the Lieutenant General. And when he told everybody to snap, he pulled out this, they snapped, they came to attention, he chewed everybody out there, see? And that soon broke up the company and everything like that. He said, "You don't call no soldier that type of name and no other soldier is supposed to call him because we're all American and we all here to fight a war and to win a war." And he says, "I don't never want to hear this, if it comes back again, somebody's getting court martialed." | 26:44 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | But you see, they didn't want to lose that ranking place so therefore they listened to him because when he came through, they looked at him and asked and told him, I asked him, "Hey Lieutenant, you don't recognize me?" Sleek, just kept right on walking like they wasn't talking to him, and when he came back and he pulled that out, that's the General, they knew who he was then. Everybody snapped and came to attention. We was looking out the tent laughing how the Lieutenant come and everybody come to attention and he's just a second Lieutenant. But one of the sergeants looked out there and said, "All right, he represented the General see them three stars on the Jeep?" "I had no idea, I wasn't paying attention" you see? | 27:41 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | And then you got to think about Harry S. Truman because he's the one who integrated the service. But to be frank with you, America with it's own, it's upturn, when Kennedy, both Kennedy's, John and Robert and Martin Luther King. And you see that was so much hostility there that these peoples knew this thing and they didn't want to turn it around, so what do we do? We kill all three of them. | 28:23 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I'd like to come back to that, but before that I'd like to ask you, when you got discharged from the service, then you went to Johnson C. Smith? | 28:56 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yes. | 29:03 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 29:04 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah. | 29:04 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So what did you study there? | 29:05 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | I have B.S. in General Science. I wanted to go to med school but my father, he was a World War I veteran and he became a paralegal and I had to stay home with him because I wasn't supposed to go on the service they said. So they had to transfer him when I went in the service to Columbia, South Carolina VA Hospital because my mother and my sister was too young, they couldn't, my grandmother, she was too old to take care of him, and I told him that's what to do. | 29:09 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And your mother at this time, was she still living? | 29:45 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, she was— | 29:50 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | You said she couldn't take care of your father? | 29:50 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | No, because later down the line she had a stroke and she walked with her left and I think that's what actually killed her, and she wasn't able to lift him and everything because she was up in age during that time. My sister, she was just too young, she was a little bitty something, she couldn't do it. My grandmother, she was just too old and everything. And so my sister did go down to Columbia and see that he got into the conventional hospital because all three of his sons then were in the service. | 29:54 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So who did you live with when you were going to Johnson C. Smith? | 30:28 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | My mother and I lived together on Caldwell Street, that old home place. And I took care of her too and everything because the governors paying me enough money that I could take care of the two of us. We both lived there until the hood came in and then that's when I came. I was working then for City Spring, a [indistinct 00:30:54] company as a housing manager. And then I had an apartment I took with me down there and I brought it out here, this is my great uncle's house here. He left this to me. | 30:30 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, really? | 31:03 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yes. | 31:04 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Here on St. Paul Street? | 31:04 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | St. Paul. Yeah. This used to be the rural area out here. | 31:05 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Really? Do you remember that when you were a child? | 31:09 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, I remember. Yeah. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. The bus stopped down there on Booker and Oaklawn. Then they moved up right over here by the schools to Siegle Avenue. This was rural area in here. This was rural area and then the city extended itself and came and took this property in. | 31:11 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So when you were at Smith, did you join a fraternity there? | 31:32 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Omega Psi Phi fraternity. | 31:35 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And when did you join that, early on? | 31:36 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, I joined in 1947. | 31:41 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Can you tell me what kinds of things you and your fraternity brothers did? | 31:45 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, only thing I know they did was to have a Good Friday. The biggest part was a Good Friday dance. See and I think the tradition still goes on now, but I'm not affiliated by my fraternity because I got angry with them. | 31:49 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | When was that? | 32:09 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | In 1947. | 32:12 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Can you tell me what happened with that? | 32:14 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | What happened was that they was wanting to plan to have a dance and I said "No, we don't need to have this dance" "Why not?" At that particular time, the Second Ward and West Charlotte, that's where West Charlotte was at that particular time, "Let's find the underprivileged kids who has a good academics record and let's give them a scholarship fund," and they jumped all over me and said "No, this has been a tradition." I said, "Sometime you have to disband tradition and go along with a lot of things, which is reality." And so they got angry and everything and I walked out, I haven't been since and they got a frat house right over on Statesville Avenue. They come by and they send me a correspondence and asked me to come in. Now they say they're doing it, I told them, "You could have did that 40 years ago." | 32:16 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | This is something that you would give a kid to realize and everything like that, that the organization really care but they were so wrapped up in their pledges and everything. I mean, I didn't say that you give every year, just skip a year, alternate on it. See, have a dance, give a scholarship, have a dance, give a scholarship. And they couldn't see that because I knew how hard it was when I was going to Smith because we could get a requisition to go down to Carolyn Lawrence downtown and [indistinct 00:34:00]. We could buy notebook paper, notebooks, composition pad and all these type of pencils and all. And we were giving some of the kids because their father and mother was struggling to send them to school and we were passing on to them and they was glad we veterans, we were there, they said, "The veterans are good to us" and that's what we would do, you see to help them out. | 33:04 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Were there other veterans in Omega Psi Phi when you were in the organization back then? | 34:06 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Sure they were. | 34:10 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And were there other people, other men, who sided with you on the issue? | 34:13 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, some of them did and most of them didn't because they was looking for an outlet for everything like it was entertainment and everything like that. But what they was looking for, for that night to frolic. For one-night stand, and everything, a young lady, she's got to get a evening gown because once she wore it last year she ain't going to wear it this year. And then you got to have your tux and everything, if it's too small then you got to go buy another one. So expensive all the way around because that's a formal attire, you don't go into any kind, you got to have formal attire or you don't get in. | 34:17 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | I mean, that was fine but the part that got me was that, "Hey, you could do something to help some kid" and I was the one who brought it up because they was meeting then. You passed by the Excelsior Club down there. That's where we met one Sunday and I left and I haven't been back yet. They knows it too. And they tried to apologize and appease and saying what they doing. I said, "Well, you could've did it all the time" and I said, "It's a little sacrifice because some peoples having it very hard to send their kids to school. Some even had to mortgage their homes." And they— | 34:58 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did you know people who were having trouble sending their kids to school yourself? | 35:38 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Majority of them were. You see people who had a home, they'd take a mortgage out, send their kids to school and the kid come out and get them a job. Have to pay that mortgage back and they did that until the four years was up and some got scholarships, which was fine, which helped them out too. | 35:43 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | You told me that you had a brother, there are four children in your family? | 36:01 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yes. | 36:04 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did they go on to school too like you did? | 36:05 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, the oldest one, he went down to Smith I think about one year and he quit, and the brother next time too, he went to North Carolina State then for Negroes, and then he went from there to Howard University and he became a pharmacist. And my sister, she finished Johnson C. Smith, she became a teacher and I finished, I didn't want to teach, so the job was over for me to become a housing record. I accepted that instead. | 36:09 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And where was that, Mr. Strong? | 36:47 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Brookhill Village Apartments. It's down on the southwest section in Charlotte. One of the first ones that was built down there. And then they built the low rental project down there at Southside. We was there before Southside because that was private, and the private Southside belonged to the city of Charlotte, just like Fairview Homes over there on Oakland Avenue or either Earl Village over there in French Ward. | 36:47 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What kinds of things did you do as housing director? | 37:12 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well what you did, you had to lease the apartments, you had to make sure that you balanced the books and deposit the money and things of that nature. For 20 years I did a 416 family unit. Only two of us worked there. And you deposited that every week, sometime you're taking around approx around about 3,900 or either $4,000 because some people was paying in advance and sometimes some people give you a bad check and you had to make that good, run it back through and show stipulation of the count and what rental property that was. | 37:15 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And were you living in that apartment complex at that time? | 38:04 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah. Yeah, I was living in the complex at that time. | 38:07 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Are you married, Mr. Strong? | 38:12 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yes, I am. Yeah. | 38:14 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Where did you meet your wife? | 38:16 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Johnson C. Smith. She's not with me now because she's in Washington. She works at Howard University. | 38:17 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What does she do there, sir? | 38:21 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, she went to school as a medical record librarian in Homer G. Phillips out in St. Louis and she came back, that was during segregated times, and they wouldn't give her a job. So my brother who's in Washington, who was the pharmacist at that time, she wrote to Freedman Hospital, which I mean, well, Howard University Hospital was Freedman Hospital and she got a job and she's been there ever since. And she's been angry because I won't come that way. (laughs) | 38:25 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So does she come down here? | 39:00 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, yeah. We commute every once in a while. We haven't commuted last year because in fact, I think it's been too expensive. (laughs) | 39:01 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So you met at Smith, you didn't know her before that? | 39:09 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | No, I didn't before that. The Lady Smith, she's a Delta. That's the Omega sister. She's a Delta. Also, my biological sister, she's a Delta too. | 39:13 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And is your wife still active with the Deltas? | 39:25 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | I don't think so because the last time I talked was she [indistinct 00:39:32] because I think she spent most of her time trying to get up and get to work, because she lives out in Maryland, Silver Spring, Maryland. She doesn't live in the District because the District has really gotten too bad. | 39:27 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So, even though you're married, it sounds like you spend a lot of time on your own. | 39:49 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, I have the last 27 years. That's a long time ago but I'm glad my mother taught me how to do some things, which I thought was feminine, and I said, "No, mommy." She said, "Son, I want to be sure, you might need this" now I have to do it. I think about it. I said, "Well, she sure was right." How right she was, you see and everything. | 39:53 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So she made all the children learn how to do things around the house? | 40:13 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. You had to do things that time. Yeah. They make you clean the house, cook and how to wash and how to iron and everything because they felt like that someday you would need it, which they were right. Because you might try to rebuke against it, but you had to do and do it right. If they come behind and check if it wasn't done right, you had to do it over. These kids have it easier today. They got it easy. They just really don't know. I mean, I can't understand them. In fact, I shouldn't blame the kids, I blame the parents because in the history of the United States, people have more now than they ever had and they're still not satisfied. That's the thing I cannot understand. | 40:16 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So, when you were growing up and you were around the house and your mother was making sure the kids would all do things, were there other family members in the household or in the area? | 41:06 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, most of the time the kids would have to do the things, what their parents asked them to do. See, they didn't have no central heating system, you had to bring in coal and wood during the winter months and they'd make you sweep the yard. Wasn't much grass like it is today, but you didn't want no paper or anything gone and then you had to sweep the yards. And clean then sweep the rooms and make up your bed and clean your house. I mean, clean your room. It wasn't no such thing as they go clean the room. They made you clean the room, which is good too. | 41:19 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did you know your grandparents when you were growing up, Mr. Strong? | 41:55 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | I knew the ones on my mother's side, but I didn't know the ones on my father's side. | 41:58 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Why was that, that you didn't know? | 42:04 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | I understand that I think they died before I was born and everything. | 42:07 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | But your mother's people were in Charlotte? | 42:12 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, they were in Charlotte. Yeah, yeah. | 42:14 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What do you remember about your grandparents most of all? | 42:17 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, most of all, I remember my grandfather. I loved him very much. That's how I got attached to my uncle here, and his name was William Cobb and my uncle's name was Rich Cobb, they was brothers. And I used to go fishing with them. When they wanted to go fishing, they'd ask, "Who want to go?" My brother and sister wouldn't say nothing. I said, "I'll go, grandfather. Come on." So he took a liking to carry me fishing with him and we go down by the creek and we'd catch. During that time there were nothing but the catfish, which now is a delicacy, as they say catfish is now. | 42:19 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | But during that time people didn't think much of them all and everything. So he was a great grandfather, also my great uncle was too. So they got attached to me because I followed them. And every once in a while he'd have a job where he had to go out towards Thomas and head to Alexander's children home. And sometimes they had a cook out at night, I'd go with him and help him to turn whatever the food was and everything like that. | 42:53 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did your grandfather and great uncle tell you stories about when they were growing up? | 43:26 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | No, not too much because my grandfather, at that particular time, he was working on the railroad and my great uncle, at that time, he was working at a church. Well, he was at Johnston Church and my grandfather used to tell me about things with incident happening on the trains at times and everything but it wasn't, I don't think anything that that was his historic or anything. | 43:31 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you know what kinds of things did he tell you about what kinds of incidents happened on the trains? | 44:00 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, for one thing, you know that it was a segregated train. The Black had to ride up front and the White row behind and things of that nature and everything. They didn't mention much about it that concerned me and everything. | 44:04 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you remember when you were growing up, the signs? | 44:24 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Oh, yes. I remember the signs, the segregation signs. They was all in the stores. In fact, I don't even think they had restrooms for Colored women downtown, or the men's. But right down below that was a block located known that's a lot of arcade where they had barbershops. In fact, my great uncle worked in [indistinct 00:44:47]. | 44:29 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, really? | 44:47 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, and most of the people's going down there where you take from Trade Street all the way down Brevard Street, one section down there was one that's operated by blacks. That was right downtown from College Street to Trade Street, and that's where people go to use the restroom. | 44:48 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And you were mentioning the barbershops earlier. | 45:09 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah. | 45:11 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did you used to hang around the barbershop when you were young? | 45:12 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | No. Well, they didn't allow you to hang around the barbershop. All the adults didn't. They ain't even allowed to hang around when they're playing checkers and playing cards. They didn't allow you to. | 45:16 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | But the men played checkers? | 45:27 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Oh, yeah. The men played checkers and the men played cards, but you couldn't hang around. You could look at it as you passed it by, they'd tell you, "Keep going, keep going." That's all. | 45:28 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Why was that? | 45:37 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Because what might be said they didn't want you to hear. | 45:38 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So, when you grew up, when came back from the war, did you play checkers and that in the barbershop too? | 45:40 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | No, I didn't. When I came back after the war, I was ready for school and ready for having a good time. I visited some of the night spots and everything like that. It wasn't as bad as it is now. | 45:48 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So when you were a little boy growing up, where did your family go to market and do business? | 46:04 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, most of the time my family went to do the marketing, whilst most of the time was in the neighborhood stores, but what happened was, the first big chain store I remember was Pender's. | 46:14 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Pender? | 46:30 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Pender's Grocery Store, and we had one located that had two location. One was down there on the corner of First and Davidson Street, which I didn't live on, a block and a half, the other was down there on McDowell and First Street. And I can't recall how long they operated, but sooner or later, the A&P came in and bought Pender's out. They bought Pender's out and A&P stayed there for a long time. Now, this fella down there, his name is Joe King, his father ran A&P, I mean, ran the A&P store. His name was Mr. King and had another name, Mr. Broker. He was a managing system manager. So we had a good selection of food at that time in the stores. | 46:30 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Were those stores owned mostly by Black people or by White people? | 47:16 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, at previous times it was owned by Black people, you see. It was owned by Black people, but most of the stores owned by White. A few Blacks opened up stores but they didn't materialize because when the A&P came in, I guess they could get products at a cheaper price and sell them than what those peoples were who was trying to get them. Because the first coffee I ever remember was A&P coffee, Eight O'Clock Coffee they called it. That's what everybody was drinking. Eight O'Clock Coffee. It came in the beans form but then they had a machine where you grind it. It wasn't grind, still was in the bean form. | 0:01 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did you have part-time jobs when you were growing up ever? | 0:46 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yes. I had a part-time job in one of the—Or two times, I mean. Once was at a shine parlor and the other was at a shoe shop, Leather Refined Shoes, by the Willis house there and the kids would stay right there in that white house you see there with the trim. That was before I went into the service. | 0:50 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | In fact, in—over there in Brooklyn, a fellow named Stigod Burn, he handled all the parcels in the city of Charlotte. The stores didn't have trucks and things. He would pick up the package from the stores and majority of his help was Black. They drove all over Charlotte delivering package and everything. The driver would drive and he had what is known as a hopper who would get out and carry the packages up to the door. And he delivered for Belk's, Efird's, Ivey's, Ed Miller's, Jill Joan, Tate Brown, all the stores downtown. | 1:15 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | See they'd go down and pick them up and back into his storage area and what they would do was to separate the packages into divisions where they going to deliver them at. | 1:52 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | You mentioned earlier that you joined the NAACP youth wing, I think. What was, Mr. Strong? | 2:08 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | You had two separate parties. You had the one that says high school was the junior members of the NAACP and the senior league was the older peoples who belonged there, and he brought about two parties so that I guess it's when the oldest couldn't function, the young ones come along and take their place, which is a good idea. | 2:18 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And so how old were you when you joined the NAACP, Mr. Strong? | 2:42 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | I was 15. | 2:43 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What was that made you decide to join? | 2:48 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Because I'd known Kelly Alexander ever since—All my life. Senior. I'd known him all my life. | 2:50 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And did he talk to you himself? | 2:57 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Oh, well he talked to a group of us about it. I wasn't the only one. Lot of kids from the Second Ward joined, and we was interested in bringing about a change so we joined. | 2:59 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Had you talked about your interest in bringing about a change before that? | 3:11 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, yes, we had talked about a change. In fact, down there where Central Piedmont Community College, that was Central High School. We only had two high schools during that time. Central Pied—I mean, Central High School in the Second Ward and of course we had some youth to come in at the Y and we'd sit there and we'd talk and discuss things. And they were White and we sat and discussed things, so it was taking on its toll even before this came into the limelight like it did when King came along. | 3:20 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So when you had these meetings and sat and discussed things, can you tell me about those discussions? | 3:51 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well we discussed about why is it we got separate schools and why we got these separate facilities and everything like that, and we all supposed to be Americans. Why can't we unite and have this one and get along with one another? That was the whole discussion of it and everything, and most of the Whites agreed on that, you see, before the integration ever took place. | 3:58 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And you said that Kelly Alexander Sr. talked with you and with other people about joining. Was there a meeting? | 4:23 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, it was a meeting. It was a meeting. In fact, Kelly led a whole lot of things that came about here in Charlotte, you see? He led a whole lot of things since that time. Now his son, that's the Jr. you see down there, because he was in the funeral business see? And of course Jr. doesn't have the finances his father has, to be frank, because he's younger and he came along a different time but his father really was out forward in front and everybody knew him. | 4:33 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | When was it that you first voted, Mr. Strong? | 5:08 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | First voted when I came out the service, I wasn't old enough. Well, first vote I did was in the Army. They didn't want to give one in the army. I was only 18 going on 19. I told them, "You going to give me a ballot there? What you think I'm on here for?" They said, "Yeah, yeah, can give him a ballot. He's in the army fighting." That's the reason why they dropped the age down to 18. See, before then you couldn't vote unless you was 21. Well, I wasn't registered. When I came back out of the Army I was 21 so I registered right— | 5:11 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So you voted in the army even though you were underage? | 5:39 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Oh, yeah. That's right. Well, they had to. You're doing a man-size job, you ought to be able to vote because you didn't know whether you going get by or not, so it's one of those things and everything. | 5:40 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you remember your parents voting, Mr. Strong? | 5:54 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yes. I think my father voted. My mother didn't have much time because most of what she did was taking care of us and everything like that, and my father did. But during that time you could only vote unless you—You had to own property to vote. That's where the poll tax come in so that you'd have to pay the poll tax so you'd be able to vote because a lot of people didn't own no property. So they start saying, "Well, let's get a poll tax," and poll tax came in so you could vote. If you didn't own no property [indistinct 00:06:31], you couldn't vote. See? That's just the way they statutory laws were. | 5:57 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And so when was it that your great uncle left you this house? | 6:38 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | In 1968. Yeah, I've been here ever since '69. I had to rent it out and I said, "Well, I better go out there," because the man who really was instigating the Brook Hill, he had turned it back over to Mr. Taylor out of Troy, North Carolina and they had fallen out, and I said, "It's time for me to get out now while the getting is good." So I got out and that's when I moved out here. | 6:42 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So I guess your great uncle didn't have children? | 7:14 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | No, he didn't have any kids. He had some but I think it was outside kids and during that time I don't think they was counted like a kid is today on the outside. | 7:18 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did he marry? | 7:30 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, he married but his wife had deceased and after she had passed, then that's when I came in and started taking care of him because he wanted someone to look out for him. He was 82 when he died. | 7:31 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So do you still go to the same church that you went to [indistinct 00:07:49]. | 7:46 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yes, I still go but it's moved. Now it's all down Hovis Road because I don't know about it. I mean I don't know. That deal, and I argued about it, I didn't think was fair in how it was done and everything because over there now where they're building the stadium at, that's where the Good Samaritan Hospital was, and also that land in there is where the church was too, you see? And see, right in there, Richardson get that—Well, the city and the state didn't have to pay anything because it was city-owned property and all they had to do was go in there and put this type of facility in there because the land was not supposed to be used segregated in any kind of way. | 7:49 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | So you go in there and you put the stadium in there, so the only thing you can say if you don't have the money, that's just too bad. It ain't segregated. That's the way to get around it. Only improvements I've seen since this time is that the facilities, such as your restaurants, your motels and hotels and some of those don't want to accommodate but they will accommodate, and your public transportation. As far as I can see is that we have regressed rather than progressed in making the United States what it should be. | 8:40 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So public facilities are the only benefits received from desegregation. | 9:24 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | That's right. Only benefits, I see. | 9:36 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I'd like to ask you, since we were talking about this a bit earlier when you're talking about segregation desegregation. I'd like to ask a little bit about your education, to go back a little bit. What kinds of things did your teachers teach you in elementary school and high school? | 9:36 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | They taught the basic principles, but it's more than that because they actually made you go to the library and study. You see, just because you had a book on that subject matter, you had to expand your horizon and go there and get the research books and ask about—And they would ask you questions on it. They would ask you to write an essay on it, and they just didn't pass you from one grade to another. If you didn't make the grade, they keep you there for another year, but just regards the education, I told my sister, "You can throw that stuff out the window." Just passing, they pass him, he go through high school, he can't read, he can't write, he can't do anything. Now what good is that? | 9:51 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So your teachers weren't like that? | 10:32 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | No, you had to get your lesson and then two parents was asking what the kid's doing. Parents not interested today in what the kids—All they do is throw the kid out there and say, "Well, you got to go and I got go to work," and that's all. | 10:33 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did your parents go over your schoolwork with you? | 10:45 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Oh, sure. My father did, very much so, and went to PTA meetings. He going to make sure because he saying, "An education is a thing you going to need more than I will, son. It's something to benefit you. I'm looking out for your benefit." He told all of us that. That's the reason why all of us went to school. My brother who is in New York now, he worked with Xerox, which was a good job, and he also worked for the public library. I guess that year that he went to Smith had to show up there on the record. | 10:48 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did your parents have much education? | 11:25 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, they finished high school. In fact, my father finished the church school, parochial school that we was talking about now. That's how I became Episcopalian because he went to parochial school over there. | 11:28 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And so he joined the Episcopal church? | 11:42 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yes. | 11:42 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. Do you remember learning any Black history in school or poetry or— | 11:47 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | It started out as I was going through school from fourth to fifth grade. I learned about Booker T. Washington. I learned about Langston Hughes. I learned about Frederick Douglass and I learned about [indistinct 00:12:13] and I learned about—I can't think. I'm trying to think of this poet during that period of time, but as I went up to the sixth grade, all that was changed. It was taken out right then and there. Whatever happened to them books, I'll never know. I started learning—Paul Laurence Dunbar was a guy that I learned about. | 11:56 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Dunbar. | 12:34 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, Dunbar. I was learning all that then which I thought was a great need and it made me feel good, but after then everything else went the other way. | 12:35 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you remember any of your teachers in elementary school or high school having favorites among the children? | 12:50 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | No, no. Everybody was treated the same. | 12:56 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What kinds of values did your teachers try to teach you? | 13:02 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | They stressed a whole lot of values. See, they didn't allow you coming out in the street and start talking loud and acting like you wasn't intelligent. They tell you, "No, you don't do that. If you're not learning, you don't act unintelligent," and talking loud and hollering across the street or something like that. That was just a no, no. Even in the community it was a no, no. | 13:07 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | See they was teaching you various principles as you went along, and the whole basic principle was your ABCs and your multiplication tables and your spelling and history. You had to know something about the history too. That's how I became acquainted with much of the constitution as I possibly could because of my history teacher, and that was a kind of calling to me. "Why would you teach me all this and then I can't enjoy it when I know it's there?" | 13:30 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did you ask them that when you were in school? | 14:03 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yes. You would ask that. They say, "Well, it's just one of those things." I don't think they had an answer either. It's just one of those things until things started to change, then they realized then. That was one of the reasons why Kelly came on the scene with Mr. White who started the NAACP in Washington and he brought it from Washington back here to Charlotte and everything because the training section had started then. You see people don't train peoples anymore. | 14:03 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | In what way would you say? | 14:41 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, the kids say anything they want to say and, of course, your television is the cause of it too. That's the greatest invention since the automobile and yet instead, it's more destructive. | 14:44 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | When did you first get a television, Mr. Strong? | 14:56 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Let me see here. In 1955. | 15:00 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What kinds of things would you watch on the TV then? | 15:09 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, I liked the Ed Sullivan show and I liked the Father Knows Best because it was mostly family orientated and that was a good laugh and everybody enjoyed it. Today, you see, they put anything on there. I never looked at any of the soap operas. I don't like those. I'm not going to look at them today because that's fantasy and don't nobody seem to understand or know what's going on, you know? Because it's funny how the American peoples is so engulfed with fantasies. They think more of them soap operas than they think of anything else. | 15:12 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did your family have a car when you were growing up? | 15:59 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | No, we didn't. No, no cars. | 16:00 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So when did you first get a car? | 16:03 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | In 1950 when I started working. | 16:05 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you remember what kind of car you had then? | 16:14 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, 1949 Chevrolet, slope back. | 16:16 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Slope back? | 16:22 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah. | 16:23 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you remember what you paid for it? | 16:23 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | What did I pay for that car? I think around about $200. That was a lot of money considered then. | 16:25 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did many of your friends have cars at that time? | 16:33 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Not too many. Some did and some didn't, and everything. | 16:35 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And once you got this car, did you still ride the street cars? | 16:41 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | No, I didn't ride no street car. I drove my car, I drove my car and my wife and I, we hadn't married then. I used to go out and pick up her up and bring her. She lived out on the outskirts about 10 miles and I had to pick her up and bring her into Good Samaritan where she worked and then I'd go to work and pick her up in the afternoon, because we was planning on getting married. That didn't seem to take its toll like it should so I didn't mind that. | 16:46 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | How long did you and your wife court before you got married? | 17:13 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Approximately six years. I told her she don't know me by now, she'll never know me at all (laughs) after all these years and everything, and we've been married 40 years. | 17:16 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | 40 years. Great. How did your families react when you told them you were getting married? | 17:27 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, they approved of her. They very much approved of her. They were joyful about me getting married and everything. | 17:36 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Were most of your friends married by that time? | 17:45 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Some were and some weren't and everything. Some of them were and some weren't. | 17:54 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did they tease those of you who weren't married yet about getting married? | 17:56 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | No, because I think everybody's out there trying to play the field (laughs) so it wasn't no cap on that. I mean, everybody's going because a lot of people that you thought was going to marry each other, they didn't marry. They ended up not married, married someone else. They'd gone together for a period of time, long than what we had, so just one of those things. | 18:00 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Would you say that the women were playing the field too or was it— | 18:24 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Oh, both were playing field. The men and the women. Wasn't no different and everything. | 18:26 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Around what age did you and your friends start going out with girls and courting? | 18:34 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Most of the time when we was in college. That's most of the time they started going out, in college. They didn't go out much until they was in college because they felt like there's more maturity and because they had a limit on it when you was in high school, because at 10 o'clock most of the things are over, when in colleges most things went over about twelve or one o'clock. Had a limit also on that. But now they go over into the mid-hours now. | 18:40 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did they ever serve alcohol that you remember at the college events that they had? | 19:14 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | No, not on the campus. In fact, they didn't allow you to bring in alcohol on the campus. I mean, they would suspend you right off the bat. If you came on the campus drunk, you would be suspended. If you did and they'd use disciplinary management that you wish you hadn't done that and they'd tell your parents and let them know what you're doing. In fact, when I was going to Smith, we didn't even have no security guards down there. What we had was deans and the matrons. They kept everybody straight. | 19:20 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Those deans, maybe had three deans and two matrons and they kept everybody straight and they didn't play with you either. They ran the school, not the students. They ran the school and they really meant what they were saying too. They didn't play. Neither with the male or the female, make no difference because they'd put both of you out. Because you leave that school, you might go to some other institution but you're not coming back to that one. | 19:50 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So when you worked at as the apartment manager, did you have other jobs after that or did you stay a long time? | 20:32 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | No, I just had one job. 1950 to 1970, and then I left there and I went to First Union down there and that's where I came out. I mean, I retired from as a supervisor, cleaning department down the First Union downtown. | 20:40 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So which of your jobs did you enjoy the most, Mr. Strong? | 21:02 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Neither, because all of them you had problems with them. | 21:06 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Like what kinds of problems? | 21:09 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, sometimes there's a person in the community who's creating a whole lot of disturbance and you got to get rid of that person because you don't want to lose five families because of creating disturbance. And then the First Union, if you're the supervisor, the person would come in sometime. They would be a little bit intoxicated and you had to send him back. Sometimes they didn't do the cleaning like they should thoroughly, then they get upset about that and want to argue and things of that nature. You see, those are things you encountered that you just didn't expect, but they would come up. | 21:13 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And so when did you retire from First Union? | 21:49 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | 1986. | 21:55 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So what kinds of things do you do with your time now? | 22:00 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, most of my time now I go visit some of the older peoples and sometime I stay with them for a while, and mostly go to church and back home. That's about all because I feel like out here now is so much problems, so much trouble. I never thought that I'd live to see the day when it would come that a person couldn't drive their car down the street without somebody open the door and throwing a gun on them, and this has happened. To take the car to kill peoples, like they killed them dead. I never thought that would come about. | 22:03 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you and your friends talk about this kind of thing now? | 22:37 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, we talk about it but you can see talking just ain't going to solve the problem, do anything about it. See something has to be done about it. Now we say we don't want to leave it up to the federal government. I think the federal government's the cause of all of this. I really do. | 22:41 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Would you say that the government has changed since you were— | 22:57 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, it has changed. Sure it has changed because the people who are using these A-K-As and all these type of weapons, do you know they got better weapons out there shooting up peoples in the street then we had when we was in the United States Army. I'm not kidding you about that. M1 weighed at least three or four pounds you got to carry. | 23:01 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | When you were growing up, it sounds like you have good memories of governments like FDRs— | 23:22 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Sure. | 23:33 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Like Harry Truman. | 23:34 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Truman, yeah, and John F. Kennedy too. If you look at it it wasn't like it is today. A person's just walking in, going in and buy a gun. They was selling so many guns up there in Virginia and carrying them out of there till Wilder, who's the first Black governor I know of, stopped them. Because the gun store's for making money. They don't care how—And the government making money too. | 23:35 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Most of those assault weapon they use, that's government issue stuff. We couldn't even think of that and think about bringing that home. Because a lot of fellas came home and because they got worried about their wives, doing things wrong, they went in there and they did bring some [indistinct 00:24:19] and blew up the homes and everything. So he acting like he was crazy, so they have to take him in but they made sure that he wouldn't get through with them being no more like that. | 23:59 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Because when I first came out of the army, I came into Oakland, Camp Stoneman. They stripped us down buck-naked like we came into the world, took our wallets and everything and they took them out there and piled them up. And I was saying, "This is stupid, the government do this here kind of thing," and a sergeant standing in line said, "Where you from?" I said, "Charlotte, North Carolina." He said, "Well, you don't know why?" "No, I don't know why they [indistinct 00:24:53]. They just gave them to me here, the month before I was coming over here and everything." He said, "Well, the reason is so they buying and they sold drugs when we get into the country," because over there in the South Pacific, he said, plenty drugs over there and he was right. I didn't know it. I was so naive, I didn't even know to have thought about any drugs. | 24:28 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | But did you see drugs when you were in the South Pacific? | 25:09 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | No, I didn't. No, I didn't. And they made sure they wouldn't get into America, but see after Vietnam War, that's how they got in here. The guys got hooked over there on it and they was shipping it in here in bodies. See, they shipping it in bodies and guy who's on the other end, the guy who's on that end, I mean they was getting the drugs. | 25:13 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | We've covered a lot of different topics in not a very long time. Is there something that I didn't ask you about that you want to tell me about that you think should be on the tape that's important? | 25:38 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, I think for being on the tape is just saying we need to revamp our whole government, our whole system. Some of those senators in congress has been up there too long and they in a stagnate of what they want this country to be, what they don't want it to be. And this is one of the things they got to go—And see, if you look back over life, any time you have corruption from the government to the poor house to the church house, you have no civilization. Because reason why the United States has been so fortunate, this country, constitution rights is based upon the biblical belief and laws. Thou should not kill. You kill someone, that's wrong. Thou should not steal. You steal, that's wrong. | 25:49 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | No other countries you can think of have this continuity like we have, and yet and still we letting it slip away from us. And the reason why I say the church because that is the foundation. No religious leader stepped forward and say that this is wrong that you can't pray. Anybody ought to be able to pray. We used to pray. Every president that took office, we had prayer and we sung at him, but we can't do that anymore and this is where our values has gone. | 26:40 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Well, thank you, Mr. Strong. | 27:21 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, you're welcome. | 27:25 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I have to ask you some information, some of which you already gave on the tape, but we have a form that we have to fill out to make sure that we have straight information about you and just names people in your family, like your parents' name and that so try not to let it take too long. | 27:28 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | That's all right. | 27:44 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay, so your last name is Strong. | 27:46 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | S-T-R-O-N-G. | 27:47 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And your middle name, sir. | 27:49 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Eugene. E-U-G-E-N-E. | 27:50 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | That's all mine. | 27:55 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And then Clyde. | 27:55 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Clyde. C-L-Y-D-E. Right | 27:55 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And when the transcript of this tape is typed up and your name appears at the top, how would you like it to read? Clyde E. Strong or Clyde Eugene Strong? | 27:58 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Clyde Eugene Strong. | 28:07 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Could I have your date of birth please, Mr. Strong? | 28:21 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Sure. 4/20/24. I'm 69. I don't mind telling. (laughs) | 28:23 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | All right, good. (laughs) And you told me you were born in Charlotte. | 28:33 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, I was born in Charlotte. Charlotte, Mecklenburg. | 28:36 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay, and you're married, and what's your wife's name please, Mr. Strong? | 28:39 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Edna Gwynne, G-W-Y-N-N-E, G-W-Y-N-N-E, Strong. That's her maiden name. | 28:50 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Strong is her maiden name, also? | 29:02 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | No. | 29:03 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Gwynne is her maiden name. I see, okay. | 29:03 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah. | 29:03 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And your wife's date of birth? | 29:07 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Now, let me see here. September 2nd, 1927, I believe. I think I'm four years older. | 29:09 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And was she born in Charlotte, also? | 29:24 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yes, she—Well, she was born out there in Greertown so that's part of Charlotte, yeah, and Hickory Grove where she lived too. | 29:26 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And you told me she's a medical librarian, is that right? | 29:37 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yes, certified medical librarian. You have to be certified to take charge of hospital. You got to be certified. | 29:42 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. Certified medical librarian. And your mother's name? | 29:48 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Geneva, G-E-N-E-V-A. Geneva Culp, C-U-L-P. | 29:59 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | C-U-L-P. Okay. | 30:04 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Strong. | 30:04 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And her maiden name was Culp? | 30:09 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | That's right. | 30:10 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did you know what year your mother was born, Mr. Strong? | 30:12 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | No, you got me there. | 30:14 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | That's all right. Whatever information we can't get we just pass over. | 30:17 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | I know it's in March but what year, I've forgotten that. In March. I'd have to look at it. Well, my sister had a marriage license. She got that. I could even go in there and run and get it. | 30:20 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | That's all right, and do you remember what year your mother passed? | 30:31 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Oh, yeah. In 1973. | 30:33 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And I think you told me your mother was born in Charlotte, also? | 30:40 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, she was born in Charlotte, yeah. So was my father. | 30:41 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And for your mother's occupation, what should I put down? You told me she was a housewife. | 30:47 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | That's what she was. Yeah, she was a housewife. | 30:51 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And your father's name? | 30:56 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Clarence. My dad, I never did know my daddy's middle name so you just put Clarence Strong Sr. because my brother's— | 30:57 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Also Clarence. | 31:08 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, but he had a middle initial, you know? His was W, William. | 31:09 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you know your father's year of birth? If you don't, I just go on. | 31:15 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | No, I don't. | 31:22 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you remember what year he passed on? | 31:23 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah. Oh, yes. 1954. One year after I was married. | 31:25 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And your father was born in Charlotte, also? | 31:31 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, he was born in Charlotte. | 31:37 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And what should I put down for your father's occupation? | 31:38 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Barbershop porter. That's what it was. | 31:41 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | The barbershop where he worked, did they have White customers or Black customers? | 31:48 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | White. | 31:52 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | It was White? | 31:52 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Mm-hmm. All White barbershop. | 31:53 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay, could you tell me the names of your sisters and brothers, please? | 32:01 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Oh, yeah. The oldest one, Clarence Strong, W. | 32:04 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | That's W. | 32:11 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, Jr. | 32:13 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Jr. Okay. | 32:17 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Leroy S. Strong. | 32:17 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | All right. | 32:18 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | My sister was Mary Elizabeth Strong Alexander. She's married. | 32:24 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And so are you the third born in the family, Mr. Strong? | 32:32 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | I'm the third, third born. She's the baby. | 32:33 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did she get spoiled because she was the baby? | 32:40 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Oh, you bet your bottom dollar. My daddy spoiled her because she one boy out of three girls. He thought she was everything. He'd buy her shoes and things and they'd say, "You wait. I'll get yours next week." I said, "Shoes, you couldn't wait, she can wait," but we all waited, and we all had to spoil her, if you want to know the truth, because she's the only girl. The other two, my mother had a set of twins. They died. I was sorry about that. Told her she wouldn't have been spoiled if they had lived. Boy and a girl, and they was born when I around about seven years old and she was around about four. | 32:41 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you have any children, Mr. Strong? | 33:18 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | No I don't, unfortunately. See, I couldn't keep up with my wife. See, she's gone. Got a lot of nieces and nephews takes the place though, I tell you that. | 33:19 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, yeah? | 33:29 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Oh, yeah. | 33:29 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did you help take care of your nieces and nephews? | 33:29 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | I have. Oh yeah, I've been good to them. They remember me. In fact, I just sent some gift off to one. My wife's great niece is finishing high school in Beaver Dam, Virginia. I don't know where, Beaver Dam. First time I've been through Virginia. It must be way out somewhere. | 33:33 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So you told me that the first school you went to was Myers Street School. | 33:53 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | That's right. Myers Street School, right. | 34:01 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And then you went to Second Ward? | 34:05 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Second Ward, yeah. Second Ward High School. | 34:06 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you remember what year you graduated Second Ward? | 34:10 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, 1943. | 34:12 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And then you were at Johnson C. Smith from— | 34:18 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | From 1946 to 1950. | 34:20 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | 1946 to '50. And you have a B.S. Degree. | 34:26 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yes, B.S. Wife has a B.A. and then she went to Homer G. Fellows to get her certificate in the field she's in now. | 34:29 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay, for your job at the apartment complex, the type—Should I write supervisor? | 34:41 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Manager, housing manager. That's West Charlotte. | 34:51 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Housing manager, sorry. | 34:51 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Housing manager. | 34:51 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What was the name of the apartment block again, sir? | 34:59 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Brook Hill Village Apartments. | 35:01 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | That's in Charlotte? | 35:13 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, South Tryon Street. I've forgotten the address. | 35:15 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | All right, and you were there from 1950 to 1970, I think you told me? | 35:18 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, 1950, 1970. | 35:24 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And then you were a supervisor— | 35:28 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | At First Union cleaning department from '73 until 1986. | 35:32 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | That's a big building. | 35:43 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Sure is. I had to know all the parts to it too, and I had a master key too. That's something they don't let everybody have. | 35:44 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Yeah, that's for sure. | 35:52 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Because you do that key, it cost them a hundred thousand dollars change the locks and I wouldn't let nobody have it either. | 35:56 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did you ever hold any offices, Mr. Strong, that you want me to put down here of any of the organizations? You left Omega Psi Phi too early to have an office, I guess. | 36:02 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, I was senior warden of my lodge. Unike Lodge, Unike, U-N-I-K-E. Unike Lodge Number 85. | 36:12 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | How do you spell that please, sir? | 36:21 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | U-N-I-K-E. Unike Lodge, L-O-D-G-E, Lodge, 85. | 36:22 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | 85 [indistinct 00:36:31]. | 36:27 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Senior warden. Rameses Temple, R-A-M-E-S-E-S, Rameses Temple Number 51. Assistant rabbain. You wouldn't know what that is. | 36:31 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Assistant— | 36:50 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | R-A-B-B-A-I-N, Rabbain. | 36:51 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | R-A-B-B-I- | 36:51 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | A-N. | 36:51 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | A-N. I guess you're not going to tell me what that is? | 36:57 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Oh, no. I'm not going to tell you what that is. | 36:58 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I'll just have to wonder about that. | 37:03 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Oh, everybody have to wonder about it until they know parts of it, but they did do a lot of things. See they helped widows and orphans and children and the temple, we one time back there in 1974, we made a survey of all the kids in Charlotte School who wouldn't have a Christmas and we had a Christmas party for them. | 37:04 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | That's nice. | 37:36 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, I headed that up and they put in $2 apiece and everything. We'd buy candy and then we got them from social welfare department who the kids were and we went by and we had some White kids there too. We picked up some of those. We wasn't discriminating against nobody. We wanted to have a nice Christmas and we had it at the center. | 37:37 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So that's the kind of thing you wanted your fraternity to do [indistinct 00:38:00]. | 37:59 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | That's right, that's right. That's the reason why I can talk about that so it's just a bad thing. | 38:00 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay, and you told me you're Episcopalian. | 38:02 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah, I'm a Episcopalian. | 38:07 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | All right, and which church do you currently go to? | 38:08 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | St. Michaels. | 38:12 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | St. Michaels, and when you— | 38:20 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | And All Angels Episcopal Church. That's what they call it. | 38:20 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Which was that? I'm sorry. | 38:23 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | St. Michaels and All Angels Episcopal Church. | 38:24 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And All Angels. | 38:25 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | That's what they call it. I wouldn't say they all— | 38:28 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | That's a lot. | 38:31 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | That's right. I wouldn't say they're all angels though, I tell you that, because you can rise up the biggest devil there is in the church. Oh, Lord. | 38:32 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And which church did you go to when you were growing up, Mr. Strong? | 38:36 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | That's the church. | 38:36 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | That one also? | 38:36 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Oh, yeah. From the time I was five years old until I became grown. I remember my daddy taking me out and whooping me for acting up in church. He didn't take me home. He took me outside and wore me out and carried me back in there. And remember this [indistinct 00:39:02] showed it off, then told my mother. I hated that. "The boy showed off." I never did show off no more. He did all us like that. Took us out one by one and spanked us. Said, "You're in church, you don't do that?" We never did. He didn't have to be at church and we knew how to act. | 38:45 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | So that's what I'm saying. Training, people don't want to give nobody no training. They don't have time this day and time. The big buck is the whole thing, and money's not everything. I try to tell people that. You can be a millionaire and if you got bad health, what good is the money? If you got the money there for somebody come and do something for you, but suppose somebody decide, "I ain't going in there, do nothing for you." You still in bad shape, but they don't seem to realize it. | 39:17 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | For organizations besides—There's the temple, there's Unike Lodge. Should I put down Omega Psi Phi? | 39:49 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah. | 39:56 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | For organizations that you belonged to? | 39:56 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Oh, yeah. They send me correspondence, try to come and get me. That's the only reason why. I might, one day. My wife asked me why I didn't want to go back. It's quite a number. He's an Omega. Ray over here, he's an Omega. He's an Omega. Down there, Norman's brother, he's an Omega. Gaines, he's an Omega. There's quite a number of Omegas. | 39:57 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | When you were choosing new members for the fraternity, what kinds of qualities would you look for in an Omega man? | 40:18 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, you try to look for the qualities of a person who is very intelligent. The person who you feel like you can get along with as a brother, and someone that you feel like will be dedicated to offer this service to the fraternity. Because without those things, you don't have anything going. | 40:26 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Thank you. Are you still a member of the NAACP, Mr. Strong? | 40:48 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Not recently. | 40:51 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. I'll write that you have been. | 40:54 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yeah. | 40:56 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Are there any other organizations you want me to list? | 40:59 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, I've served on my church. I've served as one of the vestrys, V-E-S-T-R-Y, and also on the mission committee. And I also served as a Boy Scoutmaster when I was down at Brook Hill. | 41:03 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | That was in the 1950s? | 41:45 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Mm-hmm. Had one of the largest troops of—I mean, in Mecklenburg County, because see, south side 400 units, Brook Hill plus 800. He and I had one of the largest troops around and they was very good. Well, I had just about three to stray. The rest of them were very good young fellows. | 42:01 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Are there any other activities or hobbies, things like that you'd like me to write down on the record? | 42:22 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Well, I don't know of any at the present. | 42:28 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I'm sorry? | 42:28 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | I said I don't know of any at the present. | 42:34 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay, that's fine. Sometimes people like to give us a phrase they like or a Bible verse they like, things like that to write down. Do you have anything you want me to put down? | 42:40 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | Yes. Do unto others have them to do unto you. That's the best one was there was because they ain't doing that. You do unto others you want them to do unto you because you step aside and look at that, what you doing to somebody else, you would ask yourself the question, would you want that done to you? That's all. And if you agree with that terminology, you won't do these things you're doing because people so evil and hostile to one another. | 42:46 |
| Clyde Eugene Strong | This is the bad part about it. We don't have to be that way. We really don't because there's still some good peoples in this world. If there wasn't no good people in this world, it wouldn't stand. You can believe that, but what has happened is you see once upon a time you had three fourths of the peoples who was right and you didn't have all this here, and you only had one fourth. Now you got one fourth that's doing right and three fourths what's doing wrong, so the ratio of proportion is out. That's what's happening. | 43:11 |
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