Peggy Tapp interview recording, 1994 June 08
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Felix Armfield | June today is June 8th, 1994. My name is Felix Armfield. I'm the interviewer and I'm at The Chicken Hut down on Fairfield street in Durham, North Carolina. I'm about to interview and Miss Peggy J. Tapp, who is along with her husband, the owner of The Chicken Hut on Fairfield Street. Miss Tapp, would you just start out by just telling me a little bit about yourself and how long you've been here in Durham and just a little bit about yourself and background? | 0:11 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay. Telling you about myself. I was born here in Durham. I've been here all my life and I doubt seriously if I'd move at this point. | 0:50 |
Felix Armfield | Okay, great. | 0:57 |
Peggy Tapp | And try to start over again. I started working with The Chicken Box with Mr. Tapp when I was 16, and we have worked together since then, which has been a struggle. | 0:59 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 1:23 |
Peggy Tapp | Very hard struggle because at that particular time there was segregation. | 1:23 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. What time? Can you put a time frame on that? | 1:40 |
Peggy Tapp | This was like in 1957. | 1:47 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Around 1957? | 1:47 |
Peggy Tapp | Yes. | 1:47 |
Felix Armfield | Still in the late 1950s. What was it like when you say it was a struggle? What was the struggle itself all about? | 1:48 |
Peggy Tapp | Well, the struggle was at that particular time, well, the type of people we depended on were like—which we still do, and they supported our business through the years, they followed us through the years—the low income. | 1:56 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 2:18 |
Peggy Tapp | The poverty-stricken, the welfare. These people are the ones who really supported us. Yeah. We've had support from others, but then we even had a worse time when integration set in. | 2:18 |
Felix Armfield | Oh, really? | 2:35 |
Peggy Tapp | Because at this time, we found that, I guess maybe we, as Blacks found out, we could go maybe to the hotels and the restaurants. | 2:36 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. | 2:52 |
Peggy Tapp | We could sit any place. This set us a little bit behind, because at that time we offered catering and banquet, which we had a banquet room, but then they sort of got away from that. | 2:53 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 3:08 |
Peggy Tapp | They started like with the hotels and whatever. | 3:08 |
Felix Armfield | Since integration, it hurt the business? | 3:13 |
Peggy Tapp | It did. | 3:18 |
Felix Armfield | What would you say is the reason? | 3:18 |
Peggy Tapp | It was good in one sense. | 3:18 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 3:18 |
Peggy Tapp | And bad in another, because that's when we started like going away from our Blacks. | 3:18 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 3:28 |
Peggy Tapp | Supporting them. | 3:28 |
Felix Armfield | I see. You said you've been here in Durham since you were born? | 3:28 |
Peggy Tapp | I was born here. Yes. | 3:28 |
Felix Armfield | When were you born here? | 3:28 |
Peggy Tapp | 1940. | 3:28 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. You're born in 1940. | 3:40 |
Peggy Tapp | Mm-hmm. | 3:43 |
Felix Armfield | Can you tell me a little bit about your early childhood here in Durham, in the 1940s? | 3:44 |
Peggy Tapp | Well, I can tell a lot about growing up. I came from a large family and we were a very close-knit family. We had a hard time. My parents worked very hard. We didn't have what maybe others had, but they made it comfortable the best they could. | 3:46 |
Felix Armfield | What type of work did your parents do? | 4:16 |
Peggy Tapp | Well, my father worked in American Tobacco Factory and my mother was, well, she had a lot of occupations. She was a maid. | 4:16 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 4:27 |
Peggy Tapp | She did nurse work. And then in the evenings, about six o'clock, she would go and clean up for White people. | 4:28 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. When you say your mother was a maid, who was she being maid for? | 4:38 |
Peggy Tapp | For? Okay. She was for the Duke family. | 4:43 |
Felix Armfield | Your mother was a maid for the Duke family? | 4:45 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 4:45 |
Felix Armfield | That's interesting. | 4:45 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay. She worked with them for 46 years. | 4:46 |
Felix Armfield | Really? Well, now, what was your mother's name? | 4:54 |
Peggy Tapp | Her name was Elizabeth Johnson. | 4:54 |
Felix Armfield | Elizabeth Johnson? | 5:00 |
Peggy Tapp | Yes. | 5:00 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Now, and your father's name was? | 5:01 |
Peggy Tapp | Albert Johnson. | 5:01 |
Felix Armfield | Albert Johnson? | 5:07 |
Peggy Tapp | Yeah. | 5:08 |
Felix Armfield | He worked for the American Tobacco Factory? | 5:08 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 5:08 |
Felix Armfield | What end of town did you all live on? | 5:08 |
Peggy Tapp | The West End. | 5:08 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Now West End being what street now in— | 5:16 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay. That's in the, I would say, the west part of Durham. | 5:19 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Now, can you give me a street name now? What's over there? | 5:24 |
Peggy Tapp | Yeah, Kent Street. It runs off Wade Avenue. | 5:31 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 5:34 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay. Coming back from Duke University. | 5:36 |
Felix Armfield | Okay, so you lived over on that end of town? | 5:39 |
Peggy Tapp | Yes, uh-huh. | 5:39 |
Felix Armfield | How many children were in family? You say you came from a large family. | 5:39 |
Peggy Tapp | There were six of us. | 5:45 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 5:46 |
Peggy Tapp | Not including the ones that my mother took in off the street and our friends and whatever. | 5:46 |
Felix Armfield | There was clearly— | 5:54 |
Peggy Tapp | There were a lot. Back then, everybody was a family. | 5:54 |
Felix Armfield | Everybody was family. | 5:57 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 5:57 |
Felix Armfield | Everybody was family. From the ghetto, what do you mean by the ghetto? | 5:58 |
Peggy Tapp | Well, from the area where people looked at us as people that would probably not do anything in life or with their lives. | 6:07 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. | 6:20 |
Peggy Tapp | The West End has been most successful with lots of successful people coming out. | 6:23 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Okay. So, well, tell me a little bit about that West End, then. | 6:30 |
Peggy Tapp | Well— | 6:35 |
Felix Armfield | How did the West End differ from— | 6:35 |
Peggy Tapp | Well, you had areas where this type of our class of people lived and that type of class of people lived and everybody was classed. | 6:36 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. We're going to talk about those class structures when we come back. | 6:51 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay. | 6:53 |
Felix Armfield | Would you just sort of continue talking about those— | 6:53 |
Peggy Tapp | Classes? | 6:53 |
Felix Armfield | Class structures that you're talking about. | 6:58 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay. Now, when I say class, I mean, like there were children that we were in school with and their parents were able to be teachers and doctors and lawyers and principals and whatever, so this is what I mean by the different to me. | 6:59 |
Felix Armfield | Did you all live in the same neighborhoods? | 7:23 |
Peggy Tapp | No. | 7:24 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 7:24 |
Peggy Tapp | This is what I mean. One part of town, other part of town. | 7:25 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Where did the people who could afford the— | 7:31 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay. They were on this side of town. Like Fayetteville Street. | 7:34 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 7:40 |
Peggy Tapp | Believe it or not. | 7:41 |
Felix Armfield | In and down Fayetteville Street area. | 7:42 |
Peggy Tapp | Area. Right. | 7:44 |
Felix Armfield | Those of you came from backgrounds where parents were more or less working class people— | 7:45 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 7:49 |
Felix Armfield | They were on what was called the West End? | 7:50 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. Law Town, North Durham. | 7:53 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 7:56 |
Peggy Tapp | Those places. But when you got to this area, a little bit above Burthey Funeral Home. | 7:57 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 8:00 |
Peggy Tapp | On whatever, in that area you, this is where you start finding the change. | 8:05 |
Felix Armfield | You didn't attend schools with these children? | 8:20 |
Peggy Tapp | Of course we did. | 8:21 |
Felix Armfield | Oh, you did attend schools with them? | 8:21 |
Peggy Tapp | Yes, uh-huh. We were classmates. Where at this particular time we were like—that's my son in the blue t-shirt. | 8:25 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 8:34 |
Peggy Tapp | That's his cousin and the White t-shirt. Okay. It was like, we were all in school. We met together when we got to high school. | 8:35 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 8:43 |
Peggy Tapp | Because at this particular time, the school— | 8:43 |
Felix Armfield | Now, what time period are we talking about here? | 8:47 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay. In high school, you're talking about in the early '50s. | 8:47 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. The early '50s. | 8:52 |
Peggy Tapp | Mm-hmm. | 8:55 |
Felix Armfield | This is still prior to days before integration. | 8:55 |
Peggy Tapp | Yeah, because integration, yeah, didn't set in until the '60s. | 8:58 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 9:01 |
Peggy Tapp | Right? | 9:01 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. | 9:03 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay. Because when I finished high school, we were still riding the back of the bus. | 9:04 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 9:08 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay. We were still going to Colored this and Colored that and going in back doors and all of this. | 9:09 |
Felix Armfield | When you say ride the bus, what was that experience? | 9:17 |
Peggy Tapp | Boom. I don't know how I went through that. It's unbelievable. Because you got on the bus, and when I was in school, we would have to catch the bus from school to Five Points, which is another part, and then get on another bus to bring us to where we live. You getting on the bus downtown and the bus, there are plenty of seats up front. The bus driver says we would actually sit down in these seats, the front seats. And then he would say, I never will forget. He would say, "If you don't get up, I'm going to put you off or either get the police." And then we only had White police. Well, they started hiring Blacks, but the only problem was the Blacks couldn't arrest. | 9:20 |
Felix Armfield | Really? | 10:14 |
Peggy Tapp | It was just a White. | 10:14 |
Felix Armfield | Black officers here in Durham, those first Black officers that— | 10:16 |
Peggy Tapp | Could not arrest. | 10:25 |
Felix Armfield | This was still sometime in, throughout the 1950s? | 10:25 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 10:25 |
Felix Armfield | So if there were Black officers, they couldn't arrest anyone. | 10:25 |
Peggy Tapp | No. | 10:25 |
Felix Armfield | Not Black nor White? Could the arrest Black people? | 10:25 |
Peggy Tapp | No, they couldn't. They could arrest Blacks, but they couldn't touch the White. | 10:26 |
Felix Armfield | They could not arrest Whites. Isn't that interesting? | 10:38 |
Peggy Tapp | I tell you, it's unbelievable. | 10:38 |
Felix Armfield | Where did you attend school? | 10:38 |
Peggy Tapp | Elementary school, Hills—I'm sorry, Lion Park. | 10:40 |
Felix Armfield | Where is that? | 10:44 |
Peggy Tapp | That's on- | 10:44 |
Felix Armfield | Lion Park? | 10:44 |
Peggy Tapp | Uh-huh. That's on the corner of Halley and Kent and the school has closed down. They closed the school down. | 10:44 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 10:53 |
Peggy Tapp | I went to junior high at Whitted School, and from there I went to Hillside. | 10:53 |
Felix Armfield | You finished high school— | 11:03 |
Peggy Tapp | Hillside, mm-hmm. | 11:03 |
Felix Armfield | Hillside. Now, is Hillside, was that the all-Black high school? | 11:04 |
Peggy Tapp | That was the only, well we had a county all-Black and a city all-White [read: Black]. Hillside was a city all-White [read: Black] and Merrick Moore was the all-Black. | 11:08 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Those of you from the city limits— | 11:19 |
Peggy Tapp | Went to Hillside. | 11:20 |
Felix Armfield | Went to Hillside. | 11:20 |
Peggy Tapp | From everywhere, all over the city. | 11:22 |
Felix Armfield | All over Durham City, so therefore, you merged in with these children from all different class backgrounds. | 11:24 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 11:31 |
Felix Armfield | Regardless of what kind of economic backgrounds they came from. | 11:31 |
Peggy Tapp | Right, right. | 11:31 |
Felix Armfield | How did you feel about that? [crosstalk 00:11:37]. What kind of impact did it have on you? | 11:36 |
Peggy Tapp | Well, we accepted it. We accepted it because this is all we knew. | 11:37 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 11:46 |
Peggy Tapp | We didn't know anything about anything else, but it was frightening. For instance, if you may go to a store and you want water or you have to use the restroom and you got to use the Colored and the White, and if you couldn't get in the side that said Colored, you would ask, and I remember so well. I was just a little girl, about 10 years old. A young lady took me with her downtown Durham, and I had to use the bathroom, and my mother just bought me a new coat. The lady told this lady that had me, she said, "Could we just use your bathroom? The little girl has to use the bathroom." She said, no. White lady, but you know, I just thought that was awful. | 11:46 |
Felix Armfield | I'm sure that had to have an impact on you as a 10-year-old child as to why you really couldn't just go in and use the bathroom. | 12:41 |
Peggy Tapp | I tell you. | 12:48 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. | 12:48 |
Peggy Tapp | We went on with this and then things started breaking with Martin Luther King and others, and it's surprising to me now, I think if Martin Luther King came back, he would be totally upset to see how things are, to me, turning around, just in a different— | 12:48 |
Felix Armfield | What was it in the '40s and '50s that you recall your parents doing that was a clear sign of they did it simply because they were Black? | 13:11 |
Peggy Tapp | Right off, I can't recall anything that they really did. They did so many things. | 13:24 |
Speaker 3 | Can I close this? | 13:24 |
Peggy Tapp | Please. I really can't recall anything right now. | 13:35 |
Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Now, do you recall anything, any of the specifics of your mother having worked as a maid for the Duke family? | 13:41 |
Peggy Tapp | Well, as my mother working for the Duke family, it didn't make any difference to them. Believe it or not. | 13:48 |
Felix Armfield | The Duke family? It really didn't make a difference to them? | 14:00 |
Peggy Tapp | It made no difference. We were just like their children. I mean, to them, we were invited to their homes. We were treated as their children. We were welcomed into the home in which we did visit them quite often. | 14:02 |
Felix Armfield | Really? Now, where did the Dukes live at this time? | 14:20 |
Peggy Tapp | They lived in Forest Hills. | 14:22 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Now, that's clearly the White section— | 14:22 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 14:22 |
Felix Armfield | Of town. | 14:22 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 14:22 |
Felix Armfield | They were out in the Forest Hills area? | 14:22 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 14:22 |
Felix Armfield | Now, how was it that your mother was fortunate enough to work for the Dukes? I'm sure there tons of women who were here— | 14:22 |
Peggy Tapp | Yeah. | 14:42 |
Felix Armfield | Who were positive, who may have even saw her job as a real good job working for the Duke family. | 14:42 |
Peggy Tapp | Yeah. But you know what? When my mother was working for the Duke family, when she first started working there, I can remember very well as her bringing home $12, in 50 cent pieces. | 14:53 |
Felix Armfield | Okay, now— | 15:03 |
Peggy Tapp | But that was a lot of money. | 15:05 |
Felix Armfield | When was this time? | 15:07 |
Peggy Tapp | Oh, let me see. I was nine years old, so that was 1949. | 15:09 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. In the late 1940s and she bought this home like per week, or? | 15:12 |
Peggy Tapp | Per week. | 15:16 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. She bought home $12 in 50 cents per week. | 15:18 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 15:23 |
Felix Armfield | In 50 cent pieces. | 15:23 |
Peggy Tapp | Pieces in an envelope. I never forget it. | 15:23 |
Felix Armfield | That's how they paid her. | 15:26 |
Peggy Tapp | That's how they paid her. | 15:28 |
Felix Armfield | Really? I can imagine $12.50 may have went a long ways in that time. | 15:28 |
Peggy Tapp | Oh, of course it did. | 15:34 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. | 15:35 |
Peggy Tapp | Yeah. We did real well. | 15:35 |
Felix Armfield | Really? | 15:38 |
Peggy Tapp | Yeah. Like I say, we didn't have everything, but we lived comfortable for a poor family. | 15:38 |
Felix Armfield | Really? Now, did you find yourself making friends with some of those other children who may have been from professional classes? | 15:44 |
Peggy Tapp | Of course, we did. Of course, we did. | 15:50 |
Felix Armfield | You did have friends who were— | 15:50 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 15:50 |
Felix Armfield | Up and down Fayetteville Street. | 15:50 |
Peggy Tapp | And they made us feel good because we say, "Wow, we know this person, we know that person." It was no problem. We became the best of friends. | 15:57 |
Felix Armfield | Really? Who were some of the people on this end of town? Up and down Fayetteville Street? | 16:06 |
Peggy Tapp | Well, I was— | 16:11 |
Felix Armfield | That you were calling and what were some of the things that they did? | 16:11 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay. Well, the Schoolers- | 16:11 |
Felix Armfield | The Schoolers? | 16:20 |
Peggy Tapp | J.M. Schooler. | 16:23 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 16:25 |
Peggy Tapp | His wife was a teacher and he was the first principal that I knew in elementary school, and unfortunately he followed us. I don't know how it worked, but when I got to junior high, he was there. | 16:25 |
Felix Armfield | Unfortunately? | 16:39 |
Peggy Tapp | Mm-hmm. Yep. | 16:39 |
Felix Armfield | Sounds like he was probably one of those strict disciplinarians. | 16:39 |
Peggy Tapp | Oh, he was. He was good. | 16:40 |
Felix Armfield | Really? | 16:47 |
Peggy Tapp | Yeah. And hen when I got to high school, I met his children. | 16:47 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 16:53 |
Peggy Tapp | We became the best of friends. | 16:53 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 16:54 |
Peggy Tapp | And there was no problem. | 16:54 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. What was school like then? Tell me a little bit about your school days. | 16:54 |
Peggy Tapp | Well, school was good. | 16:54 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 16:54 |
Peggy Tapp | In fact, I like the way our schools were then more so than today. | 16:55 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. What do you like about the schools then? | 17:13 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay. We learned more. Our teachers took more time with each child, because first of all, at the beginning of the year, couple of days, or week before school opened, the parents—I mean, the teachers would get a list of the home of the students in their homeroom and they would get out and go into the neighborhood and visit the home, so they found out what they were dealing with. | 17:15 |
Felix Armfield | Teachers really sort of developed relationships with— | 17:46 |
Peggy Tapp | They did. | 17:52 |
Felix Armfield | —their children and their families. | 17:52 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. It was like a family. | 17:52 |
Felix Armfield | Exactly. | 17:52 |
Peggy Tapp | We actually learned more, and they'd turn out better students. But today, since the schools are integrated, it's really a problem because—I guess, it's a change in the children today, too. I can't put the total blame on the teachers, but I just don't think our children today as Black children learn—one thing, the time, taking up the time. | 17:54 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. | 18:24 |
Peggy Tapp | Because you have slow learners and fast learners and whatever. It's just totally different. I know that our White teachers really don't take up the time. | 18:25 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Interesting. You're saying that that's clearly one of the downfalls of integration? | 18:37 |
Peggy Tapp | Yeah. | 18:44 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Now, what are your recollections of North Carolina Central University with the college here? There was a Black college in your town. | 18:45 |
Peggy Tapp | Now, they really supported us. | 18:52 |
Felix Armfield | Back in the '40s and '50s? What are some of the- | 18:57 |
Peggy Tapp | Well, I thought that was great because Dr. Shepard. I thought that was great to know Dr. Shepard. I've seen him quite a few times and as a little girl, and I just thought that was great. | 18:59 |
Felix Armfield | You sort of admired this man? | 19:16 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 19:16 |
Felix Armfield | Who had founded this college in your hometown. | 19:16 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 19:21 |
Felix Armfield | And an all-Black college at that. | 19:21 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. And it's a very popular school. | 19:25 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. Yeah. What do you recall about your father then? We talked about your mother. What do you recall about your father having worked at— | 19:27 |
Peggy Tapp | American? | 19:39 |
Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 19:40 |
Peggy Tapp | Well, I tell you how my daddy got that job. It's unbelievable. I often talk to him about it. He's almost 80 years old now. | 19:41 |
Felix Armfield | Your father's still alive? | 19:51 |
Peggy Tapp | He's still alive. | 19:52 |
Felix Armfield | What's your father's name? | 19:52 |
Peggy Tapp | His name is Albert Johnson. | 19:54 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 20:00 |
Peggy Tapp | As you know, back then, it was like the White superintendents, the White supervisors, everything was White over the Blacks. They would call you all kind of names, anything just to make you leave this job. Because I recall so many times my daddy coming home so upset, just so upset because he'd been called a nigger. These barrels, these big barrels, they had to roll, I guess, they were trying them on the basis of that to see how much work they could do. | 20:01 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah, yeah. | 20:34 |
Peggy Tapp | I think out of his 46 years there, I don't think my daddy missed three days out of work. | 20:36 |
Felix Armfield | He worked there for 46 years? | 20:43 |
Peggy Tapp | And he walked there. Right. He walked there and he would be sick, but he still went to work because he had a family to support, and he didn't want to lose his job, so he toughed it out. | 20:43 |
Felix Armfield | What kind of work did he do? | 20:58 |
Peggy Tapp | Well, he did a little of everything. I think just before he retired, he had been elevated to a night watchman. It took him that long to just get to that. | 20:58 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. Do you recall what kind of salary? What kind of money he— | 21:15 |
Peggy Tapp | Well, | 21:18 |
Felix Armfield | —perhaps started out making or when he even began working at American? | 21:19 |
Peggy Tapp | I can't remember when. I was a little girl. | 21:24 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 21:25 |
Peggy Tapp | Because before then, I remember him washing dishes at Duke University. | 21:25 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Washing? | 21:31 |
Peggy Tapp | He was a dishwasher. | 21:33 |
Felix Armfield | Over at Duke University. | 21:34 |
Peggy Tapp | Uh-huh. | 21:35 |
Felix Armfield | Really? | 21:35 |
Peggy Tapp | How he got this job at American? I don't know. But to get that job, you had to rate pretty high, back then. | 21:35 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. When you say rate pretty high, what do you mean? | 21:44 |
Peggy Tapp | Well, I don't know. You had to have somebody to help get you in. | 21:47 |
Felix Armfield | Somebody had to give you a good word. | 21:51 |
Peggy Tapp | Somebody had to know. Right. | 21:52 |
Felix Armfield | Really. Well, was it after your father started working for American Tobacco Company, that your mother then began working for the Duke family? | 21:54 |
Peggy Tapp | Yes. Uh-huh. | 22:03 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Do you think there may have been a connection there? | 22:09 |
Peggy Tapp | No. | 22:09 |
Felix Armfield | How did she manage to get there? Did you ever tell me how she got there? | 22:09 |
Peggy Tapp | No, I didn't tell you. It was like, there was a lady across the street. | 22:11 |
Felix Armfield | From where you all lived? | 22:16 |
Peggy Tapp | Lived on the West End. | 22:18 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 22:20 |
Peggy Tapp | That was working for the Duke family. | 22:20 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 22:22 |
Peggy Tapp | She knew my mother needed a job. My mother was making it, but she needed a job that she was sure of, and this lady recommended my mother, and these people my mother went to see them. They hired her right off. | 22:22 |
Felix Armfield | So obviously they liked her. | 22:38 |
Peggy Tapp | They liked her. Yeah. | 22:42 |
Felix Armfield | Liked something about her, or surely they liked her. | 22:43 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 22:47 |
Felix Armfield | Now, when you say the Duke family, which family in specific that she worked for? Did she clean? | 22:47 |
Peggy Tapp | Well, it was Doris Duke's first cousin. Mary Semans. | 22:48 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 22:56 |
Peggy Tapp | Mary Duke Semans. | 22:59 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Mary Duke. | 22:59 |
Peggy Tapp | Duke. Mm-hmm. | 23:00 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. As a child, where did you go? Where could you go and where couldn't you go being from the West End of town? If you wanted to go to the store, where could? Did you have roam to go to any store you wanted to, or that kind thing? Or where there restrictions as to where you could go as a child? Where you were told that you shouldn't go? | 23:03 |
Peggy Tapp | You mean by my parents? | 23:18 |
Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 23:18 |
Peggy Tapp | Well, yes. Back then you had no other choice, but to mind your parents, so there was a little store in our neighborhood and we were only allowed to go there. | 23:19 |
Felix Armfield | This was a Black-owned store? | 23:52 |
Peggy Tapp | Black-owned store, and we were only allowed to go there. Then, on Sundays we could go to an ice cream parlor, which was owned by Blacks, a few blocks away. | 23:56 |
Felix Armfield | That was a Black ice cream parlor? | 24:07 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. We could only go there only if we went to church and Sunday school. | 24:07 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. That- | 24:13 |
Peggy Tapp | That was a treat. | 24:15 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. If you went to church, you could have ice cream on Sunday. | 24:16 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 24:17 |
Felix Armfield | Where did family attend church? | 24:17 |
Peggy Tapp | At that time? It was Second Baptist. Now it's First Calvary. | 24:17 |
Felix Armfield | It's what? | 24:25 |
Peggy Tapp | First Cavalry. Well, first it was Second Baptist. | 24:25 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 24:29 |
Peggy Tapp | Now, it's First Cavalry. | 24:29 |
Felix Armfield | First Calvary. Where is it located? | 24:30 |
Peggy Tapp | On the corner of Morehead and Kent. | 24:39 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. You pretty much went to church in your neighborhood? | 24:41 |
Peggy Tapp | Everything was right in the neighborhood. | 24:44 |
Felix Armfield | What was the religion there? What was the background? | 24:46 |
Peggy Tapp | Baptist? | 24:48 |
Felix Armfield | It was a Baptist church. Were your parents pretty religious and church-going people? | 24:48 |
Peggy Tapp | Very. | 24:53 |
Felix Armfield | Did either one of them hold positions in the church? | 24:53 |
Peggy Tapp | Well, not as a position, but like they were ushers and they sang the choir and they taught us to do the same thing. | 24:53 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Do you still attend that church? | 25:01 |
Peggy Tapp | No, I moved my membership to Morehead Baptist after I got married, which is right down the street. | 25:02 |
Felix Armfield | Which is right down the street, so you're not going to get too far from home? | 25:17 |
Peggy Tapp | No. | 25:17 |
Felix Armfield | If we can begin to talk a little bit about The Chicken Hut itself. Okay. Where was The Chicken Hut founded? | 25:17 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay, The Chicken Box. Okay. That was the name originally, and my husband started out on Apex Highway. I was just a young girl then, so we weren't married. | 25:31 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 25:45 |
Peggy Tapp | It was just a shape of a box. | 25:45 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 25:48 |
Peggy Tapp | That's why he named me The Chicken Box. His sister named it The Chicken Box. | 25:48 |
Felix Armfield | His sister named it? | 25:52 |
Peggy Tapp | Yes. Mm-hmm. | 25:53 |
Felix Armfield | The Chicken Box. Okay. | 25:53 |
Peggy Tapp | He stayed there, I guess, a couple of years, until one night he told me he only made something like 40 cent for an order of french fries. | 25:56 |
Felix Armfield | Really? | 26:09 |
Peggy Tapp | So he closed down at that particular place. | 26:09 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 26:12 |
Peggy Tapp | He was totally out of business until maybe a few months later, he just happened to be riding by on Roxboro Street, which was known as Pine Street. | 26:14 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 26:23 |
Peggy Tapp | That's where he started the next Chicken Box. | 26:25 |
Felix Armfield | Now, when was this now? | 26:28 |
Peggy Tapp | This was in 1957. | 26:32 |
Felix Armfield | 1957. | 26:32 |
Peggy Tapp | Mm-hmm. We were burned out in that location in 1966, but Urban Renewal had already told him he had to move, so he was in the process of building this building. | 26:33 |
Felix Armfield | Urban Renewal had told him he had to move. | 26:48 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 26:50 |
Felix Armfield | What was that Urban Renewal? | 26:51 |
Peggy Tapp | Well, right now, Scarborough Funeral Home, Elkins Motor Company, all of these places, see, everything was Black-owned over there. Nothing but Black businesses, and on Pettigrew Street, we had our Black movie. We had everything, but now you have nothing. | 26:52 |
Felix Armfield | That whole area— | 27:08 |
Peggy Tapp | Area. | 27:10 |
Felix Armfield | Over there down where Scarborough— | 27:10 |
Peggy Tapp | Pine Street, where Scarborough Funeral Home is now, Roxboro Street and going on around Pettigrew Street. | 27:12 |
Felix Armfield | Down by the railroad tracks? | 27:21 |
Peggy Tapp | Yes. All of that was owned, nothing but a string of Black businesses, and Urban Renewal came by and wiped everybody out. | 27:22 |
Felix Armfield | That's why that vibrant arts and Black business district is no longer there. | 27:32 |
Peggy Tapp | No. Very few of those people are living. | 27:37 |
Felix Armfield | Really? | 27:42 |
Peggy Tapp | I think that this did something to them. | 27:42 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. Yeah. Now, was The Chicken Box in that area? | 27:46 |
Peggy Tapp | We were located right where Elkins Motor Company is now, | 27:52 |
Felix Armfield | Which motor company? | 27:57 |
Peggy Tapp | Elkins Motor. | 27:58 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 28:03 |
Peggy Tapp | I mean, a car lot. | 28:03 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 28:03 |
Peggy Tapp | Car dealership rather. | 28:03 |
Felix Armfield | But you all were burned out from that location? | 28:04 |
Peggy Tapp | Yeah. We were burned out, but we were in the process getting ready to move because they had told us we had to move. | 28:04 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. And then is that when you moved to this present location? | 28:12 |
Peggy Tapp | Yes. Uh-huh. So, well, we were out of business until September 1966 because they hadn't finished this building. | 28:15 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 28:26 |
Peggy Tapp | We moved in here on September 10th, 1966. | 28:26 |
Felix Armfield | Moved in 1966. | 28:29 |
Peggy Tapp | Mm-hmm, and we were burned out June 8th of 1966. | 28:32 |
Felix Armfield | You weren't out of business too long. | 28:37 |
Peggy Tapp | No. | 28:39 |
Felix Armfield | Just a couple of months. | 28:40 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. But my husband was trying to hold on to all of his employees, trying to scribble scrabble and pay, because he had good employees. | 28:41 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. It sounds like you all came into your new building right in the height of the Civil Rights Movement. | 28:50 |
Peggy Tapp | Yeah. Yeah. We had a lot to do with the sit-ins. We fed a lot of the people, the CORE. I don't know whether you've ever heard of that. | 28:58 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. | 29:06 |
Peggy Tapp | Yeah. We fed that organization with McKissick, Floyd McKissick, and I've forgotten the White man that was working with him. It's been years ago. | 29:07 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. | 29:19 |
Peggy Tapp | But we had dealings with all of this. We fed all of them. | 29:19 |
Felix Armfield | When you say you fed them, I assume there were certain activities that were going on. | 29:22 |
Peggy Tapp | Yeah. We took food to the jailhouse to feed the people and out at Duke University, the sit-ins that they had, the hunger, we did that. | 29:27 |
Felix Armfield | So you've been an integral part or at least an important part— | 29:36 |
Peggy Tapp | Yeah. | 29:36 |
Felix Armfield | —of this community. | 29:36 |
Peggy Tapp | Mm-hmm. | 29:36 |
Felix Armfield | That's interesting. | 29:36 |
Peggy Tapp | Yeah. | 29:36 |
Felix Armfield | That's quite interesting. I'm trying to think of some other things that we could talk about. | 29:37 |
Peggy Tapp | I just wish my husband could be here because he could really tell you a lot of things, and when you do come back in August, I'm going to have some information. If I can, I will bring some of this information to you tomorrow. | 29:57 |
Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 30:08 |
Peggy Tapp | I may not be here, but I'll leave it and a package for you. I just need you to write your name on something. | 30:10 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 30:15 |
Peggy Tapp | So I can put your name. | 30:16 |
Felix Armfield | I will do it. I will do it. | 30:18 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay. | 30:18 |
Felix Armfield | What I'll do is I'm going to make sure I stop by tomorrow. | 30:18 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay. | 30:18 |
Felix Armfield | Tomorrow morning sometime. | 30:18 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay. | 30:18 |
Felix Armfield | Or at least sometime tomorrow. | 30:18 |
Peggy Tapp | All right. | 30:18 |
Felix Armfield | Whether you're here or not. | 30:18 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay. | 30:18 |
Felix Armfield | I'll stop by. | 30:18 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay. | 30:18 |
Felix Armfield | If you get a chance to leave something. I guess I want to know then, perhaps, what is your fondest memories of the '40s and '50s when things were still setting in? Was there anything that you, that sometimes you sit back and you think, and you'd say, "My God, I remember when things weren't like this and I wish we could have those old days back." | 30:18 |
Peggy Tapp | Oh, well, I just the business for one thing, how we were together. That was good. Even though we had no working capital, which we don't now, but the interesting part about it was that we just really worked together patronizing. But like I say, it's not totally our fault, I guess, we were so happy for integration to set in and we would just say, "Okay, ooh, we're free now." | 30:56 |
Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. We saw our integration as a sign of freedom. | 31:28 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 31:30 |
Felix Armfield | What type of businesses were up and down? | 31:30 |
Peggy Tapp | Oh, you had dry cleaners, you had service stations, you had restaurants, you had pool rooms, you had barber shops, you had the bank, which the bank is still there. You had North Carolina Mutual, which was on this street. | 31:41 |
Felix Armfield | North Carolina Mutual was in that district? | 32:04 |
Peggy Tapp | Yes. There were the churches. We had Black churches, just all up and down. | 32:04 |
Felix Armfield | Really? Were your theaters and movie houses? | 32:05 |
Peggy Tapp | Well, the theater was a Regal Theater and it was located on Pettigrew Street. | 32:10 |
Felix Armfield | Regal? | 32:16 |
Peggy Tapp | And also we had a Black hotel. | 32:17 |
Felix Armfield | Now, what was the name of that Black hotel? | 32:19 |
Peggy Tapp | The Biltmore. | 32:22 |
Felix Armfield | The Biltmore Hotel? | 32:22 |
Peggy Tapp | Yes. | 32:22 |
Felix Armfield | Now, the Regal Theater was strictly a Black theater, right? | 32:23 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 32:29 |
Felix Armfield | How long had those two, the Regal Theater and The Biltmore Hotel been around? Were they around- | 32:38 |
Peggy Tapp | For years. I mean, when you ever since I was in the world, I mean, that I could remember going, they were there. | 32:40 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Okay. There was a thriving Black business community? | 32:40 |
Peggy Tapp | Of course. | 32:40 |
Felix Armfield | At one point in time. | 32:40 |
Peggy Tapp | Yeah. | 32:40 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. Is there anything else you can think of you'd like to tell me? | 32:41 |
Peggy Tapp | No, I think that's just about it today. | 33:03 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Okay. But we're going to get back in touch with you. | 33:04 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay. | 33:13 |
Felix Armfield | See if we can't get some of those photos. | 33:13 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay. | 33:13 |
Felix Armfield | And you do have some early photos of— | 33:13 |
Peggy Tapp | Yeah. | 33:19 |
Felix Armfield | From The Chicken Hut starting? From all locations? | 33:19 |
Peggy Tapp | Yes. I think he had something he had published in The Carolina Times. | 33:24 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 33:28 |
Peggy Tapp | Yeah. | 33:28 |
Felix Armfield | I'd love to see some of those. | 33:28 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay. | 33:28 |
Felix Armfield | If we could, we'd like to get some pictures of those items. | 33:33 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay. All right. | 33:36 |
Felix Armfield | Such that they can be used and placed into the archives. | 33:36 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay. | 33:36 |
Felix Armfield | As a part of your collection and the interview. | 33:36 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay. | 33:36 |
Felix Armfield | But, I guess, one other quick thing I'd like to just have talk about a little bit for me was as a Black youngster growing up in that time period, what kinds of things were you informed of so far as your education and the outlook? What did education mean? | 33:36 |
Peggy Tapp | Oh, education meant a lot to us. It's just like our parents couldn't really afford to send us and the way my mother educated us and sending us after finishing, I mean, you had that push, you had the push from your family, from the community, from the teachers and everybody. They were really proud of us, and the way my parents sent us to college was from a loan company. I never will forget EZ Loan Company. | 34:08 |
Felix Armfield | EZ? | 34:42 |
Peggy Tapp | Yes. My mother would borrow money from one year to the next, one semester or one quarter to the next. | 34:44 |
Felix Armfield | Now, was that loan company, was it Black-owned? | 34:47 |
Peggy Tapp | No. White. We had no Black-owned. | 34:53 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. That was here in the city of Durham? | 34:56 |
Peggy Tapp | Yes. | 34:57 |
Felix Armfield | She could get the money such that you all could go to college? | 34:59 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 35:00 |
Felix Armfield | Did all your brothers and sisters go off to college? | 35:01 |
Peggy Tapp | No, there were one, two, I would say, didn't go. | 35:06 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 35:09 |
Peggy Tapp | But not because my mother didn't try, is because it was their choice. | 35:12 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. Okay. They made some choices to do some other things in life. | 35:18 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 35:18 |
Felix Armfield | I think that's the way things should be. They should have that choice. But it sounds like your parents were very concerned— | 35:19 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 35:31 |
Felix Armfield | —that you all got as much— | 35:31 |
Peggy Tapp | And the community. | 35:31 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. | 35:31 |
Peggy Tapp | You know? | 35:31 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. | 35:31 |
Peggy Tapp | And your teachers. | 35:32 |
Felix Armfield | I bet. I bet. She could get that loan from semester to semester? | 35:37 |
Peggy Tapp | Oh, yeah. | 35:45 |
Felix Armfield | Such that she could get from semester. | 35:45 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 35:45 |
Felix Armfield | It gets to school. | 35:45 |
Peggy Tapp | How she paid it back, I don't know. But she did it. | 35:45 |
Felix Armfield | It's amazing. | 35:48 |
Peggy Tapp | I tell you. | 35:49 |
Felix Armfield | It's amazing. Some things we probably don't even want to know. | 35:50 |
Peggy Tapp | Uh-huh. | 35:50 |
Felix Armfield | How she had to pay that back. | 35:50 |
Peggy Tapp | That's right. | 35:50 |
Felix Armfield | But her concern was that you all could get an education. | 35:50 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 35:50 |
Felix Armfield | Now, where did you attend school? | 35:50 |
Peggy Tapp | North Carolina Central. | 35:50 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. You are a North Carolina Central University graduate? | 35:50 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 35:50 |
Felix Armfield | All right. | 35:50 |
Peggy Tapp | Well, not a graduate. | 35:50 |
Felix Armfield | But you attend? | 36:07 |
Peggy Tapp | I did attend for two years. | 36:08 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Well, it's happened too. I got some friends who went through that process and never did quite finish that. Life— | 36:10 |
Peggy Tapp | Yeah. I think I just got in with The Chicken Box and it was like I just fell in love with it and just start working, working, working. | 36:17 |
Felix Armfield | Really? | 36:25 |
Peggy Tapp | Yeah. | 36:25 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. And that's pretty much where you consumed most of your time. | 36:27 |
Peggy Tapp | Right, right. | 36:28 |
Felix Armfield | Here in The Chicken Box. | 36:28 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 36:28 |
Felix Armfield | I can understand. Well, I guess, if there's nothing else in particular that you'd like to tell me or anything in particular you think I ought to hear about. Oh, I have one other thing. I know you keep thinking, "When is he going to stop thinking of one other thing?" | 36:29 |
Peggy Tapp | No. | 36:50 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. No, I do have one other thing. There was supposedly in the 1930s or '40s a major racial riot here in Durham. | 36:50 |
Peggy Tapp | Mm-hmm. | 36:56 |
Felix Armfield | Do you recall any of them in particular? | 37:03 |
Peggy Tapp | I can't, not right now. I really didn't pay any attention to the riots, racial riots, until oh, in the early '60s. | 37:07 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. So you wouldn't be— | 37:20 |
Peggy Tapp | I really clamped down. | 37:23 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 37:26 |
Peggy Tapp | And just start, again, to realize what it was all about. | 37:26 |
Felix Armfield | Okay, I guess before then, you probably would've been too young. | 37:28 |
Peggy Tapp | Yeah. | 37:28 |
Felix Armfield | To really know what was going on. | 37:28 |
Peggy Tapp | Right. | 37:28 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 37:28 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay. | 37:28 |
Felix Armfield | Well, I thank you so much. | 37:28 |
Peggy Tapp | You're quite welcome. You're quite welcome. | 37:28 |
Felix Armfield | I assure you that we'll be in touch with you again. | 37:28 |
Peggy Tapp | Okay. | 37:28 |
Item Info
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