Clifton Woods, Jr. interview, 1993 June 09

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Karen Ferguson	You've been waiting on him.	0:01
Clifton Woods, Jr.	She like to talk, I remember.	0:02
Karen Ferguson	Well, maybe we could start the same way with yours and you could tell me where you grew up and the neighborhood in which you grew up.	0:05
Clifton Woods, Jr.	I grew up in Steele Creek Community. Well, it's around the Arrowwood acre of Westinghouse Boulevard, below Steele Creek, 49, about four miles on this side of—Putting on as the Buster Boyd Bridge, which divides North and South Carolina. Right on the side of the highway, I was born. But my father moved farther to the right, not too far, say about three miles. And we lived in that area for about 12 years. And growing up, I'm the oldest son. I have one sister that's older than myself, two years. And I always wanted to do everything that I saw my father doing and he wanted me to do it too, like father, like son, years back and there was nothing for young boys to do but follow their father. You want to do like your daddy, you going to be this, you going to be there. But most of all, I didn't know what I was going to be, but I definitely admired my father 'cause we had something in common.	0:12
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Everything that went on as we walked, as we played, as he took time with us, he stopped to explain what we were doing, how to do it and the best way to do it. Okay. Then he would explain to me about the value of it, like the summers and the falls and the winters, what we had to do to survive. And the best way to do it again I would say we got to work the farm and you got to go to school, you're going to work but you got to go to school. And many times I didn't want to go because of something happening, but if I told my father part of, she said, "You got to go to school 'cause I didn't get a chance to go, Your father was in the fourth grade," but my daddy was smart too. And his mind, he could figure out things while in the same time he would give me a pencil on pad and the weight of everything.	1:42
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Then he would have it before I could go through line and add it up. And he did this in his head and he would tell me about how many hundreds of pounds of cotton, we had to pick a date, in order to make a bale and tell me what we were going to do with it. And he would say that you would have to pick the five of you. You would've to have at least within two days, four or 500 pounds of cotton maybe a day. And so in two days we should have the bale, which would be 1200 pounds of cotton. And that would equal up to, after it was ginned, to a five or 600 pound of cotton. So as we move, we sharecrop too because we wasn't able—He sat down, we are not able, there's only five of you and we are not able to purchase to rent the land.	3:02
Clifton Woods, Jr.	If I rent the land then I have to buy the stock. And if I have to have good stock or trade the mules or things like that, I'd have to pay for it. And some years you don't make anything and if I can't pay for it then the man will take the stock back. And he said, "But it's better for us to sharecrop too. That way if you had good years then you could pay for your—" And he would explain it this way, "The first bale of cotton we made, I carry for the gin, I'm going to pay for the fertilizer out of this. The next bale of cotton we get, I'm going to be sure that my wheat, if I have enough corn and stuff like that, I can settle that way, see in the next half of the next bale then that's ours." And we'll have this and many bales we make, you know would be profit from that.	4:17
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Then he said, "You could profit." He said it that way. He said, "Now, we going to raise—We have two cows. We're not going to breed this one. If they both come within breeding in the same month, we'll hold this one off so that we can have milk, alternate and have milk." We're feeding the cows and you tend to the cows, they will give good milk and yield and we have more water, that way, we always going to have two hogs. And he said we can feed the hogs with milk along with the corn and stuff like that and we'll have meat. And he said, "Now we're not eating him." That's what he said. He said, "With the four hogs you going to have pork." And he said, "You'll still be eating meat." I'm going to take the hams and I'm going to trade them back for MFB, which is swift shortening and bacon for your mother to cook with.	5:26
Clifton Woods, Jr.	And if I don't have enough wheat, I'm going to sell these hams and I buy wheat and then we won't have to buy flour, that kind of thing. So my daddy was—He might call him, he was like this, we did in all the things that we didn't have or we would have that. He said, "Now, we're not going to go to the store and get nothing on time 'cause it's going to take three days and a half for the cotton and it's going to take a day and a half for the corn. And if you work well on Friday afternoon, we can buy a watermelon back and on Saturday and we may plant the garden on Friday afternoon and you will be able to play and go to town with me when I go." When I got older you could go, I could go to the Newton, and that was my fee.	6:38
Clifton Woods, Jr.	So I worked and when we would get started and with my brother next to me and get everything planted, I could go and work for people who needed help. They would be White in the neighborhood. There would be somewhere where there was a man and a wife came that they needed help and I'd go and tile for them all week long. All week long for say $5.75 cents, turn up the sun down. And I worked 'cause I was quick. I've always been great. Like my mother, she could do anything. My daddy was a good steady man. He could work too. But his hands, he had swift hands. She could sew. She would go home at 11:00 and by 11:30 our dinner would be ready. And then between that time she would make dresses for my sister and my sister and she could just take some newspaper with one shirt, it's laid down on the floor and my daddy would buy her a sewing machine.	7:45
Clifton Woods, Jr.	My brother and I would stand on each side and our shaped collars would be just the needed shaped collars that you buy, but it wouldn't look homemade, buttons right, down pockets double stitch in that way. But I lost my mother too at an early 30 something years old because of—It was five of us and my last sister, which is about 62 now. Well, something went wrong and that day you didn't have—I think her spine or something like that and it affected things like that. No doctor, no visit. They knew anything about it. And I was 15 but we went to school, even worked, we stayed in our home and they stayed in work and all of us did. We cooked and we went to school. Everybody thought we had everybody look out for us. Sometimes when you don't have a mother then the children they'd be neglected but we were not.	9:05
Karen Ferguson	Who looked out for you there?	10:38
Clifton Woods, Jr.	I was 15. At that time my sister was almost 17. She was my grandparent's—Her living in Charlotte. They had moved in Charlotte in 1943 and my sister went to live with them and she went to Second Ward school. You see if my wife said if you had someone to live in and this was also too, you had some relatives, some of you could go on and go to high school 'cause there wasn't no high school for us. But in the institute we did we had what is known as—Anytime they go to church, they build a school on the property. Well, our school was McClintock, one of the first Rosenwald schools and it was a big beautiful full room school and you built them with plenty of windows in order to take care so the children could see the light. And after high school in 1928—	10:41
Karen Ferguson	Was the Rosenwald school new then?	11:52
Clifton Woods, Jr.	It was new. Fairly new. I think it was started in 1923 and I was able to go to school in 1928 and being born in 1922, you see I was six years old, five or six, going on six. And I remember the smell of the nice new building, beautiful clean building just as White and so many children. It was thickly settled, a lot more than where my wife came from. We was something down within 300 yard of neighbors because 49 would divide the side of the farm that people own in that area. If the White people own on this side then fall on up on that side. Another White family owned and then the children, there was plenty of us to play with. But our church, as she said, and the school was a center of attraction in that community for many, many other children. And boys, they get to go out a little early and they can leave when they get the farm chores done.	11:56
Clifton Woods, Jr.	And we would have waiting on us signs and signals because you could see the house because there was plenty of livestock along in the path and things. And they would eat dinner and we would meet in mornings early. We going to the creek, we going exploring, we're going swimming, you know, in our birthday suit, oh, we would do anything. As far as boys, because boys are explorers, and we learning a lot about the different animals and the different reptile and the different that and that and the stutter.	13:13
Clifton Woods, Jr.	But I had a good life as a young person and then we too after moving, when I was 12 from back near where bridge off of 260 on that side. On the other side, 49 where I was born, I was going there and then my dad moved and go back on this way. But in making a deal with a farmer or with two men make a deal, my daddy, they like, he's well liked. But you come together and he say, "Cliff, you going to work. These are your two mules, this is what you will use, we will do this." And my daddy's got a good mind.	13:52
Clifton Woods, Jr.	But sometimes between that time, problems arise and I remember moving five times because the people would try and it happened to many of my friends, the minute you get your crop in May and in June and maybe you might have to go through it in July to get some of the grass out. The man becomes aggravated by some means. I don't know. Then he'll aggravates you and it might make you angry enough to move. But if you move, where you going? You can't start another crop. Your children will suffer and for that year, if he runs you off then all is his. So that's the reason why we moving several times. Sometimes you live in a house or anything and things are not working so you have to plan to look for better land.	14:51
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Maybe this land over here, there's a hot dry summer like this now and it's red. You can't raise anything on it because by now sun is parking up the crop, the long drought. So you move to a better place. My father didn't like to move on dairy land because the man you have to work all the time because the cows have to eat. You see what I mean? We had a lot of cows but not a number of 50, 60 and stuff like that you see. But you got to get that hay, those cows have to eat. And if he had that many cows, he has a dozen mules of things.	16:07
Karen Ferguson	So people sharecropped on dairy farms as well?	16:56
Clifton Woods, Jr.	No, not really. But everybody sold raw milk. But the main dairy farms, you just worked on the dairy farm but the man sold milk on the side. He had 15 or 20 cows that expect milk and you got to feed, you see, along with the other crops and you have that many mules. So you got to have that much more corn for all the stuff to be bad. And he may have that many harvest. But we were normally—But my father, everybody liked him 'cause well, he could get along with anybody. We grew up when I got about 15, just right on the side of the highway with the urbans and they had one son, youngest son my age. We were buddies. And daddy was in charge of most of the things because their father had died and then things were going down.	17:00
Clifton Woods, Jr.	My daddy knowing how to do all this stuff, well they left him in charge and I remember being—I'm learning more and more. We worked. There's a time you have to know what time to get out there and do certain things. They know, the people who worked on farm, they have a sense of knowing when and what time to do things.	18:05
Clifton Woods, Jr.	So everything was good for us. And Jack and I, we played together, we hunted together, they started buying us jack guns and things and we followed my daddy, he was a good hunter. We survived even in what is known as Mr. Hoover's days. My daddy trapped. And if we caught a black mink that would yield something like about seven, $8. I learned how to skin the thing, if you had brown mink that would be about five. We send it off to Detroit and I was filling out all the farms and my dad was teaching me how to skin a thing. He say, "Be careful, you don't cut the hide," then we get a board. There's plenty of lumber land around and I would have to saw the board off, because it make it almost the size of—Get one of the sizes that you can stretch each one of these animals, raccoons or whatever.	18:31
Clifton Woods, Jr.	And then I'd have to take sandpaper. You couldn't have too much of that. But my dad would break glass and the bottom of a jar, the bottom of a bottle, everything was in bottles at that time. Not too much cans.	19:42
Clifton Woods, Jr.	And he'd chip it off like that. And then he tell me man, catch it in front your thumb. And then that sharp edge would keep on as it got dug, you see it would be fine and smoother. You don't want any splendors on the side and that would be just like front edge and then you would pull that over so you wouldn't tear that. So these things we learned how to survive even though in the early Mr Hoover Days in the '30s, '32 and things, I think I would be something like about five and six years old and you had to do as your father was doing.	20:09
Karen Ferguson	Could you tell me a little bit more about your mother?	20:57
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Oh yes, my daddy now where he met my mother, he knew her. But my mother was Presbyterian and my granddaddy on that side. My father's people are AME Zions African-American, you know, AME Zion church. And this old Zion down here to the left of—Before you get to 49 and between Garen west, well, we would go down there every other Sunday. And even my father grew up, was born on this side of the river and my grandparents on my mother's side, they were on this side. They belonged to McClintock. So my wife's granddaddy would tell my daddy when he taught school that this was one room school that my wife attempted to imagine. See these people they didn't have Sunday school. And so Mr. Fox would tell my daddy, you come to Sunday school in McClintock we have Sunday school on Sunday.	21:01
Clifton Woods, Jr.	And that's where my father and my mother. But my mother was smart, my mother could bake along with all this caring and the stuff that she did as my wife said her mother did, as we did, she could pick 300 pound pack. Now I could pick 200. My daddy would pick about 170 or something like that. But she'd do all of this stuff with her fingers.	22:20
Clifton Woods, Jr.	So you know how maybe in your family or in a lot of families, the boys, usually follow their daddy but they also have the mother's instinct. And my sister is older than me, no less she had my mother. But my mother said, "Come on Bill," that's what they called me, "And you come next to me," excuse me. (coughs)	22:57
Clifton Woods, Jr.	I would—she would pick these two rows. And I would—let me name my family. There's my sisters, Lucinda, and I'm Clifton the Second, my brother named Fleming after my daddy's brother, Willamae and Pearline. These were the five of us. So Willamae was the baby, take her to the field and as we picked this thing and tied this up, this cotton and we had a dog. Leave that dog there and laid that baby there and Mama be doing all this stuff and I'd be picking my row right beside her two rows. And then she'd have to stop and come back here and I'm just working. And then that dog start barking and that baby start crying or something like that. My mama go back to nurse that baby Willamae. And later on came Pearline, we did the same thing.	23:18
Clifton Woods, Jr.	So all this work didn't stop my mother, so she was a quiet lady smiling all the time and looking after us and making her—Excuse me, dance. She used to have time to catch our hands and everything. We going to do—The first thing my mother said, teach my sister, "We going to do the Charleston." And it was something like a dance that you would go round and round then you stop and then they'd do this thing. It was fun. And there was another one like a two step or something like that. But she had time to play with us and give us all the time because—til she started getting sick when I was about 12.	24:34
Clifton Woods, Jr.	She never did get beyond doing no work until I was about 15. And they decided, Daddy came to me, I had to make a decision because my sister was at Second Ward and he said, "Bill, I've taken your mother to every doctor. They can't do anything they feel like the last thing, if they take her to Goldsboro, to a mental institution, she might be better." 'Cause her mind was still good. She didn't harm us, but she could right on do her work, but, you know, she would do, say certain things and I would stay home from school that day. But anyway she didn't get any better.	25:30
Clifton Woods, Jr.	But what I'm really saying, both my parents, they were together almost everything that we did because we was able to have a car and because on the land where we lived, the man liked my father. So when he get ready to get another one, we'd get there. We'd drive miles and sometime we would drive a new car too even in 1928. But that was kind of person and they still laugh about right now when they see me, people down there stick with, you know, he's been dead, about 14 years. I might have jumped some part of the gun. What you might ask me? Anything else you'd like to add with that?	26:25
Karen Ferguson	Well, I was going to ask you about your grandparents, whether you knew anything about them?	27:24
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Yeah, my grandparents just lived too far from us and we could go down to their house even one evening. We just be playing around the house and we say, "Daddy, can we go down to grandma's?" Yep. When we go down there, my granddaddy, he'd be out there, very nice. He's be in my grandmother's knife shop. Looking up every once in a while, kind of quiet and my grandmother would have everything that you thought we needed and we would need it because we had plenty food at the house. So my mother always took pride for being a good cook and my special was egg pie.	27:28
Karen Ferguson	Egg pie.	28:14
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Yeah. Oh boy. We call it egg pie but she would take some eggs, milk and stuff and butter and you put in the tray where you could smell all these things cooking. They told me that I could almost eat one third once.	28:22
Clifton Woods, Jr.	And I remember I did start having stomach problem from that and then later on I had to stop but I got back into it later on. But anyway, grandmom and my grandmother, she didn't do anything. Work a little bit in the field. He done most of the things, my grandparents, my grandfather and she would make—	28:46
Clifton Woods, Jr.	I remember one thing a man asked me about, my doctor, "He's got to get on [indistinct 00:29:21]." He said, "Cliff, you know anything about trying egg plants, cooking egg plants?" I said, "From a child, I know that my grandparents would slice this thing and they were loving them, kind of purple and she would do them like you make a battle and then you dip them in and then you fry them and you could eat them." I said, "But I wasn't crazy about no egg plant." So grandma would have all these different kinds of soup. She'd have carrot, she'd have everything.	29:12
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Then we would eat all we could eat. Then she'd say, "Take them home, take them home, take them home." Because when people get a little bit older, they stop eating. They just like to watch the grandkids eat. Oh, we'd go home, were home at home. But they just spoiled us. But we didn't get spoiled 'cause we knew what we had to do. We had to be obedient and all I can say, all my five of us was strictly obedient. Our parents, my brother was a little bit—He could get by because I was there and when things were supposed to be done I would get right out there and do it. I go to school and then as soon as I got on the field and I start getting my left now because we had this kerosene lamp and these kerosene lamps, they smoked and that bothered me.	29:47
Clifton Woods, Jr.	And then you couldn't see after it get dark. So I would turn to my left, then I'd go right out there and get all my wood done. Because I didn't want my sister be doing that kind of work. And when they got ready to cook, I want them to have plenty of wood just like my dad had big powered wood specks and on the weekends we didn't want that. But that's learning to do and being obedient as a child. You don't have trouble later on. Some of them grew out of it but then some don't. You'll learn, obey before you get of age. You've been taught that way and then in that damn time you obey anybody, the neighbors and if you doing something wrong, they told it and you would get stole. We didn't get any weapons too much. But you would get stole and you get punished.	31:08
Clifton Woods, Jr.	And I didn't want to get stole and I didn't want to be the person who didn't want—Didn't catch up or didn't do what the town said 'cause they had raised a punishment like my daddy did. And he would tell me that I would be able to do this if I didn't do what he said.	32:20
Clifton Woods, Jr.	And I had responsibilities even from my mother and my parents. In fact all of us had chores to do and we had to do them. And when we got them done then we was able to do the other three things we liked to do. But I didn't have any trouble in school either. I was always one type of a boy that other boys liked to follow. I was always the type of a boy in school that I would be putting in leading parts, in plays and everything. I wasn't afraid but I wasn't really shy because my parents wasn't like that.	32:38
Karen Ferguson	What school did you go to?	33:28
Clifton Woods, Jr.	I went to McClintock School. The same Rosenwald School where our church is. In the day, Rosenwald School. Then after I finished there, it wasn't anywhere to go. 'Cause my sister was at Second Ward and I had to stay and work a while and my mother was beginning to get sick. So I was out a year and a half. But then in 1937, they built five high schools they built, for the county. They built Ada Jenkins in Davidson, they build Plato out here on Airport Road. They build Clear Creek High, out in the Hickory Grove section and they built Pineville at Pineville. And we lived six miles from Pineville this way. So I hike and Pineville High School. Oh yeah, they built Huntersville up 115.	33:30
Clifton Woods, Jr.	So we were anxious and then our preacher, Reverend Mary, he would tell us along with our principal, he said, "Now, you're not going, we're going to teach you, and from McClintock, you know, you came to Sunday school and if you came to Sunday school, you will do better in school." He said, "And we don't want you going from this community over there to be bullied and we want you to be top. If not to top you going to be next to the top." Now this is what they said to him.	34:38
Karen Ferguson	So this was the people at the Sunday school.	35:17
Clifton Woods, Jr.	At church and school. And then they had to have enough children when the school opened that they could have a quota. If you didn't have a quota then the school wouldn't be able to open.	35:27
Karen Ferguson	Did a lot of children not go to school?	35:37
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Well, they did go, some of them came back but there were so many boys of late teenage that they just went on and got a job so it was with the young ladies. There was lot of children that lived in our area that went on the Second Ward and was going to Johnson C. Smith a long time when we were going to a Pineville in 1937. Okay. So we would work like my wife said, my dad said "You going to go to school, come home and work as soon as you get home from school." And if he was planting out there this time of year, I would've to go in and change clothes and go out and work until we got it done.	35:43
Clifton Woods, Jr.	And then I'd have to get up early in the morning, milk the cows and then we go back in the house and get everything straightened out and then get clean up again. Be able to catch the bus. And so we really had a good time because we began to meet the children from other areas. Say all like down Providence Road and 521, oh you meet different children and most of the time these would be the top from that area. So you did, after I'd be up there with these kids. And we stayed and I stayed and I graduated from high school with a B average.	36:35
Clifton Woods, Jr.	And I was able to work in between, to doing little plowing for these people. Either milking some cows, if everybody sold raw milk, they sold it, the raw milk, they'd take it, mix it with the other people who had raw milk and take it to these dairies and then they would do the separating. And see that was a way of business but I always had a job to do and I had a responsibility, as soon as I was able to make $2 or $3 my daddy said, "You got to put gas in the car so that we can go to church. And so that you can go to your little places where you go and when you go you can't look to other boys and run up all your gas and whatever the amount of gas was in this tank. I would like to see that amount in when you come back."	37:22
Clifton Woods, Jr.	So that's what I did because they said during the week we won't have any more money. And if you brought up all the gas with your friends, I can't take them out of church, we can't go [indistinct 00:38:42] church, we can't go church until I make some more money. You see? So I grew up—I said, "Time to go, man, you got any money, you can go to get down to burn it down, go here. I got to be heading home."	38:27
Clifton Woods, Jr.	But that didn't happen always, it didn't happen always. When I get ready to go to my neighbor, go again when they got to have a car, sometimes I have my daddy to get some gas out of my car and I would pay back, when we ended our trip and my life had been good. I always did. We had rough time but it didn't seem rough to us. And then I was able to evaluate. I say, yes it's happened to us but look what we doing the next day or the next hour. And I say all these sad things was after us, we having a good time. And we were, because the center of attraction was at McClintock. We would have—I played baseball and I was good enough to play with the senior team. We get on a truck and put straw on that truck.	39:01
Clifton Woods, Jr.	We strawed. Group of girls and boys, we'd ride down to the next city down that play at Pineville, Fort Mill. What was down this way? The teams, we had a good team out there. A lot of them.	40:11
Karen Ferguson	So this was baseball that you were playing?	40:29
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Yeah.	40:30
Karen Ferguson	So was that the biggest sport?	40:34
Clifton Woods, Jr.	The biggest sport. In my school, most of the kids down 21 that way came off the farm. Few of them own home. And we wasn't able to have—We tried. We did get a girl basketball team started and that time I was beginning in 10th grade. And then I was, like you say, my friends go, "Mr. Woods, when you come from Steele Creek, you going to pick up the Steele Creek and we going to go to Second Ward and play there."	40:35
Clifton Woods, Jr.	I knew the parents and you respect—If you take that girl out, you be sure you get her back. 'Cause when a boy falls out with the parents it wasn't much good. No. And that way we was able to visit when we was out of school, go see how the children that was out and we was going to be in the same grade. We just stopped walking and we would go down to the house and we'd say, "I'd have to be the leader. Everybody say they're greater than me. I don't think so."	41:14
Clifton Woods, Jr.	She just mean that you ain't going to run over her daughter, you ain't going take her daughter out and say anything you want to to her. [indistinct 00:42:18]. And I would ask, then I come around ask the girl like, "You ready to go to school tomorrow? You know we're going to be the same grade." We just have a big time. That way you always have friends. So I don't know anything else you'd like to ask me about? And I don't know if I went off your subject too much.	41:57
Karen Ferguson	No, it's all right. I wanted to ask you a little bit, were there any Black landowners in your area?	42:30
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Yes, three. And then I think there was a lot of land owners in there during time of the Civil War because when people was in slavery, they gave you an acre in land. But in Steele Creek community, that's rich Black land, things grow fast. Most of the time was in a swamp era, they gave you that acre but you didn't have anything to work. I only remember and still preach that there was—My daddy showed me, he said there was the Ray family and most of the time this family was given that land because that was his daughter or his son.	42:41
Clifton Woods, Jr.	And that probably was a big farm, but he wasn't able to hold on to it. And then there wasn't but one family in Steele Creek that really was able to buy land and you couldn't buy land. And when you got able, you couldn't buy things still because anytime you would attempt to try to buy something, they would come together with something that they finding out—	43:49
Karen Ferguson	The White people. Yeah,.	44:20
Clifton Woods, Jr.	And I remember the Greers, there was a lot of Greers and still, they even not related. Black and White came from that area, they're all over North Carolina. Humboldt, Davidson, all Belmont, Gastonia Mill, and Steele Creek.	44:25
Clifton Woods, Jr.	During World War 2, one family was able to move out on the side of the highway of 49, it's going down, it's between Arrowwood acres. I don't know if you ever been down that way to the river or not. But anyway, Black owned that on the left side. And the way they got it, the older Greers, which were White people, they like three brothers and two sisters. And these people didn't have any children. So they helped. And this Mr. Greer married my mother's first cousin. They were able to buy, but they helped. But they still tried. I mean the White Greer helped this Greer, this Sam Greer to get this land. But they did it. But when they found it out, they still tried to keep him from moving. But they still own it.	44:46
Karen Ferguson	This boy Jack that you were talking about. He was White, was that right?	45:47
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Yeah.	45:50
Karen Ferguson	Were you friends with him? Was there any problem with you being friends with your family?	45:52
Clifton Woods, Jr.	No, not whole family. First when my father got married, that's where his grandparents was living. And I mean his dad was living and my sister was born there. So he knew the family before. After he moved around, and then he came back. And that time Ms. Moore's husband had died and they began to go down. They could only pay tax on the land. But all of those children went to Davidson and Gregory. Okay. They were except through two. Oh, let me see, one was in Florida.	45:57
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Anyway, there was Eric, Morris, Evelyn, and Jack. These were more, and my age group, Ellen, she was two years older than my sister, but Morris was the same age with my sister. Then Jack and I were the same age and his birthday was in May, mine was in April. So dad looked after our counterparts, and we would set early in the morning and we go up and my dad would take these rabbits and sell them for 10 or 15 and we would have some money. We would—	46:51

Clifton Woods, Jr.	—and we'd ride one bike over there. That's how close we were, and then we would meet the next morning. He'd come over there and bring his bike, then I'd get off and walk down the hill. We'd eat at each other's houses. We'd go over there and hunt, we'd eat it all at each other's house. They ate at our house. We—	0:01
Karen Ferguson	They ate at your house?	0:19
Clifton Woods, Jr.	We played together. We played when it snowed. My brother and I would make sleds, and the girls. We would line them down the hill. We just grew up, and they lost their last brother about two weeks ago, and I went over to his funeral, to the funeral home, John Dixon. He's the one stayed there with his mother to help raise his sister. He was about 10 years older than I was, but Jack and I, we used to write each other. We went in the Army, and he was in Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, and I was at Camp Breckinridge in Kentucky. But we used to exchange letters, and then we would—He met a lady, a girl, and married her, but he came back to Charlotte to work at oil and gas, and we would see each other every now and again. Yes, we had a good time.	0:21
Karen Ferguson	Were you allowed to play with the girls as well, the Greer girls?	1:23
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Yeah.	1:27
Karen Ferguson	Yeah?	1:27
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Uh-huh. See, we played there. We played ball together, softball. We used a sponge ball, and the girls would play, but when we would play baseball, they didn't play, because at that time, they were beginning to going off to college. I learned better how to play ball because Jack was the youngest, and his older brother bought him all of the equipment. We had vest protectors, knee pads. We had masks and everything, and bats and balls.	1:27
Karen Ferguson	Could you tell me a little bit about the way that you had to act around White people? I mean, other than the people you were close to, were there things that you had to do to—	2:09
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Yes.	2:23
Karen Ferguson	—stay safe?	2:23
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Well, more or less—not to stay safe, and safe too, but because there were things you just couldn't do.	2:26
Karen Ferguson	Like what?	2:34
Clifton Woods, Jr.	You couldn't eat in their house, even though I worked for this lady, Mrs. Clark, and Mr. Clark worked downtown. I'd go over there and work his crop. And during my break, she would bring my lunch out on the back—I'd have to eat out on the back porch. She was a good girl, and she was nice. And I was nice. There was other boys that you couldn't go to their house because they wouldn't speak to you, or they wouldn't play with you. Or even when you went around, they would move on out. We got in, me and those boys, we'd get into a little something. We didn't hurt each other, but we'd fall out. And there were several boys, along with us—Me, one particular boy, Joe-Rob Morris, Buck Price, and Jack because I was always one to always talk to them without falling out. Because of their integrity, I went out there, and we—During the time when—You probably heard about. The boxers—World Champion Boxing came up, one particular, Joe Louis.	2:36
Karen Ferguson	Right.	3:48
Clifton Woods, Jr.	I was just about 15 at that time, and the other boys, we began to talk about it. Who's going to win. Who's going to win. Max Schmeling with Joe Louis, the gambling. And I don't care how well he was, they weren't letting him whoop Joe Lewis. I said, "Man, we're going to win." And me, Jack, was on my side. And I said, "You know, when I moved down here, they'd come to you and talk, and they'd put on stuff." He'd talk and we'd be talking, playing.	3:49
Clifton Woods, Jr.	So, he said, "Oh, yeah. German Max Schmeling is going to beat you. That's all I know." I said, "I'm going to tell you what, we're going to win a lot, son." And I said, "When I moved here, they gave me a mule by the name of Old Black." Black, she was strong. She stood about that far off of her back feet, and she was fast. Daddy give it to me, so therefore, I could plan and keep up with him and my brother while they're putting out the level line. When he'd get through, and I'm ready, I said, "Let me go back to school." I said, "You can't go in the stable on Old Black, unless she knows who you are."	4:26
Clifton Woods, Jr.	And I said that. She's turns around and back up like this, and if she kicks, we just said, "Well, shoo mule." I had said, "This is the way Max Schmeling is going to be in the end, back over there and do mule's hit." Apparently, the boy named Billy Thompson, and I go and ask him. Next morning, after this is over with, we done grouped together and we're watching radio. We didn't have a radio. We'd go somewhere where someone had a radio, and we'd all be around there. And baseball, we'd come out and laugh and talk about it all day. "Told you, man."	5:17
Clifton Woods, Jr.	But even though the boys who didn't talk to us too much. I was always away. You'd get a chance to meet them later on as you grow up. You change. Some don't, some do. But one thing in particular, we would go to Sibley School. It was just about 100 yards, on the other side of the road from us. And when I went to school. So, we lived on this side, we had to walk. But in the summer, we played baseball together and we would divide. We wouldn't be playing Black against White. We'd get one Black and one White, and we'd call it a team. And they'd start from the top and they'd go. They'd say, "Thomas, so-and-so, so-and-so," then we would start.	5:52
Clifton Woods, Jr.	We didn't know the rules, and one boy, lived below us, Rufus. He was kind of stuck up, but we'd speak, "I'm going home to get to the rule book. We're going to come back and talk." And then we would say, "Bring some bread, bring some sandwiches, bring some cake." And we'd eat and we'd play. We had a good time.	6:43
Clifton Woods, Jr.	We went swimming that way too. But just the same, we didn't really—We just knew that you couldn't—Sometimes, if we rode in a car together, they'd turn it sideways. I know two brothers who were like that. One of them, the one I hung with, I would get a ride to town with a guy from Dixon. He worked there too, and we had to ride together. He'd turn quietly, but just the same—We didn't allow those things, and boys will do that to other boys, throw some rocks at them, but we didn't never kill anybody.	7:03
Karen Ferguson	When you went into town on Saturday, was that into Charlotte or—	7:50
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Yes.	7:55
Karen Ferguson	Yeah.	7:55
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Mm-hmm. Because most of the people had to work in Charlotte.	7:55
Karen Ferguson	Right.	7:56
Clifton Woods, Jr.	We lived just about 11 miles from the city limit, at that time because the city limit was way up, and now the city's limit is down there.	7:58
Karen Ferguson	Right.	8:06
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Then we would begin North to go in the night with some of our relatives, either so we could go to the movies, or something like that. We'd be through with it. That's mostly the same time, when you'd go in Charlotte for it, on Saturday's, just to see Charlie McBrown shoot them up. Over and over. Hot dogs would be a dime, hamburgers would be $0.15, but that was hard money to get a hold to. And yet, they would be this sly.	8:08
Clifton Woods, Jr.	And we wanted to pick a place we liked, but just the same, I don't think it was—It might not have been too clean. I went around the back and ran off a cobweb and tray. And boy, I guess the flavor they put on the hamburger, you just melt away when you going with the—I messed around there and went around the back, I had to go back there with them. This was a Greek place. You know what I mean?	8:39
Karen Ferguson	Mm-hmm.	9:04
Clifton Woods, Jr.	They just flavored this stuff, because back in the kitchen was too rough. I said, "I'm not used to eating this kind of dirty food and I'm not going to eat it."	9:08
Karen Ferguson	This restaurant you went to, could you sit in it, or was it—	9:18
Clifton Woods, Jr.	No. Not in this particular one.	9:21
Karen Ferguson	Yeah. You would go—you'd have—	9:24
Clifton Woods, Jr.	You'd go to the door and order.	9:25
Karen Ferguson	Right, and then you'd—	9:27
Clifton Woods, Jr.	They'd bring it out to you.	9:28
Karen Ferguson	Uh-huh.	9:29
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Uh-huh.	9:29
Karen Ferguson	Were there places that you could get—	9:31
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Yeah.	9:33
Karen Ferguson	—Black owned places that you—	9:33
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Yeah. Plenty. Plenty.	9:34
Karen Ferguson	Oh, yeah?	9:35
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Uh-huh. We could go. There were all down on, what is known now as part of the heart of town, on Second. And then we'd go to Biddleville, on the other side of town, next to Johnson C. Smith. We had lots of Black businesses, and they could—good customers. We have the beans, leeks. You get the same hamburger, but you're saying that the flavor over there—They had the spice so. And right next to the movies, right there on Trade Street, and we'd run out and go. But then we had four movies in Charlotte for Blacks. We had one—	9:36
Karen Ferguson	The Lincoln Theater, is that one?	10:14
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Lincoln.	10:15
Karen Ferguson	Mm-hmm.	10:15
Clifton Woods, Jr.	The Grand in Biddleville, the Savoy, over there off of McDowell, third—Three, at least. Uh-huh. Three at least. I'd say three.	10:16
Karen Ferguson	I wanted to ask you as well, did you ever remember in the countryside, like around your neighborhood, of people—or know of anybody who was—suffered because it was mistaken that they had broken some of these rules of segregation or the unspoken laws of behavior, and that kind of thing? Or even if, maybe not in your generation, but before?	10:31
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Yes. Sometime before, and there were many. During, from the Depression on down, I had uncles and they didn't—They just weren't working. They couldn't get jobs. On my mother's side, people went—Her brothers, they went to Cleveland and Pittsburgh, and up that area. On my father's side, sometimes you got into trouble. And it wasn't bad, you just had to leave town. Thought they were going to jail you. You know what I mean, but not—	11:01
Karen Ferguson	What kind of things would they accuse your uncles of?	11:48
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Sometimes they'd accuse you of stealing, they'd accuse, and you weren't stealing. They claimed up on you for not saying the right thing to them. Even my father was working down, what is known as The Right of Way, and that was a place where you had to clear up for the rivers to open up to get larger. And when it came time to get your money, you had to bow. Not really, but you had to say, "Mr.," or you had to ask for your money. You know what I mean?	11:52
Clifton Woods, Jr.	And this wasn't the proper thing to do, you had worked, so you need to just pay the man the money. You don't know the guy who's paying all the people, you just come in there and you—"I'm not going to give you your money until you say, 'Mr.,' to me." You see what I mean? And he's half the age, that kind of thing. So sometimes you didn't take that. Some of them did because they had to.	12:34
Clifton Woods, Jr.	As I said in the beginning, a sharecropper or a man who has lived on a farm, and you trade in the fall of the year and you move around December, and you start your crops, and then they accuse you of owing more than you owe. You weren't able to, with no education, you couldn't count even from whatever he said. And then you'd pay out all of your money. And then if he was rude enough, during the summer, he would force you to move. And you couldn't go anywhere else and raise another farmer.	13:06
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Boys were doing that more than girls, because we're out there working. But just the same, you have to take a lot of that stuff. The flour, the pan. You know why? Because they're children. If you care about them. Because if you run off there, you ain't going nowhere else. So these are the kind of people that took advantage of people because they knew they could take advantage of them. They didn't do that to my daddy.	13:51
Clifton Woods, Jr.	But my wife's father, he—Her people smart. Mine were smart too in a way, but her daddy, he could do car work, like she said. Sometimes when we started going out together, and it's something wrong with my daddy car, he'd—They done made arrangements. "Bill, I want you to take the car up there and you work that day for Kitty." That's what he called him, Kitten. He was quiet, the name Calvin. And he'd smile and he'd be so grateful. So I'd have to work the farm or help whatever her uncles were doing, and by that day, he would fix that car and see, you got—	14:18
Clifton Woods, Jr.	I'm winning, because I could ride, and we could go places. But I'm saying that the same people who didn't have that knowledge, and these people couldn't do anything but just farm. And they weren't good providers, they weren't good gardeners. We went to school with them, and they weren't good providers. So these are the people who suffered most.	15:05
Karen Ferguson	What happened to people who weren't good providers, or people who fell out with the land owner, and as you said, in the middle of the summer—what happened to them when this happened?	15:26
Clifton Woods, Jr.	They would have to find a place or some of their people would have to—They would have to move in with their families.	15:35
Karen Ferguson	Mm-hmm.	15:41
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Or they would have to go to town and try to work, and then their children suffered. Sometimes families, most times they stayed together, but it was just, the wife had to go back home or—And then the daddy still have to do this, and then the children stay out of—Or maybe they go with some of their other relatives or something like that. But most times, that year, the children suffered. When they started to school, they wouldn't have adequate clothing, or couldn't buy any books or anything. Modest like that. But people looked out for other people because when something happened to the people, they got sick and stuff, somebody would take your children.	15:42
Clifton Woods, Jr.	There were plenty people who, in that area, in my wife's area, that raised children and reared. Take my grandparents. They reared two others. Two other children, other than their own. They didn't have any family, and their parents died or whatever. Some of us would take that boy or that girl.	16:27
Karen Ferguson	I wanted to ask you about something else. You talked a lot about your father and what influence he was. Were there other men in the community or that you knew, your relatives or adult men, who taught you what it was to be a man?	16:58
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Yes.	17:13
Karen Ferguson	Who were those people and what did they tell you?	17:15
Clifton Woods, Jr.	There were lots of men. I can name several of them, because if you—You were obedient around picnics and things and gatherings. And at that time, if you were the oldest son in a family, even though you might be much younger than this man's son, and you started out plowing and following your dad on Saturday—You know they like to brag. Parents like to brag about their children. And this, Londo Neal and Samuel Greer, they all had sons older than me. But they would say, "Now, Cliff, is that your plowboy?" "This is my plowboy," or show them. They like to brag.	17:18
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Even when they go to town on Saturday. We're walking up there and you might be those boys who followed his dad. It's more like now—Or the brothers. Sometimes they didn't follow. They would like to stay home, or the second one could but by, because the oldest one—He always didn't depend on the oldest one, or maybe not the oldest one. Whichever one obeyed the most. Then we would get recognition from all of the farmers. That way, sometimes on Saturday, let's say, instead of giving you—giving him $0.15, maybe to buy fish and ice cream. Fish was a dime, ice cream for a nickel, a cone. Big cone of ice cream, you'd get a quarter. So therefore, you had the dime extra. You could do whatever you want. You could go buy your girl one.	18:18
Clifton Woods, Jr.	So I'm saying that, these are things that in—I was like this, I—My young son is like this, he can hold a conversation with any senior person, and always could. Same as I was too. I would know how to act when they come around, when they pass by. And that happened with a girl too, a young lady. But they, perhaps admire you when you try to give opinions.	19:10
Karen Ferguson	Where did you meet your wife?	19:42
Clifton Woods, Jr.	We went to the same church.	19:44
Karen Ferguson	Oh, yeah?	19:45
Clifton Woods, Jr.	And we didn't go to the same school.	19:46
Karen Ferguson	What was your courtship like?	19:48
Clifton Woods, Jr.	I did good. Most people, or a young man, if he know, I don't care how many other friends he might have, he don't always know, but he knows the type of girl he wants to marry. And it's that way with a young lady too. They watch you and we watch opposite direction from what they do, I'm sure. Ladylike, for me, not just the girl, because she might want to go with me somewhere. The type I think was more ladylike, that I thought would help me, because I just was—We, as teenagers, I don't know if she remember and I think she do, I was a Sunday School teacher, and she was too. I taught until senior high, and she taught the junior high.	19:53
Clifton Woods, Jr.	And at our church, it's just us. And it's not much better than that now for facilities. We don't have all these hiring education buildings. But we were over here. I'm over here on the left side, and she's right over there, teaching. And we end up—Everybody went to church. Mostly everybody at that time, they would be 15 and 16, even though they lived in the country. It'd be 15 or 16, in that age group. They just plentiful, because we had one thing in common. And we too, would walk to revival, six or seven miles. A group of us, at night. A long time and we—different age groups, she and me. We're going, because that was the only thing in that day and time. There were other things, but we couldn't go to them.	20:59
Karen Ferguson	What other things were out?	21:56
Clifton Woods, Jr.	There were places where you could go and they would have all night dancing. Even in my family. Her people danced too, and there were boys in the neighborhood with their guitars. And we'd play checkers and then, we'd play cards too, in my neighborhood. We wouldn't have money, but they would use certain things that they would do if you didn't win. More than just putting you out if you didn't win, they'd say, "Let's play whiz." And then they would say, "If you don't win, you're going to be impaired. If you don't win, we're going to mark you." And they'd go in there and in the fireplace, get some of that black soot. Dirt out of the chimney. Get it right there and they'd have it in a, they'd scrape. They'd just kind of, oil and grease, and then they'd put a mark on you.	21:58
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Now, you didn't want that stuff on you, because it's hard to get off. Hard to get off. And then the soap stuff that we had to use then, it was not mild like it is now. Those be the ways we'd win. But there were places where they would go a little farther. Certain homes, they were allowed to dance to it. But we couldn't go there, because a lot of them think that was a higher teenage and young adult over there. We knew about it, but you better not be caught.	22:50
Clifton Woods, Jr.	But there were always places where, in our age group, we could go. But you would have to be allowed to go. And they wouldn't let you go there until you become of age. You know, and you might slip sometimes. But we had, in Charlotte, when we were young teenagers, the Hi Fi. We had the Excelsior Club, when we became of age. That's where you'd go there and have—My wife, after the war, all of us came together. Boys were in the Army, and girls, they would have belonged to different clubs, and we'd have club dances, and nobody didn't get to wild. We would have the biggest time. The finest time. They would dress up in a finest gowns.	23:32
Clifton Woods, Jr.	My wife, when she became a nurse and we were in the Rock Hill area, doctors and nurses, we got to go to a lot of places. We'd be tuxedo-ed down. But you soon stopped that, because our children began to cause such—My oldest son, as she said, he was into everything. Piano, I don't care, typing. All this stuff, and I'd have to drive. He was also the Omegas from Johnson C. Smith's scout. Top student. And they sponsored us in piano.	24:19
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Because my wife would be working, I have to take him. And I took him up to Voorhees College in Denmark, South Carolina. That was his first, first, after leaving Smith. He played at Smith, he won. That's $25. He went to Denmark, Voorhees College in Denmark. That was 35, okay? So went on to Columbia, and that was 50 he won there. And then they had the elimination from the South and West, and North. And we had to go to Asheville. I drive, so he had his friend, which was our cousin. Eddie now is a plastic surgeon in New York, and he is over—He's spoiled, your cousin because Eddie was right under him. They were right close together, so I would—I said, "Well you got Eddie to go with you, and I got my friend over here," because Orwell Davidson, he and I were friends in the Army.	25:04
Clifton Woods, Jr.	We'd drive to Asheville one way up to do the lottery. And it's pouring down rain. Joe wanted to play one number, $100. In 19—When was that there? About '60, '62? He had three things he could have gone into; music, math and chemistry. He still plays. Anytime he comes home, he gets on the piano. In his house out there, we'd go out 40, and he started going over like that and wheels up there. And he, I bet he's got, he has it. I know he has it, a baby grand piano. He plays, but he don't go out and just play it for—all the time. Just when he goes home, he plays.	26:07
Karen Ferguson	I wanted to ask you a little bit about the Army. Were you—You were drafted into the Army?	27:06
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Yeah.	27:10
Karen Ferguson	And when was that, 1942?	27:10
Clifton Woods, Jr.	'42. November the 11th, I was drafted.	27:13
Karen Ferguson	What did you do during the war?	27:15
Clifton Woods, Jr.	At that time, I was a 2nd PFC and—And they kept saying they didn't need Blacks. Blacks could be combat troops. Even though we had them in World War I, I had no clue then. And they were in trenches. So my brother and I used to play with his stuff. My mother, they gave it to him because the old Army stuff. So when I went in there, I was drafted. That was another thing, that the man put me in the Army. If he didn't like you, certain people, like I say, we lived down here. And my daddy and mother put the dogs—but it's a rabbit over here and they run over here on his property, he'll call the law. You'll go in the Army.	27:18
Clifton Woods, Jr.	I had registered. My brother and I registered at the same time, two years different. I registered September 1942. By the first of November, I got my notice. Then I went in to the Army. But anyway, when I went in, they were making a—They already had the 93rd. The 93rd was one year older. That was an all Black division. Some of the boys out of Charlotte was in the 93rd, that I knew. So they made the 92nd. The 25th infantry from World War I, they broke up that and sent them to Camp Breckinridge, to be, in their sense, Kentucky out, next to, Kevin fell in there. You go over Mullinville and Anderson, then you go, and then Evansville, Indiana. It's not too far.	28:07
Clifton Woods, Jr.	They were making the 92nd, and that's where we went. When I went to Camp Breckinridge, we only had 12 soldiers. Fourteen. Out of Fort George Meade, Maryland. They were shipping them from different ports, and then they developed our company. Even though we had four regiments. We had the 365. Three regiments. The 370 and the 371. And we were stationed in different areas, 365 at Atterbury, 370 in Breckinridge, 371 at Camp Robinson, Arkansas.	29:19
Clifton Woods, Jr.	And the basic, which you'd have artillery—accompanied by artillery 5598, 599, 598, 598, 7598, 599, and 600, is the basics, with the heavy stuff. So it's artillery. I can't call it. Camp Hua—No, not Camp Hua—But anyways, Fort Macleod, Alabama. Call it the heavy base.	30:03
Clifton Woods, Jr.	So after our basic training, we all came together in Huachuca, Arizona. That's Guillermo's territory, the Indian chief. And Huachuca is spelled H-U-C-H-U-C-A, and it was for Indian's. It was the wind. Nothing could stop the wind. My outfit was the 92nd Division. We were the Buffalo Outfit, and the Buffalo is strong. That was our saying. So as I went in, two weeks, they know all about you before you—for two weeks. So you get there, they know how strong you are, or what you did. In a sense, they know.	30:37
Clifton Woods, Jr.	So two weeks, they threw a—The first time I came in there, "Woods, [inaudible 00:31:30]. You are now a second squad leader in the 92nd Platoon. Your platoon will be to support your company and your battalion with enemy attacks." I said, "Okay." I studied and I studied, and I kept getting those stripes. You know, lines. Got through my basic, got to be a PFC, and then that was six weeks. Then the first of May, in 1943, we were sent to Huachuca, Arizona, and the whole division came together.	31:21
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Most of my officers to trained with White lieutenants and higher was officers who were majors and colonels and things. They were White. But as we trained, a lot of the Whites got out, and then they begin to send. They were already sending boys out in the outfit. Two year college boys were going to OTS, Officer's Training School.	32:05
Karen Ferguson	These were Black soldiers in the—	32:32
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Yes, these were Blacks. Uh-huh. And you had to go to Tuskegee, in Alabama. And then after that, they came to me and say, "Woods. You need to take your IQ over." And I said, "What? Why do I have to take that over?" He say, "I think you'd make an Officer." But I talked with my cabinet people, they were good. These people out in Ohio and all of them, they talked to me and they said, "Now, Woods, you can make it pretty high and you can make it good as being an old time officer, not a lieutenant or something." He said, "You can go up all through the ranks."	32:33
Clifton Woods, Jr.	The reason for that is, if you get to being a second lieutenant and then a first lieutenant, you have to pay for all of your clothing and part of your food. And he said, "You can make it. You can be good there." And said, "Then if you make this officer, you'll be transferred out here and there, wherever you need to. Pacific or anywhere," and that's what he told me. Now the whole world's at war now. You were just fortunate if you don't get hurt or anything, or don't get killed. They shooting at you every day.	33:22
Clifton Woods, Jr.	So I didn't go. I didn't take the IQ over. But after I got my first furlough, I ran into some boys that were from the 99th Pursuit. Boys that were all Black, and they were from Tuskegee. So it was growing, and they wanted to make it, 332nd Combat, because they were going to escort my outfit. So I ran into the Sergeant, he had all his hair off, and he came from San Diego, California and said he had been transferred in there.	34:03
Clifton Woods, Jr.	I said, "Man, what are your requirements?" He said, "I'm just out of high school, but—" I said, "What are the requirements?" He said, "To have two years of math, two years of science, one of, this and that. And then if you make it, you can ask them—" I said, "Give me the papers." So he gave me his papers. But by the time I got off my 21-day furlough, because it took that to come from Arizona, for me to have even half the time, on a train, here. Half of that, at home. So when I got back, I had to give that up. But I went on through the ranks. I went as high as a Staff Sergeant in World War II.	34:43
Clifton Woods, Jr.	A Black man said, I escorted him in and my gun was a 57 millimeter anti-tank. It shot shells about this long. And we sided the side weapon, then I was able to train. I was always able to get along with, boys just liked me. Well, we had against each other winning the competition, whatever the word is. Anyway, then we would mosey up the pass, just going to get our running plates when we—So through combat, I had 14 months of that.	35:23
Karen Ferguson	Where were you?	36:10
Clifton Woods, Jr.	In Italy.	36:10
Karen Ferguson	Okay. Italy.	36:10
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Uh-huh. We landed July 15, 1944. We went on-line August the 1st. And when you go on-line August the 1st, you don't get a chance to come back until maybe—My first chance back was last October, in that same year. And then you change clothes, rations, clothes and stuff like that. Then you go back. The next time, I was—It was something like, in December, we had to come back. It got too cold over there to attack, and we were the holding position. This TP would not come under your end, but, every night, he'd shoot up a flare and he was out there.	36:14
Clifton Woods, Jr.	So we kept moving up, we kept moving up, then we got in the Alps. It's cold up there. We had to go in blazers. We had to run them all the way back from North Africa, clear back to the garbage lines and on over that way, until we won late the next year. But me, I didn't get a scratch on me, and I was up there. And Boyd, he was up there right in front of me. I couldn't do nothing but turn him over, stretch him, then the med come along and take him out.	37:01
Karen Ferguson	What was it like in Italy? Was it different? How did you find it different?	37:43
Clifton Woods, Jr.	In Italy, it was a good place to soldier. Because anytime the enemy has monopolized an area for a period of time, they take the girls, they hold them as hostage. They take the men, make them work for them. They tear up all of the town sometimes. And children, you look at them, they might be five or six years old, you had to pay and find a nurse, they might be three. And you move in towns and we'd do most of our traveling at night, when we would move from one area to another one. And then by 1:00 in the morning, we'd get settled, and they know you're there, because they heard you coming.	37:48
Clifton Woods, Jr.	And you were 10 Yanks. We were 10 Yanks. And they always looked for somebody who could help them. I don't care, in distress, you or I, we get distressed, we got to look for somebody to help us. So it was three days, sometimes I wouldn't eat. I knew I could get food, but you see these hungry kids. Now we look at it on television. But to see it with your eye, to how you—and they would muddle it out for coffee to stimulate the baby in the morning. We would have, as a squad—I had a truck. And we would have feed rations, we'd have care rations. We'd have 10 and one, and 10 and one is in a big box, you'll have enough to feed 10 men. You may have fried eggs in there, and you may have fried bacon and canned food. Something like sunshine sausage, something like that. It'd be like Vienna, but in a 10 and one, that's enough to feed 10 men.	38:31
Clifton Woods, Jr.	So in there, we'd back the car around, carrying that. We just give it. We'd just ride through and throw it. Ain't no handing it out, because you can't stop.	39:44
Karen Ferguson	How did the Italians treat you, as a Black man?	39:57
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Fine.	39:59
Karen Ferguson	Mm-hmm.	39:59
Clifton Woods, Jr.	Fine. Anywhere over there, you're treated, because they at war. The whole world is at war.	40:01
Karen Ferguson	Right.	40:04
Clifton Woods, Jr.	And the Germans have been through there and took everything, like I say. They took the ladies, made them work something. They took the men and made them soldiers for them. And some of the men, their sisters would dig, and these men would dig trenches and stay back under there, until the enemy is gone. They would slip out there and feed them. And then when we'd come through, they'd come out. They had started helping us. We needed something, because some of the areas, we didn't know. So you get—I would get one friendly Italian [foreign language 00:40:41], but that was kind of okay. We called him [foreign language 00:40:43].	40:07
Clifton Woods, Jr.	He knew the area. We didn't know the area. We knew it by map, but you didn't really know. And you didn't really know your enemies. You didn't know the Fascistas. Fascistas was the one that worked for the Germans, and they turned you up. Therefore, you'd get big shells on you when you don't know it. When you're not, to many things to you were going to happen.	40:44
Karen Ferguson	What happened when you came back here? When did you get back to—	41:07
Clifton Woods, Jr.	I came back—I got out December the 5th, in 1945. That's when I had a son that I hadn't seen in a year and a half. He was 18 months. Yeah, June was 18 months. So I started looking. My wife and I started talking, and we thought at first, we might open up—a friend of mine, I had a lot of things in mind. Thought I might open up a service station, right on Statesville Avenue. The first one that was in the Black area. We never did nothing in the White. So somebody got ahead of us on that. My friend said, "I can do the mechanic work. Woods, you and I both can do the manual. You can do the motor, I can do the manual." That fell through.	41:11
Clifton Woods, Jr.	My wife said, "Clifton, you could already cut hair." And maybe we go to the barber school. But they closed up the one that went bad on McDowell Street in Charlotte. We had a government funded school there. You know how people misuse certain funds and things. So that one closed, and we would have to go to Greensboro. So I said, "Well, I don't know. I don't want to leave home no more." But I could have gone, but I just didn't want to leave home no more.	42:03
Clifton Woods, Jr.	I'd been away three years. I was in the Army three years, with three people. Fell back and forth. Some other things that we thought that we might do, and it didn't come through. Soon as I got out, I asked her. Wife and I, we went back to ER and we had duplicates of our marriage and things like that, certificates. And I was going to go to Carver College. It was Carver at that time, and it was a second ward. It was a second ward school. But like she said, her brother drove. And the car, you couldn't get any tires, and the car you had wouldn't account. You'd have a puncture.	42:38
Clifton Woods, Jr.	They had rules. They said, "If you're tardy three days out of a week, you're going to get thrown out. And then if you're absent four days out of a week, you're going to get thrown out." You had points or stuff like that, where you could buy tires or gasoline or something. So I said, "Well, I'm going to work. I got a wife and I got a son." And I started to work.	43:24
Karen Ferguson	Where did you work?	43:59
Clifton Woods, Jr.	After I got my monthly IP, I worked out to, see I had 3 months. I was trying to go to school all that time, and then whole time, I helped my father get started, and my brother. Because in '36—Let me see, think back. In '46, '46, that was a bad year for farmers. They didn't get to gather their crops. And so we had to get the corn after Christmas, and then get the greens in the ground—the other crops started. So after I got that done, then I started to work out at the airport, that next year. When that job came to a close, I was working for Gary Jones Construction Company. I was doing pretty good. I had moved up from a carpenter helper and electrician helper. Then they gave me a truck. And I would get the truck serviced.	44:00
Clifton Woods, Jr.	That came to a close that the end of 19—When Bobby Bowen went in? In '30—	44:34
Speaker 3	In '47.	45:03
Clifton Woods, Jr.	47, right. So I started to work at the Lance before. At the first of the year, of '47. Lance, Inc., and that's the only job I've ever had.	45:03
Karen Ferguson	And what were you doing there?	45:05
Clifton Woods, Jr.	When I started to work at Lance?	45:12
Karen Ferguson	Mm-hmm.	45:13
Clifton Woods, Jr.	When I started, I started working in the cafeteria. I worked in the cafeteria. I kept on moving up my ascent order different things, and I learned about meat. Virginia meat, on to Chicago meat, because it's sealed. And the type of meat, with the meat. How big was the meat, down from how far down the back. But I learned we could order half the cows, and I learned how to cut. The kind to make the beef to rub—Everything didn't come packed.	45:24
Karen Ferguson	So Lance is what kind of company? The meat—the—	46:03
Clifton Woods, Jr.	It's a food processing plant.	46:10
Karen Ferguson	Okay.	46:10
Clifton Woods, Jr.	We did sell the best cuts in town. It's almost world—one third of the world-wide. We can call it that way. So I worked so many years in the cafeteria and then—Then you got up so high. I wanted to tell you, they let me order all of the stuff for short orders. Like T-bones and this, to get pork loins, and then you could cut your pork chops. Then I had a meat cutter, and I was in charge of the second shift, so to speak. Second shift went to work at 11:00 and get off at seven, so you see, I had—in the daytime.	46:19
Clifton Woods, Jr.	So I had a whole day to do what I want to do. But then I got transferred to shop, on the third shift up by the boiler, because I had years. Then they built the other plant down on South Boulevard, and I did 30—	46:53

Item Info

Title:

Clifton Woods, Jr. interview, 1993 June 09

Date:

June 9, 1993

Creator:

Woods, Clifton, Jr.

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Description:

Name: Clifton Woods, Jr.; Date of birth: 1924-03-08; Place of birth: Mecklenburg Co., NC; Occupation: agriculture; armed services; managerial; Residence: Charlotte, NC
Informant ID: 87; Informant ID: 86; Interviewed by: Karen Ferguson and Kara Miles.

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English

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Behind the Veil

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

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

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

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Interview number: 296
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Clifton Woods, Jr. interview, 1993 June 09

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1. Effie Woods and Clifton Woods, Jr. administrative file, 1993

2. Effie Woods interview recording, 1993 June 9

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Clifton Woods, Jr. interview, 1993 June 09

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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